22

Kay stripped off her coat, used paper towels to wash her face and hands, and shook out her ponytail, trying to pick apart some of the tangles in her hair. If she didn’t feel clean, she at least felt a little more awake. The water was hot. She finally felt warm for the first time all day, for the first time in forever. She’d forgotten what warm felt like.

Then she called her mother, rehearsing what she could say without giving too much away, in case anyone was listening.

Tam watched intently as Kay tapped her feet nervously, waiting for the ringing to stop.

“Kay, where the hell are you?!”

“Mom, I’m okay. I’m fine.”

“But where are you?”

“Mom, are General Branigan and them looking for me? What’s going on?”

“It’s a real mess. Just tell me you’re south of the river. Are you?”

“Yes, I’m fine.” She and Tam exchanged a glance.

“Thank God.” Mom sighed. “Kay, the dragons are striking everywhere, a dozen cities all over the world. They’re not avoiding fatalities anymore. People are dying, Kay, and the air force doesn’t have enough jets to counter them. It’s not just Branigan talking about using nuclear bombs in Dragon now; it’s the defense secretary, the national security advisor—I’m sorry, you probably don’t want to hear all this.”

Kay stared at nothing, trying to picture it. Wanting to see a TV and not wanting to at the same time. “So it didn’t do any good. We wanted people to see us to try to stop the fighting, but it didn’t do any good.”

“Oh, but it did. Everyone saw you. The news people are having a field day with this. They all got footage of you on that thing, and nobody knows what to make of it. Everybody, everybody’s looking for you.”

That didn’t surprise her, but Kay had a sinking feeling that the rest of the plan wasn’t going to be easy because of it.

“But, Mom, what are people saying? What’s going to happen if I show up?”

“I think all hell will break loose. Half the commentators are saying you’re a traitor. Half of them are calling you some kind of ambassador. This is riling up both sides.”

This had been so much simpler when all she was doing was breaking the law, sneaking over a little tiny river. Then she hadn’t been thinking about becoming a celebrity. She hadn’t meant this all to get out of hand.

“But, Kay, here’s the thing,” Mom continued. “I don’t think Branigan can hide you away, not when every reporter in the country wants to interview you. Maybe he can get the police to arrest you, but it’ll all be in the open now.” She paused, then said, “That’s why you did it, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, kind of.”

“I think it worked.” Her mother actually sounded pleased, or relieved, maybe even proud. “Now we just have to figure out what to do next. I wish…” But she didn’t finish, and Kay knew what she wanted to say. Her father would have known what to do. She wished Jack Wyatt were here.

Kay didn’t want to think about that. And she didn’t want to tell her mother what she wanted to do next, what she thought needed to happen next.

“We’ll talk to the press,” her mother said, not noticing how quiet Kay was. “Let me talk to my boss. We’ll set up a press conference. I don’t like putting you out there like that, but it may protect you from General Branigan. We can get a voice in there for the other side, to show everyone you’re okay and haven’t been brainwashed by dragons.”

Was that what people were saying, that she’d been brainwashed?

“Are you okay with that, honey?” her mother said.

If Kay told anyone what she was planning, no one would let her do it. They really would lock her up.

“Mom, can you find out what happened to Jon? He was with me this morning. There were soldiers out in the woods, and I think they may have arrested him or something.”

“I’ll find out. Kay, can you come home?”

She wouldn’t be able to avoid it. She needed to get ready, she needed to plan, and she needed the book. “I think so. We can try.”

“Wait until dark,” Mom said. “I’ll call Deputy Kalbach and have him help you. Okay?”

The plan would have to do. “Okay.”

At least her mother was feeling better.

“So what’s the plan?” Tam asked after she’d put her phone away.

“I guess I’m going home. Mom says to wait until after dark. Can you drive me?”

“Yeah, of course. More dodging cops. It’ll be fun, right?” Her smile was forced.

Kay had to give her credit for looking on the bright side.

