Rock Bottom (Dragon Within #4) (12 page)

    
Stephanie, who was sitting at the far end of the table, made a face like
she really didn’t want to be dragged into the middle of this. Not that I can
blame her. She didn’t even know me.

    
“What do
you want me to talk about?” I asked. “Shoes? Clothes? In case you hadn’t
noticed, my life has gotten a little more complicated than it used to be. I
would talk, sure, but nobody at this table wants to hear it. Especially you.

    
“I mean
seriously, Brandy, you want to sit over there and complain about how
I
don’t talk to
you
? Where’s the girl of a million questions? The girl I used to
barely be able to have a conversation with without it turning into an
interrogation? Not once have you asked me about training. Not
once
.
Maybe I have changed, but I’m not the only one. I don’t talk to you anymore,
because I can’t.”

    
Brandy’s
lips were pressed so tightly together they’d nearly disappeared. “If I’ve
become such a terrible friend, then perhaps it’s time I left.”

    
I almost
said something terrible. Something I never could have taken back. I don’t know
if Derek could see that and jumped in to stop me, or if it was just luck.

    
“Nobody
is leaving,” he said. “That kind of talk is not helpful. In fact, it’s
downright dangerous considering the situation.”

    
“I am
human,” Brandy said. “I don’t have to worry about being murdered for a
dissension in opinion. It might be for the best if Curtis and I went home. This
is not our fight.”

    
“I’m not
going anywhere.” Curtis spoke softly, his gaze fixed on his plate. “I’m staying
with Abby.”

    
“Good for
you, kid,” Hannah said. “As for Miss
Brainiac
over
there, I say if she wants to leave, let her go. Wouldn’t nobody shed a tear for
the loss.”

    
“Do you
ever stop talking?” Brandy asked. “This concerns Abigail and I, not you.”

    
“Please.
You’re sitting over there playing like you're all concerned. But everybody here
knows the truth.” Hannah planted her elbows on the table. “Abby is stepping out
of your shadow for the first time in her life and you can't handle it. That’s
what this is really about. You’re afraid she’ll stop coming to you for every
little thing and then you’ll have nobody to follow you around like a lost
puppy.”

  
  
Brandy laughed, but the lines around her eyes
had pulled tight. “You are hardly the one to be trying to psychoanalyze
me
.
There are four legged beasts with higher intellect than you possess.”

    
“Was that
supposed to be an insult?” Hannah asked. “Why don’t you try talking like a
human being instead of a dictionary?”

    
“As if
you’ve ever read a dictionary.”
 

    
“Enough!”
I shouted the word, but that really wasn’t what caught everyone’s attention.
No, what had people gasping and looking around uneasily was the fact that the
floor was shaking so hard every dish in the room was rattling.

    
I grasped
the edged of the table and it vibrated between my fingers. One breath in. One
breath out. The shaking stopped, but more than one person was now staring at
me. “I have to meet with Megara.” I got up from my seat without looking at my
friends. Then I walked out of the cafeteria.

    
Once I
was alone in the hall my hands started to tremble. Tears burned hot behind my
eyes. This was not the best mood for me to take into my training session. “Not
going to cry,” I muttered as I walked. “Crying helps nothing.”

    
By the
time I got to the training room, I’d managed to bring myself under control, but
I still had this hard knot sitting right in the middle of my chest. I really
didn’t want to train, but I knew Megara wouldn’t let me beg off. She wouldn’t
even go easy on me. In fact, I suspected if I let her know I was upset she’d go
at me even harder.

    
She was
waiting for me like always. I stepped in front of her and pulled up an air
shield, again, like always. Even this had fallen into a kind of routine. Only
my routine had been shaken up over and over that day, hadn’t it?

    
Part of
my brain was thinking about that when she threw the first fireball. It bounced
harmlessly off my shield. The floor shook, so I gathered the air under my feet
and lifted myself up, pulling my shield around me to form a bubble of
protection as I did.

    
Maybe
what Jonah said was part of it, but I think it was mostly the stress I’d been
through. I felt as if I’d done nothing all day but be emotionally pummeled. It
made me want to do a little pummeling of my own. So when Megara threw the
second fireball, I caught it with the air and twisted it around, sending it
back at her.

    
Surprise
crossed her face about half a second before a section of the floor rose up in
front of her. Fire crashed into cement and puffed out. “Well now,” she lowered
the shield enough so I could see her face. “Feel like fighting today, do we?
Good. Thrashing you is amusing, but it was getting a bit boring.”

    
I’ll
admit to letting my guard down. It was pride, you know. It made me feel good to
see that look on her face. Made me feel like maybe I was getting better at
controlling my powers than I’d realized. And you know what they say about
pride, right?

    
Chunks of
stone pelted the bottom of my bubble, where the air was thinnest. One
particularly large chunk busted through and struck my left ankle. Hard. I fell
with a yelp, losing my shield as I did. But I’d barely hit the floor before I
was pulling it back over me like an invisible blanket. I knew Megara wouldn’t
give me the space to breathe.

    
A third
fireball slammed into my shield. But this one clung to the air, spreading out
until I could feel the heat of the flames sinking through. Rain fell to douse
the fire and it actually took me a confused minute to realize I had done that.
I had pulled moisture directly out of the air and turned it into rain for the
first time.

    
I stood
and the floor beneath me swirled into quicksand, swallowing my feet to the
ankles before I could blink. Sharp pain raced up my left leg. I stared at
Megara standing there smiling smugly at me and felt a flash of anger. I dropped
my shield and pushed. With all my energy, all my will over the air, I pushed.
My hair flew wildly around my head as a gust of wind rushed past me to slam
into Megara. The push sent her flying back into the darkness on the far side of
the room.

