Bethany kept her eyes fixed on mine, and I wondered what she saw when she looked at me, wondered if my face was a tell to everything hiding just underneath.
“Believe it or not, I’m not trying to be difficult,” Bethany said, tracing the tip of one skate delicately across the ice. “I just … did you hear what the nurse said to that trio back at the school? She had orders to call them if anyone like me showed signs of being bitten, and that means that either those people knew that the cheerleading squad was at risk and did nothing to stop it, or they planned it and infected us themselves.”
The second possibility hadn’t even occurred to me, and I wondered why Bethany’s mind had hopped straight from “chupacabra” to “conspiracy.”
With a shrug, she began skating backward as she talked, her voice traveling across the ice like sound over water. “About a week ago, we had our annual drug testing. Heritage High takes its honor code very seriously, Say No to Drugs, athletes as examples and all that, which wouldn’t have been strange, except that we’d already done the pee in a cup thing back in August. If you do it more than once a year, it’s not annual, and this time, they took blood.”
Blood.
An image of a needle jumped into my mind, and I wondered if the memory was mine, or Zev’s….
Don’t think his name. Don’t say it. Don’t even call that thing a he.
“You think someone injected you?” I couldn’t even believe I was saying the words, but the image of the needle was so vivid, I could feel the syringe’s razor-sharp point. “Who goes around injecting cheerleaders with bloodsucking parasites?”
Kali—you have to—look—smell.
I pushed the voice down and felt it pushing back.
“What about the other cheerleaders?” I asked through gritted teeth, steeling myself against the sound of my constant companion’s voice. “Are they—”
“They’re fine,” Bethany said tersely. “I texted. I called. Everybody but me is fine, and the only reason I never mentioned that they might not be is that it’s not your problem—but since evidence suggests you don’t seem to understand that distinction, like, at all, I didn’t want you and your hero complex to know.”
Before I could so much as reply, Bethany took off skating in earnest, her form blurring with grace and speed as she skated away from me and toward—
I blinked my eyes, hard. There was nothing on the other side of the rink. Bethany wasn’t skating toward anything, but—
Yes.
Without fully knowing why, I bent to pull my skates off, moving as quickly as I could. I tried to yell out to Bethany, but couldn’t find the words.
This isn’t right.
The surface of the ice rippled. It cracked and bulged and began to form itself into something else. My breath caught in my chest as frost-white scales took shape on the ice, each as reflective and sharp as the blade on my knife. Cavernous eyes stared directly into mine, and I realized that my unease since stepping on the ice had nothing to do with Zev.
Had never had anything to do with Zev.
Every other day, I was human, but I knew what was out there, better than anyone. I knew what to watch for, what to look for, and I knew that even humans had instincts. If a chill ran up your spine when you were walking down an alleyway, it was generally a good idea to get the heck out of the alley. If you felt eyes on the back of your head, there was a good chance someone was staring at you. And if something around you felt off …
I should have known. Even on a human day, I should have known.
Opposite me on the ice, the creature materialized and reared back, like a horse bucking its rider, and the only warning before its mammoth wings lashed out, knocking Bethany roughly to the ground, was the distinct sound of cracking ice.
Run.
8
I couldn’t run. All I could do was stand there, an ice skate in each hand, my heart pounding and a stale breath caught in the back of my throat.
Dragon. Genus: Draco.
For most of our evolutionary history, the three most dangerous kinds of predators had been large cats, snakes, and birds of prey. The human brain was wired to fear them, and dragons—talons, scales, slit pupils—sent that system into overdrive. I knew what was happening, but that didn’t keep me from feeling it, and the fear—such a little, stupid word—reminded me that I was human.
That I was nothing.
That I was screwed.
My hold on the makeshift blades in my hands tightened, and I saw the moments leading up to this one, shattered and interlocked, like shards of glass. From the second I’d stepped onto the ice, I’d known that something wasn’t right. The thing inside me had known, too. Even now, the parasite slurping down my blood was telling me to get out, its voice low and silky, like it belonged to someone who was used to being obeyed.
Run. Now.
Why? I replied, taking a single step forward and drawing the dragon’s attention from Bethany to me. Afraid something might happen to your all-you-can-eat buffet?
Don’t—foolish. Can’t—you must—Now!
I’m sorry, I thought, sizing up the dragon and running through my very limited options. I’m afraid this is a bad connection. I can’t quite make out what you’re saying. Oh well.
The monster opposite me leapt into the air and crashed back down onto the ice. Cracks ricocheted across the surface, and I took another step forward.
Objectively, I knew I was powerless, but I couldn’t shake the memory of what it was like to be a hunter, couldn’t rid my body—my fragile, human body—of the sense that it knew exactly what to do. Rationally, I knew better, knew that I should turn tail and run, but I couldn’t—not with Bethany scrambling across the ice, close enough that the dragon could bisect her with a single slice of its talons. Not with Skylar beside me, her mouth frozen in a perfect, rounded O.
“When I move,” I said softly, my voice nearly lost under the sound of the dragon’s equine snorts, “back away slowly. Don’t look it in the eye. Don’t draw its attention. You just get outside, and then you run.”
Skylar nodded almost imperceptibly, but it was enough that the dragon’s liquid gaze switched from my form to hers.
I had to act fast.
“Hey, Ugly! Eyes on me.” I moved sideways across the ice, and the dragon whirled to follow, its mammoth tail taking out the side of the rink. Debris scattered like shrapnel, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Skylar backing away and prayed that Bethany had the sense to do the same.
“That’s right, Godzilla. I’m the threat here. Me.”
My target reared up on its back legs, and I prepared myself for the aftershock when it slammed back down onto the ice. Smoke poured from its nostrils, and I filed that information away as calmly and rationally as I could. There were several subspecies of dragons. Some were harmless. Some ate people. Some breathed fire.
None of them were native to the area.
Based on the smoke, I was going to go out on a limb and guess this was a fire-breather. Not ideal, but on the bright side, at least I didn’t have to worry about being eaten alive.
“Don’t worry—I called Preternatural Control!” The boy who’d given us our skates was either very brave or very stupid. Given that he didn’t seem to have armed himself with so much as a fire extinguisher, I was guessing the latter. “They should be here any sec—”
Without warning, the dragon turned its pursuit from me, and its gleaming teeth closed around the boy’s middle. One second the boy was there, and the next, he was splatter.
I flinched—and hated myself for flinching, almost as much as I hated myself for not saving the boy.
It looks like we’re dealing with Draco carnus, I thought, desperately clinging to the cold, hard facts and trying so hard not to care. A man-eater.
Dully, I told myself that at least I didn’t have to worry about it breathing fire. Dragons were one or the other, not both.
Or so modern science would have had me believe.
I heard the flames before I saw them, and for a split second, I lost control of my body. I couldn’t feel my arms, couldn’t feel my legs, could only feel a hand on the small of my back and rage bubbling inside of me, like a long-dormant volcano getting ready to spew.