Tam went to get some food—instant soup from home, because everything nearby was closed, even the Alpine. They waited in the shop’s backroom until dusk, eating soup and drinking sodas, when Kay’s mother called her and said that Deputy Kalbach was waiting in his car at the end of the street to make sure she got home okay. Mom said the news vans and swarm of reporters were worse than they’d been after her father’s funeral.

Kay braced herself. Tam had her hand on the door.

“We ready?” she said.

Kay nodded, and Tam opened the door. She half expected the back parking lot to be swarming with army cars and news vans. But it wasn’t. No one had found them. No one was looking for Tam’s car.

As they drove, Kay resisted an urge to crouch under the dash again.

Silver River wasn’t a huge town and definitely wasn’t that busy except during the height of tourist season. But along Main Street, there were usually cars and people around, enough to make the place look interesting, inhabited. Now, it seemed like a ghost town. Most of the storefronts had CLOSED signs in the windows. No cars were parked on the curb. The empty Alpine parking lot seemed wrong. Several blocks in the center of town were roped off with yellow caution tape. The street was still barricaded, to keep people from driving that way. Around the corner, Kay could see bands of black soot on a brick wall, the only hint that the group of buildings had burned.

Kay wanted it all to go back to the way it had been. She wanted to see her father, in his uniform and cowboy hat, walking up the street. But nothing she could do would make that happen. She could only try to make things a little better than they were right now.

Finally—Tam was driving extra slowly and carefully— they reached Kay’s neighborhood, then her street. It was like a circus had camped out there. A dozen news vans lined up, blocking driveways, and they all had huge antennae sticking out the tops and people with cameras and microphones milling out front. The neighbors must have loved it.

Kay slipped down to crouch on the floor before Tam told her to. “Park here,” Kay said, whispering, as if the people on the street could hear her. “Find Deputy Kalbach and ask him what to do.”

Tam parked, and as she left the car, she looked over both shoulders and all around, as if searching for signs of an ambush, as if they were in some kind of spy movie. Kay waited, hugging her knees to her chest, for Tam to return. Hoped no one happened to walk by and look in the window at the girl huddled on the floor.

More quickly than she would have expected, Tam returned, climbed back in the driver’s seat, and started the engine. “He said to park the next street over and sneak in the back. He’s going to go tell your mom.”

A few minutes later, she and Tam were running from the next street, past a neighbor’s house and across the back lawn to the door of the garage at Kay’s house. The door was unlocked, and they made it inside safely.

Kay was coming from the garage to the kitchen when her mother met her and engulfed her in a hug. She was almost crying, murmuring meaningless phrases, pressing Kay to her as if she’d believed they’d never see each other again. “I’m okay,” Kay kept saying, but her mother didn’t seem to hear. When Mom finally pulled away, sure enough, she was crying, quiet tears streaming from red eyes.

Maybe this was a mistake, Kay thought. Her mother would never let her leave the house again.

Mom made her and Tam sit down to dinner, and she explained the situation over more lasagna brought by well-wishers.

“Did you find out about Jon?” Kay asked.

Mom nodded. “They let him go. They wanted to charge him with some kind of aiding and abetting, but I managed to pull some strings. Nice to know I still have a few strings.” She looked at Kay with a raised brow. Kay couldn’t even remember back to this morning. “The bureau asked him to stay at home and be available for questioning.” So he was home. She could call him.

Her mother continued, “Branigan issued an order to stand down. He’s not following you anymore; he’s not sending anyone to arrest you, at least until after the press conference. You’ll get a chance to have your say, answer questions. Then I’m afraid it’ll go to the higher ups.”

“Who’s higher up than Branigan?” Kay said.

Mom gave her a look. “All the way to the top. Congress, the president. They can’t ignore this. You should see the polls, Kay. As soon as the pictures of you flying went out, the numbers in favor of negotiating went way up. Just showing people that cooperation is possible completely undermined the military’s argument.”

