Page 9 of Tater
“Traffic cone,” she said.
He gave me a look.
“Fine. Ren.”
His shoulders eased by a millimeter.
The dragon hummed under her skin. “He was worried.”
“I can see that,” she thought back.
There was a knock at the door. Eagle didn’t wait for an answer — he pushed it open with his shoulder, a coffee mug in one hand, something that looked like a stack of bills or receipts tucked under his arm.
“She awake?” he asked, like she wasn’t right there.
“No,” she said. “I’m haunting you.”
“Could be worse,” Eagle said. “I’ve had worse ghosts.”
He came closer, looking me over with that sharp, assessing gaze. His dark hair was pulled back, his own cuts and bruisescleaner than Tater’s but there. No one had gotten out last night unmarked.
“You look like shit too,” she told him.
“Yeah, well,” he said. “This is my pretty side.”
He set the coffee on the rolling tray by my bed and crossed his arms.
“How you feeling?” he asked.
“Like I got hit by a truck,” she said. “Then the truck backed up to check on me and ran me over again.”
He nodded. “So, normal.”
Tater shot him a look. Eagle ignored it.
“You remember what happened?” Eagle asked me.
“Most of it,” she said slowly. “Heard you and Tater fighting. Left. Rode out. Hades Hellhounds came. They brought friends and a van. Set a trap. I sprung it. Things caught fire. People died. I passed out. Woke up here. Ten out of ten, would not recommend.”
The dragon pulsed, flickering images through my mind — fire on wet bark, the smell of burning rubber, the taste of blood, Tater’s face swimming into view through rain.
“Also, there was that part where I turned somebody’s face into charcoal,” she added. “Don’t know if we’re counting that as a highlight.”
Eagle’s mouth tightened. “We saw.”
“You see the part where they shot me?” she asked.
“Seen that too,” he said. “Trying to decide which of us gets to lose more sleep over it.”
“Too late,” Tater said under his breath.
She looked between them.
“Where are they?” she asked. “The ones who lived.”
Tater shook his head. “None of them did.”
She frowned. “I left a few breathing. Shot, cut, burnt, but they were alive when I blacked out.”
