Rock Bottom (Dragon Within #4) (6 page)

    
I didn’t
breathe easy until we’d left the cafeteria room behind. This new hall was much
larger than the others. Two good sized trucks could have easily driven through
it side by side. Zack, who’d been so close to my side we were almost touching,
moved away from me. I immediately missed the comfort of his nearness.

    
“What is
this place?” Derek asked.

    
“It’s
appears to be governmental,” Brandy said. “Some sort of military base?”

    
“Smart
girl,” Megara said. “It’s been abandoned a good long while, judging by the
state it was in when I came here, but I managed to get a couple of the
generators running and it makes a right nice little hideaway.”

    
“You
aren’t concerned someone from the government might discover you’ve taken over
one of their installations?” Brandy asked.

    
Megara
shrugged. “I’ve been here going on six years and nobody has come snooping
around yet.”

    
“So you
set this place up as a kind of safe house for renegades,” Hannah said. “That’s
cool.”

    
“It
wasn’t my plan,” Megara said. “When I left Ireland, I was like Abigail. Young.
Scared. On the run. I spent a lot of years looking over my shoulder. Seemed
like every time I tried to settle in one place, something would spook me and
I’d be gone again.

     
“Then I
stumbled across this rundown hotel owned by a man named Malcolm Bryce. A water
dragon of Scottish stock raised up in Ireland. Not a renegade either, but one
who had been allowed to break with his clan and go off on his own. But the man
has a renegade heart. He was the one who put me on to this place.”

    
“How did
you find Abigail?” Zack asked.

    
In case
you’re wondering about my silence, truth is I was more than happy to let
anybody but me be the one to ask the questions right then.

    
“Malcolm
has kept in touch with certain people back home who are sympathetic to our
cause. About six months after I got settled in here, they caught wind of a
certain young spirit dragon who can sense any hybrid from any clan in the world
coming into their powers. You can imagine how dangerous that would be in the
wrong hands. His folks were worried for him, so it was arranged to send him
here to me. He’s how I found Abigail.”

    
We
entered a small office crowded with a desk and a row of filing cabinets. It was
empty of anything personal expect for a picture of a smiling, redheaded woman
hanging on the wall. She looked enough like Megara that I could guess it was
her mother. It was weird to see it there because it forced me, for the first
time, to realize Megara was an actual person. I’d been thinking about her the
way most dragons would think about me, as a hybrid and nothing more. But she
had a family and a life that had probably been harder than mine since she’d
been running from trackers for almost as long as I’d been alive.

    
Sitting
on the edge of the desk was a man about Derek’s age. He smiled when we came
into the room, but it seemed to be a smile directed solely at me. “Is this
her?”

    
“Yes, it
is,” Megara said. “Abigail, I’d like you to meet Jonah Hennessy, the spirit
dragon I was telling you about.”
 

    
“I’m
pleased to meet you.” He held out his hand.

    
I shook
it, smiling uneasily back at him. He was cute in a way totally different from
Zack. More boy-next-door kind of cute, if you know what I mean. Dark red hair,
soft brown eyes, and this little sprinkle of freckles across the bridge of his
nose. But the biggest difference between them was his smile. It lit up his
entire face.

    
What?
Don’t look at me like that. Just because I was in love with Zack doesn’t mean I
stopped noticing cute guys. But the way he was looking at me made me feel that
same flutter of nerves as the clapping had.
 

    
“Did you
tell her why she’s here?” Jonah asked.

    
Something
less than the absolute certainty she’d shown so far flickered across Megara’s
face. “I thought I’d let her settle in a bit before I weighed her down with the
details.”

    
“No,” I
said. And then of course everyone was staring at me. I guess because I’d been
quiet for so long. “I said I’d let you tell me what you wanted in your own
time, but I changed my mind. Those people,” I gestured vaguely at the door,
“changed it for me. I want to know what it is you told them. What it is they’re
expecting from me. I think I deserve that.”
 

    
Megara
eyed me silently a moment. “Fair enough.” She moved around to take a seat
behind her desk. “I’m not the hiding under a rock sort. As I’m sure you’ve
noticed. These people aren’t here solely to be protected. I plan on making a
protest against the laws that call for people like us to be killed at birth and
I’ll need help to do it. That’s where you come in. Another hybrid at the helm
alongside me can only increase our chance of success.”

    
“Protest?” Brandy raised a brow. “Don’t you mean rebel? Or isn’t it an
army you’re building here?”
      

    
“Like I
said,” Megara smiled thinly, “a smart girl.”

    
“I simply
believe in calling a thing out for what it is,” Brandy replied, meeting
Megara’s hard gaze without flinching. “No point in trying to sugar coat the
situation.”

    
“Don’t we
have a right to rebel?” Megara asked. “Don’t we deserve a future? Abigail,
wouldn’t you like a family some day? No matter how far you run or how deep you
go, a child would be your undoing. They’d find you. Hunt you. Kill you, if they
could manage it.

    
“And if
you escaped, then what? Raise a child on the run, always looking over your
shoulder, waiting to make that one fatal mistake, the way your parents did?
Because if you have any future ahead, that’s all there is for you. That or
being alone. And that’s no way to be. Trust me.

    
“So long
as the law remains as it is, there’s no safe place for the likes of us. Not
even here. Not forever. There will be no end of it. Not for you. Not for me.
Not for
any
hybrid. Not unless we
make
an end.”

