Rogue (17 page)

Riley

I was not in the best of moods.

The taxicab reeked. Badly. Normally, I didn’t mind the smell of smoke, but the patron before me had either lit three or four cigs at the same time or had been wearing a cologne called Essence of Ashtray. It smelled, it was annoying, and I was already tense enough. Of course, the irony of a dragon nearly gagging on smoke was not lost on me, but it didn’t make me any less irritable, either. The memory of last night, when Wes had announced that yet another nest was gone, made me want to punch something. Dammit, what was happening?
Who
was giving us away? And could I find them before my entire underground was lost?

A guy in nothing but a Speedo, openly carrying a beer bottle, distracted me through the window and made a lewd gesture with his hips. I gritted my teeth, imagining what would happen if I set his Speedo on fire.

Clenching a fist against the door handle, I watched the lights of downtown fade in the rearview mirror and wished the cabbie would step on it. I hoped Ember was okay. I didn’t like leaving her alone, especially with St. George close by, but I had no choice. This meeting was important and, like it or not, I had to follow through. Griffin had sent me the information an hour ago, saying the contact wanted to meet face-to-face, away from prying eyes, and had refused to come to the hotel. Which meant I had to go to him, and, annoying as that was, I couldn’t say no. Nor did I want the other three trailing along while St. George was in town. Better for me to go alone; I was used to this type of thing, and if the Order jumped me, at least it was just my neck at risk. I’d told Wes to keep an eye on both the girl and the soldier; he was instructed to contact me immediately if he suspected there might be trouble.

I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

The taxi pulled up outside a skeevy-looking diner several blocks from the glittering brilliance of the Strip. The sidewalk wasn’t well lit, and a couple thuggish-looking humans argued with each other near the entrance. Keeping an eye on them, I wrenched open the glass door and stepped inside.

The interior of the diner was dim and smelled like grease, smoke and too many humans packed into a small space. A couple Hell’s Angels eyed me as I made my way across the floor, and I hoped my boots and leather jacket wouldn’t offend them enough to pick a fight. I wasn’t here to toss bikers through windows, amusing as that sounded. I needed to find that contact.

A dark figure in a corner booth caught my eye, and a thin hand twitched in a beckoning motion. Easing around a waitress, I walked over and slid into the seat across from him, trying not to curl a lip. The human was pale and unnaturally thin, with sallow cheeks and lank, greasy hair hanging to his shoulders. The huge sunken eyes, glazed over and unfocused, told me everything I needed to know.

“Griffin said you’d be able to hook me up.” The human’s voice was a raspy whisper, greedy and hopeful. He feverishly scratched at his arm, like he had spiders crawling on it. “Fifty bucks to tell you what I know, that was the deal.” He scratched his other arm, leaving thin red welts down his skin. “You got the cash?”

“If the information is good,” I replied, thinking I was going to kill Griffin when I got back. How in the hell was this a “reliable contact”? “Let’s hear what you know, and I’ll decide if it’s valid.”

“No way, man.” The human shook his head, making his hair whip back and forth. “That wasn’t the deal. Cash first, then info. Take it or leave it.”

“Fine.” I stood, dusting off my hands. “I don’t need info this badly. Enjoy your nothing. I’m gone.”

“Wait!” The human half rose from his seat, flinging out a hand. I paused, glancing back with cool disinterest. “All right, all right,” he hissed. “I’ll tell you what I know. But I’m not crazy, okay? I know what I saw.” He squirmed, casting wary looks around the diner as if someone was listening to us. No one was; the whispered rambles of a junkie in a dark corner didn’t merit a second glance here. I sat down, waiting silently, while he assured himself no one was lurking in the shadows in the next booth. Finally he hunched forward across the table, his eyes even wilder than before.

“My buddies and I, we have this squat several miles past the Strip, right? One of those big, half-finished hotels that was abandoned when the recession hit. It’s been empty for years, and we don’t bother no one, okay?” He sounded defensive, as if he thought I would care what he and his friends did on other people’s property. I didn’t say anything, and he dropped his head, his voice becoming a harsh whisper.

“So, a couple nights ago, we come back to find these two chicks in our squat, right? Pretty ones, not from around here. We thought they were runaways.”

That piqued my interest. “How old were they?” I asked, making the guy flinch.

