hoarsely to myself. I glanced back down the dark hall just to make sure someone hadn’t come up behind me when I wasn’t paying attention. Much to my relief the coast was still clear. But I knew I had to do . . . something . . . fast.
Okay, first I should probably check to make sure that Cliff was in fact still sucking in oxygen. I tentatively stepped over his slumped body, my heart pounding in my chest, half expecting him to suddenly sit up and attack me like in some grade B horror movie villain. But he didn’t, and the rise and fall of his chest let me know that I hadn’t killed him. I heaved a sigh of relief, short lived, as I heard footsteps coming up the stairs.
I looked around the small second story bathroom for some kind of . . . I don’t know . . . inspiration to help me out of my predicament, but none came. I was about one panicked second away from ripping off my Khol repelling bracelet so that I could call him for help. The only thing stopping me was that I didn’t seem to be in any immediate danger . . . yet. Well, that and I didn’t know if my pride could take that kind of blow. I was kind of attached to the idea of doing things on my own now, and besides if I was going to be with Bryn, I couldn’t keep relying on Khol for everything without killing Bryn a little more each time. I was beginning to understand why Bryn was so upset about me always relying on Khol instead of him, when I should have chosen him, or the best option . . . myself.
A knock on the door made me feel like my heart was going to explode out of my chest and I tried to sound calm when I answered. “Someone’s in here,” I squeaked. Yep . . . I sounded like the epitome of calm.
“Cliff in there with you?” a male voice asked while I heard a decidedly masculine chuckle at his question.
“Cliff man, you in there?” the Rider outside the door asked with suspicion in his voice. Cliff groaned louder in response. “Hey,” the Rider said. “What’s going on in there?” The door handle began to rattle as he tried to turn the locked knob without any luck. It looked like I was going to have to jump. Hopefully, I’d just sprain an ankle or do something pretty benign, but at least I would get away relatively unscathed, all things considered. I wondered briefly if I should try to tuck and roll or just jump feet first. Or maybe—
“Not so fast,” a very angry Rider growled from Cliff’s body as he grabbed me by my shoulder. I let out a startled scream as I teetered forward toward the ground and instinctively reached back to grasp Cliff’s hand. But instead of keeping me on the ledge, the sudden movement sent us both careening forward. With nothing else to do but fall, I clamped my eyes shut and wished I had never left the house tonight. Why, oh why, couldn’t I have spent a nice evening at home at the Murder House? Spending time with ghosts isn’t as bad as becoming one. Suddenly a weird—familiar—feeling of dizziness overtook me, and instead of feeling the impact of the hard ground shortly before my emanate demise, I landed with an oof on what felt like a bed. Of course, I felt Cliff crash into me half a second later.
“What the fu—?” Cliff exclaimed as I opened my eyes to find the purple and white pattern of my bedspread that I had been using at the Murder House under my nose. I quickly reeled around, picked up the lamp from my nightstand, and knocked Cliff out cold again. As he slumped down to the ground, I found myself wondering for the second time in one evening if I had killed him.
My bedroom door slammed open, hitting the wall behind it to reveal a battle ready Nala. She paused to take in the scene of Cliff unconscious on the floor, and a freaked out me standing over him with what was left of my lamp and relaxed a bit. “Who’s he, and what happened?” she asked a little too calmly.
“That,” I started, surprising myself with how normal I sounded, “is the Rider who was going to blow my cover by trying to force one of his buddies into me because his host has some kind of thing for me.” I inhaled and exhaled a couple of times trying to get fresh oxygen to my brain. “And I have absolutely no idea what happened. One minute I’m hurtling toward the ground to my death, and the next I’m here.”
It was then that Nala’s face took on the look of surprise. “You transported yourself and him here?” she said incredulously. “You’re too young to have that kind of control.”
“Hey,” I snapped with indignance. “I’m the same age as Bryn and he can already do it.” And then everything sunk in. I had . . . finally . . . been able to use the super cool dragon power I’d been drooling over since I first found out what I really was. Too bad I had absolutely no idea what I had done to access it, besides having a near death experience. And cool or not, that wasn’t something I was willing to replicate, even for a power that awesome.
“Alright. Fine. I really don’t want to get into to it with you about your powers right now. The more important issue is, what exactly do you plan on doing with your new little friend, now that we have him here?”
That was a good question . . . a very good question indeed.
15
“So what are you going to do with me?” the Rider inside of Cliff asked in an exasperated tone.
“I don’t know yet,” I said, resuming my pacing from one corner of my room to the other. Cliff, and the alien leech inside of him, was currently tied to a wooden chair that Nala had brought up from the kitchen. We’d used rope and duct tape to secure him there . . . lots and lots of duct tape. I guess that goes to prove that duct tape really is all-purpose.
“Well, aren’t you going to question me or something?”
“Look,” I said as I came to stop directly in front of him, “if this is so hard on you, then why don’t you just ooze on out of Cliff’s body and leave him alone?”
The Rider made Cliff’s handsome face grimace at me in response, “It’s not that simple.”
I crouched down in front of him and peered up with curiosity at the Rider inside of Cliff. The alien inside seemed to have almost eclipsed him completely since the moment he came to in my room. “So why don’t you try and explain it to me then.”
He narrowed his eyes at me with hatred. “No.”
This all seemed a bit surreal. Was this actually happening or was I having some kind of weird dream? If felt real, it felt like I was awake. And yet the fact that I was having this conversation with the Rider inside of Cliff while he was duct taped to one of my kitchen chairs seemed a bit . . . ridiculous. I guess I had to stop repeatedly questioning the fact that my life had turned into one surreal moment after another. “Really? You just asked me if I was going to ask you questions, and—”
“I didn’t say I was going to answer them,” he snapped with more irritation, like I was an annoying little gnat circling his head.
“Fine. If that’s the way you wanna play it, then I’m about ready to enroll you in Torture Class 101.” But could I actually torture Cliff’s poor body? I had no doubt that my conscious would have no problem letting me cause some major damage to just the Rider, but he wasn’t just the Rider at the moment. “Why are you still in Cliff anyways? I saw him push you out. I saw you leave.”
“How do you know that?” The Rider’s jaw dropped, or I guess Cliff’s jaw dropped. Everyone kept telling me to think of a host and the Rider within as one and the same, to which I used to be able to do pretty easily. But with one currently residing inside of Jenna, and with having the vision of Cliff pushing this Rider out, it was beginning to be more and more difficult.
I let a slow smile creep across my face. It was obvious the Rider had figured out I was a dragon, but I was under the mistaken impression that he had also come to the conclusion of who I was specifically. Guess I was
