Apocalyptic Pirates 6, page 13
“Okay, fine.” Dia rolled her eyes. “I put some dragon blood on my arm specifically to see what it would do. I figured we’d need human guinea pigs at some point, so why not just cut straight to the chase?”
“But…” My mom was staring at Dia as though she were seeing her for the very first time. “How could you do it? I mean, physically, emotionally, on every level, weren’t you too repulsed to do it?”
“No, not really.” Dia thought about it for a moment longer, but ultimately she shook her head. “It just seemed like a good idea at the time. Plus my arm really fuc– I mean, it really hurt really damn bad.”
My mom sniffed and shook her head.
“It’s okay, Mom,” I assured her. “It’s okay to feel weird about it. I still feel weird about it, and I’ve known for a while.”
“How did you find out about it?” she demanded.
“It’s the kind of thing you end up finding out when you’re fighting the scaly monsters every day,” I joked. “Seriously, though, I found out at the same time as Dia did, when she put the blood on the cut on her arm.”
“And it’s healed perfectly well, you say?” My mom was squinting at the camera screen. “Dia, are you sure it was there that you got hurt?”
“Yes, I’m sure,” Dia said patiently. “But still…”
“It’s a really hard subject to think about,” I said to my mom. “You just have to sit on it for a while and kind of let it disperse throughout you so that every thought you have is some kind of extension of this news.”
“That makes no sense.” My mom shook her head and sighed. “I’m going to have to tell your father about this, aren’t I? He’s going to be absolutely thrilled, I promise.”
“Really?” I asked in surprise. “Dad’s going to be excited that the dragons have healing powers?”
“Oh, yes.” My mom nodded. “He’s been going off on a whole rant about how the dragons coming here has to mean something, and how they can’t just upend our lives without some kind of reason or some strange and unexpected positive result coming in to balance the scales of the universe. Something like that. To be honest, I’ve been tuning him out once he starts talking.”
“Mom,” I protested.
“Well…” She held up her hands and gave a resigned sigh. “To be honest, I think he’s just mad that his cucumbers aren’t taking to the soil in the best way.”
“We’ll tell Grandpa the news,” Sammy assured me with confidence. “I wonder if I’ll ever end up using dragon blood!”
“Maybe,” I said. “But hopefully it won’t ever have to come to that.”
Marisol’s thin, wan face flashed through my mind. I shook my head to clear it.
“I suppose we should let you get on, then,” my mom said with a wistful look in her eye. “Oh, I’m so looking forward to when you finally get here, Drew-boo.”
“Why? Has Sammy been misbehaving?” I joked.
I wanted to lighten the mood and end the call on a high note, but then my mom put her arm around Sammy’s shoulders and planted a light kiss on my daughter’s hair.
“Sammy is always a good girl,” my mom said, and she looked down at Sam with a tender fondness that brought an unexpected lump into my throat. “She’s our good girl.”
“Aw, Grandma.” A pale pink flush spread across Sammy’s cheeks, but she was smiling.
“You are a good girl,” I told her with a huge smile. “And don’t you forget it. I miss you, Sammy, and I miss Grandma and Grandpa, but we’re making good time, and we should be with you before too much longer.”
Sammy sighed, and I knew that she was desperate for something concrete: a date she could put on a calendar and mark the days off of, or a tracking system by which she could follow my course.
“I guess I’ll see you soon, then,” she said with another sigh that tugged at my heartstrings.
“Hey,” I told her gently. “We will see each other really soon. And then it’s going to be so good to give you both the biggest and squishiest hugs you’ve ever received.”
“Squishiest?” my mom repeated with a raised eyebrow.
Samantha was practically hopping from foot to foot with excitement, and when my mom saw the delighted expression on her face, her own face softened, and she smoothed Sammy’s hair down behind her ears.
“We’ll see you soon, then,” I told them.
“Yeah.” Sammy nodded bravely. “I’ll see you soon. Love you, Daddy.”
“I love you too, Sammy girl.” I swallowed hard. “You too, Mom, love you. And love to Dad when he comes in from the garden.”
“We love you, Drew,” my mom murmured.
The two of them waved, and I waved back and then cut the connection.
“Families,” Dia commented.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
Dia stood up, went to the sink, and started rinsing plates and cups that were left over from breakfast. She seemed to be thinking my question over intensely in her mind, and I watched her carefully.
“Hey,” I prodded her gently. “Are you doing okay?”
“Yeah.” She looked up quickly and seemed startled by the question. “Of course.”
“Okay.” I hesitated.
I hadn’t wanted to bring up the subject before, when we were still in the afterglow of the crazy good sex we’d had, but now it felt like a better time to talk about it.
“Yesterday,” I began. “That moment with the baby. What was all that about?”
Dia heaved a big sigh. She looked down at her hands in the sink.
For a moment I thought she wasn’t going to answer, but then she sighed again in a long exhale that was almost a whistle.
“I got weirded out by it all,” she said. “These last few days when we’ve been talking so much about how the dragons are useful now, and how even though they’re the enemy, they’re also kind of not the enemy. It kind of fucked up my thinking a little bit. I don’t mean like I’m crazy, but I just got in this really weird headspace. And then that fucking egg hatched and the little baby dragon inside was so small. And I couldn’t just cut its throat.”
