I Am Darkness

II

Why do doctors always have cold hands?  Do they soak their hands in ice water before treating you?  Or do they keep their sterile rubber gloves in a freezer before putting them on?
The air condition was on in the ambulance too.  It's like they taught doctors to love the cold in med school.  But the cool air flooding into the late spring heat didn't stop me from wanting to crawl into the ambulance out of fear of being seen so weak.  Ripley MacLauren wasn't weak.
Eugene wandered around with eyes going in every direction.  I tensed when I saw Ashley and Michael following him, along with a cop.  The paramedic met my eyes for the first time since the examination.
"You're fine," she told me before walking away to the cop.
"There she is!" Eugene exclaimed.  His finger pointed eagerly at me, but it seemed that the cop and the other two thirds of the holy trinity were more interested in what the paramedic had to say.
Eugene rolled his eyes.  He marched over to me and sat next to me on the edge of the back of the ambulance.  I wanted to retreat to the darkness and air conditioning inside the ambulance, but instead I braced for myself for whatever pity was coming my way.
"So you're gonna tell the entire school that I'm a liar, aren't you?  I guess it's good that school's ending soon.  I won't have to hear those stupid jokes for that long."
"I wouldn't do that."
"Right, so you'll hold it over me until I do what you want."
"You are afraid of a lot more than rollercoasters, I'll tell you that much."
Because I need to fit in.  Because without my reputation I am a weird kid that people sigh at when they get assigned a seat next to.  "It doesn't matter."
"Being afraid of something doesn't make you weak."
But sitting with tears in your eyes in the back of an ambulance with your arms wrapped around your knees and your knees pressed to your chest does.  I couldn't be weak in front of him, in front of anyone anymore.  "Just go away," I muttered.
"What did I do?"
"Please."
Uncomfortably, he looked around.  He was rocking, tapping his feet on the pavement.  But he didn't leave.
The paramedic, followed by the cop, approached me.  I unfolded my hands from their fists and and ran a hand through my knotted hair.  I took a deep breath, letting the memory of the conversation leave me alongside the air I exhaled.
"I don't understand," Mr. Cop began.  He had his hands on his hips, dangerously close to his holster.  "In your own words, what happened during and after you unbuckled your restraints?"
I swung my gaze toward Eugene, giving him a "you told him" face.  He gave that smile, as if he knew the effect it had on people.  I sighed and turned toward the cop.
"Yes, I unbuckled my restraints.  After that I don't know what happened, but the harness must've malfunctioned and I flew out of the seat."
"Then what happened?"
I hovered my gaze on each person surrounding me, pretending to be concerned.  I couldn't tell them the truth.  If I told them the truth than I would never be considered human again.  Never normal, never popular again.  I had to shield them from it.
"Then I was saved."  I have to say, it wasn't my best lie.  Usually they slipped off my tongue as easy as the truth did.  I scared myself how easily I did it.  But I had to think fast for something to explain bat wings on my back.
"You were saved?"
"Correct.  By a giant bird."
"That's your story?  A giant bird."  My heart rate spiked.  Was this how the world would figure out that the world is not as it seems?
"You'd believe that, right?"  Rule number one about lying, don't give them any excuse to stop them from believing you.  Asking if they'd believe something is probably the worst way to do that.  I was losing my touch.
"I don't know, Rip," Eugene piped up.  Great, this was sure to convince the cop of my innocence and complete humanity.  Cause he was so eager before to help me out with that.  "The wingspan of that 'bird' was pretty large.  I don't know that a bird with a 13-foot wingspan is possible, much less that it would save you."
"Would you believe that is was a dinosaur, like those big pterodactyl things?"
"Miss—"
"Okay, fine.  You want the truth?  It was a prank.  I thought that if I flung off a ride people would like me more.  I glided down with a wingsuit, opened it after I was flung out."
"But your fear . . ." Eugene argued.
"You really think I'd be afraid of roller coasters?  For God's sake, Eugene.  I'm Ripley MacLauren.  I'm not afraid of anything."
"Except being disliked, apparently."  The cop's voice scared me.  They have to know.  They must know who I am, what I am.  "Ripley MacLauren, you're under arrest."
Okay, that's not exactly what I what I was expecting.
"What?"
He stated my Miranda rights and told me what I had done wrong, but I didn't hear any of it.  My dad was going to kill me.  Maybe he wouldn't even show up to bail me out.  Maybe he'd just leave me in there to rot away.
    I bumped my head on the roof of the police car as he threw me in.  I guess the cop neglected to realize that I was 5'10".  We had driven away in less than an hour, after he had settled the case and told everyone what happened.  After we had gotten there he'd asked me every question imaginable.  I stuck to my story.  If he could be spared, I would do whatever it took to make sure it happened, no matter how inconsiderate he was.  No human should ever have to know about it.
    But as it got late he had to see whatever family he still had.  He left me in a cell for some trainee to deal with.  The cell had iron bars and horrible acoustics, but at least they had the sense to give me a cot.  Although it was thinner than my fingernail, it was the most decency the police station had showed for the little girl who got arrested for her cry for attention.
    When the light trickling through the iron bars grew dim, I settled in on the thin cot.  When my hip sunk down into it it scared away all the stuffing and was only cushioned by the table the mattress was laid on.  But my exhaustion let me fall asleep easily, which was better than I could say for the previous nights.
