Rock Bottom (Dragon Within #4) Read Online Free Page B

from whatever he’s thinking and come on out.
Let’s talk face to face.”
         I dropped
my head back against the wall. I knew going out there would be stupid, but all
I kept thinking was how this guy might have a fire dragon with him. And the
idea of having the cabin set on fire with me and Zack trapped inside was worse
than anything else I could imagine.
         “Okay,
I’m coming out.”
         “Zack
first.”
         “That’ll be
kind of hard seeing as how your air dragon blasted him into the wall. He’s
either unconscious or...” I had to swallow past a knot in my throat. “Or dead. Either
way, he’s not going anywhere.”
         A few
seconds passed in silence. “What about the rest of your friends?”
         I
silently debated whether it would be better to lie or tell the truth. I really
wished somebody smarter than me was around to tell me what to do. “They’re not
here. They went into town. It’s only me and Zack.”
         “Fine.” I
thought I heard a hint of hesitation in his voice, but I wasn’t sure. “You come
out then. But don’t try anything.”
         I stepped
out through the hole in the wall. A half dozen people were spread out behind
the cabin. Five men and one woman. I knew who had done the talking the moment I
saw him. “Rick.” He looked exactly as I remembered. Movie star good looks.
Built like one of those guys in a bodybuilder magazine. But the friendly light
that used to shine in his eyes was gone.
         I paused,
eyeing the rather large handgun he was pointing at me. He wasn’t a dragon, so
he had no powers to confront me with. But a gun did a fine job of evening
things up between us.
         “Surprised to see me?” he asked.
         “Yeah." I was in trouble and I knew it. The others were dragons, I
had no doubt about that. Maybe they were battle trained trackers and maybe they
weren’t, but either way I was outnumbered and outmatched. My control over my
powers was improving. But not enough for me to take on so many of them by
myself.
         He
glanced past me. “Zack, if you can hear me you better come out or I’m going to
put a bullet in your girl. I can’t kill her, but I can hurt her.”  
         “I told
you, he’s...” If I said dead one more time I was going to burst into tears. “He
was knocked out. He can’t hear you.”
         “We’ll
see about that,” Rick said. “Bret, you go in there and check.”
         One of
the guys took a step forward, then stopped. He looked a little older than Zack,
maybe twenty one or so. He glanced at Rick. He glanced at me. Then he squared
his shoulders and walked toward the cabin, taking a wide track around me. The
whole time he kept watching me out of the corner of his eye. Sweat beaded his
upper lip. And that was when I realized something amazing. He was afraid of me.
Of me , not Zack, though he probably wasn’t too happy about dealing with
him either if he knew about all the dead bodies back in California.
         I looked
at the other dragons. None of them would meet my eye. Only Rick, who knew me as
Abigail Freeman, the sixteen year old girl who was way out of her depth. The
others only saw a hybrid. To them I was the boogeyman come to life.
         Bret was
gone all of two minute before coming back out. “She was telling the truth.
Zack’s down. The cabin is empty.”
         “Is Zack
dead?” Rick asked.
         My breath
caught in my chest as I waited on the answer.
         “No,”
Bret said. “Do we want to take him back with us?”
         I let my
breath out in a whoosh. Even with the danger we were still in, I felt immense
relief knowing Zack was alive. I only hoped he wasn’t hurt too badly.
         Rick
stared at me for a long moment, before answering Bret without taking his eyes
off mine. “Kill him.”
         No
thought whatsoever crossed my mind. Which was a good thing, because thoughts
brought hesitation and doubt. My