Artegal folded his wings and plunged straight down, into the trees.
Amazingly enough, the dragon found space in the forest and came to a rough landing, slamming into the ground, taking the impact on his hind legs and chest. Kay swung over his shoulder and jerked against the harness.
Air force jets had patrolled along the border her whole life, but nothing like this had ever happened. She couldn’t tell: Had the plane been across the border when it crashed? Was the pilot going to land across the border, in Dragon? What would happen then? This wasn’t exactly secret, not like her and Artegal.
“Did he see us?” she called to Artegal. The pilot had seen them, she was sure of it, and he would take the news back to the military, the police—she was going to get in so much trouble.
“He will land on this side of the border,” Artegal said. “The elders will know of this. They will find him.”
Black smoke from the plane crash formed a tower. Everyone would see it.
“What’ll they do to him? What if he’s hurt? What if—”
“We are ambassadors. We’ll find him first.”
When he launched again, she was ready for him, gripping the ropes, watching earnestly. The tower of smoke formed a beacon, which they aimed toward. Growing more confident and feeling secure, Kay looked around, above them and over her shoulder, for aircraft. She assumed the military would send rescue helicopters or maybe even other jets. She didn’t see any, but that didn’t mean anything. They were flying too low for her to see the main road across the river.
But everyone must have been looking this way. Someone was going to see them. This was going to end it all for them, but they couldn’t turn back. If the pilot was hurt, they had to help.
Artegal began circling. She didn’t feel it at first, it was so subtle. His right wing dipped slightly, and the sun changed angle. She could look across his right side and see the forest spread out below them, the sky wheeling above them. His wing dipped again and the circle tightened. She recognized a search pattern. He was skimming over the large swath of trees where they’d seen the parachute come down, circling until he found the spot. She knew she wouldn’t be much help searching, not compared to his hunter’s vision. But she tried, and on the third loop around she saw a spot of white among green branches.
“Artegal, there!” she called, but didn’t know if he heard her, since her voice was probably lost in the wind. She slapped his shoulder to get his attention. He was already dipping his wing and banking in that direction.
He approached the white spot—the nylon of a parachute—and chose his landing site. She was getting better at this, and so expected the lurch to the ground when it came and was able to brace. This time, the whole landing procedure almost felt elegant.
Once on the ground, Artegal moved forward, striding by using his wingtips to balance, weaving through the spaces between trees. When he stopped and settled back, Kay held the ropes so she wouldn’t fall. She felt the dragon’s lungs breathe under her.
“Oh, shit,” she heard a man say.
Artegal’s neck curled into an S, and he cocked his head. This let Kay see over his shoulder, where she saw a man in an olive green jumpsuit running away. Behind him, he’d left his parachute and helmet.
Before Kay could react or think of an alternative, Artegal followed, stretching forward and low to the ground—as low as he could—and balancing on his forelimbs. He took large strides, covering ground quickly. Kay lost sight of the fleeing pilot until Artegal shifted his path and hesitated.
The pilot was still fleeing, looking over his shoulder, stumbling through underbrush and around branches, and heading into a dense section of forest where the dragon couldn’t follow. Artegal huffed and changed his path to skirt around and intercept him. In that moment, when he must have seen the dragon wasn’t following, the pilot hesitated and looked right at Kay, braced in her harness on the dragon’s back. He was maybe in his thirties and had dark, close-cropped hair and a tanned, rugged face. She may have seen amazement in his gaze as they looked at each other. Then Artegal moved on, and the pilot went back to running south, toward the border.
That was it. He’d seen her, and he’d tell the air force. Somehow, they’d figure out who she was, and she’d end up in jail.
“Artegal, stop. Wait a minute.” She thumped him on the shoulder.
Artegal sat back and tilted his head toward her. “Not hurt,” he said, almost wryly.
“But he’s seen us. He’ll tell everyone about us,” Kay said.
“We should catch him. Talk. Convince him not to.”
Talking was his solution to everything.
“No,” she said. “Let him go. We need to get out of here before more planes get here.”
“And dragons will come as well,” he said.
She didn’t even want to think about what would happen if other dragons found them.
He didn’t fly this time. People on both sides of the border were looking this way and would see them, even close to the treetops. She could already hear engines of aircraft approaching. Artegal was awkward on foot, but still faster than she would have been, as he strode through the trees, balancing on his wingtips. She stayed clipped onto his harness, because it was still a long way down.
When they reached their morning’s meeting spot, she slid to the ground, almost reluctantly because she didn’t know what was going to happen. She released the ropes and carefully coiled them, as if they would get to do this again. The crisis would blow over, she told herself. Nothing bad would come of the crash. Patiently, Artegal watched her. They’d barely spoken.
Finally, she stood, gear over her shoulder, ready to leave. “When can we meet next?” she asked.
“Don’t know. We should take care.”
“Maybe lay low for a couple of weeks,” she said. “Wait to see if anything happens.”
“Three weeks from today. At the highest sun—noon,” he said. “We meet at the old spot and assess.”
“Assuming we haven’t been thrown in jail.”
