Those Who Fall

by Rachael Arsenault

  Tara broke the silence with an awkward laugh. “Wow. Dramatic, much?”

  I met Emily’s gaze and she raised her eyebrow ever-so-slightly. Right. She didn’t want me left alone with Tara.

  Sighing, I said, “I’m gonna regret this, but… Okay. We’ll hold off on going to the hospital. For now. The second you take a turn for the worse, we’re heading straight to the nearest ER. Got it?”

  “Fine by me. Now, where do we go from here? And, uh, how do we get there?”

  I looked over to our car, then back over to Imani’s totalled vehicle. Several feet away, my dragon huffed a plume of black smoke, watching me expectantly. The rain across his red scales made him gleam more than usual in the soft moonlight.

  “I… might have an idea?”

  Chapter Nine

  Many things had happened in my life that I had never expected myself to do. Like getting in a car chase — because I wasn’t reckless or adrenaline seeking. Or moving out of province — because I was a homebody who hated change. Even breaking up with Mitch was something I never would have predicted.

  But those things were at least conceptually possible. They happened all the time. I knew people who had done those things; I just had never expected myself to become one of those people.

  Riding on the back of a dragon was not conceivable. But it was happening.

  It was also really uncomfortable and difficult. My dragon didn’t exactly have a saddle, and his scales were slicked from the misty rainfall — which, thankfully, was short-lived. Matters were only complicated further by the fact that Emily had (at the very least) dislocated her shoulder. But we managed.

  With everything important we could fit in the backpack on my back, I sat behind Emily just past the wing joints, one arm around her waist. (“How romantic,” she had joked.) My other hand was struggling to maintain what little grip it could muster on one of the many widely-spaced spinities protruding from the beast’s back. Tara helmed the front, cursing and borderline crying the whole time about how we were supposed to help her avoid getting killed. The wind whipped harshly in our faces, though thankfully it had yet to carry any of my dragon’s poisonous breath to us. I was shivering and I could feel Emily doing the same. I wasn’t sure if it was from fear of flying, or the cold that came with being so high up and soaked from rain, or the shock of everything that had just happened, or some combination thereof.

  New Brunswick was beautiful from the sky. The world was muted and looked monochromatic in the moonlight, which was dimmed by a thin blanket of clouds. A quilt of fields and trees was spread before us, the dark patches of woods mottled lighter in places with what must have been the vibrant leaves of autumn. Rivers carved winding, glittering paths. Way in the distance, the glow of Fredericton’s city lights was like a beacon across a dark ocean.

  Of course, it was hard to properly appreciate the scenery when I was still grappling with the terror of riding bareback on a dragon, never mind how crippled with exhaustion I was. But Farida wasn’t far. I just had to push on a little longer. If I could hold on… a little longer…

  “Amber!”

  Grey spots danced in my vision. I grabbed on tight, trying to pull myself upright — I had started listing sideways. “Sorry, sorry — I’m okay.”

  “No, you’re not,” Emily said. Like she was one to talk?

  “If you fall asleep,” Tara called back, raising her voice to be heard over the wind, “this dragon vanishes and we’re all falling to our deaths.”

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re not,” Emily repeated. “None of us are. We need to land and sleep.”

  “We need to get to Farida!”

  “We need to live long enough to get to her. Land this thing and go. To. Sleep!”

  “And what?” I snapped, glaring at the back of Emily’s head. “Get ambushed again? We’ll be sitting ducks.”

  “Still a better option than falling out of the sky.”

  Finally, I relented and we landed in a clearing quite a ways from any road or highway. It wasn’t ideal, but at least no vehicles could get to us. I was surprisingly unconcerned about bears compared to my first camping experience. Maybe because I had slept in the woods with Farida for close to a week without seeing a single one. Maybe because the crushing weight of exhaustion was making it hard to think of anything except curling up on the softest patch of dirt I could find and passing out.

  “Sleeping bags,” I said, more to myself than the others. “We need sleeping bags. To sleep in. I don’t have…” I couldn’t remember where my sentence was supposed to go.

