HAPTER NINE
My nightmare made me wake in a cold sweat, thrashing, blindly pushing Jackson away from me.
He instantly startled awake himself, catching my hands in his own. “Hey, easy. Easy, sweetheart. What’s wrong?”
With my rapid breathing coming in gasps, I just stared at him at first, trying to orient myself to where I was and what time it was. Pale sunlight was streaming in through a crack in the curtains covering a wide window adjacent to my bed, so I knew it must be sometime shortly after dawn.
While my breathing slowly began to decelerate, Jackson smoothed my hair with his dark brows drawn closely together. “It’s all right. Everything’s okay now, Vivian. Everything’s fine.”
Except that it wasn’t. During my nightmare, or trip down memory lane, which it had seemed to actually be, I’d experienced some hazy recollections that had shaken me to my core. And once my breathing had slowed to the point that I felt like I could finally talk, I began explaining what had happened to Jackson.
“I had a terrible dream, but it was more like a remembering of my life sometime before I was frozen. I-I had a boyfriend. I think he was nice at first, and I loved him, but... but, then, I think he... I think he started to hit me. He wanted to control me. He wanted to own me. I felt like I couldn’t get away from him.”
My eyes had suddenly filled with tears, and I blinked them back, sniffling, then took a deep, steadying breath before continuing.
“He had very vivid, bright green eyes, I think; eyes like bright green jewels, but I don’t even remember his name. But I do remember that he used to slap me, and shove me, and-and I think he even used to punch me with a closed fist. I was so, so sorry all the time. Sometimes I’d speak my mind, but then I was always sorry right away, because I never wanted to make him mad. At some point, I must have stopped being sorry, though, because I think I remember we broke up.
I told him I was done. There was glass breaking—shouting. I left. I-I ran away, I think. He told me I could never run from him, but I did. I got away. I have a sense that I was finally free from him.”
I took another deep, steadying breath, trying to blink back a few more tears. “That’s all I can remember right now. I was in an abusive relationship, Jackson. I just-I guess I just can’t believe it.”
A lone tear had rolled down my cheek, and Jackson wiped it away, his expression the very picture of sadness and concern.
“I’ve suspected as much, and it’s made me feel sick at times. No woman should ever be abused. You should have never been abused. What that man did to you was absolutely criminal and depraved. Sick, really. He—”
Jackson’s words had been cut off by the sound of some sudden, distant alarm. It was coming in through my window screens, the high, wailing noise muffled only slightly by my curtains. It seemed to be something like a tornado siren, except that the clear sunshine slanting in my bedroom indicated a perfect May morning.
Almost immediately after the siren began pealing, Jackson’s phone began going off, from somewhere on the floor.
He flew out of bed and began throwing on his clothes, jamming the phone in his pocket without even looking at it. “I’m so sorry, Vivian, but I have to go. This is an emergency. Whatever you do, stay right here in The Arch. Don’t leave for any reason. Do you understand me?”
Sitting up clutching the sheets to my chest, I nodded, miles beyond alarmed. “Yes.”
Jackson finished zipping and buttoning his pants, and then he was gone, sprinting out my bedroom door.
Wondering just what in the hell was going on, I jumped out of bed and dashed over to the windows to look outside, but the skies were crystal-clear, just like any other typical spring morning in DC, even as the siren continued to blare. A quick look at all the different buildings and skyscrapers surrounding The Arch told me that nothing was out of place, either.
Not knowing what else to do, I hopped in the shower, then began dressing in a rush, intending to go down to Celeste’s apartment to try to find out what was going on. I didn’t even need to go to her, however. She was pounding on my door by the time I’d pulled on a pair of shorts and a t-shirt.
