by Amira Rain
We got back into Celeste’s car just in time. That was when a group of teen girls at the dragon tails truck began pointing at me, shrieking. One of them cried out that she knew I was Vivian Mason because she’d seen me at the mall. Still a bit uncomfortable with my new “celebrity,” I gave the girls a wave, smiling, while Celeste pulled the car back into traffic. Maybe there was just a little something about the girls’ reaction to me that tickled me, and I didn’t want to be unfriendly.
Celeste suggested that we head to the park, which was on the eastern edge of the city, and I said sure, eager to see it. This park, usually just called the park, though formally named Draconia City Free Gardens, was the city’s biggest public park. However, it wasn’t the park that had existed when the city had been New York City. It wasn’t Central Park. That park had been destroyed by dragon fire during a Gorgolian attack some two hundred years earlier, Celeste had told me. After several decades of it being charred acres of wasteland where nothing would ever grow, eventually high-rise apartment buildings were built over the site.
While we cleared downtown and made our way to the park, we rode along in silence, each of us seeming to be lost in our own thoughts. My thoughts were turned toward Jackson, and not just the decision I had to make that would affect him, but just him. Him, how he looked in his all-black military uniform, just the sight of him making my heart flip. Him, how he looked giving me one of his frequent, devastatingly sexy half-grins.
Irene had told me she’d only seen him smile maybe literally three times in the years she’d known him before I’d been thawed. This thought, combined with the memory of how his half-grins made butterflies riot in my stomach, made me feel like I could stay in D.C. forever. But D.C. wasn’t my home. And I had no way of knowing if Jackson and I would have a future together if I stayed.
Presently, when Celeste and I neared the park, the buildings on either side of us becoming fewer and far between, I leaned my head back on the seat and closed my eyes, still picturing Jackson’s face as the warm sun bathed my own. But his face, as much as I liked to look at it, soon seemed to vaporize in my mind, becoming replaced by faces of people I loved back home, specifically my mom and several close family members. Then their faces began to fade, morphing into scenes from my life before the nuclear blast. Family gatherings and birthday celebrations. Trips to see the Tigers.
I’d nearly fallen asleep several minutes later when I thought I heard Celeste telling me to open my eyes.
I opened one of them a crack. “Huh? We there?”
“Just open your eyes and look.”
Suddenly, I felt the car accelerate, as if Celeste had stomped on the gas pedal. Stomach lurching, I did as she’d asked and opened my eyes, vaguely confused and more than a bit alarmed. Within a split-second, though, my confusion and alarm gave way to another feeling. This new feeling was pure, undiluted terror.
We were speeding down a dirt path, going at least seventy or eighty miles an hour. Just up ahead was a brick wall. I screamed. Celeste swerved, pulling the car to the right, driver’s side to the wall. I heard something that sounded like grinding metal, her slamming on the brakes. And then we came to a stop. The car hovered in place not more than five feet from the brick wall. The sound of my heart hammering in my ears nearly drowned out the sound of ducks quacking somewhere nearby.
Unbuckling her seat belt, Celeste looked at me with a smile. “We’re here. This is the retaining wall by the biggest pond on the eastern side. The main gates are just a jump straight ahead from where we’re facing. The wall’s pretty much just so the ducks don’t escape the park and venture into the city, as they’ve been known to do on occasion.”
Though my breath was coming in ragged gasps, I felt like I could hardly breathe. Like I’d never again get enough oxygen. Though somehow, I managed to croak a few words, biting them out while narrowing my eyes at Celeste.
“Are you crazy? Why in the hell did you do that?”
“Simple. The split-second when you thought we were going to crash into the brick wall and might die, who did you think of? And I don’t even mean consciously... I know there wasn’t a ton of time. But, if you can kind of get a feel for it, who do you think you thought about unconsciously? Who did you kind of pre-miss, on a deep, subconscious, heart level when you thought you were going to die?”
