The Other Side (4 page)

In
between inserting an IV, administering an oxygen mask, and checking Colin's vitals, the EMT keeps looking at me. And not in the “I don't believe your ridiculous gunshot story” sort of way. More like he's trying to figure out where he's seen me before.

I'd hoped the scruffy hair, gaunt face, and lack of makeup would hide me from the scrutiny Preston warned me would occur. Had hoped to fade from public memory, maybe visit Dad and Sam in a few months—but on his last visit to the island, Preston informed me that I'd need to lay “Yoda low, Dagobah style” until the war ended.

Then he pulled out his tablet and loaded the final scene from the
Kissing Dragons
midseason finale. Heavily edited with CGI effects, it showed me executing Baby, who'd
been digitally transformed from a Silver into a Red because dragon children aren't supposed to exist. And of course they took out the part where I stabbed James.

According to Preston, a week after they released the video, the president's press secretary announced our defection back to the other side and offered a reward for information leading to our capture.

Half a million dollars. Each. A lot more than any EMT makes.

“So where did you say you were from again?” he asks.

“I didn't.”

“You a cheechako?”

“I don't know what that is.”

“Yep, she's a cheechako. A foreigner. A Southerner,” Driver says, affecting a horrible accent. Something between Georgia and Canada. He laughs to himself. “Everything's south of Dillingham. How'd you get up here?”

“We flew, yes, yes,” Allie murmurs. Her head's resting on my lap.

I stroke her hair, glance up to find Driver examining us in the rearview mirror. “Look, we're tired. Don't want to be rude, but could we quit it with the questions?”

“I really should take a look at your ribs,” EMT says.

Which means me taking off the jacket, him seeing the gun. Me using it. “I'm fine. Worry about him.”

I force myself to sit up straight, hide my grimace behind my hand, and return my attention to the window. We speed past old wooden homes and shops, most fishing related. A town, a real town. Feels strange. Maybe because nothing in Dillingham is painted black. Maybe because I've lived in a prison camp or a shipping container the past several months.

“You see anything funny while you were waiting for us?” Driver says.

I shake my head and slide my other hand over Allie's mouth, but she seems to have fallen back asleep.

“Heard them jets, though, right? Sheriff says they were DJs. Dragons in Dillingham? That'll be front page for a week. Everyone'll be sending in photos of junk they didn't see, calling 'em dragons or UFOs. At least it'll be a changeup from sasquatches.”

I can see EMT's expression in the window reflection. The mention of dragons has his gears turning. I reach under my jacket for my gun.

“Thought there weren't any dragons in Alaska?” I say.

EMT shrugs. “The Mengeles say it's too cold for them, but you never know.”

Cold has little to do with it. Not enough food supply to sustain numbers, according to Grackel. Nothing palatable, at least. A part of me expects her to pop up into my head at
any moment and decry the polluted taste of caribou. But she doesn't. Randon and Baby have gone to sleep, safe in the mountains, and I tell myself Grackel's sleeping, too.

“What about that research base of yours they found in Antarctica?” Driver says.

“Twisted, bro. Straight twisted what they did.”

Driver snorts. “You gonna believe some YouTube fool who calls himself RedJediGrunt? It's all CGI.”

“Bro, that stuff is real.”

“I've got a holy glove I want to sell you.” Driver wiggles his gloved fingers at us. “Worn by Jesus himself.”

“It's real, bro. It was on the news.”

“You believe in dragon exposure, too?” Driver scoffs, rolls his eyes. “Get too close to a dragon, you'll go crazy?”

“It's happened. Just watch
The Other Side
and you'll know it's true.”

Driver hooks a thumb over his shoulder at EMT. “Dragon boy's got a real thing for those dragon shows, don't you know? Spinoff after spinoff. Infects the neurons.”

EMT's face lights up. “That's it. I couldn't figure out who you looked like. That Melissa Callahan girl. Shame about what happened.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“
Kissing Dragons
?”

I shut my eyes, give a slight shake of my head.

“Don't mind him,” Driver says. “He had a poster of that girl in his bedroom.” They made posters? Of course they did. I was world famous three months ago. “Don't worry, Sarah, you're much prettier than she is.”

I can't help but laugh at that. “How's he doing?”

“Bro's a fighter. Something about him, too. I'd swear I've seen him before. The front lines, maybe.”

“Him?” I say, opening my eyes to find EMT squinting at Colin. Is this guy an ex-A-B who platooned with Colin? A Bureau of Dragon Affairs agent? Sam once told me they have sleepers everywhere.