    
Her words
hit me hard. How could they not? They were my worst and darkest fears exposed
to the light. “But what do you expect me to do? I can’t fight. I don’t know
how.”

    
“You need
training is all.”

    
Zack
stiffened. “She’s had training.”

 
   
“From you?” Megara laughed. “Please. You’re
nothing but a killer playing at being a hero. I’m the only one who can train
her the way she needs to be trained.”

    
“I don’t
want
to fight,” I said, verbally stepping between them before she and Zack could
start up an argument. “I didn’t come here to get in the middle of a rebellion.”

    
“Then why
did you come?” Megara asked. “Why bother seeking me out in the first place, if
all you want is a rock to put your head under?”

    
“Because
I... I do want training. I do want to learn how to control my powers. How
to...” I shifted my feet. “How to suppress them. I want my old life back.”
There, I’d said it. Something I’d barely let myself even think about. I wanted
out. Out of this whole business of being a dragon. I wanted all of it to go
away like a bad dream. And I wanted her to make it happen.

    
“You mean
your
human
life.” Megara shook her head. “Can’t be done. You’re not a
human, girl. You’re a dragon. A hybrid. You can’t change that. You can learn to
control your powers for certain, but you can’t make them disappear.

    
“Every
dragon’s powers are tied into their emotions to an extent, but not like with
us. With hybrids, emotion and power are so tightly wound you can’t separate one
from the other. That’s what makes us so dangerous. So feared. No other kind of
dragon can ever be as powerful as a hybrid can.”

    
Jonah
slid off the edge of the desk. “Don’t you think you might be pushing her a
little hard? Every word you’re saying might be true, but she’s only a kid.
Maybe you could give her a bit of room to breathe. It’s a big thing you’re
asking of her, after all. And she hasn’t even agreed as to whether or not
she’ll stay. Might want to ask her.”

    
A nerve
twitched in Megara’s jaw. She rubbed the spot between her eyes. “Are you of a
mind to stay?”

    
It was
such an important question I didn’t think it would be right of me to answer for
all of us. I know, I was all set to do things my way and only my way just a
little while ago back at the cabin, but I was feeling unsure of myself again. I
wanted someone I trusted to tell me what to do.

    
I turned
to my friends. “What do you guys think?”

    
“I don’t
like this situation in the least,” Brandy said. “But you do need training. And
though Zack has been doing a fairly adequate job, I expect Megara has a better
understanding of your... powers. It may be she can help you.”

    
Derek
nodded. “I agree. Besides this is a safe place for all of us. At least for the
time being.”

    
“I’m all
for not going back to the cabin,” Hannah said. “A girl could go crazy in a
place like that.”

    
Curtis
shrugged. “You know it makes no difference to me. Wherever you go, I go.”

    
I glanced
at Zack. “What about you?”

    
“Does it
matter what I think? Sounds to me like you’ve had your mind made up for you.”

    
Wow. Kind
of harsh, huh? So Zack was mad again. Nothing new about that. “I make up my own
mind,” I said, “but after everything we’ve been through together I guess we’re
kind of like a family. And that means everybody gets a say. Even you.”

    
Something
flashed through his eyes, but it was there and gone before I could figure out
what it might be. “What do I care? I was getting tired of trying to train you
anyway.”

    
I turned
away so he wouldn’t see how his words hurt me. “So it’s settled. We stay.”

    
“Good,”
Megara said, “Jonah will show you to your room. It’ll be a bit crowded, I
imagine. I was only planning on Abigail. But after living in that cabin you’ll
likely settle in all right. I’ll give you some time to think over what I’ve
said. I need you to have control of your powers before you’ll be of any use to
me anyway.”

    
I
couldn’t decide whether I should be glad she was giving me time to think, or
insulted that she considered me to be useless.

    
We all
filed out of the office after Jonah, who led us through the bunker to a room
that in a way kind of reminded me of the cabin. It had better, and more, furniture,
but it was still only two rooms. No kitchen, so I supposed we were expected to
eat in the cafeteria. But it did have running water in the bathroom and after
having spent so much time taking cold baths, I was looking forward to a hot
shower. You don’t know how important a thing like that is until you have to
live without it.

    
“I’ll see
about getting you some more cots.” Jonah eyeballed the bedroom. “I’d bet we can
fit six of them in fine.”

    
“Five,”
Zack said. “I’m not staying here.”

    
I tried
to catch his eye, but he cut his gaze away from mine. “What are you talking
about? Are you... are you going to leave?” That little flutter of panic got ten
times stronger. It was like my chest was full of birds trying to break out of
their cage.

 
   
“I want a different room,” he said, still
not looking at me. “That’s all. Something private.”

    
Jonah
shrugged. “There are some barracks on the other side of the bunker. Tiny, but
they’d do for a single person. Most of the people here are families.”
     

     
It was
right on the tip of my tongue to ask him why he didn’t want to stay with us. I
could hear in my head the needy tone that would be in my voice if I let myself
ask him that question. I didn’t want him to hear it too. So I pressed my mouth
shut to stop the words. And when he left with Jonah, I pretended not to care.

                                          
CHAPTER FIVE
 

    
Over the
next week, the couch became my best friend. We were practically inseparable.
Forget going to the cafeteria to eat; I talked my brother into bringing my food
to the room, where I ate on the couch and pretended I was back home. Meanwhile,
he and the others were getting out among the dragons and getting to know
people. Which was fine with me. I didn’t care what they did so long as I didn’t
have to do it too.