Now so angry my entire body felt hot, as if my blood were literally beginning to boil, I didn’t respond. I couldn’t, feeling even more oxygen-deprived and gasping for breath even more rapidly.
Seeming a bit put out with me, Celeste sat back in her seat, frowning. “We weren’t really going to die, Viv. Not even if I hadn’t slammed on the brakes in time. See, I’ve crashed into the wall before once, took the entire thing right down, and I was completely fine. It’s only a single layer of brick. It honestly barely even scratched my first car. I was sixteen, and I was looking for something, I wasn’t even sure what, and I’m still not. Probably the same thing I’m still looking for today, that I still don’t even know what it is. Some feeling of... something, and I thought maybe I could get it by driving my car over that tall hill just to the west, then using the dip at the end to kind of jump the wall. I thought this would make me get the feeling I needed.
“But, it turned out that I’d miscalculated my physics, and... Well, the dip didn’t quite propel me the way I’d thought it would, and I crashed right through the wall. I did honestly walk away from it completely fine, though. And also honestly, it did maybe give me just a taste of the feeling I was looking for. Maybe just a little flicker of it.
Poor Grandma Irene, though. My parents had both already died by then, so she was technically in charge of me, and she had to do some pretty serious begging of Commander Knapp, who was commander at the time, to get him to stop the police from throwing me in jail. I admitted I’d done the whole thing on purpose. ‘My plan didn’t go exactly to plan, Officer, and yet it still marginally worked.’ That’s what I remember saying to the first cop on the scene.”
With my breathing finally slowing just slightly, I looked around us to see if there happened to be any cops around to arrest Celeste at present. But, other than two regular, non-police cars far away in the distance, a few people as small as dots possibly standing around one, the grassy area just outside the park was completely empty.
Heartbeat just beginning to slow, I turned my gaze back to Celeste, suddenly crying. “You’re a complete maniac. And right this second, I want you to turn this damned car around and take us back to the city. I just want to see Jackson. I just want his arms around me. I just... I think I just want his arms around me forever. I think...” I paused, sniffling, a single blink sending a wave of hot tears down my cheeks. “I think I’ll be missing something very crucial somehow if I don’t at least take a chance on the possibility of having his arms around me forever.”
Blue eyes sparkling, Celeste grinned. “So, you’ve made a decision, then?”
Nodding, I responded without even thinking about it. “Yes. I’m going to be a crazy, fearless maniac like you. All I can think of right now is just being safe in Jackson’s arms, so I’m going to go with my gut, and I’m going to take a chance that maybe he and I can have a future together.” Though still crying, I suddenly laughed, smiling. “I’m going to tell him I want to stay here in D.C. And that’s my final decision.”
Celeste grinned again. “Officer, my plan worked perfectly this time.”
Nutty as she was, she wasn’t actually addressing a police officer, just me. Just me, or possibly a plump white goose that had wandered over to the car from somewhere, honking. I honestly wouldn’t have put it past Celeste at this point to be addressing the goose.
She looked at it, shaking her head. “They’re really going to have to wall in the whole pond area, not just a wall and a gate, if they ever want to keep all these ducks fully contained.” With a sigh, she opened the car door and began getting out. “I’ll go put the little devil back inside the gate.”
It struck me as funny
that she would call any creature a little devil. Though I supposed it took one to know one.
While she trotted over to the goose and began shooing it back down the wall toward the gate, my phone went off and I saw that it was Jackson.
Sniffling a few last tears back into my nose, I answered without even saying hello. “I’m glad you called, because... well, Celeste and I just took a drive out to the park, here, and it’s kind of a long story, but I have to tell you something.” I paused while the nearby goose honked almost as loudly as a trumpet a few times. “Sorry; this goose is being really loud. But I have to tell you that—”
“Vivian, I’m so sorry, and I do want to hear whatever it is you have to tell me, but I have something urgent to tell you, and it can’t wait. I have to tell you now before I think better of it and change my mind.”
