Voices of Dragons (20 page)

“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 naïve. “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.”

Kay made one more call that evening. After digging out the business card he'd given her, she dialed Captain Will Conner's number without really knowing what she was going to say. She had only a vague hope that he would listen to her, maybe even help her. After all, he hadn't ratted out her and Artegal.

The connection clicked on. “Yes?”

She recognized the voice. “Captain Conner? This is Kay Wyatt.” Her mouth dry, she waited for a reaction.

When he did speak, he sounded angry. “That was some stunt you pulled. Just what exactly were you trying to prove?”

“It's like you said,” she answered, defiant. “I can talk to him. I had to show people—”

“That's not what I said—I didn't tell you to start a fight. That was a friend of mine in that plane that went down. He
died
.”

Kay's eyes stung and her tears slid free. “Like my dad,” she said, her voice thick.

Conner let out a heavy sigh. “Kay, why are you calling?”

“I need a favor. I don't know if you can do it, but if you can, I had to try. I just had to see.”

“What favor?”

“Can you make sure there aren't any jets over Silver River tomorrow at noon?”

He hesitated. “What are you planning? What's going on?”

“I can't tell you,” she said, trying to stay coherent. Trying to stay strong so she could get through the next day. “It's…it'll be fine. Everything'll be fine.” She had to believe in the mantra.

“Kay, how dangerous is this? Maybe you should let the adults handle this one. Stay safe and help out your mother.”

She hadn't expected Conner to be able to help, but she had to try. Let the adults handle it. And wasn't that what they always said? The adults had started this whole mess. She didn't like the way adults like Branigan handled things.

“But you were right. I may be the only one who can talk to them.”

“Maybe that's what I said, but that was before—”

Kay didn't sleep. She tried. She didn't know when she'd have a chance to get a good sleep again. Maybe never, but she tried not to think of that. She'd packed a bag of supplies—warm clothes, hand warmers, granola bars, beef jerky, and bottled water. She found the GPS tracker in her mom's glove box—she was going to make sure she knew where she was this time. She had coordinates to follow. She didn't think her mother would mind, when all was said and done. She tried to think of what else she'd need, but her mind couldn't focus. She put the gear in the car that night, so she wouldn't have to explain it to her mother in the morning.

Breakfast with her mother was strained. Kay wanted to have breakfast with her, wanted to spend this time with her. This was the worst part of the whole plan, knowing what it would do to Mom. But Kay couldn't tell her. She couldn't even really say good-bye without revealing everything, and if Mom knew, she would stop her. Even with all the good this could do, Mom would stop her.

But it wasn't forever, she reassured herself. This wasn't like Dad at all.

Her mother kept glancing at her, her expression worried, searching. Kay couldn't eat. She'd have a bite of cereal, and
it would take forever to chew it. Swallowing it was like swallowing sawdust.

“You look nervous,” Mom said, and Kay flinched. Of course she was; she just didn't think it would be so obvious. She nodded. “It'll be okay. You don't have to answer any of the questions if you don't want to. Just look at this as a chance to tell your side of the story. You can stick it to Branigan.” She was trying to be funny, but her smile was strained.

“All right,” Kay said, but she thought about what she could tell the world if she had a chance.

She was cleaning up her dishes when the phone in her pocket rang. Tam's voice over the connection was panicked, which made Kay's gut turn with worry, sure that something had gone wrong, until she made out the words.

“I saw him,” Tam gasped. “He was there. I saw him. Neither of us crossed the river, but he was there and we talked. Kay, he talked to me—”

Kay rushed back to her bedroom and closed to the door, cupping her hands around the phone as if the sound would leak out and her mother would hear.

She wished she'd been there to see the look on Tam's face. “I told you you'd be okay.”

“He said he couldn't stay, he was being watched, but that he understood. Kay, he said he understood. Does that mean what I think it means?”

“It means everything's going to be okay.”

They had a plan. It was going to work.

“Jon came with me, he showed me where to go, but he's being watched, too, so he went the other direction to throw them off. I don't know if it worked. Kay, does Jon know? Does he know what you're planning?”

“Yeah.” Her heart was racing. Scared, but excited—there was something amazing about having a plan come together. “The press conference is at noon. Can you be there?”

“I wouldn't miss it. Kay—I talked to him. I trust him. I don't know why, but I do.”

“I told you.”

Kay had a few more things to get together. She found the book
Dracopolis
and the notebook with the translations. Most recently she'd worked on the final page, because she wanted to know what happened, how it all finally turned out—not that it was a story and not that it had an ending. But, obviously, the dragons leaving the world, going into their secret caverns and into hiding, hadn't been the end or the book wouldn't have been written, and the dragons wouldn't have returned.

The last page, or what she could make out of it, didn't explain it all. But it explained a little.

Kay tore the sheet out of her notebook, folded it up, and put it in her pocket, along with the extra, hand-drawn map that had been slipped between the pages. She didn't want anyone to find it. She didn't know what keeping it secret was protecting, but she was going to find out.

She left the book on her bed, open to the page depicting the virgin sacrifice, so people would understand.

In her closet she found her homecoming dress, wrapped in plastic, destined never to be worn again. It sparkled white, shimmering even in the closet's shadows.

This part of it was probably just like the virgin part—it didn't really matter; the tradition had just built up over the centuries: The virgin always wore a white gown, a bridal gown, when she went to the sacrifice. She took it anyway, folded it as carefully as she could, and put it in her backpack. The weather outside had turned warm. Maybe she wouldn't be too cold.

“Kay, we should get going,” her mother called from the living room.

So this was it. It was time. She had everything she needed—she hoped. Her cell phone was fully charged. “Just a minute!”

