Текст книги "The Dragon's Favorite Strays"
Автор книги: Ruby Dixon
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Текущая страница: 22 (всего у книги 26 страниц)
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CHAPTER 95
DAKOTA
Dottie is a terrible patient.
She glares up at us from the bed she’s currently lying in, an IV saline drip in her arm. The others have cleared out to give Samir space to tend to Dottie. Rabbit sits on the edge of Dottie’s bed, Aggie in the chair on the other side. I stand at the far end of the freight container with Murr at my side, and Samir moves about the room like a restless butterfly. Jonah left with Thess to get dinner, and probably to give us a bit of space.
“I said I’m fine,” Dottie declares again, her teeth practically gritted. She shoots me an angry look from her spot in the bed, as if this is all my fault that she’s collapsed and now needs medical attention.
“People that are fine don’t collapse,” I point out, earning another glare.
Samir listens to her heart again, then presses on her lower abdomen. When she winces, he nods to himself. “I don’t think it’s too serious. Most likely that it’s a urinary tract infection. I’d have to take a look at your urine, unless you want to describe it to me?”
Dottie purses her lips and doesn’t speak up.
“Red urine? Brown?” he prompts. “Cloudy?”
“Maybe a little brown,” she finally says, shooting us all scathing looks as if it’s our fault. “It’ll go away on its own.”
Samir shakes his head. “Not with the severity you have. It could spread to your kidneys and you’d really be in danger. I recommend a round of antibiotics to get it out of your system.”
He makes it sound so easy. Just take a round of antibiotics. “We don’t have any. Does the fort?”
The doctor puts his hand on Dottie’s brow, feeling her temperature. “The fort has a small supply of antibiotics, but most of the more general-use medications are kept for the citizens of the fort. I’m afraid they won’t allow me to give them to an outsider, no matter how dire the situation is. A fort looks after its own first.” He shakes his head. “It’s not my decision. I could tell them Dottie is dying and they still wouldn’t allow it.”
Aggie clutches her wig. “Is she dying?”
Samir remains relaxed as he moves around Dottie, tucking the blankets in against her side and checking the IV line again. “No, but it’s not something that will go away on its own either. You can’t just ignore it and hope for the best.”
“You hear that, Dottie?” Aggie says, scowling at her friend. “You can’t just hide under the blankets and hope it’ll go away.”
“Oh, quiet, you. I’m here, aren’t I?” Dottie gestures at the IV in her arm.
“Yeah, against your will,” Aggie says.
Rabbit has been silent through the exchange, my daughter’s eyes wide. She reaches for Dottie’s hand and holds it carefully, and it makes me wonder if she’s the one that needs reassurance or if she’s reassuring Dottie. She looks up at Samir. “Could we trade for the medication?”
Murr speaks up, agreeing. “We bring meat. Much meat.”
But Samir shakes his head. “It’s not up to me, and something like that is more valuable than gold to the people here. I’d recommend trying to find your own supply, I really would.”
Finding our own is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. Never mind that everything is years expired, it’s all been picked over by scavengers long ago. Finding a needle in a haystack might actually be easier than finding a few antibiotics in the After. “But if we did trade,” I say, “what would it look like?”
Samir shakes his head again. “I really don’t think you can trade enough—”
“What about a puppy?” Aggie says. “Would that be enough for a round of antibiotics for my friend?”
Dottie frowns at Aggie. “Don’t be stupid. Those are your puppies, woman. We’re not selling them off just because I’ve got a bit of a thing going on.”
“It’s not a bit of a thing,” Aggie retorts. “And they’re my puppies, which means I’m the one that gets to trade them if we need to.”
“Bullshit.” Dottie shakes Rabbit’s hand away and tugs on the IV, trying to pull it out. “I’m not going to let anyone make sacrifices on my behalf—”
“Rabbit, hold her down,” Aggie says, struggling to get up and stop Dottie. “She’s being stupid!”
Samir is there before either one of them can, stopping Dottie before she can pull the long IV needle out and harm herself. “Let’s be reasonable, ladies. Dottie is welcome to stay here as long as she needs to, and I’m happy to feed her and give her fluids, but that’s about all I can do. Even if I wanted a puppy for my son—which I do—it’s not my decision to make. The fort would have to decide the payment—”
“So we’d be indentured servants working for the fort,” I blurt out. “Working off the price of the drugs.”
“I didn’t say that,” Samir retorts. “Just that it’d be wiser for you to have your own supply.”
“Oh sure, and chickens might fly out of my butt,” Aggie declares. “Both seem as likely!”
