I had no idea there were so many motels in existence, much less that so many of them sat outside Roanoke.

“I’ve driven this road hundreds of times,” I said as we got back in the Jeep after reaching another dead end. One of many. The sun was already finishing its descent, and we hadn’t found any trace of Alina. I climbed behind the wheel with a heavy sigh. “How have I never noticed all the motels and restaurants?”

She chuckled as she settled in beside me. “I think it’s sort of the way you guys make fun of humans for not noticing things.”

“I don’t make fun. Pierce and the others might.”

“It doesn’t matter. You know what I mean. If you’re not looking for something, you won’t see it. Like these motels. When you’re on your way to somewhere specific, the rest of the road fades into the background.”

She was right. I had never paid attention. I had no use for any of the rundown, brick or cinder block buildings with their rows of brightly colored doors and strings of cars parked along the front. I would never respond to the pull of a neon sign gleaming off the chrome-plated walls of a diner for any reason having to do with hunger.

Looking for Alina had opened a new world to me. It wasn’t a world I would’ve chosen to spend copious amounts of time in, given the choice. She was worth the visit—something I reminded myself every time we had to make conversation with a front desk clerk or waitress.

“You can’t see anything specific?” I asked, even though I had already asked at least five or six times and knew she would tell me if she had another vision.

I couldn’t stand the growing hopelessness. It made me restless, anxious, irritable. I wasn’t the most temperamental in my family by a long shot. I spent a lot of time reading and learning about us and the world around us. I preferred a game of chess to any of the video games the guys played. But that didn’t mean I was comfortable sitting around, letting life happen to me. I needed to be proactive.

Right now, being proactive meant driving for miles at a stretch, stopping to ask questions about a young, blonde woman who would most likely be traveling alone. One who looked a lot like Jasmine.

I let her do the talking whenever we approached anyone—instinct told me both men and women would respond better to a young woman looking for another young woman she claimed was her sister than they would to me. A tall, muscular, deep-voiced man might not fare as well.

There would be inevitable questions of why the girl ran away and why I wanted her back. Those questions would color any response I received.

Jasmine closed her eyes and let her head rest against the vinyl seat.

I knew enough by now to leave her alone while she was reaching out for something to grab onto.

“It’s like looking through a cloud of smoke,” she had explained early in our trip. “I’m looking as hard as I can, watching, and reaching out for anything that might pass through on the other side of the cloud.”

It was torture, staying quiet and letting her reach out or whatever it was she was doing. Especially when it hadn’t helped so far.

“She’s relaxed. For now.”

“You’re sure of that?” Did it mean she had settled in for the night? If she was staying in one spot until morning, that might make finding her much simpler.

“Definitely. I’ve picked up a very restless, uneasy feeling until now. That’s gone. She’s safe for the time being, or thinks so. I wish I could see where she is.”

“Just keep trying. I need to know where to take us next.”

She shrugged, eyes closed. “Keep driving east, I guess. We can still stop at the next place we come to.”

We had just left an area heavily populated with rest stops, gas stations, convenience stores and strip malls. The road ahead looked dark and stretched on for miles.

“I don’t know how much longer we can keep driving east before it would make sense to turn north,” I warned.

“Well, I hope I’ll have something clearer soon. Just let me think, please.”

I let her think. It was easier to drive in silence, anyway. I had always enjoyed driving alone at night, flying alone at night. By myself, with my thoughts, knowing most of the world around me was asleep.

There was a solitude in those moments that I wasn’t able to enjoy at any other time, always surrounded by my family. It was why I spent so much time in the library. I needed space to breathe, to think.

Naturally, my thoughts centered around Alina right now. She was finally settled in somewhere. How had she gotten there? How many chances had she taken? What had she seen? Did she feel hopeful, or was she dreading doing it all again the next day? I hated to imagine her tired, rumpled, feeling hopeless, but that was all that came to mind. How could she feel otherwise, all alone as she was?

Suddenly, Jasmine’s voice broke the silence. “Do you love my sister?”

Just when I thought she couldn’t surprise me. I burst out laughing. “What?”

She rolled her eyes. “Come on. You can tell me. I’m practically family.”

“I wouldn’t go that far,” I murmured, turning my attention back to the road.

We’d been driving for hours, and I wasn’t sure about her, but I was starting to lose hope of ever finding Alina. Maybe Jasmine’s vision was a blip, an anomaly, and all I was doing by cruising down a dark highway on a rainy night was earning a punch in the face from my brother.

Who was I kidding? It would be a lot worse than a punch in the face.

“You wouldn’t go that far. Ouch.”

“I don’t mean any offense. You’ve lived with us for a few weeks. You were sick for some of that time. We haven’t had a lot of time to develop a close kinship.”

