Fantasy

28 - Taylor

Well, I was hoping to meet Abby or her sisters, someone I know, but hey, Lucy is on my side and that's good enough for me. She talks with a British accent, which is kind of cool, and she seems nice.

"Taylor, did you hear that?" Lucy suddenly hisses.

"No, what?" Just as the words leave my mouth, the sharp snap of a twig echoes through the air. We freeze. A tattooed man steps into our sight. It's Patrick, the agent who chased me out of the CMRA. I thought I lost him a while back!

"Taylor, did you really think you could hide from me? Oh, and who's this," he asks, noticing Lucy. "Another Worldd? Cool, two for one." Patrick raises a gun. Lucy touches my shoulder, bringing me back to reality. We turn and run. Patrick fires two shots before running after us. I duck. I don't think any bullets hit Lucy or me, but Patrick is gaining fast. He stops again and shoots at us, but this time Lucy does something unbelievable. She takes a running leap into the air and mid-jump her arms dissolve into large glider-like wings, her feet become giant talons, and her head shapes that of a Pterodactyl. I gawk at her and take my attention off Patrick as he pulls the trigger. Lucy the dinosaur, at the last moment, swoops down with insane speed and snatches me up with her claws, sweeping me out of the bullet's path.

"Ahhhhhhhhh!" I involuntarily let out a scream as the ground speeds away from my feet. I flail my arms wildly and grasp one of Lucy's ankles. With my heart pounding and my knuckles turning white we ascend above the treetops. Looking down makes me nauseous.

"Where are we going?" I, perhaps futilely, ask the Pterodactyl. She looks a bit panicked, and just as suddenly as we had escalated, she dives toward the ground. When we're only a few feet above the earth, Lucy morphs back into herself and falls the rest of the way. We slide a few inches after hitting the forest floor and Lucy doesn't move. I scramble up and half run, half crawl over to her. "Lucy, are you okay?" I ask, shaking her shoulder. "Lucy?" She moans and her eyes flutter open.

"Sorry I dropped you. I just couldn't," she gasps for air. "I didn't have the energy to hold the shape."

"Shh, it's alright. We escaped Patrick; you saved our lives. It's okay, just rest for now. Are you okay?" She nods weakly and then lets her head fall back.

When she wakes up it's around noon and I ask her the question I've been dwelling on for the last hour or so. "Lucy, where should we go?"

"What?" she asks, squinting up at me.

"Uh, sorry, I know you just woke up, but I've been thinking. We can't stay here in the forest; we could be ambushed at any time. We need somewhere to go."

"Yeah, I suppose you're right," Lucy replies, climbing to her feet. When she realizes I'm staring at her and waiting for an idea she adds, "Don't look at me! I'm not even from America! You're the one who lives around here. Where do you think we should go?" She's got a point. Oh, I don't know.

"I wonder where Abby's going," I mutter to myself. Lucy looks at me.

"Abigail Worldd, is she your friend?" I nod. "Oh, I met her when she needed my help to...open the locket. You don't think she was in on this, do you?"

"Of course not," I say. Abby would never agree to something like this.

"Well, then where do you think she is going?"

"I don't know," I whine helplessly, but I think about it. The nearest place to here that the CMRA might not know about, yet Abby does know about, would probably be... "Her dad's shop!"