Chapter Seventeen
Heather shot out of sleep thanks to the handshaking her shoulder violently. She sat up, her hands clawing at the air as a sense of danger slammed home. “What is it? What’s happening?”
Christy, her hair hanging around her face, said, “I don’t know. There’s something going on though. I can feel it.”
Heather let her jaw go slack as confusion filled her. “You can feel what?”
Christy’s face was pale, and her fingers plucked at the covers on the bed. “I don’t know what I feel. I just feel like something is really, really wrong. Like we should get out of here right now.”
Heather’s brain, followed by sleep, tried to grasp at the words that Christy was shooting at her. “Everything is wrong here, Christy. We’re in a land inhabited by dragons. We’re not in our own world anymore. Of course you feel like something is wrong.”
Christy flapped a hand at her. “Don’t you go all lawyer on me right now. It’s not that. I mean, I get it. Rationally speaking, yes, of course I feel like everything is wrong here. Because it is. That is not what it is though. I have always said that if your gut tells you that you should go, you should go. I’m gone. You can either get up and get gone with me or you can stay here and get, I don’t know, whatever it is dragons due to people. Love you, mean it. Nope. I’m out.”
The whole situation suddenly struck Heather as horrifically funny even though it shouldn’t have. Her lips moved upward in a grin and then laughter began to pour from her mouth. “You need to calm down. I think we’re okay. I think you’re just having a moment or something.”
Christy said, “If you’re trying to say that it’s all just hit me all of a sudden, you’d be wrong. It already did that. Right around the time we got our asses dragged into that council room and a whole bunch of dragons staring at us was when I realize just how absolutely crazy this place is, and just how dangerous. I keep telling you: this isn’t that. There’s something really wrong.”
The words finally sunk in. Heather surveyed Christy’s face, which had grown more and more pale with every word that she had spoken. She flung the covers aside and put her feet on the floor. “Okay, if you really feel that way, then we are out of here.”
But where would they go? There were those Orc creatures lurking about and apparently, they weren’t very welcoming or very safe to be around either. Max and his fellow dragons had been downstairs in the courtyard practicing swordplay earlier. And the whole castle had a hushed and quiet air: an air of anticipation and silence that had chafed against her own nerves earlier that evening.
There was something wrong. Christy was definitely right about that. If she hadn’t been so tired and so deeply asleep when Christy had shaken her awake, she would never have laughed or tried to minimize the situation. That Christy was highly uncomfortable, ready to flee, and scared to death was written all over her best friend, and Heather felt remorse for the way she had blown off Christy’s words.
Christy was already on the move. She yanked her jeans off the chair where she had left them after she had changed into one of the dresses they had been given. She found the rest of her clothes from the other world and swapped out her shoes for the slippers that they had also been given. Heather dressed just as quickly, both of them shooting glances at each other over the bed as they moved as silently as possible.
They opened the door and sidled out into the hallway. Heather’s attention ratcheted up a few more notches as she surveyed the unlit hallway. The night before, that hallway had been blazing with light. The little globes that sat along the wall at spaced intervals now held not even a flicker of flame.
The darkness was as hushed and profound as the silence. They looked at each other, their eyes trying to seek out whatever might lie in the heavy shadows that mantled the thick stone walls.
Christy’s hand caught hers and Heather took it gladly. The warmth and pressure of Christy’s fingers helped bolster her courage as they began to make their way toward the long and wide arch of the staircase that led to the lower floors. Misgivings hit as soon as Christy put her feet upon the staircase though.
That staircase was very deep and very dark. If one of them fell, they would probably break their neck! She licked her lips, wondering if this was such a good idea after all. There was no other way down however, so she gulped in a deep breath, let her free hand find the ornately carved banister, and began going down as silently and cautiously as possible.
Christy still held her other hand, but she had moved behind Heather now. Christy knew that Heather was likely clinging to that banister with as much force as she was. It was their only lifeline and the only fragile bit of safety that they could find at that moment. Every single thump of Christy’s heart and indrawn breath made adrenaline streak through her system, and her legs tremble with both fear and the exertion of climbing down that staircase in the darkness.
They finally reached the lowest floor. Christy hissed, “There’s the front door! Follow me!”
They made a mad dash across the slick floor; with every step Heather was certain that she was going to fall and break a leg or her neck. Her heart was racing so fast, and one thought was clear in her mind: she did not want to leave Max. She did not want to leave this world. She did not know what it was that had Christy so afraid, but whatever it was it was serious enough that Christy was willing to make a run for it.
Yes, Christy was willing to make a run for it.
But was she?
It seemed not, but what else could she do?
She had no idea if there was any reason to stay after all, and she was frightened by the fear carved into Christy’s face. It was not like Christy to get so spooked!
Still, every little corner of Heather’s heart bled a little bit as the door swung open to reveal nothing but the front courtyard and a slice of the night sky. They ran out into the courtyard, and Heather took a look around, memories of Max practicing his swordplay down there flashing into her mind and through her body.
That primal, primitive response she felt for him, it was unbelievable and so hard to ignore. The way his body had moved, the ripple of his muscles below his skin, that way he had of walking toward her that practically screamed I want you, all of that hit home and made her lips open in a silent and never uttered protest against going.
They stood there, their chests heaving up and down as they looked about wildly, trying to figure out what their next move would be. Heather’s head went back. Her heart began to race yet again, ticking up to a degree that she was certain was enough to cause an actual heart attack. There, silhouetted against the night sky, were wings. The wings of dragons!
Christy grabbed her arm and hissed, “Come on! Before they see us!”
Heather let Christy draw her into the shadows near the outer wall. She could barely breathe, and she found herself flattening against that wall in a bid to escape any notice from the dragons landing in the courtyard. But at the same time, an almost insane urge to call out his name, to cry out for him, surfaced.
Her heart felt like it was being torn in so many different directions, right along with her emotions. Christy was her best friend. Had always been her best friend. And she was terrified out of her mind and determined to escape something: something that Heather could not see. Heather knew that Christy was the worldlier of the two of them and that she had a habit of listening to her gut because, in all honesty, Christy’s gut was rarely wrong.