“You sound like a robot sometimes. Has anyone ever told you that?”

“Now that you mention it? Yes. I’ve heard that before.”

“And it doesn’t bother you?”

“I didn’t say it doesn’t bother me. Only that it’s happened before.”

She waited for a beat before replying, “So why do you hold yourself back the way you do? It bothers you that somebody called you a robot. Why do you keep acting like one?”

“It’s who I am—and, by the way, being bothered when called a robot isn’t the same as hating who I am. I don’t want to change. This is my nature. It would be like denying my dragon. After a thousand years, I don’t even think it would be possible to be anybody else.”

“That’s admirable,” she murmured with a smile in her voice. “Even so, has it ever occurred to you that maybe you could—I don’t know—lower your shields a little and relax?”

“Lower my shields?”

“You know what I mean. If you care about Alina the way I think you do, you should’ve said something to her about it before she left.”

“I couldn’t do that.”

“Because you don’t like talking about your feelings?”

“None of us likes talking about our feelings, Jasmine. It’s not what we do. Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

“I’ve only been with you guys for a few weeks, remember?”

I had to laugh. “All right. You got me.”

“Seriously, though,” she chuckled, “you could’ve told her. She was just dying for you to.”

A pang of regret touched me. The dragon was silent for once, I didn’t have to listen to him disagreeing with her out of hand and could actually reflect. “Was she? I mean, you know that for sure?”

“I admit that we never talked about it, because she’s always been a very private person. But I can read her like a book. Whatever she’s thinking or feeling is right there on the surface. She doesn’t have to say anything. It’s all visible.”

I knew that. I knew Alina. I had seen the pain on her face and heard it in her voice. She didn’t need to come out and tell me I was hurting her. Even so, it was easier to tell myself I was imagining things or only seeing what the dragon wanted me to see to prove its point.

“Why didn’t you tell her?” she pressed.

I gripped the steering wheel tight enough for my knuckles to go white. Why couldn’t she leave me alone? “Because it was difficult enough to let her go. Is that what you want to hear? Is that enough for you to drop this topic? I wish you would.”

“It wouldn’t have been as difficult on her if you had just let her know that you didn’t want it to happen that way.”

“How? How would that have made her going away easier?”

“I didn’t say easier,” she muttered. “Just less difficult. She wouldn’t have to wonder over and over if she was nuts for thinking there could ever be anything between you two. She might not have to feel so alone.”

“You’re an expert now. Is that it? You know everything and the rest of us know nothing?”

“Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me to calm down.”

For a while, the only sound was that of my heavy breathing and the Jeep’s engine as we rolled on through the darkness. Only our headlights and those from the cars passing in the opposite direction lit the night. Maybe she would drop it. If she was smart, she would. Didn’t she know enough about dragons to know there was a limit to how far others could push us before we pushed back?

Her voice was barely a whisper when she spoke again. “I’m sorry things have been tough for you two, is all.”

“Thanks for that, but it doesn’t make things any better.”

“I’m trying to find her for both of us. You know that, right?”

“It’s irrelevant,” I argued. “She’s not mine. She can’t be. It can’t ever happen—why can’t you both understand that?”

“I’m sorry, then. I was under the mistaken impression that we were looking for her so we could bring her back with us. Wasn’t that the plan? When did you change your mind?”

“I didn’t. I mean, it wasn’t. Oh, hell, I don’t know. You’ll never understand how this is tearing me apart. On the one hand, I have her. On the other hand, I have my family and my duty. Which do I choose? I lose no matter which way I go.”

“Not necessarily.”

“Yes, necessarily. I wish you would stop acting like you have any idea what you’re talking about.”

“Are you forgetting the fact that I had to leave my clan to be with Pierce?” she asked in a quiet voice. “I mean, I had a duty to them, too. My father was our leader. I was expected to step into a leadership position when I came of age—for us, it’s when biological age reaches twenty-five years. We don’t age as slowly as you, but we do age slowly. Anyway, I had to turn my back on that. I turned my back on my sister, which was an even bigger deal for me. We’re all we’ve had since we lost our parents. It wasn’t easy for me, Smoke.”

“What are you saying? That I should turn my back on my family for her sake?”

“No, not at all. You’re safer when you’re together. But you could still have spoken up for yourself, if only for her sake. Those are the sorts of things a person has to do when something bigger is at stake.”

My dragon agreed with her. I could feel it and t had to be a first: my dragon agreeing with an outsider on anything.

“It was five-to-one, Jasmine. The time to have an argument about it with the family wasn’t while we were in front of her.”

“It would’ve been five-to-two,” she argued. “I would’ve stood by you. And I bet I could’ve gotten Pierce on our side, too.”

