Chapter 21 Jackson #2
A lump formed in my throat, solid as a stone. I couldn’t swallow. I couldn’t even breathe. His hand was growing weak in mine.
“I’m nothing special,” I said.
With sudden intense force that I didn’t think he still possessed, Tormynd gripped my hand hard enough that it actually hurt.
“No. You special. You good. You take care of me. I have no one. You give me family. Give me home. Give me friends. You good.”
Tiana and Carson were openly sobbing now. I could see the strength leaving Tormynd as he spoke. His body almost seemed to cave into the bed, becoming less.
“Stay with us, Tormynd,” I pleaded—begged. “Stay. Please.”
His hand slackened, and he smiled wanly.
“I go. But if I live one thousand life, I would always choose you for alpha. Good leader. Good friend.” His smile faded, a look of confusion and shock entering his eyes.
He stared at the blank ceiling above, as if he saw something there he couldn’t understand.
“What?” he whispered, frowning. “What is—”
Then, as if he was a guttering flame and the world itself had blown out a lungful of air, he was gone.
The sheets that had covered him floated down to lay flat on the bed.
My fingers closed on the empty space where his hand had been only a moment before.
A strange, faint blue light shone around the room.
It was subtle enough that I might have missed it had I not looked up at the others when I did.
It was probably some remnant of the magic that caused this fucking miserable curse to begin with, probably.
“Oh, God,” Tiana moaned. “What are we going to do now?”
I put my clenched fists on the bed, feeling Tormynd’s residual heat even though he was gone. “We do what we’ve been doing. We survive. We go on. We try to find a way to cure this. To end it.”
Carson yanked a tissue from a box on the bedside table and wiped his nose. “But how?” He looked at me with a miserable expression in his eyes. “Ayumundi was our last best hope, and he’s vanished too.”
“I brought his books and journals. We need to break the cipher he used to write them. He wouldn’t have done that if there wasn’t something important in them.”
They both nodded, though they appeared reluctant to believe me. I stood and circled the bed to face them both.
“They’re enchanted ciphers, Jackson,” Carson said. “We’ve spent hours every day trying. We need the man who wrote them.” He clapped a hand to his forehead, his eyes watery with tears. “It’s hopeless.”
“It’s not hopeless,” I said, taking his free hand. “Don’t even think that. As long as I draw breath, I promise I’ll do all I can to find a cure.”
He and Tiana both looked distraught—as they should—but I thought I saw a small glimmer of hope in their eyes.
The burden of being alpha was that you not only had to guide, protect, and lead your pack, but also inspire hope.
All I could do was pray it wasn’t all for nothing and do my best to ensure what I said wasn’t a promise I couldn’t keep.
“We’re going to get through this. I promise. Do you trust me?” I said, looking from Carson to Tiana. “As your alpha, do you trust me?”
“I do,” Carson said.
“Yes,” Tiana said, wiping her eyes. “I do too.”
“Good.” I nodded to myself, holding back a floodgate of emotion. I wanted to mourn Tormynd, but there was too much to do. As the lone alpha of winged dragons, I had too much responsibility to allow myself to fall apart. I would mourn in private, but here, I had to be strong for the others.
“Go…uh…go get some rest,” I said. “You guys have been up all night.”
They nodded and shuffled out of the room.
I watched them go and hoped they would be okay.
I doubted they would actually sleep. I knew I wouldn’t.
I wished I could be back in bed with Shyanne, her warm soft body pressed against mine, and have no knowledge of what had just happened.
Instead, I was here, dealing with the aftermath.
Another dragon gone. One fewer set of wings in the sky. One step closer to extinction.
I trudged down the hallway and the stairs to the hatchery. I had one more person to speak to.
Since my sister’s egg had been taken, Mom hadn’t been sleeping well.
She’d finally stopped spending every minute in the empty room where the egg had been, but when she awoke in her bed, she still went down there.