“Um.” He scratched at his arms. “Fifteen? Sixteen? It was hard to tell, man. It was dark. Plus, they bolted when they saw us. We, um…
followed
them to the upper floors.” He must’ve seen the fury in my eyes, because he jerked back, holding up his hands. “Just to talk. Hey, they were in our room, man. Two chicks show up unannounced in your squat, you wanna know why. If they in trouble with the cops, you need some sort of
insurance
to keep them hidden, you know?”

I took a furtive breath to keep from incinerating this lowlife on the spot. “So what happened?”

The human blinked glazed brown eyes. “Uh, right. So, anyway, we followed them to the top floors. To talk to them.” He emphasized
talk
. “You know, because it was dangerous up there, all unfinished and shit. We didn’t want them stepping on a nail or falling off the edge, right? We were worried they’d get hurt.”

Right
,
I thought furiously.
And I’m a were-newt.
“You’re wasting my time,” I warned, glancing at the window as if I was bored. “And not telling me anything worthwhile. You have about five seconds to make this interesting. Four. Three.”

“Chill, man, chill. I’m getting to that part.” The guy’s face turned the color of old glue, and he leaned forward, his voice a reedy whisper. “So, we went up there, looking for those girls,” he rasped, while I contemplated how satisfying it would be to break his nose. “And we were poking around these half-finished floors. It’s like a maze, right, but we knew they couldn’t have gone far. But then, we looked up into the rafters and…” The human trembled. Shook violently, like he was in desperate need of a fix. The water glass on the table rattled, and the utensils clinked together until the guy took his arms from the table, putting them into his lap.

“And?” I prodded.

“And, I swear to God, man. There was this big, scaly
thing
looking back at us.”

My stomach dropped, but I fixed a grimace of contempt on my face and leaned back in the booth. “This is the info Griffin promised was reliable?” I sneered. “Some user’s drugged-out hallucination?”

“Man, it wasn’t no hallucination!” Flecks of saliva spattered the table between us at the outburst. “I swear there was this fucking huge lizard in that room. Or maybe not a lizard, but
something
, okay? It was big, and black, and made this hissing sound when it saw us. I even think smoke came out of its nose.”

“What did you do?”

“What do you think we did? We pissed our pants and ran. Haven’t gone back since.”

“Huh.” I quirked a brow at him, though my heart was racing. “Sure you didn’t see a big scary bat and think it was a monster?”

“Whatever, man.” The human scratched his arm, glaring mulishly. “I know what I saw.”

I slid to the edge of the booth, my thoughts whirling. Two new hatchlings in the city. Were they mine? Wes hadn’t gotten any messages from our safe houses; could these two have escaped the recent Order strikes sweeping the country like the plague? I’d have to find them, and quickly, before St. George did.

Glancing at the human, who watched me with a greedy, hopeful expression, I held up a couple bills. “This was worth about twenty bucks, if that,” I said, watching his face fall. “But I’ll bump it to fifty if you can do two things. Stay away from that hotel, and don’t tell anyone about this, ever. Think you can do that?”

“Sure, man.” The junkie shrugged. “Whatever you want. No one else believed me, anyway.”

Alarm flickered, and I narrowed my eyes. “No one else? How many did you already tell?”

He cringed and scratched his neck. “No one, man,” he mumbled, not looking at me. “I didn’t tell no one.”

He was lying, but I couldn’t dwell on that now. Throwing the cash on the table, I rushed out and looked around for a taxi. If there were hatchlings in this city, rogues or runaways, I had to find them. Especially with St. George on the move, looking for me. They could easily get caught in the cross fire, and then it would be on my head if more innocent kids were murdered by the Order.

I had to get to them first. But as I stood there on the corner, cursing the taxis that cruised blissfully by, my phone buzzed, making me wince. The only people who had this number were Ember and Wes, and I’d told them to call only in emergencies.

Bracing myself, I pulled the phone out of my jeans and held it to my ear. “Ember?”

“Not quite, mate.” Wes’s voice was taut with anger and disgust. My gut churned, and I closed my eyes.

“What happened?”

“Your bloody hatchling,” was the peevish reply, “is what happened. I can’t find her, or the soldier, anywhere. You’d better get back here, Riley. Before something else blows up in our faces.”

Ember

You’re not supposed to be doing this.