He grumbled. It sounded like a distant tree falling. She could almost feel it through her feet, through the ground. He said, “I’d never know. You’d just not be there.”
“Maybe he won’t tell anyone.”
His responding growl sounded doubtful.
“It’ll be fine,” she said, resolved, for both their benefits. “This’ll all blow over. Just watch.”
“Take care, Kay,” he said.
She tried to smile. “You too.”
They both turned and set off through the trees, in opposite directions.
9
The sun was low, marking afternoon. It was much, much later than Kay had thought. She expected, or rather hoped, that her parents were so busy with the plane crash that they wouldn’t have made it home yet to notice she wasn’t there. She didn’t want to look at her cell phone for missed calls, but she did and found a dozen, with messages from just about everyone: Mom, Dad, Tam. Three from Jon. Helicopters circled overhead. She wondered if the pilot had made it to the river okay.
The tower of smoke was still visible, though thin now, an echo of what had burned earlier. To the north, within Dragon, a dozen bodies swooped and circled in the sky, closer than usual. Maybe they were too far away to see that the smoke was on their side of the border. Then she remembered what Artegal said about their eyesight. They’d see it, and they’d know.
Maybe they’d understand. Maybe they wouldn’t think the humans had broken the treaty intentionally, but realize that the crash had been an accident. She didn’t want to think about what they’d do if they decided the treaty had been broken and decided to attack. They’d come to Silver River before anywhere else.
She was driving too fast because she needed to get home. With the plane crash and all the chaos around it, she didn’t think any cops would be out looking for speeders. But when she passed an SUV mounted with police lights, it did a U-turn, flashed its lights, and turned on its siren. Busted. Groaning, she pull
ed over.
Glancing in the rearview mirror as the police car pulled to the shoulder behind her, she felt nauseous. It wasn’t just any cop car. It was her father’s, and sure enough, he climbed out and strolled on over, looking smug. If it had been one of his deputies, she may have been able to talk her way out of it. She didn’t know what she was going to say now. She slumped in her seat, as if she could shrink down and disappear through the floorboards.
When her father—Sheriff Wyatt, now—stood by her window, looking down at her under the brim of his cowboy hat, she considered not opening the window. She could just sit here looking at him. The thing was, her father could wait her out. He wouldn’t even say anything or knock on the window. He’d just wait until she couldn’t stand it anymore.
She rolled down the window. “Hi.” If she acted innocent enough, maybe he wouldn’t suspect her of anything.
Her father wore a crooked “gotcha” smile. Kay’s hopes sank.
“You were going pretty fast there,” he said, like it was a joke.
He’d caught her. Okay. She could deal. Just get it over with as quickly as possible. Surely he had better things to do than go after her. “I guess. Sorry.”
He didn’t say anything. The first—and only, until now—time he had pulled her over, he had written out the entire ticket, showed her how fast she’d been going and how big the fine was. Then he’d torn it up. A warning, he’d said, with the clear indication that next time it would be for real.
But he didn’t have his ticket book with him. He just stood there, not saying anything, not doing anything. Dad was the strong and silent type. Kay wanted to scream.
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“You know this road’s been closed?” he said.
He hadn’t pulled her over because she was speeding. He’d pulled her over because she wasn’t supposed to be here at all. She hadn’t even thought about that, that they would quarantine this whole area until they found the pilot and figured out what the dragons were going to do. She had no possible excuse to get out of this.
She shook her head and hoped she looked innocent. “No, I didn’t know.”
“That means you were out here before the roadblock went up.”
“I was hiking,” she said, playing as dumb as she could. She’d almost said she was hiking with Jon, but her father would have no problem calling Jon to check on her. Jon could only cover for her if he knew he was supposed to. She hadn’t returned his calls yet, and if he heard from Dad first, he might assume the worst.
She could feel her father studying her, and she wondered what she looked like. Her hair was windblown, tangled, even though it had been in a ponytail. A sunburn was prickling on her nose, but that only backed up the hiking story.
“Did you see the crash?” her father said. Fishing for some kind of answer. If only she knew what he was looking for so she could avoid it.
“Yeah, I did. Mostly the smoke afterward. Is everything okay? Did anyone get hurt?” Maybe he’d let drop whether the pilot had made it.
“You saw it and didn’t think to call anyone?”
“I couldn’t get reception.” She winced, because that really was lame. It was getting pretty hard to find anyplace that didn’t have coverage. On the main road there was no excuse.
“Kay, what are you doing out here?”
Her parents—especially her mother and the bureau—were not primarily concerned with protecting the border from the dragons. If the dragons decided to cross, the local law enforcement agencies couldn’t do much about it. That would be classified as an invasion, and Malmstrom Air Force Base, with its missiles and fighters, would take over.