  “We’ll take care of it,” Emily said. “Just go to sleep.”

  “Someone needs to take watch,” I said. Emily would want someone watching Tara. I knew from past experience that once I passed out, I would be hard to wake up, if I could even move properly by then — my limbs were already aching and twitchy. But Emily couldn’t stay up all night and she certainly couldn’t defend herself…

  “You’re white as Christmas,” Emily said sternly. It wasn’t her threatening, angry kind of stern, but the I’ll-take-care-of-you-whether-you-like-it-or-not tone. “Go to sleep. Stop worrying. We’ll handle it.”

  Finally, reluctantly, I laid down at the base of a tree, barely noticing the roots digging into my side. I was asleep before I thought about closing my eyes.

  ~

  “Any sign of her?”

  The glow was just fading from Tara’s eyes when she shook her head. “Hard to place again. There’s woods and a glimpse of highway, but nothing distinguishing.”

  I sighed. My body ached all over, I was starving, and my skull was throbbing like several freight trains had tunneled through it. But we needed to push on, and we needed my dragon to do that. If we could even figure out where to go.

  We didn’t have a location to follow Farida to, or even a general region of the province. For all we knew, she could have somehow made it to Nova Scotia by now. We didn’t know where she was going or why. We just knew that she was out there, walking to somewhere.

  If we wandered aimlessly, we risked moving even further off her trail. Especially if we flew. Moreover, the more we used my dragon, the more exhausted I would be. I wouldn’t be able to fight and, when we did eventually pinpoint where Farida was, I risked not having enough energy to summon my dragon and fly to her.

  It felt wrong, but I was beginning to wonder if we should sit tight. Stay in one general area and wait until we had more information before moving on. I hated it. It made me feel worse than useless. But what else could we do?

  My stomach growled obnoxiously, interrupting my train of thought. Rubbing at my cramping gut, I sighed. “We should get food.”

  “Where do you propose we get food?” Emily asked. She winced as she tried to adjust the makeshift sling Tara had fashioned out of a sweatshirt after we had all washed the vomit out of our clothes in a nearby stream. Though she was obviously trying to play it off and tough it out, I didn’t miss how pale and shaky she was. I wondered if she’d been able to sleep through the pain.

  “There’s always gas stations along the highway,” I said. “It won’t be the best food, but it’ll be something. And if we’re lucky, we might even be able to get you some proper first aid.”

  “How?” Tara asked. “We can’t exactly explain what happened.”

  “No, but we can say we were…” I chewed my lip, searching for a convincing lie. “We were camping. Or we went for a hike or something, maybe we got lost, or wandered farther than we should have. We fell down an embankment.”

  “And managed to stumble across a gas station?” Tara asked skeptically, raising her eyebrows. The motion caused the scabbing along her hairline to reopen slightly, red blood beading on her forehead in startling contrast to the soft brown tone of her skin.

  Emily backed me up, thankfully. “No. Falling down the embankment was a happy accident — it brought us back in range of a cell tower, so we were able to figure out where we were with the maps app.”

&
nbsp; “So we headed for the nearest rest stop,” I added.

  “We’ve already called our parents,” Emily continued, “we just need somewhere to wait for them, and we wouldn’t say no to a little first aid in the meantime.”

  “I guess…” Tara said, though her expression clearly indicated she was still dubious to the idea.

  “We can be in and out as fast as we want,” I said. “The second someone seems like they might recognize me—”

  “Which is unlikely,” Emily interjected, “’cause you look like shit.”

  “—we say our parents pulled up or drove by or whatever and we bail. It’s the best plan we have. We need food — maybe water, too, though we can make do with the Lifestraw. But definitely food, or we won’t last much longer out here.”

  “Enough chitchat,” Emily said. “Let’s head for the road and find us a rest stop.”

  ~

  It was a long walk.