I shoved the little voice aside as I descended the final escalator to the casino floor. It was truly another world down here: colored lights, ringing bells, an air of chaos and excitement that was lacking in my empty hotel room. Just what I needed to take my mind off…everything. I didn’t want to think about Talon or St. George. I didn’t want to remember Lilith’s training, or Dante’s betrayal. I didn’t want to think about Riley, or this sudden, crazy longing for the human standing beside me. I didn’t want to feel any of that. For a few hours, I wanted to turn off my mind and forget everything.

Garret, looking even less enthused as we stepped off the escalator onto the carpeted floor, did his normal crowd-­scanning thing while talking to me. “Where to first?”

Good question. I’d never been to Vegas before, though I’d seen plenty of commercials and several movies that featured the famed City of Sin. They all showed Las Vegas in the same light: an almost mythical city where you could make your fortune in a few hours, or lose everything just as quickly. To our kind, that concept of instant wealth was intriguing, almost intoxicating. I might’ve been a hatchling, on the run from the organization and St. George, but I was still a dragon.

Spotting a row of bright slot machines along the wall, I smiled and tugged Garret’s sleeve. “This way,” I told him and started toward the twinkling lights. “That looks easy enough. Let’s see how fast you can lose a dollar to penny slots.”

* * *

Answer: about thirty seconds, the first ten spent figuring out how to make the machine work. Modern-day slot machines, I discovered, didn’t require you to pull the “arm” on their side down. In fact, the arm was just for decoration now. Everything was automatic, which meant you pressed a button and watched the pictures of apples and bells and sevens spin around for a few seconds before they came to a stop—always unmatched—and the screen announced that you had lost.

“Dammit,” I muttered, after I’d fed a third dollar into the side of the machine and lost it almost as quickly. “That was my last single.” I looked to the soldier, standing vigilant at my side like an alert guard dog. I didn’t think he’d taken his eyes off the crowds once. “Hey, Garret, you don’t happen to have any loose change weighing you down, do you?”

He gave me a split-second glance, the corner of his lip curling up as he went back to surveying the floor. “I thought dragons liked to hoard their wealth,” he said in a low voice. “Not throw it away at slot machines.”

“I’m investing.” I wrinkled my nose at him. “That last spin was almost triple sevens. I’m gonna get lucky any second now.”

“Right.”

I poked him in the ribs. He grunted. “Fine,” I muttered, digging in my shorts pocket. “Guess I’ll have to use that five instead.”

But before I could stick the money into the machine, Garret abruptly pushed away from the stool and took my hand. My pulse jumped, and a tingle shot up my arm, even as the soldier pulled me away from the aisle and into the crowds.

“Garret.” I almost had to jog to keep pace with him. “What are you doing?”

“Security,” he replied, and I looked back to see two men in uniforms pass the row we were just in. One of them caught my eye, frowned and angled toward us through the crowds. I squeaked.

“He’s following us!”

“Don’t panic.” Garret’s fingers tightened around mine. “And don’t act nervous. Just keep walking, and don’t look back.”

Squeezing his palm, I faced forward and followed his lead. We “fast-ambled” through the casino, weaving through crowds, circling around roulette tables, trying to appear nonchalant and move quickly at the same time. I didn’t dare look back, but Garret, without stopping or turning his head, somehow knew exactly where the guard was and what he was doing.

“Still following us,” he muttered as we strolled through a slot machine aisle hand in hand. “I think he’s waiting to see if we try to play a game. I believe that’s illegal here, right? You have to be twenty-one to gamble?”

“I
am
twenty-one,” I protested, and he shot me a quizzical glance. I raised my chin. “According to the ID of Miss Emily Gates, I turned twenty-one this January.”

His lip twitched. “Do you really want them checking up on that?”

“Um. No.”

“And do you really want
Riley
finding out that they checked up on that?”

I grimaced at him. “Right. Point taken. How do we ditch the rent-a-cop?”

“Just be ready to move when I do.”

I nodded. Garret made a meandering left turn down a slot machine aisle, but as soon as we were out of sight of the guard, lunged forward with a burst of speed. I scrambled to keep pace. He pulled us around another aisle, and I followed, clinging to his hand and biting my lip to keep a maniacal giggle from slipping out. We wove through a couple more slot machine corridors, melted back into the crowd and circled a noisy, cheering roulette table. Abruptly, Garret pulled me to the edge of the table, somehow squeezing us between a pair of half-drunk guys and their girlfriends. They jostled us, their attention solely on the spinning roulette wheel and the little ball bouncing within, but then Garret wrapped his arms around me from behind and leaned in close, and I forgot about everything else.