“You did volunteer for that job,” I pointed out. “I don’t mean that as a judgment, I just mean, why did you volunteer when you were going through all those hard feelings?”
“Oh, that.” Dia shrugged and gave a bitter little laugh. “Well. You know me. I always have to make the bad decisions.”
“Hey, hold on,” I told her. “Remember, we talked about this. You’re not allowed to run yourself down.”
“I think in this instance I deserve it, though.” She shook her head. “I was freaked out, and so I volunteered to prove that I wasn’t freaking out. I needed to convince myself that I was okay. But then the baby was all fresh and damp and new from the egg. It was literally like seconds old. And I couldn’t open its throat like that. It felt too vulnerable.”
“It was a dragon,” I said softly. “You’ve killed dragons before.”
“I know!” Dia slapped her hands against her thighs in exasperation. “And that’s what made it so hard. Because I know that that’s why we’re here, I know why we do that. But I also had that knowledge in my head that this time it was different. This time we were killing the dragon to save Marisol’s life, and I was thinking about that, and then it was like my hand couldn’t move. None of me could move. And I just kept thinking about Marisol and how if she died, it was all going to be my fault because I flaked at the crucial moment and fucked it all up for everybody else.”
“You didn’t fuck it up,” I said. “That other dragon was moments away from raiding the nest, and if we’d killed the baby when we first tried, we would have been right in the middle of trying to drain it and harvest its parts when the dragon arrived. So in a way, you saved us.”
“Sure.” Dia rolled her eyes. “I mean, thank you for what you’re saying and how you’re trying to comfort me.”
“It’s the truth,” I said with a shrug. “You can believe it or you can reject it, but it’s just the truth.”
I stood up and took Dia’s hand. She looked around me in surprise, and I squeezed her fingers gently in my own.
“The next time you feel like that,” I told her. “Try talking about it. It doesn’t have to be to me, you could try talking to the others instead if you’d rather do that. But don’t bottle it all up inside. Don’t keep it hidden.”
“I’m not good at that.” Dia gave a rueful laugh. “I’m more of a ‘ignore it and maybe it’ll go away’ kind of gal.”
“How’s that working out for you?” I asked dryly, and Dia laughed again.
“Not great,” she admitted. “So okay. I take your point. And I’ll take your advice as well.”
“Amazing.” I squeezed her hand again.
“Can I ask you one thing, though?” Dia’s voice was suddenly serious.
“Of course,” I replied.
“Were you serious about what you said to Eva?” she asked. “Would you use dragon blood to save Sammy’s life?”
“Yes.” I said it without hesitation. “I would. Sammy’s life is more important to me than anything else. If it came down to it, I would do whatever it took to save her.”
Dia nodded slowly, and I thought she might comment. But instead she just smiled and squeezed my hand.
“Guys!” Shannon called from the deck. “The others are back.”
We ran back up through the hatch just as Ally, Letty, Eva, and Marisol came out of the trees and walked up to the yacht.
“Oh, good,” Letty called to Dia. “You managed to not get eaten.”
“Of course.” Dia tossed her head. “I’m inedible.”
“Unlike the contents of that basket,” I said with a chuckle. “It looks like you found a lot of plants.”
“Yes!” Letty’s excitement came out in full force. “Eva showed us all kinds of plants that we can gather locally. Ally took notes, and we used Dia’s phone to take pictures of them as well.”
“You’re welcome,” Dia commented.
Ally took Dia’s phone out of her pocket and handed it up to her.
Marisol was smiling at me shyly. The change in her was unbelievable. She moved quickly and lightly on her feet, and her eyes were bright with health rather than glittering with fever. Her hair looked thick and luscious, and her skin was glowing with exercise and energy.
“You look so much better,” I told her with a smile.
Eva nodded quickly and said something in Spanish.
“She says that this is what Marisol was like before she caught malaria in the first place,” Dia translated. “In fact, she’s even stronger than she was then.”
“That’s amazing!” I exclaimed.
Eva hesitated, and then said something else.
“I don’t know what you’re going to think about this.” Dia frowned. “Eva wants to know if we can come back to the village and explain about the dragon medicine to the rest of the villagers.”
I blew out my breath in an exhale. This was what I’d been worried about. We had no way of knowing what the reaction would be to this kind of news. What if the villagers turned on the old woman? Or threw her and Marisol out to fend for themselves?
Eva was waiting for a reply with her eyes fixed hopefully on my face.
“I’m not sure if that’s the best idea,” I said in as gentle a voice as I could manage. “What if her neighbors don’t like the idea of using the dragons as medicine? It’s not the easiest thing in the world to accept.”
“I think if Eva’s suggesting it, that’s a good indication that she knows how the rest of the village will react,” Letty pointed out. “She knows them better than we do.”
“I’m just worried about how they might react,” I argued. “We’ve seen firsthand how the current situation can bring out the worst in people.”
“Back to the old question,” Shannon commented with a lawyer’s relish. “Are people good or evil?”
