Chapter Thirty-Nine
Rip
I grunted, staggering slightly as an array of bullets slammed into my back and wings. I hovered protectively over Laurie, keeping her safe while my body took the brunt of the barrage.
“Where the fuck did Eric get so much goddamned firepower?!” Laurie shouted in my ear over the ear-shattering crescendo.
I thought about it. “He probably had to plan for your father to send in his own teams of men to extract you,” I said. “This is meant to counter them.”
“Are you going to be okay?” she asked.
“It’s going to hurt,” I said, wincing. Someone out there had a particularly nasty weapon, and it really hurt when it struck. “But the bullets won’t penetrate my scales or wings. You’re safe.”
As the cascade of automatic weapons fire began to die out, I could hear bewildered shouts as they tried to figure out just what the hell they were dealing with.
“Time to make a run for it?” Laurie asked, twisting around to peer through my wings.
“I’m not sure that would work,” I remarked a little more calmly than I felt.
Getting out of the warehouse would have been easy if it were just me.
I could walk out, fly off into the night, and leave the people wondering if they’d seen what they thought they had or if their eyes were deceiving them.
Even now, I could probably carry Laurie with me.
However, the gunshots were loud enough to blind my hearing.
I had no idea what was on the far side of the other three walls.
It could easily be another small army. Putting my mate and my unborn child into harm's way like that was unconscionable.
“What do we do, then?” Laurie asked, burrowing into me as the gunfire took up a more organized pattern, with only a portion firing at any given time, to ensure there was constant gunfire slamming into me.
“I can get us out of here,” I surmised. “But it’ll be messy.”
“How messy?” she asked.
“Like, lots of dead bodies messy. Could be rather hard to explain it away, given it’s your ex-fiancé in here.”
“You have to kill him, too?” Laurie frowned. “Do I really care?”
“It would be easiest that way,” I said.
“Does it not bother you to kill so easily?” she asked non-judgmentally.
“You’re carrying my child,” I growled possessively. “They are trying to kill you. I could snuff the life from every last one of them while staring into their eyes and go straight to sleep after if you both emerge from here without a scratch. But I won’t do it if you’re not comfortable with it.”
“That’s a lot of dead people, who may or may not actually deserve such a fate,” she said.
I stiffened as a new source of gunfire reached my ears. Surprised shouts followed, and a firefight erupted between our original attackers and new sources to our left.
“What the hell is going on now?” Laurie hissed.
“If I had to hazard a guess, I would say your father’s men have arrived.”
I heard Alex barking commands between the bangs of bullet fire.
“Oh.”
“They’re good people,” I said, “but they’re probably outnumbered and maybe even outgunned. I … don’t want them to get around the building and see me and lose someone in the panic.”
“What are you saying?” Laurie asked.
“Nothing. I’m asking your permission to end this before any of your father’s men get hurt on our behalf.”
Laurie’s eyes went flat. “You want to get messy.”
I nodded. “For their sake.”
She sighed, thinking for a moment. “Do it. You’re right. None of Alex’s people should get hurt over this if there’s a way around it.”
I nodded, standing up to my full height, partially shifting into dragon form to better harness my powers. My wings spread wide throughout the warehouse as I turned to look at our attackers.
Most of them were focused off to the side, fighting a foe invisible behind the outer wall of the warehouse.
I had to be careful not to hurt any of them as I reached out to the water in their bodies and began to tug.
Fine motor control was easy up close. A hundred yards away, I could easily mistake an undefined mass of water for one of Alex’s men if they were too close to our attackers.
It wasn’t like they had IDs written in my mind. I just felt the water itself.
I judged it close, and then with a roar, I yanked on it all.
Water surged through the air, wrapping around me like an outer layer of armor. Bodies fell to the floor, cracking open like dried food shells. Several rifles barked a few times as fingers tightened over triggers, but they quickly ran dry.
“Ahhhhh,” I exhaled in a deep throaty sigh.
I directed a portion of the water into Laurie until she could absorb no more of it, the tiny fetus inside her once more content, though it immediately began drinking more liquid.
Thirsty babies, even that young, would only get worse the farther she got into her pregnancy.
I would have to ensure she was on a heavy hydration regime.
Female water dragons just pulled it from the air as necessary.
Laurie would have to be monitored closely for it.
“What was that?” she asked as shouts continued to echo from the direction of Alex and his team.
“Unpleasant,” I answered obtusely, returning to normal human proportions, water still all but cocooning me. With a flick, I aerosolized it, spraying the warehouse's interior until it felt like a muggy day just before it rained.
“It’s over?” Laurie asked, amazed. “H-how did you manage that?”
“The human body is composed mostly of water,” I said heavily. “I’d rather not get more into detail than that.”
Silence.
“Oh,” she said eventually in a strangled voice. “Oh.”
“Come on,” I said, lifting her to her feet as Alex appeared around the corner. “Let’s get you home.”
I exchanged a nod with Alex as he looked at the bodies, then back at me. The curiosity in his eyes was plain to see, but I wasn’t going to indulge him, and by the look on his face, he knew it.
It took a few gestures to get my point across, but eventually, he clued in that I would take Laurie out a different way. She didn’t need to see the bodies.
“So, what happens now?” she asked, leaning heavily on me, not for physical support but for closeness.
“Now, we get you back to the hospital to get checked out,” I said.
“I feel fine. Better than fine, actually. I didn’t realize I was so dehydrated.”
“That’s my fault,” I said, explaining my failure to inform her she would need copious amounts of water.
“Oh. Great. Peeing even more often.”
“The child will absorb most of it,” I said. “If anything, you might end up going less frequently.”
“Now, that would be an unexpected side benefit of pregnancy,” she said dryly.
Dryly.
Laurie tugged on my sleeve. I glanced down at her as we exited the warehouse into the night sky. She was staring at me, her eyes glowing in the moonlight, the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen.
“Yes?” I rumbled so she could feel it in her head.
“Two things,” she said softly, lovingly. “One, thank you for coming to get me. I appreciate it.”
I stopped walking, Gripping her chin tenderly. “Laurie. I will always come for you, no matter where you are. If you need me, nothing and no one will stand in my way.”
Her shiver translated through my fingers.
“Hopefully, I don’t have to take you up on that,” she joked lightly.
“You had a second thing?” I pushed when she didn’t continue.
“What happens now?” she asked, nerves coloring her voice. “With us. Do I have to go live in your world? Can I ever come home?”
“Why would you not be able to come home?” I asked, astounded.
“I don’t know. If we’re going to be together, you have to be there to fight.” She bit her lip. “I don’t want to move away from my family. But I know I can’t be without you. Just being away from you for minutes at a time leaves me feeling almost sick to my stomach. So, what do I do, Rip?”
“Whatever your heart tells you,” I said seriously. “But we can often spend on Earth. The enemy does not attack all year. They come and go in waves. If we can stop them, whatever they’re planning, they will be quiet for months to come, if not longer.”
“They’re planning something?” she asked, stiffening in alarm.
“I think so, yes.”
“Then you need to get back,” she said, tapping my chest. “Your people need you.”
“I know. But I had to come to find you,” I said, holding her hands.
“You found me. Now, we need to go back.”
“We?” I asked, unsure whether I liked the idea of Laurie coming closer to danger.
“You need me, don’t you,” she said, confused, “to wield that weapon? You said so yourself. So, yes, I’m coming with you, so you can use it.”
I grimaced. “Ah. That.”
“What?”
“Well, you see,” I said uncomfortably. “It’s not quite that easy.”
“Why not?”
“Because first, we must take the Test.”