She just about fell into the foyer the moment I opened the door and began speaking in a breathless rush. “It’s time, Vivian. It is time for us women to help defend the city. One of our spies just sent word that a group of Gorgolians is coming to attack within minutes. They discovered that we have a time machine in The Dome, and they want to destroy it just to antagonize us. But we won’t let them, will we? Our men are shifting and taking to the skies right this second, and we’re going to run down to the gardens and get out on the balcony with our bows before the fighting even starts. And if any of the Gorgolians fly even remotely close to The Arch, We’re going to fire away and take out some Gorgolian eyeballs. Come on.”
She grabbed my arm and began trying to drag me out the door, despite the fact that I wasn’t even wearing any shoes, but I resisted, shaking her off.
“Just hold up a second, here. It’s been fun learning how to shoot arrows with you, but I really don’t think it’s our place to—”
“You did not even just say ‘our place.’ Tell me you didn’t. Because a woman’s place is wherever she damn well—”
“That’s not how I meant it and you know it.”
“Then hurry the hell up and come on.”
“But Jackson told me to stay in The Arch.”
“No problem. The garden balcony is in The Arch.”
“But—”
“But, what? Are you actually afraid of the Gorgolians? They’re not going to be any match for our titanium-tipped arrows; you know that, right?”
I didn’t answer, busy chewing my lip. I was a little afraid of the Gorgolians. And actually, a lot afraid. Based on the things Jackson had told me about them, I didn’t think I ever wanted to be close enough to one to launch an arrow at it.
“Come on, Vivian. If you don’t hurry up, the battle will be over by the time we get down there.”
I finally shook my head. “No. I’m not going with you.”
“But—”
“Look. I just woke up from having a really upsetting dream only a little bit ago, and I’m still kind of rattled just from that, and—”
“You’re serious. You’re really not coming down to the gardens with me?”
Celeste’s delicate, heart-shaped face was the very picture of incredulity.
I shook my head again. “I’m not coming down.”
“Let me get this straight. The Gorgolians are attacking the city specifically to destroy the time machine, which, if you’re really serious about going back to your home, you should really want to not be destroyed, but despite this, you’re not going to help defend it. Do I have that right?”
For some reason, I couldn’t answer.
“Do I have that correct, Vivian?”
“Look. Go if you want to, but you’re going to have to go alone.”
Celeste just looked at me for a moment with the whites of her pale blue eyes suddenly pink. But then she broke into an inexplicable grin and began backing away to the door. “It’s fine. This is how it always goes with me. I make a friend, or I start dating a man, and I end up being just a little too ‘progressive.’ And so, I always walk away alone. Always.”
Giving her a head a shake, grinning again, she came to a stop in the doorway. “I tell you what, I should try to break through all the guards always surrounding the time machine at The Dome, and I should try to hop right in it and use it for a trip of my own sometime. Maybe try to go back to your time, before the Great Dragon War. I heard women were brave then.”
With that, she turned and began heading down the hallway to the elevator, leaving me in a state of anxious indecision.
On one hand, I felt like she’d been trying to manipulate me solely to accomplish her own ends. But on the other hand, she had made some pretty good points. And on yet another hand, and maybe the most important hand, she was my friend, and it didn’t seem right that she was going to have to do what she was intending to do alone, which was obviously something she was far too familiar with.
Chewing my lip again, I dashed over to the living room windows and flung open the curtains to see what was going on outside at this point, if anything. And what I saw was that things were definitely happening already.
Just a short distance away, hundreds of dragons filled the pale blue sky directly above The Dome, an enormous, single-story building with a silvery convex roof. The alarm siren had stopped, and I could now hear all the dragons bellowing as they circled The Dome, some of them breathing streams of fire in short bursts. These were Jackson’s dragons, and after several moments of looking, I spotted his dark, blackish midnight blue form ascending higher than the rest of the other dragons. Beating his massive wings while breathing a long stream of fire, facing north, he looked fierce. Terrible yet somehow majestic. Ready to take on whatever the Gorgolians had to dish out.
