Book I - ch 8. A Dragon’s Tale

* * *

After a while—Sarah couldn’t tell how long—the door opened. She closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep.

No footsteps came, but through her closed eyelids she perceived light coming in from the hallway. Compelled by the silence, she failed to keep up the pretense for long and opened her eyes.

Robyn stood at the open door, silhouetted against the light from outside.

They stared at each other in an uncomfortable silence.

“You know these people. You’ve been here before, haven’t you?” As the words spilled out, Sarah realized she’d been afraid of asking. Afraid of what her sister’s answers might be.

Robyn nodded after a moment. “Dad talked to me once about his work here. I—I don’t know everything about what’s going on, but I know enough to put us in danger, to put you in danger. That’s why we’ve been keeping you isolated.”

Sarah clenched her fists, bunching up the sheets. “Stop lying to me.”

Robyn stepped into the room, turning on the lights.

Temporarily blinded, Sarah blinked rapidly. When her eyes adjusted, Robyn had pulled the chair closer to the bed.

Instead of sitting down, though, she paced from one side of the room to the other.

After a few rounds of this, she sank down into the corner, pulling her knees up to rest her chin on them.

Sarah had caught her hiding like that in the closet so many times when they were little. It was disturbing to have that image evoked now. But it went a long way to dimming her anger.

“It’s my fault,” Robyn whispered without looking up.

Sarah waited, but Robyn didn’t say anything else; she simply stared at the floor.

“What do you mean?” Sarah asked.

“It’s my fault they’re dead.” She choked on the next words. “Mom and Dad.”

Sarah wasn’t sure what to make of that, much less what to say. Not even her fears had conjured up such a scenario.

Robyn looked like she didn’t want to continue, but her expression became determined. “Remember when I took a year off before starting university?”

Sarah frowned, not seeing the connection. “Yeah.”

“I started volunteering at the crisis center for the W.R.O., remember?”

Sarah nodded again. The World Recovery Organization. There had always been something about the name that struck her as odd.

“I spent about the entire time with the War Orphans,” Robyn said, using the name the organization had become known for among its opponents.

Initially, Sarah didn’t think something akin to a relief fund would have opposition. She’d been surprised to find she was wrong.

War Orphans was initially a derogatory term that stemmed from the fact the organization primarily helped the families and victims of violent acts. But while the W.R.O. supported an orphanage among their list of buildings, they were much more than housing facilities.

Somewhere along the line, the members of the organization embraced the name as their own. What was to be a joke became their own acknowledgement of what they were: people who’d had their lives taken from them by war—and it was a war, whether there was an official recognition of one or not.

“This…” Robyn gestured at the walls. “All this belongs to the W.R.O.”

Sarah followed the motion, looking at the walls as if she hadn’t memorized the details by now.

“Remember that day when you were all so worried because there’d been an attack at the crisis center I was volunteering at?”

Of course she remembered. She’d been at school, suffering through the last twenty minutes of a class that invariably only ended when the bell rang. The teacher was called to the door and when she returned, she announced they were done for the day. It was so unexpected, no one moved until the teacher repeated herself.

It wasn’t until Sarah joined her classmates outside that she realized something was wrong. They were told to wait in the yard until someone came for them. It felt like a joke, they weren’t children anymore. But no one let them leave.

When Mom showed up, she said little and wouldn’t let go of the phone. She called anyone and everyone who might have a phone and a reason to have seen Robyn that day.

Dad was waiting for them at home. Sarah only saw him make one call, after which he sat on the couch and stared at his watch.

Sarah kept her eyes on the news, watching the chaos unfold and hoping Robyn hadn’t been caught up in it.

Hours went by before Robyn got home. She said she’d forgotten to charge her phone and had spent the afternoon in the park because someone traded shifts with her at the center.

Sarah had been so relieved back then that Robyn was fine that she ignored several things that were odd. Like how Dad didn’t seem surprised when Robyn came home. And Robyn had clung to Mom as Mom cried, but now Sarah couldn’t remember seeing her and Dad even say a word to each other.

“I lied about having been given the day off,” Robyn said.

What hadn’t her sister lied about?

“I was at the crisis center when it was attacked. That’s what started all of it, I guess. It was when I found out what the W.R.O. was really involved in. I’ve been working for them ever since.”

Sarah blinked at her. That had been years ago. And all this time Robyn had been lying to them?

