I'm not gonna lie, I regretted my decision to get on that dragon the second we were airborne.
"AHHHHHHHH!"
The brief flash of bravery... it was completely gone. Vanished as quickly as it had arrived. This was also a terrible time to remember that I didn't like heights. I mean, I really, seriously hated them.
"AHHHHHHH! AHHHHHHHH!"
I clung to Isaac as if my life depended on it, which it actually kinda did. I kept my eyes squeezed shut, too afraid to watch as we climbed higher into the sky. I broke into a cold sweat, causing his jewel-like scales to feel dangerously slick under my fingers. I thought I heard voices shouting at me from down below, but they quickly faded to nothing and the rushing wind became the only sound I could hear.
Well, that and my own terrified screaming.
"AHHHHHH! Okay, stop! Stop, I have to get down! I'm scared of heights! This isn't working! This is a bad idea!"
I still hadn't dared to open my eyes. They were squeezed together so hard that starbursts of white light burst and bloomed in the center of my vision.
Try and stay calm, Cyprus. The sound of Isaac's disembodied voice did nothing to calm me down. It just reinforced the sheer bizarreness of my current situation.
We were streaking upwards at breakneck speed. Isaac's wings made a loud whooshing sound as they pumped through the air. His muscles tightened and strained under my fingers. I imagined the world growing smaller and smaller beneath me, the cops and security guards reduced to the size of ants, the hospital shrinking into a tiny dollhouse surrounded by even tinier toy cars. My chest constricted. I squeezed Isaac until it felt like the pattern of his scales would become permanently etched into my skin.
I'm gonna die! I thought frantically. I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die, I'm gonna die!
The air grew cold and thin, making it harder to breath. My ears popped. Something light and cool brushed my cheeks. I opened my eyes just a crack. Swirling, silvery mist filled my vision, a seemingly endless void of dramatic shadow and light. A gap opened up in the clouds and I saw the city spread out far below. Sunlight reflected off the buildings. Random swaths of green interrupted the otherwise monotonous sea of grey. Tiny roads spread out like lines on a grid, connecting everything together.
A wave of dizziness passed over me. I imagined myself losing my grip and plummeting to the ground. Those buildings and parks and roads swelling in size until I struck the pavement and shattered every bone in my body.
I spotted the freeway, three times as wide as the residential streets, miniature cars zipping along it in both directions. I followed it with my eyes, past the suburbs and to the outskirts of the city.
And, there it was. The gash in the earth dividing the pavement in half. Traffic backed up on either side, bright yellow tape keeping the curious onlookers at a distance. My stomach churned. It was one thing to see it on TV. It was another matter entirely to witness the destruction first-hand.
I closed my eyes again and pressed my forehead against Isaacs's scales, fighting an urge to throw up. I didn't know which was worse, the dizzying height or the catastrophe I had created.
Isaac's voice echoed inside my head on more time. Are you doing okay back there?
Okay? How could I be okay? I was a criminal! I was either going to jail, or I was going to be on the run from the law my entire life. My mom always said that I overreacted to things, but I was pretty sure that I wasn't overreacting this time.
We'll be there soon, don't worry.
Be where? I thought. Where the heck were we going, anyway? And how would it help me out of this mess?
Isaac levelled out well above the clouds. My stomach gave a little swoop and settled (more or less) back to its original position.
We coasted for a little while on warm updrafts of air, our height rising and falling without any apparent effort from Isaac. I was getting a little motion sick. Or maybe that was just a combination of stress and my paralyzing fear of heights. My blood pressure spiked every time we were pushed and buffeted by the wind.
After what felt like an eternity, we began to descend. By this point I was shivering violently. Mist had collected all over my body, leaving my flimsy hospital gown soaked. Pieces of damp hair clung to my skin while the rest flew haphazardly in the wind and tickled my face. I didn't dare let go of Isaac in order to brush it away. My ears throbbed. The tip of my nose was like ice. I couldn't even feel my fingers anymore.
Hold on, Isaac said.
I peeked through my eyelashes. We were descending towards a huge skyscraper.
But, not just any skyscraper. In the past year, new buildings like this had been popping up all over the city.
It was a modern structure with a steel frame. There were almost no walls to speak of, only hundreds of windows, many of which had been thrown wide open to let in the outside air. Plants seemed to sprout out of every inch of it. Flowers and ferns were planted on every ledge. A veritable jungle pressed against the windows from the inside. The entire roof had been converted into a garden, with trees and shrubs and wide stone walkways.
That was where Isaac came in for his landing. He circled the building a few times, then touched down almost gracefully on a large sphere of empty space.
I bailed the second we hit the ground. I didn't even bother to wait until Isaac had lowered his shoulder to make it easier for me to slide off. I stumbled over to the nearest tree-drawn to it almost like a magnet-and sat down hard in the dirt.
I released a quiet sigh of relief. Never had I been so happy to feel solid ground under my feet. My roiling stomach settled almost immediately. My sense of balance returned to normal. I allowed my shoulders to relax and pushed a trembling hand through my damp hair. I thought I saw another flash of colour, this one a glowing bluish purple, but did my best to ignore it. It didn't make any sense for my hair to be changing colours. It had to be a trick of the light or something. Hair didn't glow, and it definitely didn't come in shades like purple or green.