  For starters, we had landed fairly deep into the woods. Calling my dragon wasn’t an option this time, since I couldn’t very well land him on the highway. By the time we reached the road, we were exhausted and hungrier than ever, my bruised leg had me wincing and limping with every step, and Emily looked ready to pass out (though she of course denied it).

  We rested on the edge of the road for a while at my insistence. Tara scryed on Farida again just in case, but still couldn’t identify where she was. Eventually, once we’d recouped a bit, we set off walking down the side of the highway. It was close to two hours before the gas station came into view and I wondered, a bit melodramatically, if this was how ships felt when they saw the beacon of a lighthouse through stormy darkness. I could have cried with relief; Tara actually did.

  We spent the last several minutes of our walk going over our story and escape plan. I knew it was shoddy at best, but we seriously needed food. I wasn’t confident in any of our abilities to scavenge in the woods, and I didn’t want to add accidental poisoning to our list of ailments to sort out.

  An electronic sort of ding dong sounded as we entered the air-conditioned store. This wasn’t a truck stop, like the one Emily had taken me to the day before — it didn’t have a lounge with showers, for one thing — but it had a wide selection of food, including cooked hot dogs and baked goods. My mouth watered almost immediately.

  It was busy at the front counter; a group of about eight guys who looked to be in their early twenties were ordering a variety of alcohol from the shelves behind the counter. Was it a weekend? I had completely lost track of the days. One of the guys at the back had wandering eyes as he waited for his buddies, looking over the other patrons. I saw his eyes land on us as we entered and watched the exact moment that he realized what he was actually seeing.

  “Holy shit!” he said, rushing over. “What happened to you?”

  I knew how rough we looked — Emily’s arm still hung awkwardly out of place. There was a stain across the front of my sweater where I hadn’t quite managed to wash out the vomit, not to mention dirt and blood and sweat matted into my hair and griming up my skin. Tara didn’t look much better than I did, with the dark red-brown scab running along her forehead just under her hairline. I was really, really hoping the sight would make us more sympathetic than suspicious.

  “Camping trip from hell,” Emily said easily. I had forgotten how much better than me she was at lying. “Fell down an embankment and messed up my arm. We’re lucky we ended up close enough to get a cell signal. Dunno how long we would have been lost, otherwise.”

  “Holy shit,” he said again. By now, his friends had caught on to what was happening. A few stayed by the counter to continue selecting and paying for booze, but the rest quickly crowded around us. I felt a bit claustrophobic and panicky. Tara had huddled in close to me and grabbed onto one of my arms, obviously feeling as boxed in and paranoid as I did.

  “We’re fine, we’re fine,” Emily was saying, though she gave an exaggerated wince as she tried to wave them off. “I called my parents. They should be along to pick me up soon.”

  One of the guys, a lanky redhead with a patchy beard, eagerly said, “Well, let me at least look at your arm. I’m a first responder. I can probably fix it for you.”

  The guy beside him laughed and gave him a playful shove. “Yeah, right, Dave. You got a lifeguard first aid course, man.”

  Dave turned almost as red as his hair. Before he could argue back, however, Emily was leaning toward him, eyes wide and earnest as she said, “Really? You would do that? That would be amazing.”

  Over the years, I had always considered it massively unfair that Emily knew exactly how to flirt with guys, given that it wasn’t a skill she had much practical use for. Now I was just grateful that she was smoother at this than me (or Tara, apparently).

  “I’m gonna grab some water and snacks,” I said to Emily, tugging Tara along with me. “See if I can find you some Tylenol or something.”

  I headed off among the shelves of food, grabbing anything that didn’t need to be cooked — Poptarts, trail mix, jerky, a few loose apples. I handed stuff off to Tara, who juggled it awkwardly but only complained minimally. It wasn’t long before I heard the sharp snap of Emily’s shoulder popping back into place, which was followed closely by a loud string of profanity from Emily.

  Okay — so Tylenol might be an even higher priority than food.