Driver chuckles. “He thinks everybody looks like somebody, don't you know? Add some sideburns, and he says I could be Elvis's son.” He puffs out his chest and glides a hand down his profile. “What say you, Melissa Callahan? Am I a Presley?”

“Sure.” If Elvis had adopted. Deep breaths, Melissa. These are just people. Not BoDA agents in disguise. Not ex-military. Just ordinary people. I have to tell myself that a few more times before I release my hold on the gun.

When we arrive at Kanakanak Hospital, a single-story strip of a building that seems more like an extended barn than a medical facility, a team of scrub-dressed men and women unload Colin and roll him away. I grab our bags, loop them in triplicate over my shoulders, and carry Allie
into the lobby. A lanky man bundled in a fur-lined sheriff's coat strides toward me.

“You Sarah Cosgrove?” he asks.

I set Allie on a chair, put the bags beside her. “Yes, sir.”

“You injured?”

I exaggerate a wince. “Ribs.”

The faintest smile touches his lips as he powers up his tablet. “From the car accident?”

I nod, unable to meet his gaze. It was a ridiculous story, but I panicked when EMT asked me why we were on the side of the road in the middle of the night, me with fractured ribs, Colin with an hours-old gunshot wound, and Allie without a bruise.

“You got ID, Ms. Cosgrove?”

I retrieve my wallet from my go bag and show him my Washington State driver's license.

He types info into his tablet. “What you doing up here in Dillingham?”

“Heard it's dragon free. Good boarding,” I say.

His smile broadens into a full smirk, and I consider going for my gun. One of the first things Colin taught me was how to quick draw and fire. Not as accurate, but the sheriff's at close range. It'll be the end of the road for all of us, but I won't be a prisoner—

The tablet beeps. He appears mildly surprised. “Where
you staying, Ms. Cosgrove?”

“With our uncle.”

“What's his name?”

My heart flutters. I spit out the first thing I can think of. “Preston Keith.”

“Don't know him.”

“He just moved here. From Michigan. Tired of dragons and everything.”

“Hmmm. Now tell me what happened again?”

“We were out late . . . partying,” I say.

He glances toward Allie. “Partying, huh? And after you left this party, that's when you were shot at?”

“I don't know if it was someone aiming for us, or just . . . like a hunter.”

Sheriff's looking at me hard, like he knows my thoughts, but he's still holding his tablet, his own gun holstered at his side. Can I kill him without warning?

“A hunter? Mistook you for a bear? What kind of car were you driving?”

Do I have a choice? “Prius.”

He fixes me with a stare I saw many a time when Dad was about to lecture me or Sam for screwing up. “My deputy has yet to find this mysterious car of yours. This magic Prius that looks like a bear and can drive through Alaskan snow. My deputy did, however, find this near the end of C Street.
Very close to where you got picked up.”

He shows me the tablet screen, and I slide my right hand beneath my jacket. There's our crate, wide open. “What is that thing?”

“I would reconsider,” he says. I'm not sure whether he means my story or if he knows I'm carrying, but I hesitate. “Found blood inside. Now, if I wanted to, I could throw you in holding while I run some of that blood against some of your friend's.”

“That's not necessary, sir.”

He purses his lips. “I don't know what strangeness you're up to, but we don't want any of it here. You got twenty-four hours to clear out. We understood?”

“Yes, sir,” I say, redirecting my hand into my pocket.

“Smartest choice you ever made. Now give me the piece. Slowly.”

I don't delay.

“This ain't bear insurance,” he says, examining the Beretta. “Don't ever come back here, Ms. Cosgrove.” He calls over a nurse whose mouth seems set in a permanent frown. “Get these two cleaned up. And this one's got some busted ribs that need tending.”

“What about the GSW?” she says.

“After he's fixed up, discharge him. Off rec.” He gives me that stare again as he walks past. When I turn to track him,
I see a second cop holstering his gun. He grins, tips his hat, and leaves with the sheriff.

Nurse Frown uses her ID badge to get us through an automated door that opens into an antiquated section of the hospital. Track fluorescent lighting, half of it flickering or burned out, illuminates peppered tile that was probably last in fashion fifty years ago.

Puckered scowl never faltering, the nurse leads us past an office and an emergency stairwell, then through a swinging door into a room with a half-dozen lockers and a single shower. She provides us towels, orders us to meet her back in the lobby in twenty minutes, and hurries off.