Just then, another sight caught my attention. From the north, they were already coming in, a group of Gorgolians maybe as big as the group of fighters Jackson had assembled. At first, their bodies were just like tiny specks in the sky, but very soon, as they approached, they became steadily larger, and I saw that one of them in particular was leading the charge. With a dark greenish-grayish body, he alternated breathing jets of fire and jets of smoke. Something glittered green on his face, and at first, because of the smoke he was breathing, I couldn’t tell what it was. But then I saw that it was his eyes that were glittering green. Like jewels.
Suddenly and inexplicably, a wave of about a dozen recollections about my past hit me all at once, like some funny little memory pocket in my brain exploding.
I actually grabbed the sides of my head, groaning. “Oh, God.”
A few seconds later, when the memory wave, or whatever it had been, had passed, I took my hands from my head with a whimper, feeling as if I’d been punched in the gut. As if I hadn’t proven it with Celeste, I now knew that I wasn’t brave. I wasn’t fearless. I was actually a complete coward. I hadn’t volunteered to be frozen for the good of humanity; I’d volunteered because I’d been terrified, trying to escape my abusive ex-boyfriend. And being frozen for an indefinite length of time, possibly even not surviving upon thawing, had seemed preferable to having him find me.
Jackson had picked me from all the other women because of supposed qualities that I’d actually never possessed. Qualities that were actually the opposite of my true qualities, which it was now clear were cowardice and weakness. And for some reason or reasons that I couldn’t even articulate, the fact that this was the case, that Jackson had essentially been tricked, made me feel as if a ton of bricks had been dropped on my chest.
Not even knowing exactly why, I felt like I had to fix things. This desire was so strong I felt nearly panic-stricken because of it. I had to become the woman Jackson thought I was. And I knew I could make a good start on that by helping Celeste.
Just as the first sounds of battle sounded from outside, massive bodies crashing into massive bodies, I turned from the window, ran to the foyer, and jammed a pair of tennis shoes on my feet before racing out of the apartment.
*
The elevator ride down to the gardens felt like it took centuries.
I watched the floor numbers slowly glow orange, one by one, wringing my hands. “Come on. Come on, hurry up.”
If anything, they seemed to go slower and slower with each floor.
The moment the doors opened on the entrance to the gardens, I flew out, ran to the double doors, and flung them open. “Celeste? Celeste, I’m here to defend the city, too!”
Even before I’d finished speaking, I was zipping over to the rosebushes, where Celeste kept her bag of bows and arrows. Once I reached it, I saw that she’d taken the pistol crossbow, so I snatched up the longbow and a quiver of arrows and continued on to the balcony. And once I got out there, I was greeted with a scene that made me gasp. Only the sound was really even closer to a scream.
With her face and the front of her body toward me, Celeste was doing a handstand on the balcony railing, just like a gymnast might do on a balance beam. She was gripping the railing so hard her knuckles were chalk white, matching her face. But the only reason she was doing this handstand was because a mighty, dark dragon had one of her feet clamped between his teeth. His head alone was about three times the size of her tiny body. He was trying to drag her away, maybe intending to drop her to her death just for sport. It was the dragon with the glittering green eyes, who I assumed was Drago Stone, the Gorgolian leader.
I briefly thought about backing up a bit and shooting an arrow at him to get him to release Celeste’s foot, but because of my inexperience with archery, I didn’t totally trust my aim to be sure enough to avoid possibly hurting Celeste from this distance. Also, even if he did release her, I wasn’t quite sure how I could stop her from going over the railing if she happened to tip that way.
Shaking from head to toe, I really wasn’t sure what to do. And I knew I certainly didn’t have a lot of time to decide. So, I acted just on pure impulse, adrenaline, and instinct.
Grabbing an arrow but dropping the quiver and bow, I took a few shaky steps forward, brandishing the arrow at the greenish-black dragon. “Let her go this second, unless you want to lose an eye.”
Both of his jewel-green eyes suddenly widened, as if he was shocked. But then the dark, devilish expression he’d been wearing previously returned, and a sound actually resembling a chuckle rumbled in his thick, scaly throat.