“Keep your head down,” he whispered, his voice low in my ear. “The guard is still following, but he’s lost sight of us now. Don’t make eye contact, and when he passes, we go back the other way and lose him for good.”

“Got it.” I held my breath, keeping my eyes on the table but hyperaware of Garret’s arms around my stomach, holding me against him. I could feel his breath, the slow rise and fall of his chest, the taut coil of muscle in his arms.

After a tense, yet still far too short moment, Garret pulled away, looking back over his shoulder. “Clear,” he muttered, as I risked a glance in the direction he was facing. The guard was moving away from us, following the crowds as they ambled through the casino. I couldn’t see his face, but from the way he was turning his head from side to side, he was still looking for us. I let out a breath and started to relax.

But then, he turned and came back our way. With a squeak, I quickly faced forward as Garret did the same, pressing close. His heart beat crazily against my back, and I suspected he could feel mine pounding away, too. Thankfully, the guard passed us by once more, and this time continued through the casino until he was lost from view.

I exhaled, then collapsed into helpless giggles, leaning against Garret. He looked down with that amused half smile on his face, as if he didn’t quite know what to do with me.

“Well.” I peered down the aisle, making sure the guard was really gone, then looked back at Garret. “That was exciting, wasn’t it? I think next time we should try the poker tables.” He raised an eyebrow, looking alarmed, and I laughed again. “Sorry,” I offered. “I suppose we should head upstairs before Riley comes back and bites our heads off. I’m sure dodging casino security wasn’t exactly what you signed up for tonight.”

He chuckled. “I’ve had to lose a couple tails in my life,” he admitted. “Not all pursuers have been large angry reptiles. Tristan and I once spent the night dodging security guards in a museum warehouse. Nothing like huddling under a tarp with a family of cavemen to give you perspective.”

I blinked at him. “Did you have a few drinks before we came down here?”

“No. Why?”

“You realize you just made a joke.”

A cheer went up from the roulette crowd, and one of the drunk guys jostled me, knocking me into Garret. He quickly put out his hands, steadying us both, and my annoyance at Rude Guy was instantly forgotten as I glanced up and met those steely gray eyes.

Garret blinked. His hands lightly gripped my arms, rough, calloused fingertips warm on my skin. Slowly, he slid them up my shoulders, raising goose bumps and leaving a trail of heat. “Maybe you’re rubbing off on me,” he mused, serious again. “Or maybe…I’ve come to the realization that everything I know is wrong, and I’m starting not to care anymore.”

“Is that a good or bad thing?”

“I don’t know.” He drew closer, looking thoughtful. His gray eyes were still intense, piercing, as his fingers brushed a strand of hair from my cheek. “But I’d be willing to find out.”

My heart turned over. He was giving me that look, the look of the boy from Crescent Beach, the one who had danced and surfed and kissed me in the ocean. The boy who didn’t know I was a dragon, not yet, who saw me only for me.

I swallowed hard. Ever since the night we’d faced each other on the bluff, dragon to soldier, I’d known that whatever we had over the summer was gone. Garret was part of St. George, the Order who saw all my kind as evil, soulless monsters. He might not believe that anymore, but I was still a dragon. Very much not human, despite these crazy humanlike emotions urging me forward, to reach up and pull his lips down to mine. I’d never thought we would be here again, face-to-face, with Garret watching me like I was the only person in the entire world. A ripple of doubt filtered through the happy longing. If I Shifted now, if I stood here in my real form, wings, scales, talons and all, would he still look at me like that?

The crowd at the table erupted once more, this time with loud groans and gestures of disgust. I swallowed a growl as Rude Guy hit me in the ribs with an elbow, and saw a dangerous light pass through Garret’s eyes as his attention shifted to the oblivious human. I didn’t
think
Garret would knock Rude Guy on his ass right here, much as I’d love to see that, but it was definitely getting crowded. I suddenly didn’t want to be surrounded by bright lights and mobs of humans. I wanted a nice dark corner to see this—whatever
this
was—through in peace.

“Come on,” I told Garret, backing away from the table. He followed me, that same bright, intense stare making my insides dance. “Let’s find someplace quieter.”