While Allie heads into the shower, I return to the hallway, make sure it's empty, then power up the phone. I dial the number Preston made me memorize. I don't expect anybody to answer, but when someone picks up on the third ring, I'm so happy I almost forget the ridiculous code phrase I'm supposed to provide. “Obi-Wan Kenobi, you're our only hope.”

“Sarah?” Preston says, sounding worried. Preston never sounds worried.

“Yes. Pres—” I begin before remembering that's not his identity anymore. “Michael, we're in trouble. We used the crate. We're in—”

“No locations. Can you make it to the white mountains?”

“Huh?”

“You have the SIM card?”

“Yes.” I pulled it from the map in the crate.

“Put it in the phone. That'll tell you what you need to know.”

“What's going on? I couldn't contact—”

“Bad stuff, Cosgrove.”

“What about Papa?” I ask, which is Keith's code name.

“Fine. No time to talk. Get here if you can. Sorry we can't help. Good-bye.”

“Wait! Is Jame –” I catch myself. “Is Jay okay? We haven't heard anything from him in a month.”

“You don't know?” he says. There's something else in his voice now. Also something I've never heard. Melancholy? Despair? “I'm sorry.”

“Sorry?” I mumble. “Is he okay? Tell me.”

“I don't know, Callahan. I just don't know,” he whispers. The fact that he slipped and used my real name terrifies me almost as much as his words. “Everything's hosed. I'm sorry.”

“What do you mean?” I ask, but the phone's gone silent. I look at the screen.
Call ended.

When I tap out the number again, a message appears—
Locked—
and I'm asked for a passcode. After my third failed attempt, the screen goes blank.

Preston must have programmed the phone to deactivate after I called him. Worried that I might try to contact someone else. Like my father or brother. How could he do that to me? What if we needed an ambulance again? And what about James?

Deep breath.
In nae.
I fetch my pack, retrieve the SIM card, and slide it into the phone's back. The screen lights up, and that digital map from the crate appears in miniature. I jab at the red pushpins that dot the evacuated territories. Touching one pulls up the name of a city, mountain, or national park and assigns it a code phrase. No other information. No photos. No detailed maps. Nothing.

Worse, “the white mountains” are Denver. That's at the edge of the drone zone. The city's a pile of rubble, abandoned to nature and the ghosts of the dead these past ten years. Maybe a place for humans to hide, but not dragons.

I scan through the remaining hideouts, committing them to memory, for all the good it'll do. When I remove the SIM card, I test the phone again, but it might as well be a drink coaster. I hurl it at the wall, then stomp on it.

I stare unblinking at the broken remnants and feel a familiar sting behind my eyes.

“No!”

No more tears. I did not cry for Grackel; I will not cry for James.

After
showering and changing into our spare clothes, Allie and I return to the nurse's station. Nurse Frown's not frowning anymore. She wraps my ribs extra tight, gives Allie a lollipop that's instantly gobbled, and tells us Colin's looking good and should be out of surgery in an hour.

I thank her and ask if I can use her cell phone to call a cab so Allie and I can get breakfast. Nurse Frown starts frowning again, then lectures me about cell phones causing cancer, extra so because of Dillingham's poor reception. Once she's exhausted her fund of knowledge, she escorts me to the hospital's old-school push-button phone and looms over me until I hang up.

Ernie's Cab drops us off at the Twin Dragons restaurant, which the driver informs me used to serve Chinese before
being converted to a diner when some “cheechakos bullied their way in.” Two fire-breathing, interconnected neon dragons adorn the front window. Long, snakelike, wingless. Nothing at all like real Reds or Greens, other than the bright glow.

The first thing I notice when we enter is the unhealthily delightful smell of grease and bacon. A waitress greets us with a perfunctory hello and shows us to a booth. The few other patrons in the diner at the early hour don't pay us any attention.

For the first time in more than half a year, I almost feel normal. Just two sisters out for an early breakfast.

“There's no cake,” Allie says, pouting at the menu.

“Cheesecake.”

“That's not real cake.”

“They have pie.”

“I want cake.”

The waitress, Estelle, drops off a Pepsi for me and a Mountain Dew and a Dr Pepper for Allie. “What can I get you?”

“The lumberjack trio.” Hash browns, three pieces of bacon, three buttermilk pancakes, three scrambled eggs, and three sausages smothered in gravy. More food than I could eat in a day, but I don't care, I'm gonna eat it all.

Estelle nods to Allie, who's full-on glaring at the menu.
“What about you, little lady?”

“Do you have any cake?” I ask.

“We have cheesecake. Frozen.”

Allie thrusts the menu at our waitress. “That's not real cake.”

