Chapter Thirteen. When You’re Stuck in a Thunderstorm #2
“Not sure the loft is the safest space in here, but you shouldn’t go back to the house,” I say.
Thunder rolls again, but the rain hammers so hard on the roof in a constant cacophony of noise, the pounding almost drowns it out.
“Right.”
We slosh up the stairs, leaving wet footprints as we go. I throw on the light as we enter my room.
“Like what you’ve done with the place,” Farren jokes as she steps in.
All my clothes are put away. I haven’t dared to hang anything. The only new item in sight is a dragon anatomy book Dr. Walsh lent me. Even then, the room looks exactly as it did when I moved in—barren.
“I think it represents me well.”
Farren breaks into a huffing laughter that turns into the real thing a moment later. “That’s so sad.”
Though I’m drenched, a warm bubble rises in my chest. I made her laugh.
Not Hort, not Jeffrey. Me. However, happiness won’t prevent the cold I’ll surely catch if I stay wet in my flying gear.
I unbuckle the silver chest guard. Along the side lies a seam I must craft open, the metal curling up to release its protective hold on my torso.
I catch her looking at me as the metal thumps onto the floor. “What?”
“Your full chest plate is so heavy. I don’t know how you fly with it.”
“Yeah, well—” I stop, staring at where I crafted the metal apart. “You’re the one that took this off me, didn’t you?”
She winces like it still hurts to admit her full power. “Yeah.”
“Damn, all the signs were there. How did I miss them all?”
“Everyone does. Everyone did. When someone’s dying, no one pays attention to how the metal gets crafted off.
All anyone cares about is that it does.” She pauses with the weight of those words.
Dying. I was dying that day. “You were right by the way,” she continues.
“You’re the first person to figure out my secret.
” She brushes her hair from her face, tries to dry her glasses.
She’s wearing her old frames with my new lenses.
I look away. I don’t know why, but Farren wet could be the death of me.
Something about her hair, wavy and messy.
Her clinging clothes, especially the white undershirt beneath her olive-green cotton dress.
Compound that with the discovery Farren undressed me before giving me mouth-to-mouth …
I will myself to form thoughts. Productive thoughts.
“Do you want to wash up? Or I can give you clothes to change into?” I motion toward the dresser.
“Clothes would be nice.”
I pop open the drawer. With all my shirts and sweaters staring up at me I’m at a loss with what to give her. I grab a light cream sweater and riding pants and then hand over the bundle.
As the bathroom door clicks closed, I rip off my own clothes and change, trying desperately not to think of Farren on the other side of that door. This is fine. Be normal, Murphy, for god’s sake.
Farren steps out just a moment after I button up my shirt. She stands in front of me wearing my sweater and my pants. I don’t know if I’ve ever been more attracted to her.
She flaps her arms a little and the shirt pulls up on the sides. “It’s a little wide.”
“Umm.” I swallow. I offer a belt, and she wraps the leather around her hips, fastening my clothes to her frame so they don’t fall.
She then hugs herself. “It’s nice though. I want to keep it.”
“You want to keep it?” Like we’re together. Like I’m her boyfriend and she’s my girlfriend, stealing my clothes. My entire body warms. “I don’t know, Walsh, that’s my favorite sweater.” Or at least, it is now.
Shock travels across her face as she drops her arms. “I don’t know why I even said that. I’ll return everything tomorrow.”
The word tomorrow lingers between us. But what about tonight?
Is she going to wait out this storm here, with me?
The loft suddenly feels small, intimate.
I expect nothing inappropriate will happen, my father’s voice bounces through my skull.
I don’t think either of our parents would be pleased seeing us right now.
Or is this her plan, a trap? Trying to implicate me somehow. I hold up my hands in surrender. “You can stay here, but please don’t get me kicked out.”
Before she can answer lightning flashes and the lights snuff out, pitching us into darkness. Thunder booms, but intermingled in the rumbling lies a more primal roar, impossibly loud and low.
“Was that a dragon?” I ask into the darkness.
“I don’t think so,” Farren whispers. My eyes adjust a little in the beat of silence that follows. Her voice sounds on the edge of panic when she continues with, “You know, I should go back to the house. In case my parents call.”
