Page 4 of Draekora

Holding her left hand tenderly, D.C. bit her lip. “I landed pretty hard on my wrist.”

“Here, let me look,” Bear said as Alex stood and slid her way over to them.

He gently rolled D.C.’s wrist back and forth, pressing carefully against the bones.

“Your movement is good,” Bear said. “I think it’s just sprained.”

D.C.’s face was tight with pain. “I’ll be fine. Let’s keep moving.”

“Dix—”

“Alex, I’m fine. Really. Let’s go.”

Taking in the determined look on her friend’s face, Alex slowly nodded. But before she led the way onwards, she unwound the scarf from her neck and used it to tie her ComTCD to D.C.’s wrist as an improvised splint.

“Try to keep it as still as possible,” Alex said. “The more you move it, the worse you’ll make it.”

“You’ve spent way too much time in the Med Ward,” D.C. observed, studying Alex’s rudimentary attempt at first aid. “But thanks. It already feels a bit better.”

“Thank Fletcher,” Alex said. “He’s patched me up so many times, I was bound to learn a thing or two.”

On that wry note, Alex edged her way forward again, carefully this time. Her feet slid along the icy floor, and more than once she had to catch herself before taking another header onto the ground. Their slow progress was made more frustrating when greenish clouds rolled in and began to spit small hailstones at them. They weren’t large enough to cause worrying injuries, but Alex certainly obtained her fair share of stinging bruises. It was a relief, therefore, when they crossed into the next weather section, even if it sent them directly into a blustery snowstorm.

“This place ismental!” Alex cried over the howling wind as they trudged their way through the knee-deep snow. A mass of flurries blew straight into her mouth just from emitting those few words, so she refrained from yelling anything else to her friends until they reached the next section.

Soaked and shivering from the piercing chill of the blizzard, they were grateful to cross the boundary into a section that was both silent and still. But just when Alex thought they were in the clear, the back of her neck began to prickle with warning and a peculiar tingly feeling overcame her.

“Run!” came Johnny’s urgent voice from Bear’s ComTCD. “Run, run,run!”

Alex didn’t need to be told twice. She remembered what he’d said about the last section being the most dangerous, and when a ferocious rumble was followed closely by a blinding light and an ear-splittingCRACK, she understood exactly why he hadn’t given them more details.

They were right in the middle of an electrical storm. And judging by the amount of static charge Alex felt and the strong smell of ozone in the air, it was a nasty one, at that.

With Bear and D.C. right behind her, Alex took off at a sprint through the low-hanging dark clouds, heading for the open door that was still an alarming distance away. Another thunderous roar had Alex slapping her hands over her ears, and she couldn’t suppress a shriek when a spike of lightning struck the floor so close that she felt the power of the bolt surge along her skin.

Alex picked up her speed, but as they reached the halfway mark of the storm-section, the lightning and thunder increased to the point that the three of them had to zigzag their way in short, sharp lunges to avoid being struck. It was only then that Alex remembered Johnny saying that some of the weather was reactive—the storm was activelytrackingthem, targeting their movements as they hurried through the room.

With that insight, Alex struggled against her rising panic. Instead, she focused on getting out of there alive, blinking furiously to combat the blinding explosions of light. Just a few feet away from the door, she heard the loudestCRACKyet and knew they had but a few seconds before their luck would run out and they would be burnt to a crisp.

“Hurry!” she yelled, taking a running leap directly through the doorway, noting with relief that Bear and D.C. were right on her heels.

She came to a sudden, messy stop when she soared straight into a mud-filled pond. Bear and D.C. managed to avoid the pile of dirty sludge, but Alex was elbow deep in the muck and covered from head to toe from the splash of her landing.

“Eww, gross,” she said, pushing up and wiping a hand across her face, only smearing the mess further.

She heard a muffled snort and whipped her head around to see a wild-haired D.C. with her uninjured hand over her mouth, her eyes sparkling with humour. It was the liveliest Alex had seen her since Jordan’s Claiming—even if it was at the expense of Alex’s own dignity.

As for Bear, his hair was standing on end, and half his face was streaked with what looked like charcoal—the effect of a close call with the lightning—but he, too, appeared to be struggling to hold back laughter as he took in Alex’s muddy predicament.

“Not a word,” she said with a warning glare.

D.C. and Bear were shaking with silent hysterics, but they swallowed back their hilarity with pressed lips and quick nods.

“Johnny, please tell me we’re close?” Alex called, deliberately ignoring his muffled chuckle when he noted her appearance through the ComTCD.

“Just get through this last room and you’ll hit the skywalk,” he said, eyes dancing with mirth. “There’s a guard still patrolling your side of the tower, so you’ll have a straight path along the corridor from there.”

Finally, some good news, Alex thought.

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