City of Speed, page 8
“I’m sorry!” he repeated. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”
His world lurched, and he was upright again. The wind was no longer pulling his lips from his teeth, and his stomach settled back to its usual spot. Brazza was in the center of the empty avenue once more, gliding along between the green-lit drones with languid flaps. She was smooth as a noodle sliding through broth.
Abel loosened his cramped hands on the reins and unclenched his legs from the sides of her neck. He slumped in the saddle and exhaled, staring up at the orange-and-pink sky, where the first stars were just popping out. He breathed in through his nose and out through his mouth, trying to calm down, slow his heartbeat, and keep from throwing up.
His hands shook, but he had survived. And he’d learned a valuable lesson: Brazza was in charge.
One glance back over his shoulder taught him a second lesson, and this one actually made him smile.
They were very far from where he’d first loosened her reins for speed.
Brazza was fast. Like, really, really fast.
If he could figure out how to train her without getting himself killed, she might just be an unbeatable racer.
That was, at this point, a big if.
He had no idea how to train a racing dragon, but he started to think that might be an advantage. Brazza had no desire to be a racing dragon.
“What took you so long?” Roa asked the moment he’d landed on a crumbling platform halfway up the ruined skyscraper. The sun had set; the city’s neon lights gleamed and blinked like humanity’s own starlight. Roa and Topher were impatient after a long, long wait.
“Brazza has her own pace,” Abel explained. After her deadly burst of speed, she’d decided to fly extra slowly, daring him to try speeding her up. Unlike the dragon pepper sundae, this was a dare he did not take.
“Well, I hope she’s faster in a race, because that took forever,” Topher groaned.
“My parents called, like, four hundred times,” Roa said.
“What’d you tell them?” Abel asked.
“As little as possible. Just that I’d be home late and they needed to trust me. How about yours?”
Abel pulled his phone out to check. He had thirty-seven missed calls. “I just didn’t answer,” he said meekly.
“Brave,” Roa grunted. “You better call them back.”
“Your parents are chill, though,” Abel said. “My parents will want to, like, get involved.”
“They were helpful the last time we had a dangerous dragon and a kin battle to fight,” Roa reminded him. “And your mom does work at a feed plant. I’m not sure how else we’re gonna find food for Brazza.”
They all looked around the empty space, windows broken and open to the autumn air. The paint had peeled from the walls, and whole sections of the floor and ceiling had collapsed. At some point, squatters had lived here and built fires that left round scorch marks on the floor. Someone had spray-painted the laughing dragon symbol of the Wind Breakers kin on a few support pillars. Someone else had painted a large mural of a fancy ball, but instead of people all dressed up in expensive clothes, it was dragons.
Other than vandalism, artwork, and time’s decay, the building was empty.
They all looked at the colorful dragon, who had shimmied out of her advertisement disguise and proceeded to shred it with her long gray claws. She sat on her haunches now, head rising above the broken ceiling and resting her chin on an exposed steel beam. Her back legs were splayed open at odd angles, and her belly was thrust forward. Abel had never seen a dragon sit that way. It was not a flattering look.
“You hungry?” Abel asked.
The dragon rested her front claws on the steel beam on either side of her face and licked her lips. She’d looked small next to the larger and better-fed dragons on the sales floor of the Burning Market, but on the eighty-seventh floor of a ruined skyscraper, she looked huge and she looked hungry.
“What do you think she eats?” Abel asked.
Roa studied the dragon, poking their tongue from the side of their mouth as they thought. That was Roa’s thinking face, ever since they were little kids. Their eyes darted up and down and side to side over Brazza’s scales and wings and claws. They studied her tail and her horns, her snout and her eyes.
Brazza twitched, then leaned her neck way down to meet Roa’s gaze and did the same inspection to them. Roa didn’t flinch. They just nodded and let themself be inspected.
“Fair’s fair,” Roa said, opening their arms so the dragon could get a better look. Brazza seemed to like that. She spread her wings for Roa to see.
The two spent a long time studying one another.
“So … any ideas?” Topher’s patience for the long silence ran out. He was not a boy who did quiet waiting very well.
“A lot of ideas,” Roa said.
The dragon snorted and rested her head back on the beam. “She’s got the snout shape and the horns of Steelwing, but her wings are shaped like a Reaper’s. They’re too long for her body, and they aren’t even with each other. Her shoulder muscles look more like a wyvern’s, but she has four legs, not two, and she’s smaller than a wyvern, so all that extra muscle must give her more power. Her scales are octagonal, which makes me think of a Drake, but her coloring is like a cross between a Widow Maker, a Moss dragon, and a Goatmouth. Maybe with a touch of Steelwing and Blue Foot in there somewhere.”
“Okay, so she’s a mutt,” Topher said. “We knew that.”
“The problem is, some of the breeds I just mentioned are charivores, only eating food they’ve burned; some only eat live prey; and one of them is a vegetarian.”
“So we test it out,” Topher suggested. “Call your mom and tell her to bring a little of everything.”
Abel had pulled out his phone, but his thumb hovered over his mom’s number. Could he really ask her to endanger her job?