“Everyone calm down,” Rabbit says, lifting her voice to get our attention. Dottie reaches for the IV again, and Rabbit grabs her hand, holding it tightly. “Let’s think about this, okay? Dottie needs help. If it was me, you’d want me to get help, wouldn’t you, Dottie?”
Dottie looks away.
“So of course we want to help you. Murr can fly. If there’s any place that hasn’t been picked over, he’ll be able to find it.” Rabbit sounds so confident, so reassured that Murr will be able to find whatever is needed. “He can go much farther than anyone else. He and Mom can scout around.”
“What about the animals?” Dottie asks. “We all need to go home. The cats and dogs need us.”
“We’re going home,” Aggie says, straightening in her chair. “You’re staying here.”
Dottie looks utterly devastated. “You’d do that to me? Leave me here alone?”
“Not alone,” Rabbit says, and holds Dottie’s hand tightly even as she looks over at me. “I’m staying with you.”
Now I’m the one that’s devastated.
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CHAPTER 96
MURR
We return home to the bookstore after a long day at the fort. I am more than relieved to leave it all behind. The layers of smells, the constant noise, the stares…all of it overwhelmed me. How humans can all live piled atop one another like that makes no sense to me. Perhaps I have been spoiled by being on my own for so long, but I am relieved when we leave the fort behind.
The car I carried there was much lighter on the way home with only Aggie and my mate inside. We made it home quicker than expected, and after I set the car down and shift into my human form, the cats come rushing out to greet us with a chorus of meows.
I scoop one up and glance over at my mate. Dakota goes inside the bookstore with Aggie, turning on a lantern since there is no fire. She is going to fuss over the elderly woman since her daughter is not here. I know my mate well enough to know this about her. Once she has Aggie and the dogs settled, I will talk to her.
The cats rub up against my legs and cry for a meal, and I tilt my head, scenting the air for game. There is nothing in the immediate area, so I find the container of dried meat scraps and add water to it like Rabbit does, swirling it with my shorn claws to make a meaty soup. I portion it out into the dozens of bowls that Rabbit keeps just for feeding, setting them down on the ground spaced evenly apart so everyone gets a chance to eat.
When the last of the cat soup is tipped into a bowl, I bring the pan back to our cooking area. The firepit is dark, and it would be easy for me to start it again, but there is no point if there is no one to sit around it. I wipe my hands clean on my towel as my mate comes out to find me.
She looks tired, her shoulders sagging and her eyes defeated. Her gaze lands on the bowls and the cats eating out of them, and a bit of relief crosses her face. “Oh, you fed everyone? Good. One less thing to worry about.”
“Stella food?” I ask.
“Aggie got her. Everyone’s fed but you and me.” She pauses. “Well, and Aggie, but she says she’s not hungry.”
No amount of food could be enough to entice me to leave my mate’s side, but I don’t like the thought of her not being taken care of. “Murr hunt for Dakota?”
She shakes her head and moves in close to me. “No, I don’t think I could eat if I tried.”
My poor mate. She sounds so defeated. I curve my fingers under her chin and lift her face. “Sad?”
Her mouth wobbles. “I know I should be worried about both of them, but Dottie’s being cared for by a doctor. Rabbit’s my baby, and forts are too full of people. I want her here with me, even though I know it’s selfish.”
“Dottie watch Rabbit, Rabbit watch Dottie,” I reassure her. “Tomorrow new day.”
Dakota nods, as if trying to reassure herself. Her hand goes to my chest and she taps her fingers over my heart. “And tomorrow we go hunting for antibiotics. I don’t even know where to start, to be honest. Every pharmacy in walking distance is going to be completely picked clean. Every hospital, too. But we have to do something. I’m not about to sign our lives over to a fort for some medication.”
“No fort,” I reassure her. “No live fort.”
“But Dottie needs medication,” she says with a ragged sigh. “I knew something was wrong. At least now we can try to get it taken care of.”
“Tomorrow,” I say, folding her into my arms. “We look tomorrow. No worry until tomorrow.”
“Right.” She doesn’t sound convinced.
I need to fix this. As her mate, I need to make sure I can find whatever it is she needs. Whatever it takes to fix Dottie and get both Dottie and Rabbit home, we will do.
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CHAPTER 97
MURR
It is a sleepless night for both myself and my mate. Dakota is restless, waking up constantly and turning over in an effort to get comfortable. Her movements keep me awake, and I worry that she is going to make herself sick with anxiety.