Isaac was back in human form, waiting patiently for me to calm down. His blue locks stood out sharply against the grey sky.
Okay, well he's a Dragon shifter I told myself. That's different.
"Not much of a flier, I take it?" Isaac said, his tone light.
"Never have been," I answered breathlessly.
"Need a few minutes?"
I nodded. Definitely.
"Not a problem," Isaac crossed over to a little stone dais and sat down, his back perfectly straight, his hands resting comfortably on his knees. "Take as much time as you need."
I closed my eyes and leaned my head gratefully against the base of the tree. I focused on the firm, unyielding nature of the building. The way it didn't move up or down, or sway back and forth in the wind. I buried my hands in the mounds of loose earth that surrounded me. It felt soft and oddly soothing against my skin.
The tension slowly ebbed out of my body. A pleasantly warm, fizzing sensation travelled up my arms and into the centre of my chest. I tilted my head backwards. Another sigh escaped my lips. I dug my hands deeper into the soil. Energy bubbled in my veins. Tiny vibrations spread out from my fingers and penetrated deep into the earth...
Hold on, what?
A jolt of alarm shot through me, and I leapt to my feet. I spun on my heels. I half expected the place where I had been sitting to start trembling, the tree torn up by the roots, the entire building splitting right down the middle and collapsing in a mass of rubble.
But, nothing happened. The earth lay flat and still, exactly like it was supposed to.
"Feeling better?" Isaac said.
"Err... umm. yeah, a little." It wasn't a lie. I did feel much better physically. If not for that little tremor, everything would have been fine.
Heck, maybe I had imagined it. Maybe it was just my nerves getting to me.
Yeah, nice try, I thought. The tremor may have been mild, but it had also been very real.
I looked down at my hands, speckled with dirt and trembling just enough to make the edges of my fingers appear slightly blurred. What was going on here? What was happening to me? Shape shifters couldn't do this kind of stuff.
Could they?
Isaac promptly stood up and dusted himself off. "Well, come on inside then, Cyprus. We need to discuss your situation."
I hesitated, wondering if I should tell him what had just happened. But, he was already striding purposefully across the roof, oblivious to my distress. I pushed the incident to the back of my mind and trotted after him.
He led me down a set of concrete steps and into the interior of the building. A wall of humidity struck me the second we stepped through the door. I found myself inside a kind of artificial jungle. Thick, tropical plants filled every corner of the room, from floor to ceiling. The greenery was interrupted occasionally by large, colourful flowers. The ceiling was made entirely of glass. There wasn't a single artificial light in the whole place.
We strode down a narrow dirt path. Isaac's long legs covered the ground at a rapid pace. I had to break into a jog in order to keep up.
My eyes wandered all over the place as we walked, interest briefly taking over my nerves. This reminded me a lot of the tropical rainforest exhibit at the zoo. I remembered wishing I could live there when I was a kid.
We passed under a miniature waterfall. The droplets created a silver haze that cooled my skin. I took a long, deep breath. The smell of mist and damp rocks, flowers and wet earth was absolutely glorious. For a few seconds, I actually forgot about all the trouble I was in.
Before long, we went through another doorway and entered into a more conventional-looking part of the building, with polished marble floors and high vaulted ceilings. Everything was spotlessly clean. It could have been a high-end corporate building if not for the plants that continued to sprout from every corner. I could barely see the walls through all the overgrown trees and ferns. Tiny streams and fountains were interspersed here and there, filling the big, cavernous hallway with the gentle music of running water. Occasionally, I would spot one of those little machines that constantly expelled little tendrils of mist.
"Try and keep up please, Cyprus," Isaac said.
He was now several paces ahead of me.
I shook my head-trying to clear it-and broke into a jog in order to catch up.
We walked in silence for a few moments, our footsteps echoing through the massive building. I shivered a little, my nerves coming back in full force as I remembered the events that had brought me to this beautiful, extravagant place. Not to mention, I was feeling a little under-dressed with my bare feet, ugly hospital gown and damp, scraggly hair.
I found myself darting looks over at Isaac. There were so many questions burning inside of me, but I didn't have the courage to ask them. I mean, this guy was basically a celebrity. He was like shifter royalty or something. I was still coming to grips with the fact that he even knew of my existence.
"Do you know where we are right now?" Isaac asked me conversationally, as if he had read my mind.
"Umm, no sir," I said.
"This, Cyprus, is the base of operations for the Silent Heroes Movement."
I felt my eyes go wide. The Silent Heroes? Of course I knew about them. Everyone did. They had started out as a small group of extremely powerful shifters, travelling from city to city and fighting criminals like some kind of crazy, supernatural vigilantes.
These days they had tens of thousands of members, spread out to every corner of the globe. They had tackled everything from petty crime, to organized gang activities to civil wars. They were like an international police force, army and intelligence agency all rolled into one.
Evelyn O'Connor--AKA crazy-bird-girl-who-jumped-off-a-building--was one of the founders of the group.
My knees suddenly felt weak. So was I here to be punished for what had happened this morning? Had they taken me away from the regular cops so they could deliver their own form of justice? What did the Silent Heroes even do with the criminals after catching them? That was something that was never talked about on the news.
We stopped outside a huge, ornately carved wooden door. I heard muffled voices coming from the other side. I wanted to run, but I was so damn scared I couldn't move.
Isaac caught my eye and smiled. "Shall we?"