No hint of a flying reptile anywhere.
My phone rang as I pulled onto the main road; I snatched it from where it lay on the dash and held it up. Tristan’s voice buzzed in my ear. “Anything?”
“Negative. I tried three different spots, but there was no movement. If the sleeper is still out there, it won’t be flying around in the daytime.”
“All right.” Tristan sighed, sounding frustrated. “I didn’t see anything, either. Come on back.”
I hung up, feeling frustrated as well. We’d been here nearly a month and still had no real leads. And the summer was flying by quickly.
If it ended without a kill, we’d be called back to the Order, and the sleeper would be lost. I couldn’t allow that. I’d never failed a mission before, and I wasn’t about to now.
As I turned onto another street, movement in the headlight beams caught my attention. A body was jogging down the sidewalk on the right, pushing a bicycle. Bright red hair gleamed in the headlights, and my heart jumped.
Ember?
I shook my head, annoyed with myself. The girl had been on my mind most of the day. In fact, one of the main reasons I’d decided to leave the apartment tonight and hunt for dragons was to focus on something else. Something that wasn’t her. I didn’t like this instant excitement, the sudden hope in seeing a random civilian and thinking that it might be the red-haired girl I’d met yesterday afternoon.
But, just to be certain, I pulled alongside the girl and slowed, then blinked in surprise. It was Ember, striding down the sidewalk with a mountain bike, looking like she was in a hurry. The bike’s front tire was flat, and the girl did not look pleased.
Suspicion flared then, replacing everything else. Why was she out so late? Why was she alone? One possible answer rose to mind: she was the sleeper dragon, returning from a night of flying around. Yes, she had a brother but…perhaps that was Talon’s newest ruse. A ploy to throw us off. Or an anomaly, like Tristan said. And if that was the case, then Ember Hill suddenly demanded a lot more attention.
I eased over to the curb, slowing even more. A corvette swung around me with an irritable beep, but I ignored it. “Ember,” I called.
“Over here.”
She looked up, green eyes widening. “Garret? Oh wow, small world!” She did not slow down, and I tapped the gas pedal to keep up. “What are you doing up so early?”
I could ask you the same. “Sightseeing.” I did not specify where, or how. “What about you?”
“Me? Oh, I like to go biking early, before I hit the water. Clears my head, you know?” The answer was swift and immediate, no hesitation on her part, even as she quickened her pace. “Nothing worse than being distracted when a twelve-foot wall of water is crashing down on you. It’s nice to get up early, work everything out of your system.”
Except, I’d never seen her out in the early morning, biking, on the beach with her friends, anywhere. Until about nine or ten a.m., she was nowhere to be found.
“Unfortunately,” Ember continued, oblivious to my suspicion, “I blew out a tire, so now I have to hurry home, before Dante yells at me for taking his bike without permission, again.”
Perfect opening. “Hop in,” I told her, jerking my head at the rear seat. “Put the bike in the back, it should fit. I’ll take you home.”
“Really?” Her eyes lit up. “Are you sure?”
I nodded, pulling to the curb. Ember beamed, wrangled the bike into the back, then slid into the passenger seat. I quickly hid the binoculars in the glove compartment before she got in, and we started down the road.
“Thanks for this,” she said, after giving me the address of her house, which I already knew but of course didn’t mention. “Geez, that’s twice now you’ve shown up to rescue me. Are you some sort of knight in training or something?”
I shifted uncomfortably, as that statement was closer to the truth than she knew, and didn’t answer. Ember watched me a moment, then smiled. “Where’s your cousin?” she asked, tilting her head. “Did he not want to go sightseeing?”
“He’s back at the apartment,” I replied. “Sleeping.”
“Not an early bird, I take it.” She gazed out the window, toward the coastline, and I snuck a glance at her. “Well, his loss. I wish I could get out on the ocean more often. It’s so peaceful right before the sun comes up. Just you and the waves.” She looked back at me, smiling again, and something in her eyes made my stomach twist.
“Oh well. Sleeping in is nice too, and I’m kinda glad it was just you who showed up this morning.”
I gazed down the road, not knowing what to say. My whole life, I’d been trained to fight; I knew guns and weapons and combat, how to kill a man twenty different ways, how to shoot a dragon’s fire gland to cripple it. I even had special training in infiltration: blending in, being invisible. But this was completely different. Nothing had prepared me for talking to a teenage girl in the front seat of my car.
Adapt, Tristan had told me before. This is no different than any other mission. Talk to them. Engage in conversation. Get them to trust you.
I groped for something, anything, to keep her talking. Remembering the surfboard in the back of the jeep yesterday, I asked, “So…you like surfing?”
“Oh, yeah,” was the eager, sincere reply. “I love it. The wind, the waves, the excitement of barreling down a huge wall of water before it pounds you into the sand. Nothing compares, really.”
“It sounds pretty amazing,” I said, not having to lie about that, because it did. “I’ve always wanted to try.”
And then, I had an idea. One that Tristan, had he been here, would have been proud of.
“Could you teach me?” I asked the girl.
Ember blinked. “To surf?” she asked, and I nodded. “I guess so, I mean…” She cocked her head at me with an appraising look. “You really want me to teach you?”
“Is there a reason I shouldn’t?”
“No, it’s just…” She shrugged. “It’s not like I’m an expert. I’ve just been surfing about a month myself. I’m not sure how great of an instructor I’ll be. You should really ask Calvin, he teaches this stuff for a living.”
“I’d rather it be you,” I said. Calvin and Lexi had lived in Crescent Beach their whole lives and were no longer on our suspect list.
Ember was an unknown, a mystery. If I could get her to trust me, enough to let me into her house or room, we’d be one step closer to finding the sleeper.