Estelle shrugs. “We got pie. Fresh as of last night.”

“That's not cake either, no, no.” She stands and pulls on her coat. “Where's there cake?”

People are definitely paying attention to us now. Most in that embarrassed covert glancing sort of way, but four teenage boys on the other side of the diner are staring at us in that same intent manner as EMT.

“Allison, sit down,” I hiss. She flops into the booth and sulks. “Is there anywhere else that serves cake?”

“There's a bakery on the other side of town. Won't be open for a few hours, though,” Estelle says.

“She'll have the cheesecake,” I say. Estelle shrugs again, collects my menu, and walks away. “Allison—”

“It's Kim, remember? I wanted cake.”

“I know, but we can't cause problems. We have to keep a low profile.” I glance toward the boys' table. One of them has a tablet out. Another waves at me. I scowl, pull my ski cap lower, and grab the wallet from my pack. I put money on the table to cover our order. “Come on, Allie, let's get outta here.”

“Maybe cheesecake is all right.”

“We can get cake later,” I say. The guys have clustered around the computer tablet.

“But we have to have it now, yes, yes,” Allie says. “You said . . .” She chokes up.

I join her on the other side of the booth, keeping one eye on the boys' table, wishing for my gun. “What's wrong?”

“I have to eat my cake before you finish breakfast.” She sniffles. “That way you can't collect on our bet. Cheesecake can count, right?”

I kiss her on the head. “Of course it does.” I call over Estelle and hand her the money. “Could you box that cheesecake, please? Don't worry about the rest.”

“She has to be all right,” Allie says. “It's my fault, my fault. Always my fault.”

“It's not your fault, Allie. You know that.” I zip up her jacket. “Grackel made her decision. You didn't do anything wrong.”

“Yes I did. I didn't want to tell you, but . . .”

“What is it?”

She shakes her head. “You're going to be mad at me, yes, yes.”

“Out with it. I won't be mad.”

“I blabbed to the Greens,” she blurts, then erupts in tears.

I hug her tight, half to comfort her, half to muffle her.
“It's okay.” I try to sound calm, but my voice comes out a hushed whisper. “When . . . when was this?”

“Last week,” she mumbles into my jacket. “I'm sorry. I know I wasn't supposed to, but you had Colin, and Arabelle was spending all that time flying with Grackel, and—”

“Shhh.” How damn long does it take someone to pack up a piece of frozen cheesecake?

“Why didn't you talk to Maren or Syren or any of the other Reds?”

“I did, at first. But then they all went to sleep.”

“You didn't tell the Greens where we were?”

“No, no. Never. They wanted to come visit, but I told them we were full.”

“Good girl. You didn't do anything wrong,” I say.

“But we had to leave the island. And Grackel . . .”

“We would have had to leave one day anyway,” I say.

The waitress sets a brown bag on our table. I stuff it into my pack, grab Allie's hand, and head for the exit. The group of boys moves to intercept. I keep my eyes fixed on the linoleum floor and quicken my pace.

A semicircle of eight legs and boots forms a blockade in front of me.

“You're that girl from the net, aren't you?”

“You're confused. Excuse us.” I shoulder between two of them, pulling Allie along after me.

“Hey, man, we just want to help. That's wicked backward how they treated her.”

Her? I look over my shoulder to find three of the guys scrutinizing Allie. The fourth, who I almost bowled over in my effort to escape, glowers at me, but doesn't show a hint of recognition.

“What are you talking about?” I ask, afraid I already know the answer.

“RedJediGrunt's new vid, man. It's straight trending.”

I make a mental note to castrate Preston the next time I see him. “Let me see.” I step in front of Allie, placing a firm hand on her shoulder as she tries to get a peek. Tablet guy loads a clip, and yellow words make a slow crawl down a black background, set to “The Imperial March.”

“Turn the sound off.”

“But . . .”

“Turn it off. I don't want her to hear this. These things give her nightmares.” Me, too.

“The United States of America, once home to freedom and democracy, continues to claim that Georgetown and other facilities of its kind are fabrications of the growing, global Dragon Awareness Movement. Despite international pressure, including threats of sanctions and war, the U.S. government refuses to allow U.N. investigators into the country.

“Since the government continues to hide behind a military wall and the cloak of propaganda, it has fallen on the Jedi of the world to expose the truth. Many terrible things occurred in Georgetown. Unspeakable atrocities against dragons, unprovoked attacks on foreign countries, assassinations of sympathizers, abuse of prisoners. These pale in comparison to what you are about to witness.

