Page 64 of Firedrake Betrayal
I’ll bet I can guess exactly where he wants us to go.
“And return to New York?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says simply.
Patten sits up in his seat. Isaiah starts to speak, but I talk over him.
“Then go. I’m not forcing you to stay. If you want to leave, then leave.” I motion toward the door so he knows I’m being serious.
He takes a step toward me. I immediately take one away from him and he stops, his lips pursing. “It is not safe foryou. I can?—”
“Run away in the middle of a fight like you did the last time?” I interrupt.
Patten snorts in amusement. “She has you there.”
I don’t look away from Dominik and he doesn’t look away from me.
“That isn’t what I did,” Dominik says calmly despite the tension in his jaw.
“It looks exactly that way to me. Dad saved us—and you—from a trap, and I’m not leaving him behind for Atticus to snatch up and stick in a cell,” I say.
“A traptheyled you into.” Dominik stabs a finger toward Shep, Patten, and Isaiah.
I stab my finger at him. “To saveyou.”
“And putyouin danger of falling back into Atticus’s hands. They cannot protect you like I can.” Dominik’s voice is so confident he’s right when he’s wrong.
Stubborn. He said ego was how he wound up as a part of Atticus’s collection. It doesn’t look like that experience taught him a lesson.
I whirl away, biting back my need to scream at him.
My eyes connect with an unfamiliar face reflected at me in the stainless steel refrigerator. I stumble back, a scream lodged in my throat. It’s not my face, and it should have been.
“Jade?” A chair leg scrapes on the hardwood floors. Shep must be standing. “Are you okay?”
I make myself look at the refrigerator again.
It’s just my reflection. I even blink a couple of times to make sure. But it’s just me.
You didn’t see what you thought you saw. Let it go.
“Fine.” I head for the stairs. “I need the bathroom.”
But at the foot of the steps, I stop. “I’m not leaving my dad here. If he’s not well enough to move, I’m staying.”
Before anyone can veto the idea, I rush up the stairs.
I slam the bathroom door shut, lock it, and reluctantly walk to the mirror over the sink, taking a second to prepare myself before I look into it.
And I let out a slow breath of relief.
A young woman with long dark hair, slightly scared dark green eyes and a pale heart-shaped face stares back.
Me.
Just perfectly ordinary me.
Not a gold firedrake with brilliant bright green orbs.
