Heatwave

Part 6

We were all already awake as the sun started rising, Mom was sitting at the kitchen table with her hands wrapped protectively around a cup of coffee and Dad was leaning desperately over the phone, talking volcanically with the 911 attendant.

"Of course, sir," I could hear her agitated voice through the earpiece, "we'll send someone down to you."

"That's exactly what I wanted five minutes ago!" He hung up.

Mom's protective hands began to tremble as she lifted the mug to her lips. Dad sighed and set the phone down on the counter, the boiling rage subsiding into deflating despair as he sat down next to Mom. He rested one arm over her shoulder soothingly, the other removing the spilling coffee from her hands and taking her hands into his.

Help was on the way, so Mom held back her tears. "We'll get him back," Dad whispered, "We'll find him."

I thought for a moment that everything would be alright as he had said, but then there came a knock at the door.

"Thank you, please come in." Dad said to the men at the door.

I was standing in the living room as the men in black and silver uniforms entered the house.

"No," I muttered, not believing my own eyes, "no we won't find him. Not with their help." I stared wildly at the villains stepping foot into my home.

"Eamon," Mom scolded, sounding shocked and confused.

"No, it's them." I frowned and backed away from the uniformed men.

"This sort of trauma can confuse young people from time to time." One of the men assured Mom.

I shook my head, scowling ferociously and disappeared up the stairs. I could hear the kidnappers talking quietly with Mom and Dad while I muttered angrily to myself and paced my room.

I need to do something; these men won't help find Darpik because they're the ones who took him. Mom and Dad can't find Darpik because they won't leave me, but it can be the other way around. If I'm ever going to get Darpik back, I'm going to have to do it myself.

"Where do you think you're going?" Dad warned as I slipped down the stairs and took my hand off the open door handle.

I stuttered for a moment, feeling eyes on my back again from outside. "I'm...I wanted to..."

"Close the door." Dad ordered softly, "He's not going to be just around the block." He whispered, putting his hand on my shoulder understandingly. I pulled my arm away, furrowing my brow and retreating up the stairs, scowling at the uniformed man still in my living room.

That day, after the men in black and silver had left the sobbing Mom in her big, empty house, I quietly stashed food, clothes and matches in my emptied school bag. After the sun had set, and last night's storm had painted the navy sky a deep, melancholy grey, I slipped down my fire escape ladder and through the back gate.

Thunder crackled in the distance and the cool wind whipped the leaves on the tops of the trees. Clusters of shivering leaf-dragons held their brown and green wings tight to their bodies as they perched up in the swaying trees.

I marched determinedly down the street, trying desperately, failingly; to shake off the feeling I was being watched. House lights flickered on either side of the street, longer and longer gaps in the power leaving me longer in the dark as I passed the last of the shrinking houses.

At the end of the street stood a wobbling bus stop sign, leaves and garbage skittering in endless circles on the pavement. The wind had picked up a sharp chill and I pulled my windbreaker tighter around my chest. Just as I was coming to a stop at the corner where the sign waited, the great grey dragon stepped around the corner.