CHAPTER 14
While Celeste ushered the honking goose away from the car and toward the gate, making a few honks of seeming encouragement herself, I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand, asking Jackson to tell me whatever he needed to. “Please. I’m listening.”
He took a deep breath before speaking, and I could hear the pregnant tension in the sound even over the phone.
“I told myself that I wasn’t going to try to talk you into staying here. I told myself that I wasn’t going to try to sway your decision, and I’m still not. But there are just a few things I have to say before you make your choice. There are a few things that I need you to know.
“First thing... I care about you, Vivian. I know we haven’t known each other all that long, but I care about you deeply. You do something peculiar to my heart when I’m around you, and I like it. It’s something that makes me think that I might possibly want my heart to feel the funny way it does around you indefinitely. I truly don’t care if you stay but decide not to give me an heir right away, or not ever.
“Which brings me to thing two. I just want you here. I just want you to stay, Vivian. I just want to spell that out and make it crystal clear. I want you to stay. Badly. I want this more than I’m sure you even realize. And if you go, there will be a spot in my heart that I doubt will ever be filled. Not by anyone. You’re special to me not because of your fertility, but because of who you are. You make me smile, and you make my heart feel a way it’s never felt before. And that’s even though you can be a bit maddening and naughty at times, especially regarding text messages. You do occasionally come awfully close to warranting a court martial.
“But despite that, you still make my stomach drop sometimes just to hear you speak in that lovely, light voice of yours. You still make my heart flip just to sit near you and look into your eyes. The things you say sometimes, or the way you react to things I’ve said sometimes... You just make my heart feel very strange, though in the best possible sort of way. Your great beauty is just a bonus.”
While I stifled a sob brought about by Jackson’s words causing some huge welling of emotion in my chest, a few orange butterflies whirled in front of the car, dancing in a breeze. This was what I’d been waiting for, the thing I hadn’t even been able to articulate that I wanted. What Jackson was saying was what I’d been waiting for and hadn’t even known it.
After taking a long pause, he took a deep breath before continuing. “I want you to stay, and I want that badly, and I just wanted you to know that. I think it’s definitely possible that we could have a future together, and a very happy one. But, of course, I want the choice to still be all yours. Because I truly care about you, I want you to make a decision based not on what I want, but whatever you think will make you happy.
And that’s it. That’s all I had to say. And now, even though I myself feel better, I just hope I haven’t complicated things for you. If your mind has been leaning one particular way, a way leaning toward your home, I hope I haven’t made things harder for you.”
Wiping fresh tears from my cheeks, I said no, that he hadn’t. “See, Jackson, when you called, I—”
My words had suddenly been cut off by some loud noise I couldn’t immediately place. Irritated, I looked at Celeste and the goose, for just a second, thinking that they’d both suddenly stepped up their honking. But they were a good distance away now, near the gate. And the noise, I now realized, wasn’t really anything at all like a honk anyway; it was a higher-pitched sound. It was like an extremely loud, yet somewhat distant, siren. It hadn’t been pealing for three seconds yet when I heard Jackson’s voice in my ear again.
“Wherever you and Celeste are in the park right now, get back to the car and drive back to The Arch immediately. That’s the warning siren that a large group of Gorgolians are heading toward the city at once.”
Knowing that already, I’d been waving Celeste back to the car almost since Jackson had started speaking, and now she was dashing over after having ushered the goose back behind the gate.
“Celeste’s coming, and we’ll drive back to The Arch right away.”
“Good. You should still have some time to get back, but, Vivian, if the two of you see any sign of fighting in the skies before you can, you pull over and take shelter in the basement of the first building that you see. Do you understand?”
“Yes. We have the top down, so I’ll be able to see any sign of fighting, and we’ll take shelter right away. I promise.”
“Good. I need to shift now and join my men, so you won’t be able to call me to tell me you’re back safe, but I’m going to station one of my men at the entrance to The Arch in human form, so that he can fly up and tell me when you’ve arrived.”
“Okay.”
“Be safe, Vivian; be careful. Tell Celeste to drive fast but not recklessly.”
