Rogue (3 page)

Apprehension flickered.
Why is Lilith here?
I thought.
Is she…?
I glanced at Mist, walking beside me with her eyes straight ahead.
Is she Mist’s trainer? Is that why she’s here?

Wary now, I followed Mist into the elevator, keeping her in my side view as she pressed a button, still not looking at me. The doors slid shut, and the box began to move.

“So.” Mist’s voice echoed in the tiny space, startling me. I’d been expecting her to stay quiet and distant, not speaking unless absolutely necessary. I’d been about to break the silence myself and was surprised that she’d beat me to it. “You’re Dante Hill.”

Her voice was a challenge. It seemed we were going to butt heads after all, unless I could win her over. I could’ve used my position to demand obedience; Roth had put me in charge, after all, but resentful employees did not produce fast results. If I was going to find Ember quickly, I needed her on my side.

Smiling, I leaned against the wall and put my hands in my pockets, adopting a pose of easy nonchalance. “I am,” I agreed pleasantly. “Though you seem surprised, Mist. Let me guess—you expected me to be taller.”

Mist’s expression remained neutral. “A Chameleon in training,” she remarked, raising a slender eyebrow, “using humor to defuse a tense situation. Classic disarming technique.”

I kept the smile on my face. “Did it work?”

She blinked, and the other corner of her mouth twitched. “No,” she replied, though her eyes said differently. “But thank you for trying. I am, unfortunately, well versed in the various faction trainings and techniques. Your Chameleon charm is not going to work on me, I’m afraid.”

“Give it time.”

The elevator had passed the first floor. And still, we continued to descend. Past the basement, and the subbasement, going even deeper underground. “Do you have something against Chameleons?” I went on, wondering how many sublevels this place had. The glowing numbers above the door had stopped moving altogether.

“Not at all,” Mist replied. “Chameleons are a vital part of Talon. We all have our place.” Her piercing blue eyes remained brutally honest as she looked me over, assessing. “What I don’t like is having vital information kept from me, especially if I need it to do my job.”

I gave her a puzzled frown. “You think I’m hiding something from you? That’s a rather hasty conclusion. We haven’t known each other very long.”

“It’s not you, Mr. Hill.” Mist’s tone remained coolly polite. “But you must know that this situation with your sister is not normal. Why is Talon so interested in her? Cobalt I can
understand—he’s a dangerous fugitive who has caused real harm to the organization, and his actions cannot be ignored any longer. The rogue must be stopped, that is very clear.” Her piercing blue gaze sharpened, cutting into me. “But why is Talon so invested in bringing
her
back? Why go through all this trouble? Ember Hill is a hatchling who has done nothing for the organization.” Mist’s eyes narrowed even further. “Why is she so special?”

Her words were eerily familiar, as I heard my own suspicions parroted back at me. The situation with Ember
wasn’t
normal. Talon was expending considerable resources to return her to the organization when they could have sent out a Viper and been done with it. Even bringing
me
on was puzzling. Yes, I was her brother and the person who knew her best, but why bother? What made her—
our
—situation so special?

However, I wasn’t going to tell Mist that I shared her concerns. If I was going to bring Ember back, if I was going to make a future for us in Talon, then I had to appear fully in control of the situation at all times. I could not appear weak, or scared, or unsure, because Talon had no use for dragons who failed. I was not going to fail.

“I’m afraid I can’t give you the details,” I told Mist, who gave me a cold look but didn’t seem surprised. Talon shared information only if they thought it was necessary; that much at least she understood. “I would,” I went on, “if I were allowed. Just know that finding Ember is our top priority. The Elder Wyrm wishes that she be returned to the organization. The reasons are irrelevant.”

The elevator stopped, and the doors slid open. Mist watched me a moment longer, blue eyes appraising, then gave a tiny nod. “Of course,” she said, coolly professional once more, and motioned me into the hall. “This way, Mr. Hill. I’ll introduce you to the rest of the team.”