“I don’t think the New Nation cared about Dad. It’s doubtful they’d be looking for him after so long.” Robyn leaned her head back to stare up at the ceiling. “I don’t know how they found me, but they did. And that makes it all my fault.”

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Sarah chose not to focus on that last part. It was such a painful thought and the weird offspring of a conversation she wished she didn’t need to have. “So was anything you told me true? About the crisis center and all that?”

“The crisis center does a lot of real work,” Robyn said. “It’s also more or less a front.”

“So were you lying about university? Because I’ve seen you there, in class.”

“I’m trying to keep it up, if only as a cover, but I’ve been struggling. Haven’t you noticed I only have one actual class this semester? I flunked two last year and I’m barely keeping up as it is. Sometimes having a few simple errands to run gets in the way.”

“I just thought you were lazy,” Sarah muttered. It certainly wouldn’t have occurred to her that her sister was struggling with her classes because she was leading a double life. “You said this place had a task force to investigate the New Nation.”

“That’s a large part of what we do. We also handle other investigations when needed.” Robyn examined the tips of her hair, picking something out of it.

“Who runs this place? Because I thought the crisis center had government funding besides the donations.”

“Somewhere high up the food chain there’s a connection with the government, but most everyone here doesn’t fit into any specific category. People wind up working here as the need for them arises.”

Sarah stared at her. She couldn’t imagine her sister doing anything important. It was probably a mean opinion to have, but she’d honestly never thought Robyn had the conviction or the dedication to do anything of the sort.

And yet she remembered how passionate Robyn had been about volunteering at the crisis center after some kids from her school died in one of the New Nation attacks. Maybe that was what had made her easy prey for these people.

“Robyn…” Sarah hesitated, lowering her voice as much she could. Whoever these people who’d recruited Robyn were, they were playing with people’s lives. “Is there any chance that the people here were the ones who killed our parents?”

“No, I promise.” Robyn’s expression suggested she thought the idea absurd. “They had nothing to do with it.”

“How can you be so sure?” Who’s to say what they’d be capable of to keep their secrets hidden?

“I know them.”

Sarah gave her a skeptical look.

“They’re not bad people.” Robyn seemed to struggle with her words. “They’re not some shadows outside in the hallway, not even just my co-workers. They’re my friends.”

Sarah was about to say something in response, but Robyn raised a hand.

“They are,” she insisted. “There’s Griffon, who saved my life when we first met at the center. Unicorn, who was my sponsor during training. There’s Scorpion, who butted heads with me all along the way, but risked her life for me more than once. There’s also Pegasus. You met him your first day back from la la land.”

“The one who smiles a lot.”

Robyn nodded. “He does that when he’s trying to look friendly. He thinks it makes him seem approachable.”

“It kinda works.”

“Yeah, well, when I first met him, he drew a gun on me because I said the wrong thing.”

Sarah hadn’t thought he looked violent. Clearly, she was wrong.

“But he’s the one I’d pick if I had to go through hell and needed company,” Robyn added hurriedly, as if that would somehow make it better. She flinched. “I shouldn’t have said that first bit about the gun.”

Sarah let her sister ramble on, aware that they were both ignoring the main issue. It was fine to indulge in this wayward conversation for the moment. “So, everyone here is like a soldier or something?”

“Close enough. They come from different backgrounds, but they all go through a lot of training to be here.”

Sarah scoffed. “They can’t be that good if they couldn’t bring me in without almost killing me.”

“It was an accident. Besides, you are a handful.”

“That was your excuse when you let me eat that poisonous plant in the living room.”

“I was nine!”

“I was five!”

“Accidents happen,” Robyn said. “But these people, all of them, are the best we have.”

“In someone’s opinion other than their own?”

Robyn surrendered a smile. “Well, that might be too much to ask. Nobody’s perfect. We’re all human.” Her smile faltered a bit. “Unicorn likes to gossip, Scorpion’s got a bitchy streak in her, Griffon lets his emotions get in the way sometimes, and Pegasus has a Jekyll and Hyde thing going on when he doesn’t get any sleep.”

Sarah nodded, not really listening. Her head was pounding again. “And what’s your flaw, Robyn? Inability to tell the truth to loved ones?”

Sarah knew she’d sounded mean, but her sister didn’t seem to be taken aback.

Robyn sighed. “I always follow through.”

“And that’s a bad thing?”