“Oh, I don’t think driving fast will be any problem for Celeste.”
I was sure she’d also drive bordering on recklessly, too, no matter what I said.
“I’m tempted to just come fly to get you myself in dragon form, but I think Drago is going to be looking for something like that. He’s going to be looking for you. I almost think you’ll be safer on the ground. And now that I’m thinking of it, put the top up on the car. Leave it open a crack so you can watch the skies, but put the top up.”
“Okay. We will.”
“And when you get back to The Arch, you stay inside, no matter what, and tell Celeste to do the same. No one is to be outside on any balcony, for any reason, on my explicit orders. And if Celeste disregards my orders and decides to go out, Vivian, you are not to follow her out, for any reason. Do you understand me? Not even if her life is in danger.”
“I understand.”
“Good.”
While the sirens continued to peal, and Celeste got in the car, there was a long pause.
“Vivian, I need to go to my men now and prepare for battle. Please, please be safe. When the fighting is over, I’ll come to you the very moment I’m able.”
“Okay. And you, too, Jackson. Please be safe.”
“See you as soon as I can, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. It was the first time he’d ever called me that. I liked it. I loved it, in fact. I loved hearing him call me sweetheart in his deep, rich voice. Even in the midst of sirens blaring and Celeste starting the car and whipping it around to head back out to the road, I thought how I’d be happy to hear Jackson call me sweetheart just a billion more times over the course of my life.
After pocketing my phone and making sure my seat belt was still fastened securely, I turned to look at Celeste, surprised to find her smiling.
She glanced over at me, letting a little chuckle escape her mouth. “That little rascal just did not want to go back to the pond. I think he actually wanted to come home with me. I honked at him in goose language that I’ll come back sometime and bring him some bread for a treat.”
I stared at her, incredulous. “Gorgolian alarm sirens are blaring right now, and you’re honestly thinking about geese?”
Immediately, it crossed my mind that that was probably an unfair question. After all, I’d been thinking about m
y pleasure at being called sweetheart while Gorgolian alarm sirens were blaring.
Celeste shrugged, smile fading, gaze on the dirt track in front of us. “I guess maybe I’m just trying to distract myself from thinking about how the Gorgolians are going to attack the city, and I won’t be able to even attempt to help in any way, because now we all know how I react when faced with one of them.”
Now I felt bad, and I told her I was sorry. “That was probably inconsiderate of me not to realize you were just trying to distract yourself. Didn’t mean to be a jerk.”
She glanced over at me, smiling again. “Well, maybe I deserved that, after making you think we were going to crash into a brick wall.”
I thought about her words for a second, then snorted. “Well, really! You did deserve that!”
I soon told her that Jackson had said to put the top up, and she did.
“Oh, and he also said for you to drive fast, but not recklessly.”
“Me? Recklessly? Never. We will drive fast, though. See, when there’s a city-wide emergency, ten stacked levels of road open up so that everyone can get to safety fast, without any traffic jams.”
“What do you mean, ‘ten stacked levels of road?’?”
“Well, you’ll see in a sec.”
Celeste put the gas to the floor, and I soon did. After leaving the dirt trails of the park and coming out on the main paved road leading into the city, I saw that ten glowing red lines of light hung above the road, extremely bright, even in the sun, yet translucent at the same time, like a hologram. Celeste soon confirmed my thinking, saying that yes, they were holograms. She then pushed a few buttons on the dashboard, and within seconds, we were ascending to drive between the fifth and sixth hologram bars, flying.
“See, it’s like having ‘ten stacked levels of road,’ like I said. And this hardly ever happens, that Jackson calls for the hologram to appear, so this is going to be awesome to drive in it. And in a second, you’ll definitely see the need for the clearly-defined lines, because once we really get into the city, I know all ten ‘levels’ of driving space will probably be used. But even still, we’ll still be able to race back to The Arch as fast as we want to go. Even with all the cars in the city, you’d be surprised just how much ten different roads-in-one really clears up congestion.”