“Just call me Dante,” I invited, a tactic to gain her loyalty, and followed her down a long, brightly lit corridor past several offices, until we came to a door at the very end. Without hesitation, Mist pushed it back, and we went through.

I gazed around, impressed. The room beyond was enormous, a sprawling floor of desks, computers, flashing screens, and people. Aisles of long counters snaked their way across the room, each holding numerous computers with glassy-eyed humans sitting in front of them. The entire back wall was one enormous screen divided into numerous parts that projected a dozen images of maps, satellite feeds, security cams and more. The murmur of voices, ringing phones, buzzing computers and clicking keyboards all blended into a general cacophony of noise that flowed over me as I stepped through the door.

“This is our operating center,” Mist explained, leading me across the floor. All around us, humans hurried by or typed feverishly at their desks, avoiding eye contact. Mist continued as if she didn’t notice or care. “Talon has dozens of these centers all around the world. It’s where we monitor Talon’s assets, keep an eye on St. George movement and track persons of interest to the organization. We’re mostly in charge of the western region of the US, which is where we think your sister is right now.”

She stopped at a desk where two humans sat across from each other, a pair of large screens separating them. When Mist’s shadow fell over the desk, the overweight male and small bespectacled female looked up and gave her polite, fixed smiles, which she ignored.

“Mr. Davids and Ms. Kimura have been tasked with locating your sister,” Mist told me, not even looking at the two humans. “They’ve been trying to pinpoint her location ever since she left Crescent Beach. Unfortunately, they’ve been unable to find any trace of her, or Cobalt, unless something has changed in the time I’ve been gone?”

She looked down at the humans as she said this, and both of them went pale.

“No, ma’am,” the male said quickly. “So far, there have been no leads on Ember Hill or the rogue dragon Cobalt. We know they’re still in California somewhere, but other than that, we’ve been unable to get a lock on them.”

“Where have you been looking?” I asked, making all of them glance at me. Mist raised her eyebrows in amused—or annoyed—surprise, but I ignored her. The humans paused, obviously wondering who I was, some bossy kid in a business suit come strolling into their affairs. I kept the smile on my face and held their gazes with my own, polite but expectant, and after a moment, they looked away.

“We’ve been able to uncover a couple of Cobalt’s nests in the past,” the male informed me, quickly turning back to the screen. “His so-called ‘safe houses’ for rogue dragons. We’ve been monitoring those areas, hoping he might return to one of them to hide. Unfortunately, when one goes down, he often moves the rest, so we haven’t been able to pin him down.”

“What about his network?” I asked. “If he has so many safe houses, he has to be able to communicate with them somehow. Have you tried tracing messages back to his location?”

“Of course,” the other human said. “We’ve been trying to breach his security for years. But we’ve never been able to crack it. Whoever’s on the other side knows exactly what he’s doing to keep us out.”

“What about St. George?” I asked. “Do you have ways of tracking them?”

All three stared at me, varying degrees of confusion and doubt crossing their faces. “Yes,” the female human said slowly. “Of course, we have extensive systems for monitoring any movement made by the Order. But we already determined that the cell in Crescent Beach returned to their chapterhouse. When Ms. Hill and Cobalt fled town, their trail went cold, and St. George abandoned the search. There hasn’t been any movement from the Order for days, at least not in this region.”

“Do you know where this chapterhouse is?”

More puzzled looks. “We could probably find it,” the male human said, furrowing his brow. “But, like we said, St. George activity has been quiet the past few days. We believe trying to find Cobalt’s underground network is more important—”

“Stop looking for the safe houses,” I interrupted. “Ember won’t be there. If I know my sister at all, she won’t be content to sit and hide. You’re wasting your time looking for them.” I glanced at the huge screen on the far wall. “Find St. George,” I said, feeling Mist’s curious gaze on me. “Start looking for the Order. The chapterhouse is a good place to begin. Find it, and tell me when you do.”