She finally drifts into a deeper sleep just before dawn, so I sneak out of our shared bed to let her sleep late. I head outside to get the day started, building a fire in the firepit and putting on the pot of coffee. My cats approach with plaintive meows, letting me know of their hunger, and I take a few moments to give each one attention before I shift and fly off to find them something to eat. I hunt and swallow a full-sized deer for myself, then bring back another to my strays. As I circle our home, I notice Dakota and Aggie are both by the fire now, seated in the metal chairs they keep next to it. I drop the deer carcass on the ground a short distance away from the fire and eviscerate it with claws and teeth so the cats can eat. I tear off one haunch for my human strays and bring it to the fire, then shift back to human form.
“Morning,” I say in greeting. Dakota hugs her favorite mug in her hands and manages a small smile for me. Aggie is wrapped in a blanket and is not wearing her fake hair, and she looks even more tired than my mate. I move to Dakota’s side and lean in to kiss her, only to realize that I am covered in blood from my hunt. I grimace and eye my hands and chest. “Wash first.”
Dakota sets her mug aside and opens up a container nearby. “Here. I keep extra towels for you out here, just in case.” She hands me one and pours a bit of water into another mug so I can use it to wet the cloth. “I can scrub your back for you.”
“I can scrub him too, if you need help,” Aggie offers.
“Aggie sleep good,” I comment, wiping my face with a wet towel as Dakota gets my back. “Sound like self.”
The elderly female huffs. “Gonna take a lot more than a bit of a setback to keep this old lady quiet.” But she sounds sad. “I just hope Dottie’s all right. I don’t like that we left her and Rabbit in the fort.”
I can feel Dakota’s mood shift, the camp feeling tinged with sorrow. I can’t let that happen.
“Dottie good,” I reassure Aggie. “Rabbit with Dottie. Rabbit strong, fierce. Both good, together.”
“I’m glad she’s not alone,” Aggie says. “Rabbit’s a good kid to stay with her, but I should have stayed, too.”
“Someone needs to look after Stella,” my mate says, finally speaking up. “I think Rabbit wanted to stay because of Jonah, too.”
Aggie chuckles. “Let her have her crush. It’s nice to be young. He was a good kid. Deserves a puppy, even if they don’t want to trade for one. We’ll just have to figure things out.”
My mate’s mood shifts, and she perks up. She finishes wiping down my back as I bathe my arms. “I’m hoping we can find something today. With Murr’s ability to fly, we can cover a lot of ground. Maybe we’ll see something from the air that we wouldn’t from street level. If you have any ideas of where to look for medication other than a hospital, I’m all ears.”
Now that I am clean, I lean in to give my mate the kiss I intended to earlier. She melts against me, her lips soft and sweet, and I want more than anything to find these medicines and ease the worries from her mind. She smiles up at me, but I can tell her thoughts are already racing to what needs to be done. If we are flying today, we’ll need a bag. She always carries one with supplies when she goes out.
I can pack a bag for her.
I give my mate back her cup of coffee that she has not finished and press another kiss to the top of her head. “Sit. Breakfast.”
She smiles gratefully up at me and hugs her coffee close. Her eyes are still sleepy, dark circles under them, and I know the bitter liquid will perk her up. I head inside the bookstore, the door propped open by bricks so the animals can move in and out easily. It allows me to hear snatches of conversation as I pull out Dakota’s bag and begin to fill it with the things she takes with her. A flashlight. A knife. Rope. Some small paper cylinder she calls an “emergency tampon.”
“You want to know where to look?” Aggie asks, her voice drifting in. “Did you try a farm? Or one of them great big horse stables?”
“Why would I look at a farm?” I can hear the confusion in Dakota’s voice.
“Dated a farmer once,” Aggie says. “Ain’t easy to take cattle or horses in to the vet, so you usually have that stuff on the farm so you can treat ’em at home. You might be able to find antibiotics at one of those. Can’t hurt to look.”
“That’s…a really good idea.”
“I’m old, not stupid.”
Dakota’s tone turns indignant. “I never said you were stupid.”
Aggie just “hmphs.”
“Are people antibiotics and horse antibiotics the same thing?” Dakota says.
“Fuck if I know, but a horse antibiotic probably beats no antibiotic.”
“Fair enough.”
I stuff a warm sweater into my mate’s pack as the day is chilly and emerge from the bookstore with her bag. I hold it out to her just as she finishes her coffee, and the look on Dakota’s face is both pleased and surprised. “Oh, Murr, you doll. It’s like you read my mind.”
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CHAPTER 98
DAKOTA
Am I getting used to flying around the skies with my mate?