“Walsh.”
“It’s fine. Just a little rain.” She’s already moving, opening the door.
I catch her wrist on the landing. “You just got dry.”
Farren wheels around. “I don’t feel comfortable here … with you.”
I let go like she’s burned me. And in a way she has. It’s one thing if she doesn’t want to be around me. Another entirely if she believes I would ever hurt her. “I won’t do anything to you. I promise. I’ll sleep with Hort even, if—”
“Murphy, just—” She shifts like she needs to leave right now, or the world will end. “I have to go.”
She runs down the stairs too fast, throws open the barn door like I’m a monster she must escape.
I replay every syllable of our interaction.
If that noise was a dragon, it was a wild one who can take care of itself.
So, it must be me. I clench and unclench my fist. Did I grab her too roughly?
Did I make it sound like I couldn’t control myself or something?
Damn it. I ruffle my wet hair as I pace. Should I go after her and apologize?
Lightning streams across my window and I look down at the rain beating the ground. Then something catches my eye. Farren running. Not toward the house, but toward the edge of the cliffs. What the—?
The sky darkens again, and I lose sight of her.
When lightning flashes seconds later, she’s gone.
She couldn’t have fallen, not with how she ran—full of intention.
That means she descended. Dr. Walsh warned me against those cliffs on day one and she’s going to climb down them in the middle of all this?
Before I can think better of it, I rush from my room to follow.
I take a breath at the cliff’s edge. One second outside of the barn, the rain drenched me so thoroughly it feels like my body is part river.
I peer down on black-as-night rocks. It’s not a sheer drop-off; the rocks tumble in stair-step intervals and curve like a pathway.
But one slip, one mistake, and one could fall hundreds of feet.
Another bout of lightning and I spot her.
Farren’s already a speck beneath me, the blonde of her hair the only indication I haven’t imagined this whole thing.
She seriously is climbing down in this storm.
As I step downward, it seems I am too. Dr. Walsh had one rule and I promised. But I can’t live with myself if anything happens to Farren. I feel for the vial of silver I always carry with me while flying, crammed in my pocket. If need be, I could be there for her like she was there for me.
Luckily, a path does lay before me, the plates of iron crafted to blend in with every other rock at the perfect spacing of stairs. It zigzags down the cliffside so half the time I’ve lost sight of Farren altogether until I turn once again and there she is, still descending.
What could possibly be down here? Feyling dragons would be fine tucked in a cave. Any other wild dragon doesn’t make sense with the deliberate purpose and speed Farren’s moving, like she knows the way by heart.
The wind slams against me and all the warm breezes of summer seem a distant memory.
The rain has become a companion, if that companion was trying to both trip and blind me.
When I slip on mud, my palm catches on a rock to steady myself, scratching it open.
I’m thankful my cast is gone, or I think I’d already be dead.
The rocks level out and Farren turns, disappearing.
I climb down faster, scrambling as if losing sight of her means she’ll be washed out to sea.
In this rain, it feels possible. The ocean below crashes in deadly spraying waves.
One slip and not even Farren could save me. I’m not even sure they’d find my body.
When I make the turn, the mouth of a huge cave awaits me.
This must be where she went because I can’t spot the gleam of her hair anywhere else.
It’s the storm, I rationalize, as fear grows in my throat.
The storm makes everything dark. Yet, this cave seems to breathe.
Not just a mouth of stone, but a real mouth lying in wait to swallow.
Lightning streaks across the sky and illuminates a few feet into the entrance. Enough to recognize movement and the unmistakable head of Farren Walsh.
I step forward. “Farren?”
She whips around, confusion turning to unbridled fear. I realize why a second later. Behind her a dragon’s head rises from the darkness, at least twenty feet above her, coal black, scales heaving and spiking in defense. I knew this cave felt alive.
I stumble back into the bitter cold, the cyclone-like storm behind me a warmer welcome than the creature in the cavernous depths.
I’m staring at a Rimback, the biggest dragon species in existence. Only, that’s impossible. Rimbacks are practically extinct because most were gold plated. When the dragon roars and metal encases its entire body, I’m proven correct: sheets and sheets of gold.