A Pet for the Dragons

55.

ARIKA

I felt something burning around my left ankle as I drove the old battered truck as fast as I could, hoping it was strong enough to outrun the police's car. I took another sharp turn and turned towards the city.

I needed to be somewhere crowded so they'd find it hard to find me, but I was unsure how much petrol was left in the old truck and if it would be enough to take me back there all the way.

I checked the fuel indicator and found it broken, making me curse it out loud, but I wasn't going to give up. Getting caught by the police and ending up behind bars was the last thing I wanted to happen right now. That'd be really stupid. It'd hurt my ego if the police managed to catch me because I was one of those pirates who'd managed to evade the police for the longest time. It was what I was known for being the best at. At one point, I gave consultations to rookie pirates, but that seemed like an entirely different lifetime now.

I'd already lost enough. The last thing I wanted to lose was my reputation among the pirates. Dying behind the bars would be such a shameful way to go. I wanted to die gloriously, maybe in a shipwreck or a duel or something, but not like this.

For a while, I gave the police a good chase, trying to get the best out of the old battered truck. However, the past week had snowed heavily, and the roads had frozen. I'd been in a hurry and forgot to check the chains on the truck's tyres.

I screamed when the truck skidded from the road, going entirely out of my control and slipping to the side of the road before hitting a frozen tree. I hit my head hard against the steering wheel and fainted instantly. It all happened in a matter of seconds.

And then I was dreaming... or maybe I wasn't. It was hard to say in that condition. But I saw flashes of memories. I knew those were memories because they felt real, almost like deja vu.

I saw flashes of fire while I felt cold seep into my bones. I heard a woman's scream and saw a face that was hauntingly familiar to mine, but there were still some differences between us.

It took me a moment to realise it was Myra, my half-sister. When I saw her face, many other memories slammed into my head.

I remembered setting a trap to lure Myra to an abandoned port where I'd hidden the servers. I couldn't access the sensitive information in the servers because Myra had some of the keys.

I remembered setting up a very elaborate trap to get the keys from her. I'd set up bombs to scare her, but things hadn't gone according to plan. I remembered being in a fistfight with her. I remember being shocked when she punched me because her fist seemed to be made of metal. I remembered feeling a sharp pain when she crushed one of my cheekbones.

I remembered a gunfight where both of us had been injured. I remembered shooting a black wolf that had come after me, and then I remembered Myra's rage. She'd chased me down after I shot the wolf. I was sure it was one of her mates.

She'd chased me down in the snow and knocked me out before she took out a knife and cut my lips and ears off. I remembered feeling the pain and terror. I remembered seeing the bloodlust in Myra's eyes because I'd killed one of her mates.

The more I remembered, the more my heart beat painfully in my chest until it felt like I was having a heart attack. The memory of Myra cutting my lips and ears off prolonged. It kept replaying like a bad nightmare, making me scream and thrash more.

I didn't know what was happening to me. I couldn't even make out if I was experiencing the pain and terror in real life or if it was just in my head, but it made me feel suffocated in my own body.

Then, after almost a painful eternity, everything seemed to fade away. I heard a big explosion and even felt its impact on every part of my body. I saw the fire before my ears started ringing painfully.

The servers.

They were destroyed.

Suddenly, I remembered what Ivret had said after we got to this side.

'The port where we found her is completely destroyed. The snow is still covered in ashes. It seemed like there were more explosions after we left with her. The whole place must've been on fire for days because everything is destroyed.'

It meant that severs were gone forever. There were no servers for me to give to the dragons.

This realisation made me open my eyes abruptly. My head was throbbing with pain, but other than that, I was mostly unhurt. I rose my head to find that I was still in the truck I crashed and slowly smoke was starting to come out from the truck's engine.

When the ringing in my eyes stopped, I heard the sirens of the police cars surrounding me. I even noticed a few policemen in my peripheral vision.

It was all too confusing. I wondered if I was in a time warp or something because it felt like I'd been trapped in that nightmare forever. I didn't know what was happening, and the stupid throbbing in my head just made everything even worse.

It took me some moments to notice that something was burning around my left ankle. I ran my hand there and found a string wrapped around my leg, almost as thin as hair. I tried to take it off, but it wouldn't come off.

"Get out of the car and put her hands up. Don't try to do anything funny if you don't want to be shot dead," A police officer spoke on my side. My head was still spinning, and my ears were still ringing.

I turned to look at the officer and blinked at him, trying to focus my vision. I could see shapes, sizes, and colours, but apart from that, I couldn't make out any other details.

"What happened? Where am I?" I asked cluelessly.

"I SAID GET OUT OF THE CAR!" The officer roared at me instead. I cursed under my breath, searching for the seatbelt clasp, but suddenly, my fingers felt numb.

"I'M GOING TO ASK YOU FOR THE LAST TIME TO GET OUT OF THE CAR!" The officer roared again, worsening the ringing in my ear. I scowled at him.

"I'm trying," I groaned. "You don't have to be an ass—" My words were interrupted by a loud screech in the sky that sent a shiver down my spine.

"GET DOWN! IT'S COMING RIGHT AT US!" I heard someone scream outside my car, and in the next moment, the screech grew louder before I saw a flash of red.

In the next moment, I saw huge claws wrapping around the truck and lifting it with a sudden jerk. I screamed, trying to get out of my seat as the truck rose rapidly.

My stomach started to churn immediately. The truck was tipped on one side, so I could see the police cars and the road getting smaller and smaller as the red dragon ascended in the air. My stomach churned even more.

I fell unconscious again, but not before noticing splotches of grey and black in my vision.

~

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