Absolutely not. Every time he dips and there’s an updraft, my heart goes into my throat. Do I think he’s going to drop me? Of course not. I know Murr would rather crash to the ground himself than lose his grip on me. But it’s one thing to be on an airplane, and another to have your feet dangling as someone else carries you two hundred feet into the air.
Do I have a choice in the matter? Not really. Dottie needs meds, and we need to cover a lot of ground quickly, so here we are, flying over green fields and old broken highways, looking for something promising. After a while, one broken down building starts to look the same as another, and I begin to despair. How do we find anything in this world without a map? Without the internet? What exactly does a really big horse farm look like anyhow?
After a few hours of flying, I’m about to give up and tell Murr to head back so we can find the nearest hospital, when we pass over a small pond. On the other side of the pond is a herd of cattle.
A really, really big herd of cattle. Hundreds and hundreds of them, all skinny and showing ribs. The ground around them is denuded of grass, and the herd is so large that it looks like an undulating sea. They run as Murr flies overhead, scrambling in their panic. I point at them. “Follow the herd! Let’s see where they go!”
The cattle race across the fields, turning when they run into an old fence. The herd splits apart, the animals racing back the way they came, and the churned field takes on a sadder reality to me. They’re trapped in here, I think. Someone never bothered to let them out before this place was abandoned, and so they’re all just clustered in this one field, slowly starving and running in circles.
“Put me down on the other side,” I tell him, indicating the fence and far side where the grass is growing tall. Murr gently lowers me to the ground, the cattle fleeing as far from us as possible. The chorus of panicked sounds is terrible to hear, and I wince as I start walking along the fence line, looking for an opening. “Maybe shift to your human form for now?”
Murr switches, moving to my side. He puts a hand on the thick metal stake, wrapped in barbed wire that has been bent but not broken. “Want pull up fence?”
“I do, but it’s easier if we find a gate, I think? There’s got to be one around here somewhere. You go that way, and I’ll go this way.” I point north and indicate he should head south.
“Yell if need Murr,” he says to me.
“I will!”
I jog along the length of the fence, and my jogging eventually slows to a walk. Maybe I’m an idiot, but I had no idea that farms were so…big. This fence seems to go on forever, the pasture endless, and I wonder if it was a bad idea to let Murr leave. We should have flown over more, but antagonizing the poor cattle seemed like a cruel decision.
The fence eventually comes to a sharp ninety-degree angle, cutting west instead of north. Up ahead, there’s a hill and a bunch of rotted hay bales that have turned into a shapeless lump. Beyond that, I see the faded red metal walls of what looks like a huge barn.
Jack-fucking-pot.
Excited, I climb over the fence, get my jeans all torn up by the shitty-ass barbed wire, and flop on the other side. I pick myself up off the dirt, brush off my pride, and race up the hill to the barn. Part of the metal roof has peeled off and fallen in the surrounding yard, but I can see a wide-open barn door and head straight for it.
Inside is a mess of debris, dirt and dead leaves and trash that’s blown in over the years. It crunches as I step over it, heading deeper inside. There are several stalls with wooden doors, all of them hanging open, and there’s an area at the far end with feed buckets and what look like a few saddles. A broken-down ATV is in the corner with four flat tires.
And there’s a door behind all of this.
Practically shaking with excitement, I try the doorknob. It’s dusty—a good sign—but doesn’t turn. Locked. I pull a flathead screwdriver from my pack and get to work, removing the doorknob from the door itself. I’m finally able to push the door open and…
Disappointment.
There’s a chair in here, an old desk, a file cabinet and the world’s oldest CRT computer monitor. A fine layer of dust covers everything. A few artful prints of cattle hang on the wall across from me, and I want to cry with defeat.
I wanted animal drugs, not some farm’s bookkeeping equipment.
But I’m a scavenger above all else. Even when I’m disappointed, I still check everything. So I sit down in the chair and start opening drawers. There’s got to be something useful in here somewhere. The top drawer doesn’t have paperclips or books, but plastic disposable gloves. That’s a good sign.
The second drawer at the desk is twice as deep, and when I open it up, I see white box after skinny white box of tubes. Ivermectin. Terramycin. Banamine. I shove them all into my bag. No idea what they do, but I can ask Samir.
At the very bottom of the drawer, I spot a square box with lettering on it.
Tylosin. Injectable antibiotic.
Hell yes. Even if this isn’t fit for people, maybe someone at the fort can use it? Either way, we’ve got something to trade.
When I get home, I’m going to kiss Aggie on both cheeks and never say a bad thing about her wigs ever again.
