Voices of Dragons

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 pulled 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 i

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 i

“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 pla