Taking my chance while he seemed to be amused, I lunged forward, clutching the arrow in my fist, and stabbed it toward his eye like a knife. It didn’t quite connect, but it seemed to have grazed him, and he flinched, bellowing, releasing Celeste’s shoe. At that same moment, I hooked an arm around her waist and pulled. We both tumbled backward on the balcony, landing on our rears, both of us beginning to scramble backward the moment that we did. The now seemingly-irate dragon bellowed again, then breathed fire onto the stone balcony, but he wasn’t fast enough. Celeste and I were already inside, slamming the glass sliding doors shut. Just in time to see two dragons I recognized as Jackson’s men tackle him in the air and wrestle him away from the building.
I threw an arm around Celeste’s narrow shoulders and began leading her out of the gardens. “Come on. Let’s take you to the hospital so Dr. Moore can check and see if you’re hurt anywhere.”
Celeste seemed oddly calm during the elevator ride. She just stared straight ahead, hugging her ribs, her rapid breathing the only indication that she’d just nearly been killed. I myself even felt oddly calm, now that my adrenaline was beginning to ebb. Sensing that Celeste didn’t want to talk, I just patted her shoulder a few times and focused on breathing as slowly and deeply as I could, encouraging my heart rate to fully return to normal.
Celeste didn’t start crying until just before the elevator doors opened. But once she did start, she wailed, dropping to her knees as if she was a marionette whose strings had been suddenly cut. Two nurses had to help me carry her out. They put her on a stretcher, and she continued sobbing, crying so hard the sound was actually close to yelling. Irene came rushing out from a patient room, paling when she saw who the distraught new arrival was.
A while later, after Dr. Moore had had to forcibly sedate a keening and thrashing Celeste in order to examine her for injuries, I explained to Irene what had happened. With Celeste now sleeping, Irene let her own tears flow, and I wrapped her in a hug while she cried into my shoulder, thanking me for saving Celeste’s life.
After, I began to feel utterly drained. I felt completely spent, emotionally and physically. I felt like I could barely even think anymore, could barely even process rational thought. Feet dragging, I began shuffling out of the hospital, just wanting to go up to my apartment and lie down. And maybe sleep for a million years.
Just before I reached the elevator, Liz caught up with me and said that the Gorgolians had just been driven out of the city without The Dome receiving so much as a scratch. “And six of the Gorgolians were killed, too, four of them by Commander Wallace alone. Although, unfortunately, Drago Stone survived, I’m sure much to Commander Wallace’s frustration.”
Jackson. I felt ashamed that his safety and survival hadn’t crossed my mind before now, not to mention the safety and survival of his men.
I asked Liz how they all were, and she said that everyone had made it. “Many injuries, I’m afraid, though none were sustained by Commander Jackson, and everyone else should pull through just fine.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, realizing something. When exactly it had happened, I wasn’t quite sure, but I cared about him. A lot.
On the elevator ride up to my apartment, I called him, and after questioning him and hearing that he really was perfectly fine, I gave him a very condensed recap of everything that had happened with me and Celeste. Before ending the call, he said he’d be right up to my apartment within twenty minutes.
He actually made it up in less than ten.
After pulling me into his arms in the foyer first thing, squeezing me so tightly for several moments I could barely breathe, he pulled away wearing the most somber, serious expression I’d ever seen on his face before. “They’re going to come back to try to destroy the time machine again, Vivian. And I and my men are going to fight like hell to try to stop that from happening, I can’t guarantee that they may not succeed at some point.
And so, on the way up here, I realized that if you truly want to go back home in the time machine, you’re going to have to do it very soon, to be certain that you’ll still be able to.” Moving his hands to cradle my face, he paused, looking deeply into my eyes. “I also realized something else on my way up here. If you truly do want to go back home, then I want you to. I don’t exactly know when it happened, but me having an heir has taken a distant backseat to your personal happiness. But whatever your final choice is, you’re going to have to make it soon—today, even.”
I looked up into his dark navy blue eyes, not sure how I ever possibly could.