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CHAPTER 99
DAKOTA
I’m so excited to return with the bounty I’ve found. My backpack is heavy with cattle medication, and when I go home, I can look up the medications and see if they can be used by humans. Even if they can’t, maybe we can still trade them. It feels like I hit the jackpot either way. Holding the straps of my backpack tight, I leave the back office in the stable and head out, dodging open stalls and piles of unnamable debris.
Stepping toward the barn doors, I’m almost outside when I hear something heavy moving behind me. There’s a clank and a scrape against wood, and I automatically turn, assuming it’s Murr.
It’s not.
Directly across from me is the biggest bull I’ve ever seen. I cry out, startled, and the thing locks on to me.
It’s a longhorn, I realize—one of those cattle with the enormously oversized horns. The bull itself probably weighs two thousand pounds and it’s almost as tall as I am. Each horn is probably the length of my arm, and he’s got a tarnished ring hanging from his nose.
He’s also far, far too close to me.
I go still, hoping he hasn’t noticed that I exist. I might be a city girl, but even I know bulls are dangerous.
This is my fault—I should have realized there would be more cattle here. I should have checked with Murr before wandering off. I’m too used to being on my own, and now I’m going to get attacked by a bull.
The creature’s big head swings, the horn scraping along one of the wooden stall doors. It looks right at me and takes another step forward. Visions of matadors being flung into the air fill my head, and I take a wary step backward. I don’t want to be in some post-apocalyptic running of the bulls. If it comes down to me or the bull, I have every confidence that the bull is going to win.
A shadow falls over the ceiling, and Murr—in dragon form—appears over the enormous hole in the roof. He growls low in his throat at the bull, steam pouring from his nostrils. His eyes whirl black, a silent warning.
The bull lows, the sound irritated and chilling all at once. He paws the ground once, staring right at me.
Murr’s growl deepens.
I remain frozen in place. My dragon can probably get to me, but before or after the bull attacks?
The longhorn turns, sauntering back through the barn the way it came. Its tail swishes, and as it walks away, it drops a series of cow pies on the ground behind it. It’s like the bull is telling me what he thinks of me being here. Lovely creature. I tiptoe backward, edging towards the door at the opposite end of the creature. My knees tremble, my hands shaking as I creep out. When I’m fully outside, I race away from the barn as fast as I can.
A moment later, I’m scooped up in dragon claws. I’ve never been so damned glad to be encircled by talons. I cling to his scales, and I can practically feel him chiding me for being foolish and running off without him.
“Sorry,” I pant at my mate, waiting for my body to stop shaking with fear. “I didn’t see it there. I should have known there’d be a bull somewhere, right? That’s on me. I take the blame.”
Murr drifts a short distance away and then settles in the field. He doesn’t put me down right away but pulls me in close and rubs his muzzle against my head, as if reassuring me that he’s not mad. That he was just looking out for me.
He sets me down gently, opening his claws so I can step out of his grip. He doesn’t shift back to human form but remains as he is. Probably contemplating going to get that longhorn and eat him for dinner. That it’d serve him right for threatening his mate.
“Oh, leave him alone,” I say, laughing. My hands have stopped shaking and my knees no longer feel like water, so I’m willing to let bygones be bygones. “He was just protecting his territory.”
Murr stares down at me, his eyes whirling even faster than normal.
“What?” I ask, gazing up at him.
We stare at each other. Murr shifts quickly to his human form and moves to my side. He clutches my upper arms, studying my face.
“What?” I ask again.
“Dakota…in Murr mind?” he asks. “Hear speak, no words?”
Did…we…? I replay our conversation in my head. “I was just assuming what you’d do. I know you pretty well by now. I didn’t hear anything. I wish I did.”
“No…speak?”
I shake my head again, sad.
His expression remains skeptical. “Murr know,” he says after a long moment, searching my face. “Know Dakota inside. Know Dakota danger. Not say. Murr know.”
Oh.
Come to think of it, I hadn’t told him where I was. I’d simply raced off up the hill and climbed over a fence at the sight of the barn. He’d gone in the opposite direction. Of course, it’s not out of the question that he’d come to find me if I didn’t return right away. It’s also not out of the question that he’d know I was in danger. He’s picked up on my scent changes in the past, and I know from talking with him that fear has a particular tang to its scent.
Even so…
“I don’t know,” I confess. “You’re the one that told me that the mental link is broken now that the Rift is closed. That all drakoni can no longer talk in their heads.”
“Maybe no drakoni to drakoni,” Murr says. “Maybe husband to wife?”
He looks so hopeful that I have to give it a shot. “Okay, well, let’s test this. How do we see if we’re reading each other’s minds?”
Murr grins and touches the cape I have on my shoulders. “Dakota cover eyes.”
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