“Nope.” Letty shook her head. “We’re not getting existential before dinner.”
“I think Eva must know the risks of what she’s suggesting,” Ally said. “But look at how well Marisol’s doing. It’s like what Dia said yesterday– what if there are other people in the village who could benefit from dragon medicine? I think we should trust Eva’s judgment in this case.”
“Okay.” I nodded. “But Dia, can you tell her my concerns so I at least know that she’s considered it?”
Dia did so. Eva immediately nodded.
“She says she knows her neighbors,” Dia said. “She says they’re good people, and if this medicine can help them, then she wants to let them know that it’s an option.”
Eva patted my arm and held my gaze for a long moment. She nodded encouragingly and smiled, and I smiled back at her.
“Okay,” I said. “I guess we should bring the dragon blood and Tupperware with us so they know exactly what it is we’re talking about.”
“I’ll get it,” Shannon said.
She ran down to the kitchen and was back in a moment with bottles and containers in her arms.
Dia and I helped her stash them away in the rucksack, and then we jumped down to the ground and started walking back through the trees to reach the village.
“Why do I feel like I’m about to head into an interview?” Shannon said with a weak chuckle.
“I feel like I’m about to head on stage,” Letty agreed. “I’ve got such butterflies in my stomach.”
“We don’t need to feel butterflies,” Dia said, and she gestured toward Marisol who looked around at us with wide eyes. “We’ve already got living proof right here.”
“I just hope that’s enough,” I muttered.
I was not feeling at all hopeful about this. I wanted to trust Eva and her opinion about how her friends and neighbors would react, but I’d seen how desperate people could become under extreme circumstances.
I couldn’t think of many circumstances more extreme than the ones we were currently living through.
I had my gun over my shoulder and my knife at my belt, and even though part of me hated the thought of being forced to use them on the people who had given us hospitality, I was still glad that I had my weapons on me. It was better to be safe than sorry, and I wasn’t going to take any chances.
The village was up ahead. And as we stepped through the trees into the clearing, it was immediately apparent that something was happening.
A strange air of excitement hung over the place. All the huts we passed were deserted, apart from the biggest one that stood in the very middle of the village. This hut was full of people, and there were more of them outside.
One person looked up and saw us approaching. They immediately yelled something to the others, and I tightened my grip on my gun as the people began to run toward us.
Chapter 8
My hand was tight around my gun strap as the first of the villagers reached us. They were talking loudly, and as more of them joined in, the others started raising their voices until everybody was yelling at the top of their lungs and trying to get themselves heard.
My Spanish was nowhere near good enough for me to get any understanding of what they were saying. I looked at Eva and Dia to see if I could pick up any clues from their faces, but Eva just looked bewildered, and Dia looked irritated.
“Dia,” I shouted. “What the hell are they saying?”
“Cállate!” Dia bellowed. “Todos estén callados!”
She had to yell it a couple of times before the group finally fell quiet.
“Seriously,” Dia grumbled. “These guys have no chill.”
“What are they saying?” I demanded. “What were they shouting about?”
Eva started to talk quickly to the rest of the villagers.
“They’ve got questions,” Dia said to me. “I guess they’ve started to figure out that it was something more than medicine that we gave Marisol.”
“Well, that’s not surprising,” Ally pointed out. “Gloria saw that we just gave Marisol something that looked like blood. It wasn’t going to take them long before they started getting curious. Wouldn’t you be?”
“Yeah,” I acknowledged. “I guess we don’t need to worry about whether Eva should tell them about the blood or not.”
“Yeah.” Dia grimaced. “She’s doing that right now.”
Right on cue, I heard Eva say the words “dragon” and “monstruo.”
And the whole crowd erupted again into furious shouting.
“Cállate!” Dia shouted.
“Okay,” I groaned. “We’re going around in circles. Dia, can you tell everyone that we will answer their questions if they ask them one at a time without yelling over each other? Let’s do this properly.”
Dia relayed all of this to the villagers. There was a general nodding of heads, and then the crowd dispersed as everyone ran to their houses and brought back chairs and blankets to sit on. They set them up in front of the big hut and put out five chairs in a row at the very front. They beckoned to us to come and sit down.
“Okay, now I really feel like I’m on stage,” Letty muttered as we took our places.
“Yeah.” I blew out a long breath and looked out at the crowd of expectant faces in front of us. “I know exactly what you mean.”
As soon as everyone was settled, a woman came to stand in front of us. She spoke to Dia, who explained that this was Rosa, and she was acting as the current leader of the village after the previous leader had died in the meteorite storm.
“She says thank you for doing this,” Dia translated. “And she says she hopes we can all understand the situation a bit better after this.”
“I hope so, too,” I muttered.
Rosa sat down, and I took a deep breath.
“Primero?” Dia called.
Everyone’s hand in the crowd shot up into the air. Dia pointed at the first person in the first row. It was a young woman, and she spoke quickly without pausing for breath.
“Is it true that the dragons can heal us?” Dia translated.
I hesitated. That was a fucking huge question, but I reckoned that the best way to approach it was head-on and as simply as I could.
“Yes,” I said. “Their blood and body parts have healing powers.”
