Page 56 of Dragon Slayer

13

NOT COPS

Present Day

Mia returned to herself with a deep, desperate gasp. It felt like she fell, and then landed, suddenly, her knees threatening to give out. She blinked black spots from her vision and fought to get her racing pulse under control.

“Wha…” she panted. “What was…”

Her surroundings resolved themselves slowly, seeming to tilt around her. She was in Brando’s stall, still, one hand braced on the boards of the wall, the other clutched at the base of her throat where a low ache made itself known.

With sweat-damp, clumsy fingers, she dug her phone out of her jeans pocket and checked the time. She’d come in to groom Brando around three, and it was only fifteen after. A quarter hour had passed, but it had felt like years.

The dream. The vision…whatever it was. It had seemed soreal. She’d been inside Val’s head, had seen life through his eyes.

His four-year-old eyes.

His life in fifteenth century Romania.

“Holy shit,” she whispered, wobbling dangerously as dizziness washed over her. “Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.”

Then her panic derailed.

Becausewhere the fuck was Val now?

“Val?” Her voice cracked. “Val?” She took a step, and stumbled forward, tripped over the track that housed the stall door, and almost face-planted in the middle of the barn aisle. Louder, not caring if anyone heard or thought she was insane: “Val?! Where are you?”

“Mia.”

She whipped around and found Donna bearing down on her. She was flanked by two strangers, a man and a woman. Both in dark, nondescript clothes.

Mia shivered, and she didn’t know if it was the aftereffects of her vision, or something else.

“Mia,” Donna repeated, face set at unhappy angles. “Are you alright?”

No. No, she wasn’t even a little bit alright. “I…” Her breath still huffed in and out, chest tight. “I don’t…” Her gaze skipped to the strangers. Their stern expressions, their squared shoulders. The guns on their hips.

“Why are the cops here?” she asked, still too scrambled for any tact.

Donna sighed, like she was weary, but her gaze was electric with an emotion Mia had never seen on her before. It took her a moment to realize it was anxiety, and her own fractious heartbeat accelerated another notch. “They aren’t cops,” Donna said, admirably even-toned. “This is Major Treadwell and Agent Ramirez. They work with your father.”

Oh God.

She remembered Val’s spectral hands making a grab for her shoulders, the naked terror on his face. If Dad was holding Val against his will, chained up in some basement, then these expressionless droids with guns were the sort of people guarding him.

She drew herself as upright as possible; Donna steadied her with a hand at her elbow. “I don’t have anything to say to either of you,” she said. “Tell my father I don’t want anything to do with him.”

The man, Treadwell, frowned politely. She detected something beneath, though, something pained. “With all due respect, ma’am, you don’t exactly have a choice in the matter. We have reason to believe you’ve been consorting with a dangerous prisoner. We’re going to have to take you in.”

Donna spun around, hand already lifted, finger aimed at his chest. “What? Uh-uh. Oh hell no. I said you could talk to her, not take her in. If you’re not cops, you can’t do that anyway. Fuck you, buddy.” It was the most emotion she’d ever displayed.

Major Treadwell frowned at her a moment, then shifted his gaze around her to Mia. “Miss Talbot,” he said, tone aiming for reasonable. “Your father’s apprised us of your medical situation. He only wants to help you, and it’s imperative that you cease all contact with this prisoner immediately.”

“Did you just–” Donna spluttered. “Don’t you dare act like I’m not here, asshole! This is my barn, and you can’t–”

“Don’t get hysterical, ma’am,” the woman, Agent Ramirez, said, hand settling on her gun.

Red-faced, Donna opened her mouth to respond–

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