“It can be,” Robyn said, her gaze far away. “Because even if you change your mind mid-fall, you’re still falling.”

Sarah frowned. Whatever Robyn was trying to convey was lost on her. “I thought that made you pig-headed.”

Robyn rose to her feet and started towards the door, pausing at the threshold. “There’s nothing I can ever say to make you forgive me, and I know there isn’t anything I can ever do to make me forgive myself.” Robyn turned away from her. “I wanted you to know that. And if you want to hate me, that’s okay.”

She was gone before Sarah had a chance to reply. Which was probably best since she didn’t know what to say.

In her mind, everything Robyn said started going round and round, part of the storm pounding against the inside of her skull.

Tears started pooling in her eyes until they overflowed. Still, she didn’t move.

“I don’t hate you.” She could never hate her sister.

* * *

Robyn was almost back to her room when she ran into Pegasus. By how he’d been hanging around in the middle of the hallway, he’d been waiting for her.

“How’d it go?” he asked.

Robyn shrugged without slowing down. She wasn’t sure what was going through Sarah’s mind at the moment. She wasn’t entirely sure what was going through her own mind.

Her initial plan had been to give Sarah some half-truths to satisfy her curiosity. In the end, she’d told her so much, too much. It felt good being able to get at least that much out in the open—even if it was meant as a smokescreen for all the things she couldn’t say.

Everything she said would’ve hit Sarah pretty hard. Robyn was dreading the rest of that conversation. And she really didn’t want to think how Sarah might react if or when she heard the entire story.

Pegasus followed her along, clearly trying to read her thoughts in her expression. That made her uncomfortable.

“She’s your sister, she loves you, it’ll be fine,” he said, simplifying things to a ridiculous degree.

“Did they finish going over the warehouse?” she asked, changing subjects. Better distract him with work before he got too nosy.

“Yeah, they’re coming back now.”

“What’d they find? Is the shipment all there?”

He looked grim. “A little more than half the chemicals are unaccounted for.”

“I really wanted in on this one.” She opened the door to her room with so much force that Pegasus took a step back as if expecting it to come off the wall.

He leaned against the doorjamb when she went in. “There’ll be other missions, unfortunately. Or fortunately, depending on how screwed up you are inside. Any news on when you’re clear?”

“Doc Brown’s being infuriating, as usual. He wants another week to make sure my bloodwork is back to normal. Said he doesn’t want me anywhere near poison gas in my current anemic state.”

Pegasus laughed. “I know, it’s astounding how he doesn’t care that the healthy people are going near the poison gas. Then again, it’s only his job to care about the sick people.”

“Yay, me.”

“You could take it as an opportunity to spend time with your sister.”

“Yeah.” She made a face. “I’m kinda scared of that.” And kinda was putting it mildly.

“Just suck it up, Dragon. It’s not fair to her.” His smile dimmed. “Or have your plans changed?”

She shook her head. No plans would be changing anytime soon. The one who always followed through, that was her.

“Then stop avoiding it and talk to her.”

“I will…” It was inevitable.

Pegasus nodded towards the stack of photo albums on her bed. “What are you doing with those?”

“Oh, I went back to the house yesterday. Figured Sarah would want these. I was looking them over before I gave them to her.” She flipped through one, stopping at a photo of the entire family. Smiles filled her view. “There’s so much of our lives we take for granted, isn’t there?”

“Have you considered changing your mind?” His tone was gentle.

She nodded. “But I can’t.”

“You went to the house by yourself?” he asked, changing gears.

Robyn rolled her eyes. “Unicorn drove me. She wasn’t too happy about it, either. Gave me almost the same look you’re giving me now. She also kept watch outside the entire time. It was perfectly safe.”

“I spoke to a friend of mine on the force. They’ve all but filed it away as a random hit,” he said.

That was expected. In all honesty, they weren’t hoping for much. The police, when on its own, didn’t have an impressive track record dealing with the New Nation.

“Cypher thinks we might have a lead on which cell attacked us,” she said. “Griffon isn’t letting me anywhere near it until we have something solid, but I’ll get it out of Cypher as soon as you’re all gone. When do you head out?”

He didn’t even bother warning her off. He really knew her well. “0600.”

She checked her watch. “You should get some sleep then.”

He smiled, pushing himself away from the doorjamb. “Any other last-minute advice?”

“Yeah, don’t get killed.”