I continued to move my fingers as I edged forward, trying to get closer to the water. Trying to raise a barrier between my mother and that gun.
“You gain nothing by shooting either of us, Marsten,” I said, as the energy I was collecting began to pull at my hair and my hands, and tiny sparks seemed to dance across the dark, rippling waters. “You have no real idea about what my mother and I can do. And you won’t ever know just what we’re capable of if we’re dead.”
“What I know,” he said, “is that you’ve killed a number of good scientists, and have proved difficult animals to keep.”
“We’re not animals,” I said, glad my voice showed none of the rage and fear that was boiling through me. “We’re still more valuable alive than dead.”
“Actually, you’ve proved the exact opposite time and time again. And you’ve destroyed the viability of this facility.”
“And just how have we managed that?” I continued to move forward, creeping toward the pool’s edge inch by tortuous inch, all the while wishing I could simply run to my mom. Yet that was a chance I couldn’t take. Any sudden movement might cause him to fire that gun. “We may have blown up a lab and burned out a bit of equipment here and there, but that’s about all we’ve managed to do.”
“What you’ve managed to do is destroy the secrecy of this operation. Half of Drumnadrochit probably saw air dragons flying over Loch Ness, and the scientific world will guess we have discovered something and want a piece of it. We needed more time to uncover the secrets hidden in your genes, and that is what you have robbed us of.”
And you’ve robbed us of life, of humanity, and each other, I wanted to snap back, but what was the point? We might hold human shape, but Marsten was never going to see anything more than an interesting puzzle to unravel.
“You haven’t even begun to touch on our secrets, Marsten, and trust me, you need us alive to even begin to understand us.”
“I think I’m the only one who’s qualified to be the judge of that,” he said, and pulled the trigger.
“No!” I screamed, and unleashed the waiting energy. The dark water flew up, swirling around my mother, swiftly becoming a thick whirlpool through which nothing would get through. Not even a bullet.
The bullet hit the wall of water and ricocheted away. Marsten swore, then swung the gun and pulled the trigger again. This time straight at me.
I had no time to call the water and protect myself. The most I could do was throw myself sideways. But I wasn’t superman. I wasn’t even an air dragon. I didn’t have wings and certainly couldn’t fly. I wouldn’t beat that bullet, and I knew that, but that didn’t stop me from trying.
The air seemed to scream. Or maybe it was me screaming. I don’t know. The safety of the dark water was close, so close, but the bullet was faster than my fall. Metal tore through my thigh, blood, skin, and muscle flying into the air as the bullet punched its way through my leg. I hit the water and went tumbling, crashing into the far edge of the pool, landing half in, and half out of the water.
The air whooshed from my lungs and all I could feel was pain—thick, gut-churning pain—and all I wanted to do was slide into the beckoning darkness of unconsciousness. But it wasn’t over yet, not by a long shot, and I fought to remain awake and aware as a slick red puddle began to form around my leg and drip slowly into the pool.
Water splashed, and then my mother was beside me. “Oh God, oh God,” she said, her frail hands on my face, my neck. Feeling for the wound she could smell but not see.
Behind us both, footsteps approached. My heart accelerated, pumping fear through every inch of me. Pumping my life out onto the cold concrete.
But with the footsteps came another sound. The air was screaming again. But not from a bullet. Not this time.
Trae was coming.
Relief flooded through me. I didn’t care how he knew I needed help. All that mattered was that he was coming, that he was near. All I had to do was keep us both alive until then.
“Mom, get back into the protection of the whirlpool,” I whispered urgently.
“What? Don’t be—”
“Mom, shut up and just get into the damn water.”
My voice was little more than a hiss of air. I touched her face lightly, trying to convince her of my urgency, but my gaze went past her and focused again on Marsten. There was no compassion in his dark eyes, no doubt. We were nothing more than a couple of test subjects he had no intention of losing. A shiver went through me. There was no talking sense to someone like that. No way to make him see us as anything more than monsters who had no rights, no voice in this human-filled world.
“Mom,” I added, “trust me, please. I didn’t come all this way to get us both killed.”
She sobbed, but spun and dove into the water. I played my fingers through the water, calling to the energy of the loch, calling to the deep, dark waters that waited beyond this small pool.
“Well, well, well,” Marsten said, as he stopped at my feet. “That water spout of yours was a very neat trick. It would appear that the littlest sea dragon has been holding out on us.”
“I told you we were more useful alive than dead.” My gaze went past Marsten to the roof high above. Hurry. Please hurry, I thought, even though I had no idea whether he could actually hear me.
“If you were less troublesome, I’d probably agree with you. But with all the samples we’ve collected over the years, we’ve decided to grow our own little sea dragons.”
“Our control of water is learned rather than ingrained. Growing your own won’t give you your answers.”