  Once Tara and I were loaded down with food, water, and Tylenol, we hauled it over to the counter. I had decided to spring for some wet wipes and tampons, too, because in a group of women, one of us was bound to have an emergency. The woman behind the counter had her eyebrows raised the entire time she rang us through, but she didn’t comment on our large and strange assortment of goods. I knew from experience working at Shoppers that it was generally best practice (and an easier shift) if you didn’t question a customer about their purchasing habits.

  I was counting through my twenties to pay the total $83.74 when Tara started jabbing a finger rapidly into my shoulder. I tried to shrug her away, but she persisted. “Ow! What?”

  “Um. Ride’s here.” Her eyes were wide, her voice small and shaking.

  Translation: We had company.

  I glanced toward the door. There was a green car pulling up, the front completely busted and a nasty crack across its windshield.

  “Great,” I said a little breathlessly as panic seized my chest. I thrust the fistful of bills toward the woman, knowing there was well over $100 in my hands. “Here. Don’t worry about the change. Gotta go!”

  I swung off my backpack, opened it, and swept the items off the counter into it. Then we hurried toward the door, grabbing Emily as we went. I waved goodbye over my shoulder at the group of complaining and protesting boys as we shoved out through the door. Destiny was just stepping out of her car. I zipped my bag, threw it back onto my shoulder, and we took off running.

  I knew Destiny was shouting behind us. I heard her heavy footfalls as she gave chase. And I heard Emily and Tara’s sharp intakes of breath.

  “She’s doing it again,” Emily ground out. It only took me a second to realize what she was talking about.

  I slid to a stop when we had crossed the highway and whirled around to face Destiny. Her face was pink-cheeked, though I wasn’t sure if it was from exertion or anger or if she was still drunk. I swung my fist when she got near enough, connecting with her cheek in what was probably the clumsiest, weakest punch in history. But it was enough. Her concentration broke and whatever mental hooks she had caught Emily and Tara with was cut off.

  “Let’s go!” I yelled, shaking out my fist. My knuckles were throbbing from the impact. I’d barely turned and started to run when Emily bolted past me, left fist reared back. Her punch connected with Destiny’s jaw in a spray of blood that had the other girl stumbling back a few steps.

  Smirking, she turned to me and said, “Now we can run.”

  Together, the three of us rushed off into the shielding embrace of the woods, leaving Destiny bloodied and swearing behi
nd us.

  Chapter Ten

  It was a long, long time before we pinpointed where Farida was.

  Well, technically it was only two days, but wandering the woods while being worried out of my mind made that feel like an eternity. I was worried about Farida and what she was doing and whether or not we could reach her before she did irreparable damage to herself. I was worried about Emily and her arm because, despite her instance that she was fine, I knew she was still in a lot of pain. I was worried about staying safe while we travelled — Destiny and Imani kept finding us somehow, and I wasn’t confident that hiding in the woods was much safer than being on the road.

  I couldn’t get our last fight with Imani out of my head. I kept remembering white scales, forelegs fused with wings, and a fearsome roar followed by fiery breath. Imani had a dragon, too. That must have been her second stone. Which meant she had found other stones, and that was bad news for the rest of us. Whatever way she had found this one, it meant she had some means of finding others. We had to stop her sooner rather than later.

  It meant even the skies weren’t safe for us.

  All this stress was not helped by the fact that I also had to deal with Emily and Tara being at each other’s throats all the time. It made me feel like my head was about to explode.

  I had hoped things would be better after our trip to the gas station. After all, Emily’s arm was back in place (albeit still incredibly sore and of limited mobility), and Tara had once again proven herself a valuable and trustworthy ally by giving us a heads up about Destiny showing up.

  Emily was being too stubborn to listen to that kind of sense, though, so I was stuck playing referee between the two of them.

  “I’m telling you,” Emily said for the third time that morning. Tara was in the middle of scrying, so Emily had pitched her voice low and spoke fast, “she’s up to something.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, helping us find Farida.”

  “She’s on her phone all the time. You can’t say that’s not suspicious.”