A Pet for the Dragons

53.

ARIKA

For a moment, I couldn't believe my luck in finally escaping from the dragons. Pure adrenaline rushed through my veins, making me feel at the top of the world.

I slammed my foot on the pedal, speeding up even more as I raced through the city streets.

I'd finally escaped the dragons!

I left Zorge and Ivret behind!

I left Zorge and Ivret behind!

I left Zorge and Ivret behind!

As soon as this realization occurred, instead of feeling triumphant, I felt empty. I should've been glad that I'd managed to leave my captors behind, but I was missing them already.

It wasn't like they weren't expecting this. No. They knew what I was going to do to them, and despite that, they let me go. But I'd never forget the words they'd said to me.

We love a good hunt.

I shuddered as soon as those words started ringing in my ears. This made me feel more anxious and made me second-guess my decision to run.

On one side, that voice in my head was chewing me off for leaving them, and on the other, I kept remembering the warning they'd given me. Suddenly, my head felt more crowded than the streets of this city.

The voice in my head constantly told me to turn the truck around, go back to them, and beg for their forgiveness and mercy, especially to Radrox, because I'd wronged him the most.

I stepped on the gas and sped up instead. I needed to get out of the city before I could end up doing something stupid. I tried telling myself that whatever I felt for them was fake and that I'd forget them and get over them in a week or so.

However, the tears that stung my eyes weren't fake, especially the ones that betrayed me and ran down my cheek. The sob that rose from my lips was also real, and so was the lump in my throat that kept swelling, making me want to cry.

Maybe my feelings for them were real, too. Perhaps I hadn't been faking it all.

"No!" I hissed as I sped up even more. I didn't know where I was going, but I needed to get as far away from the hospital and then think it through. They might already be looking for me, and getting caught would only mean death and torture.

I tried to recall the dark and dangerous looks in Ivret and Zorge's eyes when they warned me. If I were to go back, I wouldn't receive their kindness and care. No, I'd receive their wrath instead, and reminding myself of this helped me sober up from my irrational emotions.

I stopped by a drive-through and ordered some food for myself. I'd stolen some money from Zorge's pocket along with the truck's keys. Surprisingly, he had cash that was used here. I wondered how he got it, but I shook my head. I didn't want to think about him or any other dragon anymore.

I'd left them behind. It was over. I wasn't going to go back to them, and neither was I going to see them again, so it was best for me to stop thinking about them and move on, but... I couldn't.

I sniffed as I finished a burger in the parking lot of a closed restaurant on the city's outskirts. The more I tried to push the thoughts of the dragons away, the more my mind kept replaying their memories— how Ivret had cared for me, how Zorge had teased and played with me and the way Radrox had given me pleasure for a whole night with his tongue alone.

I shuddered, remembering it all. It'd been only a few hours since I'd managed to run away from them, and I was already missing them. Terribly.

I shook my head.

"This is just like a normal breakup. It hurts for a few days, but then it gets better within a week when you realize you are not going to die due to their absence." I told myself to feel better, but it made me feel worse because I knew I'd wronged them in the worst way... and this surprised me.

I had committed myself to piracy, which meant that I'd looted, used and even killed people in the past, but I'd never felt this terrible ever. In fact, I used to feel accomplished after committing such crimes, but somehow, I felt like a monster just for lying to a few dragons.

"This is not you, Arika," I told myself. "You're not this emotional. They must've put something in your food. It'll be alright when it wears off. You'll feel better," I told myself again, chugging down the rest of the burger with a beer bottle.

When I was done eating, I started driving again. Due to being so focused on running away from them, I'd almost forgotten about my cramps, and now they were slowly coming back to haunt me.

This couldn't get worse.

After lingering on the city's outskirts for a few more minutes, I decided to go to the town that was slightly far away from here. It was a fisherman's town, and I had an old studio apartment there, which I mainly used to store my things.

I hadn't been there forever, so I didn't know what to expect, but that was the only place I had left to go for now. After going there, I needed to locate where I'd parked my ship, Princella, the last time.

I still found it quite astonishing that I could not remember or recall anything. The town was a couple of hours of drive away from Kersas, but for now, it was my safe haven. The police wouldn't look for me there yet. I was sure about it.

I stopped by a roadside fast-food chain again to get myself something to eat on the road, and then I didn't stop driving. It'd started to snow already, and it seemed like it'd be stormy tonight. I needed to make it to my tiny apartment before dark, so I continued driving despite my tears and sobs.

As it started to get darker and darker, I thought I noticed a splotch of red in the sky. My heart shuddered in my chest, and I drove faster, ignoring a strange tingling sensation in my left ankle.