“Piss off” was the sullen answer. “Like I have any sort of choice. When you’re killed by St. George, don’t expect me to babysit two dozen bloody hatchlings the rest of my life.”

Riley ignored that. “We’ll take two vehicles until we’re a couple miles from the base. From there, we’ll go the rest of the way on foot. Wes, how close will you need to be to pick up their signal?”

“Bloody too close,” Wes muttered. “But it shouldn’t be hard to find, since they’ll be the only ones within a hundred miles putting one out. The challenge will be jacking in without raising any kind of alarm.”

“If you do have to move closer, don’t go in the van. Last thing we need is for them to see headlights cruising toward them across the desert.”

“Oh, really? Is that what I’ll want to do, then?” Wes zipped his bag ferociously. “Silly me, here I was thinking we needed big neon signs that said Here We Are, Shoot Us Please on top of the roof.”

Riley rolled his eyes but didn’t comment. “ETA at the St. George perimeter will be zero three hundred. Once we’re finished inside, we’ll meet at the rendezvous and get the hell out of Dodge. Ember…” He turned, and his gaze met mine. “You’re with me. Let’s go.”

* * *

The drive to the Arizona/Utah line was silent and mostly empty. Few cars passed us on the long stretch of highway across the Mojave Desert. Overhead, the moon peered down like a sleepy, half-lidded eye, surrounded by a billion stars that stretched on forever. Out here in the desert, many miles from cities or lights or civilization, the sky called to me. I thought of Shifting, of leaping off the bike, changing forms midair and soaring through the empty sky. Annoyed, I pushed all tempting thoughts to the back of my mind, willing my dragon to settle down. In a couple hours, we would be sneaking into a heavily armed base filled with soldiers whose main goal was the complete genocide of our species. There were more important things to focus on than midnight flights in the desert heat.

Garret. I hope you’re okay. Hang in there, we’re coming for you.

It felt like a thousand tiny snakes were writhing in my stomach, and I breathed deep to calm them down. Was the soldier going to be there when we came for him? Was he still alive? What would he say when we finally found him? I would think that a dragon showing up at a St. George base in the middle of the night wasn’t something that happened often, if ever. Would Garret be happy to see me? Would he accept help from a dragon, the creature he’d been trained to kill on sight?

Or would he turn around and alert the rest of the base to our presence, having concluded that dragons were the enemy after all and needed to be destroyed? It had been days since that lonely night on the beach where I’d almost died, attacked by my own trainer. Garret had saved us, but he was also a soldier of the Order. According to Talon doctrine, St. George couldn’t be reasoned with, accepted no compromise and showed no mercy to their enemies. Garret was back with his own people now. What if they’d convinced him that he’d been wrong after all, that dragons were the enemy, and the next time he saw one he’d put a bullet in the back of its skull?

Garret wouldn’t do that, I told myself. He’s different than the rest of them. He saw that we weren’t monsters. And he…he promised me that he was done killing. He wasn’t going to hunt us anymore, that’s what he said.

I had to believe that. I had to believe Garret would keep his promise, that the soldier who’d helped fight off Lilith and let us go was the same person I’d gotten to know over the summer. The boy I’d taught to surf, who’d played arcade games with me, whose smile could make my stomach do tipsy cartwheels. Who had kissed me in the ocean and made all my senses surge to life, who’d made me feel like I wasn’t a dragon or a human, but a strange, light creature somewhere in between. That person was not a soldier of St. George, a cold ruthless killer who hated dragons and slaughtered without mercy. No, when Garret was with me, he was just a boy who, at times, seemed just as uncertain and confused as I was. I’d seen a glimpse of the soldier on the bluff, when he’d pointed a gun at my face, his eyes hard and cold. But even then, he hadn’t pulled the trigger.

Would he pull the trigger now?

I sighed and pressed my cheek to Riley’s back, trying to stop my brain from looping in endless circles. Rescue Garret first. That was the looming issue at the moment, the thing I had to focus on right now. We could deal with everything else after we were clear of St. George.

Riley made a sharp left turn, pulled off the highway and headed into the desert. Startled, I tightened my arms around his waist, and we sped between rocks and cacti, following the van ahead of us. Abruptly, Riley flipped off the lights, as did the van, and we traveled in darkness for a while, only the faint light of the moon guiding the way. Finally, the van slowed and pulled behind a shallow rise, skidding to a halt in a billowing cloud of dust. Riley swerved, cruising beside it, and killed the engine.

Heart pounding, I sat up as the absolute silence of the desert descended on us like a glass dome. Except for my own breathing and the soft creak of the motorcycle, the complete absence of noise was chilling, and my dragon bristled. I didn’t like it. It reminded me of my old school in the middle of the Great Basin, the place my brother and I had spent the majority of our lives, learning how to be human. Surrounded by desert, open sky and a whole lot of nothing. You could go outside and stand for hours in the same spot, the sun blazing down on you, and your ears would start to throb from the eternal, looming silence. I’d hated it. Sometimes, it had felt like the silence was trying to steal my voice; that if I went too long without making any noise, I’d become as still and lifeless as the desert around me. Dante had never understood why I was always so restless.