The humans gaped at me, clearly dumbfounded but too polite to say anything. Mist, however, had no such reservations. “Why?” she asked is a low, cool voice. “You’re telling us to abandon the search for the rogue’s network when we have clear orders from Talon’s VP to locate it, and your sister. Do you know something we don’t, Mr. Hill?”

“No,” I said, keeping my gaze on the far wall, on one of the many maps spread across the screen. I didn’t have any concrete evidence. It was just a hunch, a suspicion, that had been plaguing me since before I left Crescent Beach. But my intuition was rarely wrong, and I’d learned to trust my gut, especially when it came to my sister. I only wished I had listened to it earlier. Much, much earlier.

“But there was…a human,” I went on, as they all stared at me like I’d gone insane. “One of the people I met in Crescent Beach. He was a friend of my sister’s. Really, I only saw him once or twice. But…there was always something about him, something that I didn’t like. I saw him fight, once—he was definitely trained. And he just showed up out of nowhere one day, always hanging around my sister.”

“That is not enough reason to suspect someone, Mr. Hill,” Mist said in her calm, logical voice. “You can’t expect us to drop everything and switch to a new plan of action simply because you have a hunch.”

“The night Ember left Crescent Beach,” I continued, ignoring that last statement, “she told me she was going to meet this human, alone. She said she wanted to tell him goodbye before she went rogue.” I paused, my chest tightening with the memory. “That was the last time I saw her.

“I don’t know if that human was part of the Order,” I went on, looking back at Mist and the Talon employees. “But I suspect that he was. And both Ember and Lilith were attacked that night by St. George. Ember was close to that human. She…might’ve told him things, about us. About Talon. If you can find him, track the cell he belongs to, he might lead us to Ember.”

“And if he doesn’t?”

I narrowed my gaze. “Then you can blame it on me. But it’s worth a shot. Better than searching for places where she
might
show up or trying to crack this impossible-to-breach network.”

She gave me a long, appraising look. “All right, Mr. Hill,” she finally said. “It’s not like we have a choice. Mr. Roth did put you in charge, after all. We’ll do it your way.” She turned to the humans. “You heard him, then. Find that chapterhouse. Start monitoring all St. George activity in the region. If the Order so much as sneezes, I want to know.” She looked back at me, crystal-blue eyes defiant. “Did you happen to catch this special human’s name, Mr. Hill?”

I nodded. “Yes,” I said, feeling a slow burn of anger in the pit of my stomach. Anger at the rogue, and St. George, and the human, for taking my sister away. At jeopardizing all my plans with Talon. I would find her, and nothing would stop me from bringing her back. “His name was Garret Xavier Sebastian.”

Ember

Three hours on the back of a motorcycle, the sun beating down on your shoulders and the wind whipping through your hair, though exhilarating, reminds you why flying wins every time.

“You okay back there, Firebrand?” Riley called over his shoulder. I peeked up from his leather jacket and caught my reflection in his dark shades. My hair whipped and snapped like a flame atop my head, too short to tie back but just long enough to be horribly tangled when we stopped. Before us, the highway stretched on, an endless strip of pavement heading east. Around us, the Mojave Desert provided much the same scenery: sand, scrub, cactus, rock and the occasional hawk or turkey vulture. The air shimmered with heat, but heat never bothered me. My kind was well adapted to dealing with blistering temperatures.

“My butt has gone numb!” I called back, making him smirk. “My hair is going to take hours to untangle, and I think I’ve eaten like four bugs. And I swear, Riley, if you tell me I should keep my mouth closed, you’re going to be riding the rest of the way sidesaddle.”

He grinned. “We’re about forty-five minutes out. Just hang on.”

Sighing, I laid my chin against his back, watching the eternal sameness flash by around us, and let my mind wander.

