Mr. and Mrs. Haddock [Book Four of The Boy Next Door]

Chapter 23 - Bewildered

H I C C U P

I flew with my bud, but I took Spitfire with me because Toothless didn't want to leave her. The winds were cold and it began to rain. No lightning though.

It was still daylight, but the clouds made it seem like it was getting close to dusk.

I couldn't find any trace of Astrid or her dragon, and it started off as a wild goose chase. But when Spitfire saw something in the water, the hope that was lost came to me.

It was Astrid's headband. She always wore it, and each year she made a new one. Toothless dove for the water and picked the headband up. He handed it to Spitfire and she handed it to me.

They're so smart. It's like they know us humans. Hm...

I held her headband in my hand and took a deep breath. Whoever took Astrid did a pretty good job at covering their tracks. But they probably didn't know that I had one of the smartest - if not, the smartest - dragons on my side. And I had two of them.

Toothless followed the scent that the dragons left behind and flew with caution. The dragons that took Astrid did so without worry, and they had a plan, too.

Then Toothless stopped moving forward and hovered in the air. His head was pointing to a land full of dragons. And there was a bigger one surrounding it: it had two tusks sticking out from the head, and multiple spikes on the body. It was white and brown, and the eyes were blue.

This was a big dragon. Bigger than Red Death that Toothless and I killed a couple years back. Then I saw the dragons that took Astrid coming straight for us. Toothless charged up his plasma but a dragon stopped them before they coild reach us.

The dragon growled and turned his head to the island, telling the dragons to go back to the island. The dragon who saved us turned around and smiled. The wings were white with orange tips.

When the dragon lowered his head, my heart raced. Toothless and Spitfire smiled.