“Don’t worry,” she said, elbowing him gently. “You’ll do better next time. Now that you know how your body reacts, you’ll know what to do.”
“I hope so,” he said, but she could tell that he felt wounded by her words.
She was about to try and placate him when he stiffened beside her, his eyes locked on the tarmac, his head raising up in obvious interest. Anna turned, and right away, she noticed the small pickup truck speeding toward them on the dimly lit tarmac.
“Do you see that?” she said excitedly.
Jason looked at the truck, but she could tell by his stillness and the way he was peering into the night that he didn’t see what she saw.
“Look at the back window,” she said. “That’s that guy Caleb.” Then, she gasped, and she heard Jason suck in a breath. “Lucy!” she whispered excitedly. “Jason, did you see her? He just pulled her through the window.”
“I saw her,” Jason said as the truck sped past them and made its way through an open gate and down a quiet street.
The two of them ran in the ditch, crouched low and watching the truck as it slowed and turned down a residential street parallel to the tarmac not far from where they were. Anna held her breath, afraid that they would look out the window and see them there in the ditch, but when the truck turned left down a street and then into a driveway half a block down, Anna knew that they hadn’t seen them.
“They’re right there,” Anna said excitedly, quickly counting the identical houses from the end of the street corner as the garage door closed so that they didn’t go looking in the wrong house.
In her excitement, she’d almost forgotten Eli and Kieran were trapped on base, but she pushed her worry for them out of her mind. They would get Lucy first, and only then would they go after Eli and Kieran. Once Eli knew that Lucy was safe, the two of them would shift and get away. As long as the guard didn’t know that they were WereDragons, the guard wouldn’t try to detain them in any way that would prevent them from escaping. Handcuffs slipped off dragon wrists easily, and ropes couldn’t hold a shifting dragon. Eli and Kieran would have the element of surprise, and that would be enough for them to get away. But once their secret was out, they had to leave. Anna knew it would be better to have Lucy with her so that they could leave and never look back.
The sooner Anna could get home and forget that this place existed, the better. And if she wanted that to happen, she and Jason were going to have to figure out how to save Lucy on their own.
“What?” Jason asked her.
She looked at him, furrowing her brow in the dim glow of the distant street light.
“You stopped. What are we doing? What’s the plan?”
“We’re going to have to do this without Eli and Kieran.”
“Maybe they got away,” Jason said hopefully.
“If they did, they would have found us already.”
“Or they disabled the guard and then they found something interesting.”
“I doubt it, but it doesn’t matter. We can’t play the ‘what if’ game. We have to focus on what we have and what we know. We have each other and Lucy’s location, and we know that we have to get Lucy out of here. Everything else is just guessing, and we can’t risk guessing.”
She waited, watching a myriad of emotions cross his face while he went over their options. She knew the instant that he’d resigned himself to their fate and the fact that they were going to have to do this without help.
“Do you think they’re armed?” he asked.
“They’re soldiers. I don’t think that they need to be armed to cause major damage.”
“I was afraid of that,” Jason said.
They walked around the perimeter. Jason tried and found each window locked, and the backdoor’s mat held no hidden key. The windows on the east side of the house were locked as well, and they found themselves at the front of the house with no options.
“Maybe there’s a key under the mat on the porch,” Anna said quietly.
Jason nodded.
“I can look under the mat first, and if there’s nothing, we can try kicking the door down. It won’t be quiet, but maybe we could surprise them and get to Lucy before they have a chance to react.”
“Or you could just knock,” a deep, amused voice said from behind them.
Anna’s heart caught in her throat, and she suppressed a scream. Jason and Anna both turned around, putting their hands up in the universal gesture of surrender.
Caleb was standing there, hands on hips, with a smirk on his face.
“You can put your hands down,” he said, bemused. “There’s no reason to destroy my house. We’re on your side, and we have bigger problems than one twelve-year-old girl stowing away on a chopper.”
Anna lowered her hands, though she watched Caleb with a leery expression as she did. Jason watched Anna, following her lead and looking just as apprehensive as Anna felt even with his hands down.
“What?” Caleb laughed. “Did you think that we didn’t see you two sneaking around the house? You might as well have rushed the house with a marching band in tow. Come on in. Lucy and Kate are both here, and we need your help.”
Anna walked into the house with Jason right behind her. Lucy jumped up from the couch and ran, throwing her arms around Anna’s neck and hugging her tight.
“Mom, I’m so sorry,” she said, kissing Anna’s cheek.
The fear and anger she’d been holding onto since they first discovered that Lucy was gone melted away, and having her sweet daughter’s arms around her neck made it all better in an instant. Then, she scowled.
“Don’t think a hug and sweet words are going to get you out of trouble,” Anna said, chuckling a little. “You’re grounded forever.”
“That’s fine,” Lucy said. “Did Caleb tell you about the dragon?”
“What dragon?” Anna and Jason asked simultaneously.
“The President’s wife,” Kate said, coming down the hallway with that slow, easy walk of hers that Anna envied.
Of all the women Anna had met, none had owned their surroundings like Kate did. She was comfortable with herself and a force to be reckoned with. Anna would kill for half of the woman’s confidence.
“The President’s wife is a dragon? Are you sure?” Anna said, looking to Jason and noticing that he, too, was staring at Kate, though his expression said that his thoughts had gone another way entirely. “How do you know that she’s a dragon?”