It had been three days since we left Crescent Beach. Three days since my world had been turned upside down, since I’d learned Talon was hiding things from me, since I’d fought the Order of St. George and discovered that Garret wasn’t who I thought he was. Three days since I’d made the decision to go rogue and leave town with Riley, abandoning my family and my old life, and branding myself a traitor in the eyes of Talon.

Three days since I’d last seen Garret. And Dante.

I clenched a fist in Riley’s jacket, my emotions churning with anger, sadness and guilt toward them both. Anger that they’d lied, that I’d trusted them, only to have them betray that trust. Garret was part of St. George; he’d been sent to Crescent Beach to kill me. Dante, the brother who’d promised to have my back no matter what, had turned me in to Talon when he’d discovered I was going rogue. But at least Garret had redeemed himself somewhat, saving me and Riley from a Talon assassin, then warning us that his own people were on their way. It was because of him that I was here now, on the back of a motorcycle with Riley, flying across the Mojave Desert. I didn’t know where my brother was, but I hoped he was okay. He might’ve abandoned me to Talon, but I knew Dante. He thought he had been doing the right thing.

Idiot twin. He still didn’t know the truth about the organization, the dark secrets they kept, the lies they told us. I’d make him see, eventually. I would get him out of Talon soon.

After I took care of this other thing.

The sun was beginning to drop toward the horizon when Riley slowed and pulled off the highway into a large, nearly empty lot on the side of the road. A sign at the edge of the pavement cast a long shadow over us as we cruised by, making me squint as I gazed up at it.

“‘Spanish Manor,’” I read, then looked at the “manor” in question, finding a boxy, derelict motel at the end of the nearly empty parking lot. Peeling yellow doors were placed every thirty or so feet, and ugly orange curtains hung in the darkened windows. Exactly one car, an aging white van, was parked in the spaces out front, and if not for the flickering vacancy sign in the office window, I would’ve thought the place completely abandoned.

Riley cruised up beside the van and killed the engine, and we both swung off the bike. Relieved to be able to move around again, I put my arms over my head and stretched until I felt my back pop. Gingerly, I tried running my fingers through my hair and found it hopelessly tangled, as I’d feared. Wincing, I tugged at the snarls and tore loose several fiery red strands while Riley looked on in amusement. I scowled at him.

“Ow. Okay, next time, I get a helmet,” I said, and his grin widened even more. I rolled my eyes and continued my hopeless battle with the tangles. Of all the human beauty traditions, I found hair the most time-consuming and obnoxious. So much time was wasted washing, brushing, teasing and primping it; scales never had this problem. “Where are we, anyway?” I muttered, separating a stubborn knot with my fingers, trying to ignore the dragon beside me. It was hard. Lean, tall and broad-shouldered, clad in leather and chains, Riley certainly cut the figure of a perfect rebel biker boy leaning so casually against his motorcycle, the breeze tugging at his dark hair. He took off his shades and stuck them in a back pocket.

“We’re about an hour from Vegas,” he said, and nodded to the ramshackle Spanish Manor squatting at the edge of the lot. “Wes told me to meet him here. Come on.”

I followed him over the parking lot, up a rusting flight of stairs and down the second-story hall until we came to a faded yellow door near the end. The curtains were drawn over the grimy window, and the interior of the room looked dark. Riley glanced around, then knocked on the wood, three swift taps followed by two slower ones.

A pause, and then the door swung open to reveal a thin, lanky human on the other side, dark eyes peering at us beneath a scruff of messy brown hair. He scowled at me by way of greeting, then stepped back to let us in.

“About time you showed up.” Wes slammed the door and threw the locks as if we were in a superspy movie and there could be enemy agents lurking outside, hiding in the cactus. “I thought you’d be here hours ago. What happened?”

