Page 23 of Serving my Dragon (The Dragocracy Chronicles #2)
Chapter Seventeen
Juan raced us back to the waterfall cave, cursing himself the entire way for being an idiot. For not realizing we’d been set up. He was not the only one who’d been fooled, but then again, even I would have never guessed how far these gringos would go to get their hands on Kayleigh.
They intentionally injured my mother to lure me from our hideout so they could sneak in and nab Kayleigh. Did she live? Were we already too late? My heart insisted she’d not been killed and yet, as we searched the citadel finding no sign of Kayleigh or Polly, a cold dread settled within.
They were gone because I’d failed to protect them and dios only knew what would happen to them at the hands of their kidnappers.
The only good thing? I found no blood, but there were other ways to kill, which led me to standing at the edge of the chasm, praying Kayleigh’s body didn’t lie broken at the bottom.
Juan put a hand on my arm and drew me away from the gash in the stone. “They’re not down there.”
“You can’t know that for sure. Pollita can fly now.”
“But Kayleigh can’t, and we both know the dragon isn’t strong enough to carry her. I think they took her.”
“What makes you think that?”
My uncle held up a plastic tie, the kind that looped like manacles. “I found this on the ground.”
“Why would they take Kayleigh?”
“Are you suddenly dumb? Use your head.”
“They’re going to use Kayleigh to get Polly to cooperate,” I replied slowly. While my dragon might talk big and call us her servants, she did like us. Liked us enough she might not want to see us injured.
“Now you’re thinking.”
“I’d rather not because then I wouldn’t have to realize how I failed to protect them.”
“Bah. As if you could have predicted something like this. I didn’t and we both know I am much smarter than you.”
I snorted. “If you’re so smart, then why not tell me where they are?” Because I had to find them.
“Right now, they’re probably heading to an airfield to catch a flight out of the country.”
“Putting them out of reach.”
“Only if they leave the ground.”
“Even if we leave now for the airport, we’re at least a few hours behind them,” I pointed out. “They’ll be gone before we even get close.”
“No, they won’t. They were announcing a big storm as we left the hospital. High winds. Rain. Lightning. Ain’t no one flying tonight.”
In my panic, I’d not been paying attention to the weather, but Juan had a point. The dark clouds had been gathering and hung ominously low.
“You think we have time to find them?” A spark of hope lit within.
“We do, but we’ll need reinforcements.”
“You think we can convince the police to help us?”
“Bah, not those idiots,” Juan scoffed. “I’m talking about asking the familia.”
“I don’t know if we should drag them into this.”
“They’re already involved and you know they’d want to strike back at the ones who hurt Lola.”
Juan made a good point. My family wanted blood.
Literally. Carmelita had been at the hospital muttering something about casting a curse.
Tía Consuela suggested they use poison. My uncle Diego thought a good ol’ fashion beating was called for.
As for my cousins, Emilia and Sophia, they thought the driver of the car who hit Mama needed a taste of his own medicine times two.
They’d talked about running him over and then reversing to run over him again.
Savages.
Dios, I loved them.
“I know they’ll want to help rescue Kayleigh, but how are we supposed to explain the fact we need to get Polly back too?” I couldn’t see them wanting to risk themselves for a lizard.
“Easy. We tell them the truth.”
“They’ll never believe us.” More likely they’d hit the floor laughing.
“You think they’ll dare call your mama a liar?”
No, they wouldn’t, hence why Juan texted the family to meet us in Mama’s room at the hospital.
“They’ll never let everyone in,” I argued as we headed there at a speed that had me fearing for my life given the sleeting rain. The storm had hit and it seemed set on drowning the world.
“You really think some nurses can stop your aunts from being with Lola?” They might only be related by marriage, but in their minds, that was as good as blood.
Turned out Juan was right. When we arrived, everyone crowded Mama’s hospital room. We walked into the din of many voices speaking at once but they fell silent at the sight of us.
“What happened?” Santiago asked. “Why did you call a family meeting?”
“Did you find the bastardo who hurt Lola?” Diego slammed a closed fist into his open hand.
Whereas Carmelita frowned. “Where’s Kayleigh?”
“Kidnapped.” I dropped just that single word and the pandemonium of before trebled until Mama—wearing fewer tubes than before—barked, “Quiet.”
The room hushed.
“Tell us what happened, mijo.”
“The asshole targeting Kayleigh found out where we were hiding. They hit Mama on purpose to make sure I was gone so they could abduct Kayleigh and Pollita.”
“They took the lizard too?” Consuela’s nose wrinkled. “Why?”
I glanced at Juan who gave me a nod and I took a deep breath before saying, “Because Pollita is a dragon.”
Laughter erupted. To be expected, but it cut off abruptly when Mama said, “It’s true.”
“Someone call the doctor, she’s delusional.” Carmelita clasped her hands dramatically whereas Santiago snorted. “That tiny reptile is not a dragon.”
“It is.” Juan’s words brought a hush once more to the room. Eyes widened because everyone knew he wasn’t one to exaggerate.
“Why don’t you explain, mijo,” Mama suggested.
I told my family everything. How I’d found both Kayleigh and Polly that day in the canyon.
How Polly learned to speak by watching television and told us of people who’d tried to capture her.
That Kayleigh had witnessed the gringos trying to kidnap her and became a target afterwards so she wouldn’t spill what she knew.
I spoke of how we’d been hiding in a cave that once housed dragons and when I mentioned the names, my whole family did the sign of the cross.
I even mentioned the fact Pollita now had wings, which led to Mama clapping her hands. “Oh, I cannot wait to see her fly.”
Carmelita was the first to exclaim, “Our family has been blessed.”
My lips pursed. “How do you figure?” Because apart from the burgeoning love between me and Kayleigh, my life had been chaotic since rescuing Polly.
“One of the mighty ancient beasts from legend has chosen you as its protector. What an honor,” my aunt stated.
“Pollita declared me one of her official cooks,” Mama boasted.
Not to be outdone, Juan said, “And I am the dragon’s defender, as is Matias.”
“What about us?” My family went from disbelief to wanting to be a part of my dragon’s retinue.
Seeing them getting sidetracked, I brought them back to the problem at hand. “We won’t be anything if we don’t rescue Polly and Kayleigh.” I glanced at Juan.
He cleared his throat. “Their captors will most likely try and smuggle them out by plane. Probably using the same private jet that flew out the gringos we had arrested.”
“They won’t be going anywhere tonight,” Santiago noted, glancing out the window where rain sheeted against the glass which rattled with each crash of thunder.
“Meaning we have until the storm clears to locate the plane,” Juan announced.
“And then what?” I asked. “Going to hijack it?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” my uncle scoffed. “None of us know how to pilot that thing. We’ll extract Kayleigh and the dragon before it takes off.”
“How do we even find out which plane they’re on?”
A dumb question, apparently, because Juan already had some of his contacts working on it and they’d narrowed it down to two private jets currently stalled by the storm. Both had filed flight plans to the USA and awaited clearance for take-off.
As my family plotted how to best approach the situation, my reminder that we’d be going up against armed and dangerous people got ignored.
It wasn’t my intention to really dissuade them since I would be making a rescue attempt no matter what.
However, I felt as if they should understand what we were up against. After all, my cousins had young children.
But that didn’t dissuade them from wanting to play a part, and as Sophia reminded me, Not all fights are won with fists or weapons. Sometimes it just took being sly.
And so, in that hospital room—that the nurses gave up on emptying it—we plotted as best we could before splitting up to grab what we needed to put the plan in motion.