Hour of the Dragon - Heather Killough-Walden Page 0,19

feeling the blood fill his head, and continued to push.

He was sweating with effort by the time he managed to dislodge himself enough to roll out from under the destroyed fixture. He sustained scrapes and bruises along both arms and his side where his shirt had come free of his pants, but he was right about his initial assessment about his arm being wrong. It wasn’t broken after all. It must have been shock alone that kept him from moving it at first. The blood was most likely from a deep cut and nothing more.

Randall sat up, steadied himself past dizziness, and then got to his feet. He slowly looked around.

“No fucking way,” he muttered as his surroundings became clear. His library was in ruins, only two of its four walls still standing. His books were destroyed, their covers and pages disassembled and scattered in every direction. He could barely make them out beneath the rubble of the destruction. But that wasn’t what had him staring open-mouthed in fascination.

It was the airplane less than half a block away, its nose buried in the core of the power substation building at the end of the street. Its main body had torn in half at some point, but whether it was before or after it had been dismantled by the impact, it was impossible for Randall to tell. The aircraft was a jetliner, possibly capable of carrying around two hundred passengers. Given the way it had fractured, its remains were reminiscent of the Titanic.

He scanned the wreckage, not at all surprised that he could see no signs of life. He began to roll up the sleeve of his bloodied arm and considered what to do next when against all odds, he heard the sound of voices.

Female voices.

Randall turned slowly, trying to pinpoint the direction from which they came. When he was sure he had, he began stumbling slowly toward them. They came and went, their clarity made sporadic by distance, wind, smoke, and the sounds of fire and electricity. But he caught a few phrases here and there.

“… take mine. Go ahead and put it on.”

“Please just… going to be okay? He isn’t… god please don’t leave me….”

“… need you to trust me. I’m going to help him, I promise. But you need… interfere, no matter what.”

Randall began to circle a final mound of smoking debris when the speakers came into view. For some reason, his instinct forced him back behind the bulk of the debris, where he knelt and watched from a hidden distance.

They were kneeling on the ground amidst the rubble, two women. There was a boy too, but he was on his back between them, and unmoving. The boy and his mother, Randall recognized from the library, though they were both covered in layers of dust and ash, and the mother had blood on her head that caked a lock of her hair to the side of her face. There was more blood on her hands.

But there was none on the little boy.

Randall couldn’t tell exactly where the kid had been hurt, but he must have been harmed by the crash because his color was decidedly pale, and his lips were purple. He was either dead or fast on his way.

The mother began sobbing, but impressively, she remained where she was as the other woman, whom Randall could only see from behind, repositioned herself next to the boy’s unmoving form. From his vantage, he couldn’t really see much of her but her hair, which was decidedly beautiful. It was dark blonde maybe, somewhat gold, and with unique rose-gold and strawberry highlights running through it. Though it had been tied up into some kind of bun, he could tell there was a copious amount of it; the bun was thick, and long strands had come loose, probably during the commotion, to curl down her back and over her shoulders.

He admired it for a moment, but then he went still, and his mind went a little blank when she turned, offering him her profile.

There was something prophetically volatile about the way she looked in profile. There was an air about her that made her appear the muse, posing to be captured by a painter’s expert hand.

Her eyes were downcast as she gave her attention to the unconscious child. He took in her lashes, so long and thick he could see them even from where he crouched, despite the dust in the air. His eyes grazed over the rise of the apple