But guys like Branigan wouldn’t stop fighting, because they were like bullies on the playground. Neither side could back down without losing face.

Her mother and the FBBE director set up the press conference at the temporary headquarters in the morning, and Kay went along with it, unable to argue. And maybe it would work. But she didn’t think so; it wasn’t just a matter of convincing the military to stop bombing. She had to convince the dragons to stop attacking as well, and a press conference wouldn’t do it.

She and Artegal could get their attention. They’d proven that. She needed help, though: She needed someone to leave a note for Artegal.

Her mother was on the phone, still talking about the press conference. Without a word, she and Tam cleaned up after supper and went to the living room to watch news on TV. As soon as she saw the images—of cities burning, landmarks in Washington, D.C., forests in Florida, buildings in Japan, like an old postwar dragon movie come to life—she wasn’t sure she wanted to see the news after all. The footage of her and Artegal soaring over Silver River was just a footnote to the destruction.

She tugged on Tam’s sleeve. “I have to show you something.” She went to her room, and Tam followed.

All afternoon and even now, Tam had been looking at her strangely, as if something were wrong with Kay, like Tam expected her to do something weird or crazy. She looked like the best friend of the drug addict trying to tell her to get help in those public service videos.

This wasn’t going to make things any better.

In her bedroom, Kay pulled the book from her dresser. Sitting by Tam on the bed, she held it open on her lap.

“What’s this?”

Kay said, “I think it’s kind of a history book. Artegal—the dragon—gave it to me.”

“The dragon gave it to you?”

“They have books too. And libraries.”

“Nobody ever said that—why wouldn’t they teach us that in school?”

“I don’t think anyone knows.” And would it change anything if they did? If people knew dragons wrote and read, would people like Branigan still want to destroy them?

Tam turned the pages carefully, using only her fingertips, and after a few moments murmured, “It’s beautiful. But—do you think it was really like this?”

She was looking at a picture showing a dragon blowing fire into a blacksmith’s forge. The blacksmith was making something curved, unidentifiable—a tool, not a weapon, Kay thought. The weapons came later.

“I think it was. I think it must have been. Tam—I need your help.” Kay swallowed. “I want to do something kind of crazy.”

“Crazier than usual?”

Kay turned pages until she reached the one showing the sacrifice.

Tam stared at it for a long time before shaking her head. “You’re joking. This is a joke.”

“They used to do this as a pledge. We talked about it—it was supposed to show what people were willing to give up to have peace. And it’ll be okay because Artegal and I have a plan, but I need your help.”

Tam shook her head. Horror furrowed her brow. “I can’t do this. You can’t ask me to do this! How can you even think like that? How can you even look at this after what they’ve done? You saw what they did to the town!”

“That wasn’t Artegal’s fault.”

“Kay, dragons killed your father.”

“I know.” She hadn’t meant to, but her face screwed up, and the tears fell. She hadn’t meant to admit it at all. Tam was at her side, moving the book away and hugging her. Face pressed against her shoulder, Kay choked back sobs. She didn’t want any of this to be happening. But she was the only person who had any chance of talking to the dragons. She could imagine her father saying that, which meant she had to try. The sacrifice was something, a symbol that the dragons would understand.

She said, “I think he would understand. I think Dad would understand about this.”

Tam was still shaking her head, not so much in denial but in disbelief. “What can I do?”

“I need to get a message to Artegal. If I try to do it, they’ll know I’m up to something and stop me. But you can go. I’ll show you where.”

“Kay, no, I can’t go talk to that thing!”

“Artegal. His name is Artegal, and he’s my friend.” Kay held Tam’s hands, trying to get her to be quieter. “You won’t even see him. Just leave a note for him. Tomorrow morning, before the press conference.”

“I can’t cross the border!”

“Just for a minute. Everyone else is looking up, looking for dragons—they won’t even see it.”

“Kay—” Tam had tears in her eyes. Strangely, Kay was worried about her makeup smearing.

