Kidnapping a hospital patient from her room turned out to be surprisingly easy. Jasper wasn’t sure whether he was actually breaking any laws at the moment, and he didn’t really want to know. He had permission to visit Julia’s room, and entered “legally” thanks to Penny’s generosity with the security codes. But he had a feeling even Penny would not have been okay with it if he asked to take Julia off all of her hospital monitors and rush her out of the hospital.
Oh, well. Better to ask forgiveness than permission, right?
Thankfully, when Jasper had entered Julia’s hospital room, there were no nurses or hospital staff present at that moment. He crept over to her bedside, his footsteps soft and tentative as though he might wake her. He realized this was ridiculous, since she was in a coma, not just sleeping. It would actually be a good thing if she woke up. But his mind seemed unable to process the fact that Julia was in such a serious condition. He could hardly stand to see her like this, lying limp in a hospital bed with her face flushed from the fever, and so many wires connected to her, measuring the vital signs that the doctor had warned might steadily weaken as the day moved forward.
He knew he needed to act quickly, so he hadn’t allowed himself to pause long. But he had kept his movements slow and gentle as he assessed how many wires and connection points there were. Jasper was relieved to see that there weren’t any actual IV needles attached to Julia. He would have felt nervous about ripping needles out, but he would have done it. He knew that was a reckless attitude to have, but he didn’t care at this point. He had to get Julia to Dr. Pasko. He knew in his gut there wasn’t time to waste working out travel arrangements.
“Ready to travel by dragon air?” he whispered to Julia’s unresponsive form. He paused one more moment to admire her. Even like this, she looked undeniably beautiful. He took a deep breath and glanced at the large double window, which would be his escape route. It was still raining outside, and the night seemed to have grown even darker. But Jasper wasn’t afraid of the dark or rain. His dragon eyes could see through pitch blackness, and the water would roll right off his dragon scales. Of course, the weather probably wasn’t the best for Julia in her feverish state, but that couldn’t be helped. Better to risk this than to wait around watching her lose her magic and possibly die. Jasper would wrap the blankets on her bed around her as tightly as possible before shifting into dragon form, so that she’d have at least some protection from the elements as he carried her through the skies.
Jasper glanced at the door to the room. There was a small window in it, so anyone would be able to see what he was doing if they got here soon enough. He didn’t want to cover it beforehand. That would look suspicious, too. He did slide a big guest chair in front of the door to slow down anyone’s entry. Hospitals in wizard towns were a bit special. Everything here was done just a tad bit differently from a human hospital—including security. Jasper already knew that as soon as he pulled the wires off of Julia and the alarms started sounding, the security guards would begin activating the magical security shields on all the hospital’s exit doors. He’d have a hard time getting through those shields, which is why his only choice was to slam through the windows and fly off.
Jake was going to be furious with him. Jake was People’s Governor of Torch Lake, and expected all the dragon shifters to act like model citizens. What Jasper was about to do was going to make headlines in a bad way.
It didn’t matter. Julia was all that mattered. With one last deep breath, Jasper gritted his teeth together and began to execute his escape plan. He began ripping the wires off of Julia. They had been attached using sticky magic, and sparks and colorful magic dust filled the air as he tore them away. Almost immediately, the machines started beeping out some sort of warning alert. Jasper ignored the beeping and kept working. He pulled at the last of the wires, then began quickly cocooning Julia in the blankets. At this point, the security system seemed to have realized that this was more than just an equipment failure in Julia’s room, and a loud security alarm started going off. Jasper forced himself to ignore these alarms as well. He focused on wrapping Julia up snugly, working as fast as he could while still being careful. When he was satisfied that she was as warmly wrapped as she could be, he stepped back and began to shift.
Out of instinct, he roared as he let his dragon form begin to take over. Perhaps he should have been quieter to avoid drawing additional attention to Julia’s room, but he figured they probably knew which room had triggered the alarms anyway. Security was probably already on its way. It never took Jasper long to shift into dragon form, but today it felt like it was taking an eternity. He willed his skin to change faster, even though it was thickening as quickly as ever. His human flesh melted away as his deep blue dragon scales took over. His human face morphed into the giant, horned head of a dragon, complete with a set of razor sharp dragon teeth. His body grew until it nearly filled the hospital room, his human hands and feet disappearing as dragon claws took their place. Wings sprouted from his back, and behind him a large, spiked tail stretched out. As his transformation completed, he heard sudden, loud banging at the door.
“Hey! Hey, open this door! What’s going on in there?” he glanced back to look at the door’s window for just a moment. The doctor who had been on the phone at the reception desk had his face pressed against the small window, his eyes widening to nearly the size of saucers. A moment later he was pushed out of the way by a security guard.
“Open this door right now, or we’re going to break in!” the guard yelled.