    I was eventually awakened by the clang of keys on iron bars.  There was no light in the police station except the incandescent ones dimly lighting up my cell.  But the trainee's badge reflected the moonlight filtering through the bars.  I blinked the sleep out of my eyes.
    "The feds want to talk to you."  He sounded bored and despondent, and when he left the room he didn't bother to answer any of the questions I was screaming at him.
    A young agent pulled a chair to face the cell, letting the legs screech against the floor, as if it didn't annoy him at all.  He wore a tux and a tie, but he didn't look the kind that would.  He had dark hair that was super short on the sides and long and gelled-back on the top.  Classic dudebro haircut.  Dudebros only wear ties for school dances and weddings that their parents force them to go to.  Not to mention he didn't look more than two years older than me.
But when he questioned me it was different.  Sure, he started off with the usual.  "What happened?  How are you not dead?  Do you have any idea the consequences of the stunt you pulled?"
But then he said, "Are you afraid of heights?"
"Well if I was afraid of heights, do you think I'd willingly fall from 250 feet as a prank?"
"Okay, next question.  Do you know anything about how a witness said your hands were burning when you were on the ride?" 
"He's just embarrassed that he accidentally touched a hot pan.  He likes to make up stupid excuses for his stupid actions."  Curse you, Eugene.
"Fine.  Has anything weird happened to you before?"
"Weird, how?"  I swear if he—
"Have you noticed your hands or any other part of your body heating up like that?  Or possibly wings of any kind?"
"No!"  I exclaimed.  Red flags went up as soon as he said wings.  "You've questioned me enough, now please leave."
"I see right through you," he said.  When I looked up my eyes caught his, burning holes into my retinas.
I stuttered when I spoke next, and stumbled over my own feet.  I had practiced gracefulness and perfect speech more than an olympic athlete, but he was coming way to close the the monster beneath my skin. "I d-don't know w-what you're talking about."
"Oh, cut the bullshit, fruit fly."
"Fruit fly!"  Most of the time when people insulted me I would turn the other cheek.  It wasn't because I was a regular Jackie Robinson.  It was because I was too tired to deal with their bullshit.  But when you insulted who I was, who my mother was, it was the last thing you'd ever say.
"So you are a dragon."
"I never said that."
He sprung up from his seat faster than I could blink and was up at the bars.  His eyes still burned into me, but I fell to the back of the cell.  "I know what you are."
"Human."
"Dragon."
"What does that even mean?"
"This," an unknown voice said.  Someone, presumably the voice, launched himself from the shadows and held an open hand to the agent's throat.  He pressed him against the wall until his eyelids fell over his eyes and his arms gave up fighting.
The killer was tall, like 6'4" kind of tall.  He had the long, lean legs of a runner but the broad shoulders of a quarterback.  But he was no golden boy.  He had thoughtful brown eyes, eyes that were used to looking at death.  He was handsome, yes, but in the damaged kinda way that soldiers are pictured to be in romance novels.  He had dark hair that fell in natural waves, raked back with restless fingers.  It looked like it hadn't been near a drop of gel in years.  But his eyebrows were thick and looked like they were permanently turned down and angry.
"Did you kill him?"
He stopped flipping through the police station keys and looked up, letting a silver key slip from his hand and clang against the others.  "No," he said after getting over the shock of my question.  He shook his head.  "I still need him."
After finding the right key, he shoved it into the lock and turned.  When the door swung open and banged against the wall I retreated to the back of my cell.  My back was pressed against the brick wall, shoulders shaking from the stone-cold feeling that met my shoulders.
"Come out," he ordered.
"Are you going to knock me out too?"
"No."
"Why should I trust you?"
He hesitated and stopped his advance.  His eyes held mine, but they seemed focused on something else entirely.  "Because I'm one of you," he said.  Dark red wings grew from his back.  Massive, scaly wings that took up the entire room.
I felt my lips turn up into a smile.  I was alone, all those years with my stepfather and stepbrother.  The girl stuff was one thing, but the dragon stuff was out of proportions.  "You're a dragon too," I realized out loud.
He nodded, but didn't smile.  I guess my smile doesn't have the same effect as Eugene's did.
"Well, are you alone?"
He shook his head.  "There's an entire thunder of us down in Virginia.  We live on the Delmarva Peninsula, off the Chesapeake Bay."
The rational part, or maybe the more foreboding, part of me finally woke up.   "Yeah, I think I know exactly what you're talking about," I snapped.
"You've heard of it."  When he spoke he wasn't very enthusiastic.  It was more like an "oh shit she's upset" kind of realization.
"Yes, I've heard of it.  Thank you for breaking me out and beating up this dude, but I don't want to get into any more trouble than I'm already in.  And what kind of name is thunder anyway?"
"It's the name of a group of dragons, or at least what we call it," he argued.
"And who decided to call us dragons?  We're not fiery beasts or anything.  We sprout wings and don't need hand-warmers in the winter."
"Dragons are a lot more than that.  The word dragon is a lot easier than saying ophiogenees or draconic humanoid.  I need to take you to our thunder before you expose us even more."
"Don't worry, I already told them it was a stupid prank."
"If you stay here they'll find out about us.  Then it'll be like the middle ages all over again.  Come with me if you want all of dragonkind to live."
"Fine."  I took a step forward, hopefully a step in the right direction.  "But I'll only go if you take me home first, let me see Peter and my dad."
"This could have untold consequences."
"I don't care.  They need an explanation."