Mostly, local law enforcement worked to keep people—the overly curious on the one hand, and the malicious on the other—from crossing into Dragon. Just last year, before she got her driver’s license, her father had been driving her home from school when one of his deputies called him out to an arrest. Kay had lingered by the car, watching while Dad and two deputies struggled to put handcuffs on a hysterical young couple. They’d looked like hippies, a white guy and girl with long hair partly done in tangled dreadlocks. She wore a peasant skirt, combat boots, and a torn sweater. He wore what looked like army surplus fatigues. They both had huge frame backpacks with sleeping bags and mess kits slung on them. They’d hitchhiked from Ohio and had planned on sneaking across the border. They wanted to find a dragon and “partake of its ancient wisdom.” They screamed at the sheriff and deputies about how they didn’t have the right to keep people from crossing the border, calling them fascists.
Her father had joked that at least they could prosecute them for resisting arrest, if nothing else. Kay had thought they were weird and maybe a little crazy. They obviously didn’t come from a place where you could sometimes see dragons flying on the northern horizon and where they practiced dragon-raid drills more than once a year.
People like that would be insanely jealous of Kay and her conversations with Artegal.
But more, her parents would be mortified if they knew what she’d been doing. If her parents found out, they’d report it. They would have to. She knew that. She just hadn’t realized how that would feel. They’d never look at her the same way again. They’d never trust her again. She couldn’t ever get caught—and there was no way the pilot would keep his mouth shut.
She waited too long to answer. Nothing was going to sound reasonable now. “Really, Dad, I was just hiking. I didn’t know there was a roadblock or I would have called. I’m sorry.”
They’d had enough arguments to recognize the standoff. She wasn’t going to say anything else, and nothing he said would change that.
“You know the plane crashed on the other side of the border? In Dragon?” he said finally.
The tower of smoke was close enough to the river; from a different angle it may have looked like it hadn’t invaded Dragon. She let him think the hesitation was shocked silence.
“What’s going to happen? Do you think there’ll be a fight?”
Her father leaned on the car, looked north, and shook his head. “We’re doing everything we can to prevent that. We have to assume they’re doing to the same on their side.” She pressed her lips and nodded. He sounded sure, and that was encouraging. “Now, Kay, I want you to get home. And call your mother.”
“Okay, I will.” She didn’t have to fake sounding nervous and scared. Her stomach was knotted.
“I love you,” he said, pursing his lips in a thin smile.
“I love you, too.” She watched him return to his SUV in her rearview mirror. He didn’t drive away until she did.
She spent the rest of the way home sitting at the edge of her seat, gripping the steering wheel hard.
As soon as she got home, she called Jon.
“Kay,” he answered. “Oh my God, are you okay? Where are you? Do you know what’s happening? Do your folks have any idea?”
She knew way more about the situation than she wanted to. Trouble was, she couldn’t tell anyone. “I just talked to my dad. He didn’t say much. Everyone’s worked up.”
“Where have you been? I’ve been trying to call you.” He sounded tense, like he’d been really worried about her.
She winced, guilty. “I’m sorry. I had my phone off.”
“At a time like this? FOX News is talking invasion, Kay.”
She sat on the couch in the living room and rubbed her hair. She was exhausted and was starting to feel the aches and bruises where she’d been knocked around on Artegal’s back. Even with gloves, she had blisters on both hands. She needed a shower.
“Who’s invading?” she said tiredly. “Them or us?”
Jon was silent for a long moment. She was about to apologize again because she knew she was sounding irrational. Then he said, “The plane crash was an accident, wasn’t it?”
That made her straighten. “What do you mean?”
“It was a malfunction. The plane crashed; the pilot bailed out. It just happened to be on t
he wrong side of the border. The air force didn’t do it on purpose, did they?”
For a moment, just a moment, it made sense. If you wanted to start a fight, you’d provoke the other side somehow. Just to see what they’d do. But she was tired and not thinking clearly, so she shook her head. “Is that what the conspiracy websites are saying?” She tried to make it sound like a joke.
“I guess that’s crazy, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.”
“But no one knows what the dragons are going to do,” he said.
“No.” She wondered what Artegal was telling his people right now, if anything. If he were having to lie like she was. “The police have the highway closed down. They’re worried.”
“Can I come over?”
It would take him a little longer, but he could get here via back roads. She almost said no. The more time she spent around people, the more likely she would be to finally let it all out and tell someone about Artegal, especially with all this going on. Anything she said would be talking around the dragon. Her secret was starting to eat at her.
At the same time, the idea of hugging Jon as hard as she could made her feel warm, made her finally start to relax. “Yeah, okay. My parents are out working. It’ll be good to have company.”
“Okay. I’ll be right over.” He clicked off.
She’d have to hurry if she wanted to take that shower.
As soon as she hung up, her phone beeped another missed call from her mother. Kay didn’t want to talk to her, afraid of what she would ask about the crash and how much Kay would have to lie about it, but the calls would keep coming until they connected. She called back.
“Kay, are you home now? Please tell me you’re home.”
Mom and Dad had probably been conferring back and forth about what she was really doing. She couldn’t change her story.
“I’m home, Mom.” Her mother sighed with obvious relief. Before her mother could ask more questions that she’d have to dodge, Kay launched in with her own. “Is everything okay? Do you know what’s happening?”