“Enough!” I slammed a palm into the wheel, making her gasp and press herself against her door.

She had never seen me lose my temper—not many people ever had. I could count five others, and they all looked a lot like me.

“I’m sick and tired of you telling me what I could’ve done, what I should’ve done. I did what I had to do, and I don’t care if you went through doubts about leaving your clan because your situation just isn’t the same as it was for me. It never will be. Mind your own business and focus on finding your sister.”

I turned north without asking, since the direction we’d been going wasn’t getting us anywhere but further away from Roanoke and the mountains. Alina wouldn’t have gone that far away if she was planning on finding us. But was she? Did Jasmine have a clue what she was talking about?

A few miles passed before we were back in the heart of civilization, but still on the outskirts of town. High rises glowed in the distance, like stars against the night sky. And, of course, the road leading to it was lined on either side with neon lights. Another stretch of potential places for Alina to spend the night.

I took a deep breath and made a left turn with the intention of getting started.

“Wait.” Jasmine put a hand on my arm. “She’s close.”

I didn’t want to believe it. I was afraid of getting my hopes up. “You’re sure?”

“I would bet my life on it. Everything I’ve felt so far has been foggy, slippery, unsure. But this is strong. It’s like she’s right here in the car with her. I can almost feel her.” Only it was my arm she was squeezing for dear life.

“Which way?” I couldn’t keep my heart from racing at the thought that this could be it, we could find her. We might be minutes away.

Her head swiveled back and forth. “I don’t know. When you turned left, the feeling got stronger. It’s even stronger now. Keep going. If it gets weaker, I’ll know we went too far.”

So I did, fighting the urge to fly down the road so we could get to Alina faster. Jasmine needed me to take it slow so she could feel and direct me. I drove as slowly as I could get away with moving on a fairly busy four-lane road. All the while I stole glances at her, waiting for a signal.

We passed one motel, then another. A restaurant. A strip mall. “Not yet—it’s still getting stronger,” she said. “She’s in a small room. One bed. I wonder if she feels me with her, if she knows we’re coming.”

“Stay focused. You can ask her these questions later.”

My dragon paced impatiently, grunting, snorting, waiting for something to happen. Waiting was never his strong suit.

“Right, right.” Her eyes snapped open. “It’s fading again!”

“Shit!” I swung the wheel, turning the Jeep around without waiting to gauge the flow of traffic.

Horns blared all around us as the tires squealed and we fishtailed almost out of control, but I managed to keep us on the right side of the road.

“Whoa,” Jasmine breathed, one hand over her chest.

“Well? Do you still feel her?”

She nodded, gulping for air. “Yes. Stronger now that we’re going this way.”

I looked around. “There’s nothing here, though. I don’t see any place she could’ve stopped.” A diner, a gas station, a chain restaurant. “Maybe she’s getting something to eat.”

“No, no, I’m sure I saw flashes of a room. She’s here somewhere.” She craned her neck as she strained to see anything behind the buildings closest to the road. “Wait! There’s a motor court behind the restaurant! See it?”

I looked in the direction she pointed and could just make out a dimly-lit building with a half-working neon sign.

“She’s got to be there. That has to be it.” She sounded so sure of herself that I had no choice but to follow her instructions.

I, for one, didn’t enjoy the thought of Alina staying in what looked like a pit, but it made sense if she wanted to travel under the radar and on the cheap.

There were only a few other cars parked in front of the long, single-story building. A light rain began to fall as we pulled to a stop in one of the available spaces. Jasmine practically jumped out of the Jeep and ran for the front office with me trailing behind.

“Hello?” she called out as we entered the tiny, dingy little room with its portable television and a computer that looked as though it might have been one of the very first. My heightened senses picked up the stench of cigarettes, cheap cologne, whiskey.

“Maybe he’s gone on a break,” I suggested, leaning over the counter for a glimpse of the back office. It looked empty.

“I can’t wait for this guy to take a shit, whoever he is.”

I would’ve laughed at her frankness if the situation wasn’t so tense.

She looked out the glass door, a pensive frown on her face. “Only three of the rooms have lights on in them. See the second from the last?”

I looked over the top of her head. “Yes.”

“It’s the only one without a car parked in front of it.”

“That’s as good a place to start as any,” I agreed.

Just like that, she was off again, and I jogged to keep up with her. I hoped we weren’t about to piss off some random couple looking for a good time in a remote room, but the dragon told me she was there.

How he knew, I couldn’t say. But he was never wrong.

Jasmine banged on the door with the side of her fist. “Alina? Is that you in there? It’s Jasmine and Smoke!”

Our eyes met when we heard the creaking of bedsprings, the rapid patter of footsteps across a tile floor.