She touched Tam’s cheeks. “Don’t do that. It’s going to be okay.”

“Kay, why are you doing this?”

She had to think about it, because she hadn’t tried to put it in words. “Because I have to try.”

“It’s not up to you to…to save the world!”

“Hey, maybe there’s a reason I’m the only virgin at Silver River High. You ever think of that?”

As she had hoped, Tam laughed, at least a little.

Kay hugged her. They held each other tightly for a long time.

Tam said, “What’s going to happen?”

“I’m not sure.”

Kay wrote the note on a huge piece of sketch paper, the biggest paper she could find. She described what would happen as briefly as possible, large, so it would be easier for him to read. She folded it up, found a map, and showed Tam where to take it.

“I can’t read this. I’m not the big mountain chick like you are,” Tam said, staring at the topographic map as if it were in a different language.

“Take it to Jon. He’ll show you exactly where it is.”

“Kay, I’m scared.”

“I know. Call me if you can. It’ll be okay.” If they just kept saying it, maybe it would be true.

After that, they came out to the kitchen, Tam said good-bye to Kay’s mother, and they had to act like nothing was wrong, even though their eyes were red. They hugged once more before she left to go home. Tam looked at her like she was convinced they’d never see each other again.

Kay went back to her room, found her phone, and dialed Jon’s number. He picked up halfway through the first ring, as if he’d been waiting with the phone in his hand. “Kay!”

“Hi.”

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” she said tiredly, before he finished asking. “Are you okay? What happened? What did they do to you?”

“They put me in a room and asked me a lot of questions. But I couldn’t tell them too much because you haven’t told me anything.” He sounded accusing.

Her impulse was to say she was sorry, but she was tired of feeling sorry. She wasn’t the one who made the world this way and put the military in charge. “What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t tell anyone.”

“Until you decided to tell the whole damn world. If you wanted attention, you’ve got it.”

“I didn’t. Not really,” she said. She said it after all. “I’m sorry.”

“No, Kay.” He sighed. “It’s…it’s amazing, what you’ve done. You’ve shocked the whole world.”

“It was an accident, Jon. The whole thing started as an accident. It’s just that since then…”

“You’re glad it happened,” he said.

“Yeah.”

“So what happens now?”

“Tam’s probably going to be calling you soon,” Kay said. “I asked her to help me with something. She doesn’t like it—”

“Is it anything like you asked me to help you with?”

She hesitated—but maybe Jon was right, maybe he’d been right all along. She couldn’t keep all these secrets to herself anymore. “I need to get a message to Artegal.”

“What are you planning?” he asked after a pause. He knew her too well. The thought startled her.

“It’s big, Jon. It’s dangerous. But if it works—” What was she saying? This wasn’t going to work. She was being na"ive. “It’ll at least make everyone think about this, about what’s happening.” That, she decided, was the best she could hope for, and it would still be worth it.

“Kay—”

“There’s a press conference tomorrow at noon. Mom set it all up. It’s going to be at the middle school. Outside, in the parking lot. Can you be there? I’m going to need help.”

“Are you trying to kill yourself?” he asked.

It was going to look like it, wasn’t it? The trouble was, none of them trusted Artegal. And none of them knew about the secret map. That was one secret she couldn’t reveal. People like Branigan could never find out about it. She’d taken it out of the book and kept it with her.

“No,” she said finally. “But I may have to go away for a little while.”

“What about school? What about your mom?” She could hear him swallow over the phone. “What about us?”

Her eyes stung with tears. She was trying not to think about the really hard parts of all this. “Jon, if you had a chance to stop a war, would you?”

The logical thing for him to do would be the reality check. To tell her that nothing she could do would stop a war. Not this one, not any. But he didn’t do that.

He said, “Yes, I would.”

“If it weren’t for me and Artegal accidentally meeting, we wouldn’t have this chance. We have to try.”

“Okay,” he said, his voice steady now. “Just tell me what you need me to do.”