“Had to make a quick stop in L.A. for a few things,” Riley answered, brushing by him. He did not mention the “things” in question, namely, a duffel bag full of ammo and firearms. Both he and Wes ignored me, so I turned to gaze around the room. A quick glance was all that was required; it was small, rumpled, unremarkable, with an unmade bed against the wall and soda cans scattered everywhere. A laptop sat open and glowing on the corner desk, nonsensical words and formulas splayed across the screen in neat rows.

“Riley…” Wes began, a note of warning in his voice.

“Where are the hatchlings?” Riley asked, overriding whatever he was going to say. “Are they all right? Did you find the safe house?”

“They’re fine,” Wes answered, sounding impatient. “They’re holed up near San Francisco with that Walter chap, with strict instructions not to poke one scale out of the house until they hear from you. They’re bloody peachy.
We’re
the ones we have to worry about now.”

“Good.” Riley nodded briskly and walked across the room to the desk, then bent down to the screen. “I assume this is it, then?” he muttered, narrowing his eyes. “Where we’ll be going tonight? Did you get everything you needed?”

“Riley.” Wes stalked after him. “Did you hear a word I just told you, mate? Do you know how crazy this is? Are you even listening to me?” The other ignored him, and with a scowl, Wes reached across the desk and slapped the laptop shut.

Riley straightened and turned to glare at the human. In the shadows, his eyes suddenly glowed a dangerous yellow, and the air went tight with the soundless, churning energy that came right before a Shift. Riley’s true form hovered close to the surface, staring out at the human with angry gold eyes.

To his credit, Wes didn’t back down.

“Listen to yourself, Riley.” The human faced the other in the dingy light, his voice solemn. “Listen to what you’re trying to do. This isn’t stealing a hatchling away from Talon. This isn’t walking up to a kid and saying, ‘Oy, mate, your organization is corrupt as hell and if you don’t leave soon you’ll never be free.’” He stabbed a finger at the laptop. “This is a bloody St. George compound. With bloody St. George soldiers. One slipup, one mistake, and you’ll be hanging from some corporal’s wall. Think about what that means, mate.” Wes leaned forward, his gaze intense. “Without you, the underground dies. Without you, all those kids you freed from Talon will be helpless when the organization comes for them. And they
will
, Riley, you bloody well know they will. Do you even care about that anymore? Do you care that everything we’ve worked for is about to go up in flames?” He gestured sharply at me. “Or has this sodding kid got you so wrapped around her finger that you don’t know what’s important anymore?”

“Hey!” I protested, scowling, but I might as well have shouted at a wall. Riley clenched his fists, nostrils flaring, as if he might punch the human or Shift into his true form and blast him to cinders. Wes continued to glare, chin raised, mouth pressed into a stubborn line. Both of them paid absolutely no attention to me.

“What are we doing, mate?” Wes asked softly, after a moment of brittle silence. “This isn’t our fight. This isn’t what we said we would do.” Riley didn’t answer, and Wes’s tone became almost pleading. “Riley, this is crazy. This is suicide, you know it as well as I do.”

Riley slumped, raking a hand through his messy black hair, the tension leaving his shoulders. “I know,” he growled. “Trust me, I know. I’ve been trying to convince myself I haven’t completely lost my mind since we left town.”

“Then why—”

“Because if I don’t, Ember will go without me and get herself killed!” Riley snapped, and finally looked in my direction. Those piercing gold eyes met mine across the room, the shadow of Riley’s true form staring at me. I shivered as he held my gaze. “Because she doesn’t know St. George like I do,” he went on. “She hasn’t seen what they’re capable of. She doesn’t know what they do to our kind if we’re discovered. I do. And I’m not going to let that happen. Even if I have to sneak into a St. George base and rescue one of the bastards myself.”

I swallowed, feeling something inside me respond, a rush of warmth spreading through my veins. My own dragon, calling to Riley’s, like he was her other half.

Wes scrubbed a hand down his face. “You’re both completely off your rockers,” he muttered, shaking his head. “And I’m no better, since it seems I’m going along with this lunacy.” He groaned and plopped into the chair, then opened the laptop. “Well, since you appear to have lost your mind, let me show you exactly what we’re up against.”