She looked around her room one more time, then the hallway, then the living room. She looked over the house where she'd lived her whole life and tried to remember. On one of the bookshelves in the living room sat the family picture from last Christmas: her, Mom, and Dad. All smiling,
laughing almost. Dad had cracked a joke right before the camera clicked. Something about this maybe being their last formal Christmas picture together because Kay would be going away soon, to college and the ends of the earth to climb foreign mountains.

His image seemed to be looking at her. “Dad, I hope this is okay,” she whispered.

Her mother drove them both to the press conference. Kay watched the house slip away.

She turned to her mother, who in her pantsuit and pinned-up hair, looked more put together than she had since the funeral. She even wore makeup for the cameras. “I don't want to just answer questions. I want to say something. I have a statement. Can I do that?”

“Yes, of course. Do you want me to check it over for you?”

“No, no—that's okay.” She was kneading her hands in her lap. Mom glanced at them and smiled another tight-lipped smile.

“Maybe they'll make you an ambassador,” Mom said, full of false cheer. “I've talked about it with the director. I've given him all the arguments why we shouldn't prosecute.”

“You're biased—they'll never buy it coming from you.”

“But what sounds better, putting a cute seventeen-year-old girl on trial or making her into an ambassador? This is all about PR. It's all about public opinion. I know which
option will make the bureau look better.” She quirked a smile. PR indeed.

They drove a little while longer. Then Kay said, “What would that involve, being an ambassador?”

“Nothing, if we can't get the dragons to talk to us.”

They were about an hour early. Mom wanted to be early. She said it would give them the high ground. Let them control the situation better. Maybe she was even right. Kay let her go on her PR kick. Kay had one of her own.

Jon and Tam were already there, waiting in Tam's car, lost among all the news vans. Kay spotted them on the drive to the middle school gym.

“Mom, stop! There's Tam. I want to go talk to her.”

Mom looked hesitant, but Kay pleaded with a longing expression she hadn't used since she was thirteen.

“Okay, but just for a minute. I want you out of sight of all those cameras until the press conference. I'll wait by the doors there.” She gestured to the gym doors, where two men in army camouflage stood guard. Just seeing them made Kay's stomach knot.

Kay ran out, and her mother went to park. She went straight to Tam's car, and Tam saw her just before she pounded on the window. Jon, sitting in back, opened the door for her and slid over to give her space. Almost the whole gang—they were missing Carson.

Longing and anxiety furrowed Jon's thin face. If anything was going to make her change her mind, that would
be it. She leaned toward him and threw her arms around him, holding tight.

“I can't believe it,” he murmured. “I can't believe this is all happening.”

None of it should have happened. From Kay falling into the stream, all the way back to the atom bombs dropping, to before that to when the first battles between dragons and humans took place. A cascade of terrible events.

And she was continuing the cascade. But the alternative was ending up in jail and watching the world burn.

“Are you really going to go through with this?” Jon asked.

“I don't know. I guess I could still chicken out,” Kay said.

Jon stared at her. “I'm right on the verge of telling Tam to drive away. We could kidnap you. For your own good.”

Tam shook her head. “I couldn't do that.” Kay met her gaze in the rearview mirror. She should have kept them out of this—how much trouble were they going to get in because of her? But she was glad they were here.

“Jon, I need you to hold some stuff for me. Wait out by the football field, that's where he'll land. And can you look out for my mom?”

“Okay.”

Kay swallowed. “Tam, can you drive out toward the border? Keep a watch out for him. Call me when you see him, so I know when he's on his way.”

“This isn't actually going to work, is it?” Tam said.

“I don't know.”

“You're bringing your phone on this adventure, right? I expect you to call me.”

Kay got out of the car, and Jon followed. “Totally.”

“Be careful!” Tam said out the window.

“You too.”

Tam pulled out of the parking lot and drove away. Kay and Jon watched her. He grabbed Kay's hand and squeezed; she squeezed back.

“Where's this stuff?” Jon said.

Kay went back to her mother's car and found the backpack. Before giving it to Jon, she pulled out the dress. The gesture was starting to seem overly dramatic. But she didn't want there to be any misunderstanding.

Jon touched her hand, holding the gown. “Is that your homecoming dress?”

She was kind of thrilled that he recognized it. She doubted Carson remembered what Tam's gowns looked like. “Yeah.”

“You're not the only virgin around here. I should do this.
I'll
do this. Why does it have to be a girl in a white dress?”

“Tradition?” Kay said.

“That's sexist bullshit and you know it. I'll do it.”

“Jon. You don't know how to ride. Artegal doesn't know you. I don't want to you get hurt.”

“I don't want
you
to get hurt.”

“I won't. That's why I have to do this. I'm not afraid.” And she realized she wasn't.

“Kay. When are you coming back?”

She looked at him, the worry in his eyes, a tightness in his jaw. He looked at her so intently, and she wondered if it was love. She said, “I don't know.”

They kissed. None of their kisses had ever felt like this, long, intense, rough almost, as if they were making up for lost time. She gripped his shirt in her hands, and he held her close. When she had to catch her breath, she turned away and rested her head on his shoulder. She was crying.

It was almost noon. She was running out of time. She pressed the backpack and her heavy coat into his hands. “Wait for me, okay?”

He nodded, and she pulled away. As she slipped through the door to the school, she glanced over her shoulder to see Jon looking back.

Mom came toward her, as if on her way to meet her. Kay scrunched up the dress and hid it behind her back.

“Where are Tam and Jon? Did they come with you?”

“They wanted to watch from outside.”

“Are you ready?” she asked.

“Can I hit the bathroom first?”

As she'd hoped, her mother gave her a look of sympathy. “Come out the gym doors when you're ready.” She
walked off in that direction herself, toward the hubbub and chatter of the temporary offices.