“Some think that, to keep the world safe, the ends justify the means, no matter how great the cost to our humanity. This final video in our series is for those of you who still believe this.”

The words and background dissolve to a high-def infrared video shot from the ceiling corner of an octagonal room. My legs almost give out. My lungs, too.

The reconditioning chamber. The bastards were observing us the entire time. Watching us go crazy.

Not just watching. Making.

Allie crawls into view, her eyes saner than I've ever seen them, and filled with the terror of a newly caged animal. She nears a wall, hands extended, searching for a boundary to the dark prison, and I flinch, knowing what comes next. The CENSIR encircling her head delivers a series of sharp electrical jolts until she changes course.

For a moment, the walls—giant thinscreens or something—light up with images of dragons breathing fire, insurgents with machine guns, corpses everywhere.

The vid shifts to the short period between terror cycles when everything was quiet and dark, and in some ways worse, because now you could agonize over the awful images and sounds you'd witnessed. Real or not real? Allie's rocking on the floor in the middle of the room, knees pulled to her heaving chest, head tucked between them. Every few seconds, she twitches.

On to a later cycle, Allie slipping toward the wild-eyed, crazy girl I met when I arrived in Georgetown. A girl I still see in some way every day. A girl currently obsessed with eating cake because she doesn't want to add another dead dragon to the long list of blame she carries in that invisible space between heart and soul.

I take several breaths until I'm sure my voice'll come out indifferent. “I see what you mean, but it's not her. Excuse us.”

Ignoring their rapid-fire questions, I spin around, grab Allie, and rush out of the Twin Dragons into the cold Alaskan morning. Dark, flurries swirling, it doesn't take long before the neon glow of the restaurant fades from view.

When I'm sure nobody's following us, I stop walking, unzip my pack, and retrieve the doggie bag. Allie leans
against a plowed snowbank, wiggling her butt back and forth until she's fashioned herself a makeshift chair.

“Cake time?”

“Cake time.” I plop onto the mound next to her and squeal at the trickle of slush that squirts into my pants. I sigh theatrically. “Whatever happened to our tropical island?”

Allie laughs. “We'd melt, yes, yes.”

“I don't think I'd mind melting,” I say, unboxing the cheesecake.

Allie's laughter ends as she looks from the dessert in my hands to the clouded sky. “Grackel didn't like the cold either. You think she's in heaven, Melissa? You think God allows dragons up there?”

She's asked me that before. I resort to an answer that's worked in the past. “He's a fool if he doesn't.”

She nods, but doesn't appear soothed. “What about me? Will I?”

This is a new one. “Of course.”

“I don't think I will, no, no.” Her matter-of-fact tone pierces me deeper than her words. “I don't remember being normal.”

I set the cheesecake on the sidewalk, remove my gloves, then take her face between my hands. “Look at me, Allie. I don't know if heaven or hell exists, but I do know that if there's some special place where special people go, you're
first in line. You and Baby and Grackel.”

“But I killed all those dragons. And Major Alderson. And I shot Sarge. And I don't remember feeling bad about a lot of it. I know I should, but I don't. Because I'm not normal.”

“Normal's far overrated. All the normal people I knew growing up were boring. You and me, we get to talk to dragons and live on our own islands—”

“You don't like that.”

“Yeah, I wish it was warmer. I wish I wasn't a reality TV star. And honestly, I'm not a big fan of parachuting in a crate or living in a shipping container, but it's a lot better than the alternative.”

“Georgetown?” she whispers.

“No, silly.” I run a finger from her forehead to her chin. “My mom used to do that to make Sam and me feel better when we were scared or upset. She's not here anymore, but every time I look at you, Allison Tanner, I realize that's okay, because I've got somebody just as wonderful at my side. So you can take your normal and shove it.”

She beams. “You're crying.”

“It's the snow. You gonna have your cheesecake now, or what? It's probably already frozen again.”

She laughs and hugs me. “I love you, Melissa.”

“I love you more.”

“I love you most, yes, yes.” She picks up the cheesecake
and takes a large bite. “Ooh, that's good. Your turn.”

“Nope. I'm not a fan.”

“Liar.” She jams it into my face until I take a nibble. “You have to eat. You're getting pretty scrawny.”

It's my turn to laugh. I tickle her. Way too skinny. “Pot or kettle?”

“Pot.” She shoves a handful of snow down my shirt.

I thrust a handful down her pants.

Then we're both laughing and squealing. Quite loudly. Quite abnormally. And it feels wonderful.