Jasper turned away from the door then and ran straight toward the double window. He closed his eyes tightly and smashed his head and neck through. The glass shattered easily, and fell away from his thick dragon scales without hurting him. He pawed at the pieces of the window’s edges that had remained intact, widening the hole as much as possible. It was still going to be a tight fit for him. Rain and wind whipped into the room, and he could hear sirens in the distance. Was that the ambulance, bringing some wounded shifter or wizard back to the hospital? Or was it police sirens? Had security here called in extra help?
Jasper wasn’t going to stick around to find out. Behind him, the guards were now pounding and kicking at the door, trying to push it in. Jasper glanced back once more, and found himself suddenly staring right at Jake.
“Jasper! What the hell are you doing? Open this door!” But Jasper ignored Jake’s muffled voice and turned back toward Julia. He grabbed her from the bed with his front dragon claws and started flapping his wings as he used his back dragon legs to move toward the window. The rain whipped at his face but he didn’t notice. He was peering out into the darkness, hoping there were no wizard police officers up here on broomsticks. He didn’t think they would have had time to arrive yet, but you never knew. If one had been close enough when the emergency call came in, they might have been able to reach him by now. Jasper could deal with police if he had to, but he’d rather not. He’d rather just get out of here before things got even messier than they already were.
Behind him, he heard a roar. It sounded off the second before he went airborne, and he knew immediately what it was. Jake was switching into dragon form to try to chase him down. Jasper flapped his wings as hard as he could, relieved to see that the skies around him were still dark and empty. No wizard police yet. He had to get as much of a head start on Jake as he could. Jake was probably one of the only people in Torch Lake with the strength to stop Jasper right now. Jasper, who was the only acid-breathing dragon in town, could have gotten away even from Jake if he breathed acid onto him. But there was no way Jasper could live with himself if he breathed acid on Jake. Which meant he had to make sure he outflew his friend.
Jasper didn’t slow down to look back. Instead, he stretched out his dragon body to make himself as aerodynamic as possible. He gripped Julia tightly in his claws, silently willing her to hang on. Come on girl, he thought to himself. Don’t peter out on me now. He had no way of knowing how she was doing, or how the cold wind and rain was affecting her. All Jasper could do was fly as fast and hard as he could.
He heard another roar behind, and he knew that Jake must be flying now, too. Jake would have been easily able to break down the hospital room door once in dragon form, and he would have wasted no time in chasing after Jasper. Jasper didn’t look back. He kept moving forward, willing himself to move faster. Jasper loved and respected Jake, but there was no way he was going to listen to Jake right now. Julia’s life and magic took precedence over everything.
A flash of lightning lit up the sky for an instant, and Jasper caught a glimpse of the town below him. He loved Torch Lake, and he hoped that what he was doing right now would not earn him the wrath of the High Council. Surely, they wouldn’t kick him out of Torch Lake for trying to save Julia? He knew the High Council hated it when dragons misbehaved, and often punished them severely to make a point. Dragons were supposed to be near-perfect citizens, after all. If the High Council decided to make an example out of him, they could force him to leave this place. He hadn’t initially wanted to move here, but now he couldn’t imagine moving anywhere else. Torch Lake was in his blood. He couldn’t bear thinking about losing his membership in this clan, so he forced himself to focus on something else. As he flew, he tried to hear Jake behind him. Occasionally, there was a roar that told him his friend was still angrily following him.
Jasper kept his pace up as best he could. He’d never seen Jake fly, but in human form the man was one of the buffest of the dragons. That meant he must be pretty decent at flying. Jasper was good too, though. He’d show Jake what a super-fast dragon on a mission was capable of. Squeezing his eyes shut in concentration, Jasper pumped his wings until they burned with a deep, cramping pain. He ignored the pain and kept going, buoyed by the realization that Jake’s roars sounded like they were getting further and further away. After about twenty minutes of furious flying, the roars finally ceased altogether. Jasper finally dared to look back, but as he squinted into the darkness he saw nothing except the silvery outline of raindrops whenever a flash of lighting streaked across the sky. Jake had given up.
Jasper let out a small sigh of relief, and adjusted his course slightly to the west. He was far beyond the borders of Torch Lake now, and he needed to start paying careful attention to his surroundings. He didn’t have time to waste flying in the wrong direction even a little bit. And he definitely didn’t have time to waste being taken unaware by any enemy shifters or wizards who might by lurking out here from the Dark Warriors—the group of dark wizards and evil shifters who were trying to bring back dark magic. Jasper was sure they’d be all too happy to attack a tired dragon shifter who had a human to protect. Defending himself would not be easy, Jasper knew, and he was determined that, at the very least, no one would take him by surprise.
He could hardly believe he was heading back to his old clan. He’d sworn he would never set foot there again, and he would have bet his life on the fact that he would never talk to Dr. Pasko again. But falling in love had a way of making you forget about everything except the one person who truly mattered to you.
For Jasper, that person was Julia. And he was laying everything on the line for her. He just hoped that everything would be enough.