CHAPTER 7
Susan
“You what?”
Susan attempted
nonchalance as she uploaded the edited blog entry. “Your hearing’s
fine, and you’re only standing three feet away, so I know you
caught that. Dr. Georges-Scales suggested it, and I’ve wanted to do
this interview for a while, so I said yes.”
“He could have killed
you!”
“Only with his
breath. I guess there are no Tic Tacs here under Big Blue
anymore.”
“Sooo-zen!”
“Don’t yowl; it’s not
at all sexy. Besides, he wasn’t going to kill me. He needed me.”
She was trying to sound impatient at Gautierre’s
overprotectiveness, but it was hard. She adored him beyond all
reason. She adored his soft cobalt and lavender scales in dragon
form, she adored his triple-braided hair in human form, she adored
the piercing golden eyes he had in both. She had no idea if first
love was this intense, or trapped-in-a-dome love, or
he-saved-my-life love. Or a weird-yet-cool combo.
Because she did love
him, she was trapped beneath a dome, and he had saved her life. He
had walked through fire for her. Literally! It was all she could do
to keep from darting across the room and falling on his face and
kissing said face for several hours.
Instead, she finished
filing the report and squinted outside. “It actually looks decent
out there. We should go for a picnic.”
“A picnic? Susan,
Ember’s gang attacked yesterday. You’re not going outside. You’re
not going anywhere!”
“Thanks, Fred
Flintstone.” It became slightly easier to be irritated now. “I
don’t recall asking your opinion.”
“You want to die? Is
that it?”
Hmm. Lots o’ drama, even for teens in love trapped beneath
a dome. “Gautierre, I’m a reporter. You get why I’m doing
this, right? To . . . what’s the word? Oh. Right. Report. To tell
the truth. I want the whole world to know what we’re going through.
I do not want the world to Area 51
us.”
“Area 51 is a
verb?”
“Winter’s coming,”
she continued, not cracking a grin. “People will starve. To
death, okay?”
He straightened his
back, which gained him two inches. He tossed his braid gently; a
moon elm leaf was woven into the strands. It was the weredragon
equivalent of wolfs-bane . . . as long as he was in physical
contact with it, Gautierre had control over when and where he
became a dragon. Without it, he would be tied to the crescent moon.
“I love what you’re doing.”
“No, you
don’t.”
“Okay, I don’t. I
know it’s important. I hate that you risk yourself almost every
day.”
“Risk? Jennifer’s
taking risks. Her mom is taking risks, and her dad. The goddamned
medical secretaries are taking risks, okay? Me? I’m babbling into a
camera and making out with my boyfriend.”
“You’re not doing
either of those right now,” he pointed out with a
smile.
“Keep it up,” she
muttered, “and see how much and how often and how long I don’t do
either of those. Or one of those.” Wait. What?
Oh, hell. He knew what she meant.
She took a steadying
breath. Keep cool. Start over. “Getting
back to it, it does look pretty nice. Want to take a
walk?”
“No.”
“What,
no?”
“Forget it, Susan.
It’s too dangerous.”
“For me, you
mean.”
Gautierre snorted.
“No, for your pet geese.”
“I don’t own a
single—”
“Look, keeping you
from getting roasted or skewered is turning into a full-time job.
Not that I mind,” he added hastily upon seeing her scowl, “but
let’s not go looking for trouble, okay?”
She slapped her hands
onto her hips so hard she almost knocked herself over. “Wait a
minute, hose bag! You’re not really pulling that chauvinistic
garbage on me, are you? What century are you living in? Cute little
Susan has to be protected by her boyfriend? Because you can stuff
those misconceptions right down your gullet!”
“Susan, pardon the
obvious, but I’m a
dragon!”
“You are not!” She
looked again at the leaf. “Well. Not all the time.”
“Yes, Susan, even
when I’m walking around on two legs, I’m a weredragon, I was born
one and will die one and will always be one, forever and ever,
amen. I fly and breathe fire and eat sheep.”
“Charming.”
“You, on the other
hand, have only one protection: you’re gorgeous. You don’t have
scales or a nose horn or wings or enhanced strength or enhanced
speed. It’s not chauvinism; it’s reality. You can’t protect
yourself the way I can. And you not facing up to that? Pretending
it’s fine for you to hop out the door whenever you want, you are
woman, hear you roar? It’s not feminism. It’s idiocy.”
Susan’s eyes widened,
and she could actually feel her eyeballs bulge inside her skull.
She was so upset her brain was going into put-down overload. Where
to start? With the idiocy thing? With the pseudofeminist analysis?
Hear her roar? Had he really said
that?
“You—you—I—arrggle—mmph—”
“Hmmm.” Gautierre put
his hands out, as if to catch her. “Are you having an aneurysm? You
look really weird.”
“—gnnh—mmeh?”
“Here, siddown.” He
steered her to a wheelchair and plopped her into it. “Look, I hate
the thought of you getting hurt, okay? I’d rather stay under a roof
with you and never fly again if it meant you’d come out of all this
okay. You expose yourself enough by going outside and doing all
those reports.”
“Did you just say I
expose myself?”
He sighed. “Grow
up.”
“I love that you look
out for me,” she began and, when he looked pleased, added, “in your
own horrible, smothering way. But there are plenty of other
‘normies’ in town who are risking their safety to go out. Even if I
didn’t have to do my reports—”
“You don’t have to do your reports.”
“—I wouldn’t spend
the day cowering in this hospital, peeking outside, and wishing I
could see the sky.”
“On that
one”—Gautierre sighed—“I think we can both agree. But I think your
real reason is, you love seeing yourself on CNN.”
“Oh, well.” She
shrugged modestly. If he only knew, the poor sucker. Loved seeing
herself? She loved chocolate. She loved oatmeal. She loved the way
towels smelled when they dried on a clothesline.
She lived to see herself on CNN. She would wither and
die if she had to go back to her old life. The supporting role. The
plucky best friend.
No thanks. Tried that the first fifteen
years.
“Besides, I’m bigger
and stronger than you, and I vote we stay inside for a couple of
more hours at least.” He ducked, and her hair clip—which she’d
yanked out of her ponytail and hurled at him—sailed over his head.
“So if we can’t go outside, let’s put our heads together and see
what can we—oooommmpph!”
She had successfully
landed on his lips. Touchdown! “The crowd goes wild,” she said,
smirking.
“Argh, my back,” he
groaned.
“At least it wasn’t a
knee in your balls.” With that tender thought, she snuggled into
his chest.
Dome? What
dome?