    
A moment
of worry tried to creep in, but I forced it down and focused on getting myself
free instead. I wrapped a band of air around my waist and used it to yank
myself up and out of the quicksand.

    
Three feet
above the floor, the band of air tightened painfully around my ribs. I tried to
loosen it, only to find I no longer had it under my control. I lifted my head
to see Megara striding out of the darkness. She smiled up at me. “I don’t know
what brought all this on, but I must say I’m impressed. This is the way I
expect a hybrid to behave.”

    
I kicked
my feet. “Let me go.”

    
“Make
me.”
 

    
I grasped
the wet earth of the quicksand, rolled into a half dozen balls, and solidified
them. Then I lobbed these rounded missiles at Megara. She brought up an air
shield without missing a beat. The balls slammed into it with a sound like
rocks hitting glass, but they didn’t break through.

    
“If I was
wanting to, I could have crushed your ribs by now,” Megara said. “Your
reactions are getting better, but you’re still too slow. A battle is a constant
flow of back and forth. The first one to miss a beat is the first one to die.”

    
The air
released and I fell to the floor. My injured ankle screamed in protest. I
pushed myself halfway up and glared at Megara. “Why can’t you take it a little
easier on me? You’ve had your whole life to train for being a dragon. You can’t
expect me to learn everything I need to know in a few weeks.”

    
Megara’s
smile faded. “You are a foolish child raised up in a world that’s made you
useless. Someday, there won’t be anyone to swoop in and save you. You’ll be all
alone with no one around you but people who want you dead. Do you think they’ll
take it easy on you because you’re young and you don’t know what you’re doing?”

    
“It
doesn’t have to be that way. Not for
me
.” I got to my feet, careful not
to lay too much weight on my injured ankle. “I have a family. I have people who
care about me. People who will stand by my side no matter what. It’s not me
against the world. It’s
us
.” I only wished I really still felt as sure
of that as I tried to sound like I was.

    
“What
pretty words,” Megara said. “Naive and foolish, but pretty. Wait until the
world falls down around your head. You think it has already? Ha! You don’t even
know how bad it can get. You will. Such is the fate of a hybrid.” She turned
toward the door. “Take some time off from training to let your ankle heal. You’re
of no use to me if you’re crippled.”

    
Her words
rang inside my head long after she was gone.

CHAPTER
NINE

    
Between
my throbbing ankle, guilt over my imminent betrayal of Jonah’s trust, and the
haunted echo of Megara’s parting words dancing up and down the halls of my
mind, I didn’t get any sleep at all that night.

    
I’d
planned to nap for a bit before it was time to meet up with Zack. Instead, I
lay there in the dark listening to the sound of my friends breathing and wondering
how much more I could take without totally losing my mind.

    
Once I
was as certain as I could be that everyone except me was sound asleep, I threw
back the covers and swung my legs over the edge of the cot. I’d kept my clothes
on so I wouldn’t have to try dressing without any light. But my sneakers I had
taken off and tucked up under the cot.

    
I reached
for them and for a panicked moment my fingers met nothing but air. I could have
gone barefoot, but the idea never occurred to me. I guess sometimes a person
can get so used to doing something, like wearing her shoes when she goes out,
that she can’t even imagine not doing it.

    
My
sneakers were there, a little further to the right than I had thought. I pulled
them out and then promptly put the first one on the wrong foot. If this was an
indication as to how the rest of this thing was going to go, it was going to be
a long night.
  

    
With my
sneakers on the correct feet, I set about trying to tie them. Now, you wouldn’t
think tying your shoes in the dark would be all that hard, right? Your brain
knows what to do and your fingers should naturally follow suit. Nope. I don’t
know if it was the dark, or my nerves, or some combination of both, but I swear
it took me five minutes of fumbling and muttering under my breath to get both
of my shoes tied.

    
All the
while I was listening to the sounds around me, so sure someone was going to sit
up and ask me what I was doing. I had no lie prepared to answer them with.
Luckily for me, I didn’t need one. I slipped out of the bedroom and into the living
room without getting caught. There I paused for a couple of seconds to steady
my breath and my nerves. It had been a straight shot from my cot to the door so
I’d had no trouble. It was going to be a little trickier getting across the
living room.

    
I thought
I knew the layout of the furniture well enough not to run into anything, but I
went slow anyway. Just in case. And I was doing fine too, until I kicked my
left foot into the leg of the chair by the door.

    
The
vibration rattled through my injured ankle and I bet you can guess how that
felt. I said a word that would have landed me grounded for a month if my mother
had ever heard it coming out of my mouth.

    
I can’t
begin to describe how thankful I was when I finally made it out into the hall.
I had to take a moment to squint through slit lids until my eyes got used to
the light, and then I had no trouble getting on my way to where Zack would be
waiting for me. So long as I didn’t run into anybody out for a late night walk.

    
Zack was where
right where I expected him to be. He was even standing in the exact position I
expected him to be standing in. I swear that boy had leaning and scowling down
to an art form. No doubt due to all the practice.

    
“What’s
wrong with your leg?” he asked.

    
“Training
accident,” I said. “My ankle is banged up a little, not broken. No big deal.”

    
Zack
studied my face a moment before pushing off from the wall. “Megara’s been
coming down on you pretty heavy?”

    
I
shrugged. “She’s training me for a war. Did you find us a couple of
flashlights?"

   
"Yeah." He handed one to me.

   
"Good. Now come on, let’s go before someone catches us. My skulking
skills aren’t as refined as yours.”

    
“I do not
skulk.”

    
“Whatever.” I led the way to the room with the hidden panel in the
ceiling. But all the way there I felt that eyes-on-my-back kind of crawly
feeling along my spine. At the door, I turned and swept my flashlight along the
empty hall.