24
SAM
I dreamed.
I was flying high over a mountain in an impossibly blue sky, a sky that was mine, with something precious clutched to my chest. Everything was calmer now, I somehow knew. Like I'd completed a nagging task and could finally relax.
And then I was flying with a group. Five other gryphons, two on my left and three on the right, in a V formation. We were in a different place, a place like hell, with smoke rising from the ground and the sound of explosions and the screams of dying men. My brothers and I recoiled from the terrible battle, the lines of trenches and machine guns and barbed wire as far as our eyes could see, and the smell of death was heavy on the wind.
There, in the distance. Specks of darkness in the sky, arranged in a line. One of my brothers screeched, and I joined my voice to his. These were who we would battle. Who we had always battled.
Who we would battle again.
The dragons roared in response, terrible beasts of scale and bone, grotesque abominations that did not belong in this world. I could feel their presence as we neared, an aura of doom emanating from them like waves. And I could sense which one was mine: the dragon on the far left, whose scales were a deep cobalt bordering on black, and I knew he possessed a sapphire on the back of his neck.
I screeched, and my brothers screeched with me, and then the battle was joined.
The dragons spewed their fire ahead of them like the machine guns below, but we gryphons were faster. Two of us dove low while the rest soared high, circling and distracting the dragons. I whipped past my dragon and joined with my Emerald brother to fight his beast, my talons lashing out across the dragon's armored neck, distracting him long enough for my brother to dart in from the other side and peck at the glowing emerald. There was a flash of light, and explosion that kicked us in the air, and then the beast fell to the earth like so many tonnes of rotten meat.
My Emerald brother circled around with me and we neared the Sapphire Dragon.
The remaining dragons went mad with the death of their brother, terrible roars which shook my hollow bones. And the Sapphire Dragon aimed at me, and at the last minute whipped his head away to target my brother instead, and I screamed as the lance of flame struck him directly in the chest and then his feathers were aflame and we all shrieked in mutual pain as--
GASP.
I woke suddenly, in a foreign place. It took my eyes a moment to take it all in: a TV on the far wall. Lights in the ceiling that were harshly bright. A bed that reclined my back at a slight angle. The needle stuck in my left arm.
And the women curled up next to me.
Ezra lay on the bed over the hospital sheets with her head tucked against my ribs. She wore layers of clothes like she was going on a hike.
A mountain hike.
Everything came back to me: the attack on the mountain. Fleeing from the dragon, then shifting into our special forms. And the avalanche that wiped him out... and nearly killed Ezra too.
"How..." I rasped. My throat felt like the desert.
Ezra bolted up in bed. "Oh my God! Sam! Holy fuck, I didn't think you would ever wake, and the way you were sleeping..."
I tried to swallow and failed, and Ezra hopped out of bed and grabbed a pitcher of water from the side table. I guzzled one entire cup, held it out for more, and then sipped on the second one.
"Okay," I said, testing my voice. "That's a little better."
Ezra beamed.
"How did we get here?" I asked.
Ezra spent the next minute catching me up to speed, while looking over her shoulder to make sure nobody eavesdropped. The avalanche, then flying back to camp. Getting me and Thomas down to the van. She glossed over those parts, but it must have been one heck of a feat to drag my unconscious body down the mountain by herself.
"Thomas..." I said.
"He was discharged earlier. He didn't ask any details about the shooter, thankfully. I don't know what the fuck I would have told him."
"And the dragon?" I reached out with that sense we shared, but could barely feel him. He was faint, like he was very far away. Or maybe even just the memory of him. I was too weak to tell.
"The avalanche was on the news," Ezra explained, "but I haven't heard if there were any bodies pulled from the snow. I don't have a phone or anything else to look up what happened. So I know as much as you do."
I shrugged, which sent pain sizzling up my side. I pulled back the sheet and lifted my hospital gown to reveal rows of long bandages.
"From the trees," Ezra explained, taking my hand and squeezing it. I got the impression she wouldn't let go even if I had to go use the bathroom.
"I told you to stay put. During the avalanche."
"And the nurses told me to stay in the waiting room. Spoiler alert: I'm not good at following directions." But she blushed, and gave an apologetic smile. "It was one hell of a plan."
"Yeah," I said, adjusting myself in the bed. "Thank God it worked."
I pulled Ezra to me, and wrapped my arms around her with quickly growing strength, and held her for what felt like forever.