“If we offer the wrong food, she might get offended,” Roa said.
“So we apologize.” Topher shrugged. “I offend people all the time.”
“We know,” Abel and Roa said simultaneously.
“If she gets offended, we say sorry and do better next time,” Topher explained. “That’s my approach. If we’re sincere and actually do better, can she really stay mad?”
“She doesn’t need to stay mad,” Abel said. “She could kill us all even if she’s only mad for a second.” He shuddered at the memories of the soy farm looming up at him and the solar panels streaking by. “Also, I really don’t want to get my parents involved. Silas and Lina might not care when they put our family in danger, but I do. Someone’s got to look out of for my mom and dad.”
“But they’re the adults!” Topher threw his hands up in the air.
“Exactly,” Abel said. “They have their own problems. They don’t even know that Lina’s in jail. They still think she’s on the run. I won’t add to their problems.” He put his phone away. “I saw a noodle shop a few blocks away. Roa, why don’t you use some of the money you won at DrakoTek and order … everything. Get it delivered, then tip really well so they keep quiet.” He turned back to Brazza. “We’re gonna get you a ton of noodles and stuff,” he said. “Maybe you’ll like some of it? Spicy miso ramen?”
The dragon cocked her head at him.
“And if you don’t like it, we’ll do better tomorrow,” he added.
She rested her head on her paws, blinked at him. Her expression was inscrutable.
“What is she saying?” Topher asked.
“I don’t know,” Abel said. “Her expression is—”
“Inscrutable,” Roa said.
“Yeah,” Abel agreed. He looked back up at Brazza. “I know you understand me,” he told her. “The thing is, it’s late and we have to get home. So … um … we’re gonna get this food and then leave you to rest. But we’ll be back. You’re not our prisoner, okay? If you fly off and leave tonight, we won’t stop you. But if you’re still here tomorrow afternoon, we’d be pretty happy.” He looked at his friends, then back to the dragon. “And please don’t try to kill any of us?”
The dragon dropped onto all four of her legs, coming down so hard that the floor shook and dust rained down all over Abel. She sneezed. The sudden burst of wind and dragon snot knocked Abel off his feet and slid him back in a streak across the dusty floor. He was gonna have a bruise on his backside. Another one.
When he looked up, Brazza’s head loomed over him, lips curled to show her jagged teeth. Some were longer than Abel’s entire body. He did his best not to flinch. He really hoped he hadn’t just made a wild miscalculation about what the dragon understood.
After a single heartbeat that felt like a year, Brazza’s pink tongue shot out and licked him from the tips of his shoes to the top of his head. She cleaned the dust off like he was a hatchling freshly popped from the egg. It was a sopping, sticky sign of affection, but it was a sign of affection.
“Noodles it is, then,” he said, dripping dragon drool.
After the food arrived and they tipped the delivery rider double the cost of the huge meal (which was already a lot), they left Brazza to claw through the bags and cartons.
Abel and his friends said their goodbyes, then made their long and winding ways on the public buses, bound for home.
Abel didn’t know he was being followed, but he’d find out soon.
WHEN ABEL ARRIVED, HIS MOTHER was already at work and his father had fallen asleep on the couch. Percy was curled in the crook of his elbow. They were watching the news.
“The riot at Windlee Prison ended with no law enforcement casualties,” the newscaster said over images of the huge concrete prison.
A riot? At Windlee? What about the prisoners? Abel wondered. What about Lina?
The newscaster had already moved on to a new story. “Now let’s hear from our own Ella Ortega all about the latest trend in fine dining—charcoal tastings!”
“That’s right, Wyatt. Diners are just burning to get their tongues on these charred treats …” the other newscaster blathered. Abel’s father sat up, bleary-eyed.
“Abel?” His voice came out scratchy, like it always did since his recovery from Scaly Lung. “There’s dinner in the microwave for you.”
Abel went right to the kitchen to heat it up. He was starving.
“You’re home late,” his father called from the couch.
“Roa and Topher and I had some after-school stuff to do,” Abel said. It wasn’t a lie, exactly, it was just leaving things out. He had decided not to lie to his parents. He just wasn’t going to tell the whole truth either.
“After-school stuff?” his father said. “Is that how you tore your favorite jacket?”
Abel hadn’t realized his brush with death had been so bad for his clothes, but he saw it now. There was a big gash on the shoulder of the leather jacket. Thankfully it hadn’t gone through enough to cut him, which he figured was why dragon riders wore leather in the first place.
“Dad,” he said. “If I tell you that you don’t want to know, would you not ask any more questions?”
“I’m your father. It’s my job to know.”
“But …” Abel tried to imagine what his dad was thinking right now. His youngest child comes home late with a slash in his jacket, probably smelling of dragon and sweat and take-out food. Then he doesn’t even bother making an excuse. What could his dad possibly hear that would keep him from asking more questions? “A disagreement with some other kids,” Abel said. “I need to handle it on my own.”
His father pursed his lips, nodding his head a little as he thought. Finally, he asked, “If it gets to be more than you can handle on your own, will you tell me or Mom?”
Abel promised he would.
“And if it’s not safe, will you tell me or Mom?” he asked.