Riley turned from me, breaking eye contact. I knew I should go see what Wes was talking about. But I could still feel the heat of Riley’s gaze, feel the caress of the dragon against my skin. I needed to get away from him to clear my head, to cool the fire surging through my veins. Leaving them to talk, I slipped into the small, only slightly disgusting bathroom and locked the door behind me.

Wes’s and Riley’s voices echoed through the wood, low and urgent, probably talking about the mission. Or, in Wes’s case, trying to convince Riley, once and for all, not to go through with this. I sank onto the toilet seat and ran my hands through my hair, letting the words fade into jumbled background noise.

I knew Wes was right. I knew what I planned to do was stupid and risky as hell. I knew I hadn’t considered all the threats, didn’t realize what I was getting into. What I was planning flew in the face of everything I’d been taught, and if I voiced it out loud, it sounded insane, even to me.

Break into a compound of St. George, the ancient enemy of our race, the Order whose sole mission was to see us extinct, and rescue one of their own. Sneak into a heavily armed base full of soldiers, free a sole prisoner who could be anywhere and get out. Without getting blown to bits in the process.

It sounded crazy. It
was
crazy. It was downright suicidal, like Wes said. I didn’t fault him, or Riley, for being reluctant. They had no stake in this, no reason to want to undergo a mission that could get us all killed. They had every right to be afraid. If I was being completely honest, it terrified me, too.

But I couldn’t leave him behind.

I went to the sink to splash water on my face but paused when I caught sight of my reflection. A skinny, green-eyed girl stared back at me from the mirror, red hair standing on end, eyes ringed with dust and dark circles. I didn’t look remotely Draconian. I looked tired, and dirty, and very mortal. Nothing fierce or primal lurked inside my gaze to indicate that I was anything more than I seemed.

Was that why he’d hesitated that night on the cliff? When he’d pointed that gun at my head, and I’d finally realized what he really was? When he’d ceased to be Garret and became the enemy, a soldier of St. George?

He could’ve killed me. I’d been in my human form, taken off guard, and had been too stunned to do anything at first. He’d had me at point-blank range, alone and trapped on a bluff miles from anywhere. All he’d had to do was pull the trigger.

But he hadn’t. And later, he’d betrayed his own people to save me and Riley from Lilith, my sadistic trainer and Talon’s best Viper assassin. Lilith had come for Riley that night, and when I’d refused to leave him and return to Talon, she’d tried to kill me, too. She’d nearly succeeded. We’d survived only because of Garret’s unexpected arrival and his help in driving off the Viper. Otherwise, Lilith would’ve torn us apart.

But, by helping us, Garret had damned himself. To aid a dragon was treason in the eyes of his Order, and the punishment for such betrayal was death. He’d told me that himself. Garret had known the Order would kill him, and he’d still chosen to save us.

Why?

I’d tried to follow him that night, hoping to somehow get him away from the soldiers who were now his captors. But there had been no opportunity for a rescue, and Riley had finally convinced me that falling back and planning our next move was the best option. So here we were.

I turned on the sink and splashed cold water on my face, washing away the dust and grime. When that was done, I attempted to tame the snarled bird’s nest atop my head, wincing as I ran my fingers through the knots and tangles, finally combing them out. I had a brush in my backpack, along with a change of clothes and other essentials, but primping seemed like a giant waste of time right now. Besides, who was around that I wanted to impress? Wes hated me, and Riley… Riley was interested in my other half.

My dragon perked at this, sending a curl of warmth through my stomach, and I squashed it, and her, down. I didn’t know what I was going to do about Riley, but there were other things to focus on. Hopefully, Riley and Wes had come up with a brilliant plan, because other than knowing I couldn’t leave Garret with St. George, I didn’t have a clue what to do.