That was where I found her. She sat on a chair, a steaming mug in her hand, staring at the spot where the egg should have been.
“Hey, Mom,” I said, walking over and kneeling beside her. “How’s it going?”
“Fine.” She sipped her tea. “I didn’t think you were home. You weren’t there when I went to bed. Did you just get back?”
“I did.” I swallowed hard. “Carson called me home. There was an emergency.”
She sipped her coffee again and nodded. “It’s Tormynd, isn’t it? He’s gone?”
I stared at her, dumbfounded. “Uh…how did you know?”
She chuckled ruefully and stared into her mug. “Tiana and Carson are sweet. They tried to keep the truth from me. I heard the coughing last night. I knew that sound.” She turned sad, miserable eyes toward me. “It was the same cough your father had before he vanished. They think I’m fragile.”
“No, they just didn’t want to add to your stress,” I argued, though I knew that was a lie.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” she said, reaching out and touching my cheek. “I understand. When your sister was taken, I didn’t react well, so I don’t blame them. I said my goodbyes to him, though.”
“You did?” I couldn’t help but show my confusion.
She nodded. “When they were downstairs making soup and toast for Tormynd, I snuck into his room. The moment I saw him, I knew he didn’t have more than a few hours.
I told him how happy I was to have gotten to know him, and how grateful we were that he came to live with us, even if it was only for a short time.
” She sighed sadly. “He was a sweet man.”
I stared at the empty nest. The stones that usually kept the egg warm were now dark and cold.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” I said. “I should have been.”
“You have a life to live, Jackson,” she said, giving me a reproachful look. “I know you think every single thing involving our people is your business, but it’s too much for one man.”
“It’s not,” I said. “I can handle it. Trust me.”
“Boy, look at me,” she demanded in the same tone she’d used when I was a willful child who didn’t want to listen. Reluctantly, I stayed quiet and listened this time.
“You handle everything even when there are people who can help. You’re managing all the companies, you’re hopping around the globe looking for cures and surviving dragons, you’re trying to a good alpha…
That is too much for one man. You need a way to live.
To survive. Who cares if you find a way to save our people if you’re miserable and drained?
You can’t burn a candle from both ends and expect it not to end badly.
” She heaved a weary sigh. “I wish you had someone to confide in and rely on. I’m your mother, and I’d love to be that for you but… ” She shrugged. “It’s not the same.”
I thought of Shyanne, probably still asleep in the hotel.
The fact that she was the very first person I thought of showed me where my heart lay, but I didn’t know how that would work.
We were desperate to save our race, and to do that I needed to mate with another winged dragon, or a wyrm or drake, to give us even a passing chance at a winged dragon child.
But what point was there in living a life without happiness?
Mom talked about me taking on too much. Was this one of those times? Was I possibly forgoing the pursuit of something that might make my life worth living?
“I think I’m going to go back to bed,” Mom said, tearing me from my thoughts. She sounded more tired than ever.
“Okay,” I said as I stood.
She put her mug on the ground and rose, giving the empty nest one last look before moving toward the door.
“Poor Tormynd,” she said. “I’m going to miss that man.”
“I am too,” I admitted.
“I love you so much,” she said, looking back over her shoulder at me. “If either of us ever vanishes, I want you to know how much I love you.”
“I love you too, Mom,” I said, swallowing hard to keep fresh tears at bay.
She smiled sadly and departed, leaving me alone with the empty nest. I thought of Tormynd, I thought of my father, I thought of all the people we’d lost over the years.
I couldn’t let this be the end of us. I had to find a way to stop The Vanishing and rebuild our numbers.
In order to do that, I had to deal with Joseph Anitoli.
Even thinking his name made my blood boil.
Whirling on my heel, I went up to the roof.
The sky was still dark, but the horizon had a faint glow to it where the sun would soon rise.
A new day. A day that would determine everything else.
A lot might go wrong, but by this time tomorrow, I’d know whether I was finally free, or if everything in my life would be shattered.