“Well,” Abel sighed. “I mean …”
“It’s already not safe,” his father finished the thought for him.
“Sorry,” said Abel.
His dad nodded, frowned, but then took a deep breath. “I trust you, Abel,” he said. “Don’t make me regret that trust.”
“I won’t, Dad, I promise.” Abel suddenly wanted to give his father the biggest hug in the world. He wished he could tell him everything: about Lina being in Windlee Prison, where there were now riots; about spying for Silas to uncover who was messing with dragon DNA to clear Lina’s name; and about racing an illegal dragon he’d bought with illegal gambling money.
Knowing anything about any of that would make his father an accomplice. He could end up in Windlee Prison too. So, instead, Abel took his steaming Pineapple-and-Pepperoni Pizza Pouch out of the microwave and sat at the kitchen table. His dad kept him company.
“Did I tell you about the book I’m listening to?” he asked Abel excitedly. “It’s by that comedian with that show about the assassin who inherits an antique shop? It’s really funny!”
They spent the rest of dinner talking about TV shows they liked and about Abel’s comics and about nothing at all. It felt really good not to think about dragon racing until bedtime.
Which was why it came as such an unpleasant surprise when he got to his room after brushing his teeth and Lina was waiting for him.
“Don’t race on Saturday,” she told him.
“Um?” He looked around at his bed, his posters, his binders of DrakoTek cards spread out on the floor, reassuring himself that he was actually in his room. “You’re supposed to be in prison!”
“I wouldn’t say I’m supposed to be there, little brother,” she replied, casually running a finger over the poster of the All-Star Teen Dragon Dancers he had up. Suddenly, Abel found it very embarrassing. “Anyway, there was a riot.”
“I saw.”
“So I broke out,” she added, like she was merely telling him what she’d had for dinner.
“And you came to my room?” Abel asked incredulously. He was tired of his brother and sister thinking they could rope him in to whatever schemes they had going, just because he was the youngest. It wasn’t fair.
“No,” she said. “I’m not even here.”
“Okay, whatever,” Abel grunted. “How did you hear about my race? And why shouldn’t I do it?”
“You’re middle schoolers, not secret agents,” she said, apparently unaware that Abel was both. She didn’t need to know everything he was up to. He certainly didn’t know everything she was up to.
“You still didn’t answer my second question,” he said. “Why shouldn’t I race?”
“Because I’m not the only one who knows about your challenge,” she told him. “And there are some bad people interested.”
“People like who?” Abel asked. Maybe his sister could tell him what he needed to tell Silas. It would be a lot easier that way.
“You don’t need to know,” she said. Lina wasn’t the sort to make things easier for her brothers. “It’s just better that you don’t race your little school friend at all.”
“Lu is not my friend,” Abel said, offended.
“You know what I mean,” said Lina.
“No, I really don’t,” said Abel. “Why don’t you explain it? Because after what happened to that dragon at the raceway … If you were responsible—”
“I’m not,” she cut him off. Her voice sounded urgent, and apologetic. “I swear on a secret, I had nothing to do with what happened to that orange Reaper.”
“Then how’d you know it would win?”
“I knew it had been … altered,” she told him. “Something with its DNA to make it faster.”
“Like how they made dragon peppers,” Abel observed.
Lina shrugged, and Abel didn’t explain.
“How’d you know when it would try to win?” he asked.
“Part of the DNA alteration was computer code,” she said. “So that an operator could give instructions by remote.”
“Like flying a drone?”
Lina nodded.
“But it didn’t work how it was supposed to?” he asked. “They lost control?”
She nodded again, and Abel moved in for the kill—at least, conversationally.
“You sure know a lot about what happened to that Reaper for someone who says she doesn’t have anything to do with what happened to that Reaper,” he said.
Lina grunted. He’d caught her. “I don’t have to explain everything I do to my little brother.”
“Like how you cheat,” he snapped.
“You’re such a kid.” Lina waved her hand at him dismissively. “The world isn’t one of your comics. There are no perfect heroes. Everybody cheats, even the good guys.”
“I’ve noticed cheaters always think everybody else cheats,” Abel said. “That doesn’t make it true.”
“Believe what you want,” Lina said. “Did you pay back the money you won at the raceway?”
Abel stiffened his back. He didn’t answer.
“Of course you didn’t,” she said. “You used it to buy your racing dragon.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Again,” Lina groaned, “you’re middle schoolers. You kind of stood out in the Burning Market, and the Sky Knights have eyes everywhere.”
“It’s my money,” Abel said. “I can do what I want with it.”
“I’d hoped you’d use it to help Mom and Dad pay a bill or something,” Lina said.
“I’d hoped my big sister wouldn’t be a thieving, cheating kinner,” Abel snapped at her. “If hopes were halos, we’d all be angels.”
He’d read that line on the label for a box of tea. He liked getting the chance to use it.
His sister laughed. “Seriously, little brother, don’t race this weekend.”
“Tell me why.”
“Because I actually do care about you,” she said. “Bad things happen at these illegal races.”
“Bad things happen at the legal ones too,” he said. “Your little experiment went wrong and drove that dragon berserk.”
