It was then that Nala’s face took on the look of surprise. “You transported yourself and him here?” she said incredulously. “You’re too young to have that kind of control.”
“Hey,” I snapped with indignance. “I’m the same age as Bryn and he can already do it.” And then everything sunk in. I had . . . finally . . . been able to use the super cool dragon power I’d been drooling over since I first found out what I really was. Too bad I had absolutely no idea what I had done to access it, besides having a near death experience. And cool or not, that wasn’t something I was willing to replicate, even for a power that awesome.
“Alright. Fine. I really don’t want to get into to it with you about your powers right now. The more important issue is, what exactly do you plan on doing with your new little friend, now that we have him here?”
That was a good question . . . a very good question indeed.
15
“So what are you going to do with me?” the Rider inside of Cliff asked in an exasperated tone.
“I don’t know yet,” I said, resuming my pacing from one corner of my room to the other. Cliff, and the alien leech inside of him, was currently tied to a wooden chair that Nala had brought up from the kitchen. We’d used rope and duct tape to secure him there . . . lots and lots of duct tape. I guess that goes to prove that duct tape really is all-purpose.
“Well, aren’t you going to question me or something?”
“Look,” I said as I came to stop directly in front of him, “if this is so hard on you, then why don’t you just ooze on out of Cliff’s body and leave him alone?”
The Rider made Cliff’s handsome face grimace at me in response, “It’s not that simple.”
I crouched down in front of him and peered up with curiosity at the Rider inside of Cliff. The alien inside seemed to have almost eclipsed him completely since the moment he came to in my room. “So why don’t you try and explain it to me then.”
He narrowed his eyes at me with hatred. “No.”
This all seemed a bit surreal. Was this actually happening or was I having some kind of weird dream? If felt real, it felt like I was awake. And yet the fact that I was having this conversation with the Rider inside of Cliff while he was duct taped to one of my kitchen chairs seemed a bit . . . ridiculous. I guess I had to stop repeatedly questioning the fact that my life had turned into one surreal moment after another. “Really? You just asked me if I was going to ask you questions, and—”
“I didn’t say I was going to answer them,” he snapped with more irritation, like I was an annoying little gnat circling his head.
“Fine. If that’s the way you wanna play it, then I’m about ready to enroll you in Torture Class 101.” But could I actually torture Cliff’s poor body? I had no doubt that my conscious would have no problem letting me cause some major damage to just the Rider, but he wasn’t just the Rider at the moment. “Why are you still in Cliff anyways? I saw him push you out. I saw you leave.”
“How do you know that?” The Rider’s jaw dropped, or I guess Cliff’s jaw dropped. Everyone kept telling me to think of a host and the Rider within as one and the same, to which I used to be able to do pretty easily. But with one currently residing inside of Jenna, and with having the vision of Cliff pushing this Rider out, it was beginning to be more and more difficult.
I let a slow smile creep across my face. It was obvious the Rider had figured out I was a dragon, but I was under the mistaken impression that he had also come to the conclusion of who I was specifically. Guess I was wrong. Time to fill him in. “I saw it in a vision.”
He just stared at me, shock playing across his face. “Impossible. You’re a dragon.”
I leaned back and flopped into a sitting position on the floor in front of him before crossing my legs casually. “Yes, I’m a dragon.” I smiled brightly at him. “But I’m also a Seer, and a very powerful one at that.”
“The dragons only have one Seer, and she’s a gifted human. And she should be dead by now,” he blurted out, seemingly unable to stop himself.
All amusement drained from me. “I am that Seer. And clearly I’m neither human nor dead.” Of course, until recently even I had thought I was human, at least partly, so I couldn’t really expect the Riders to be privy to any information that said differently. I rose up from my sitting position on the floor and came to stand as close as I would dare to the Rider. “But I’m hoping you’ll be soon . . . dead that is.”
“What are you doing here?” the Rider asked as he clearly tried to hide the fear in its eyes. “Did you come here for me? Because of who I am?”
I could feel my face scrunch up in both shock and confusion. “Who you are? I don’t know who you are, besides Cliff that is.”
He let out a dark laugh. “Well, isn’t this perfect.” He paused and I could tell he was trying to weigh what he should say to me next. “Okay. If you let me go, I’ll get my father to back off of you guys, to leave you alone. I mean a lot to him . . . in both my forms. And he doesn’t really care about you guys, not really, just the threat you pose. If you promise to leave us alone, we’ll do the same.”
It was my turn for my jaw to drop. Was he kidding? There was no way he actually thought I’d go along with that, could he? “You can’t be serious. You killed our families, slaughtered my people, are trying to destroy our world . . . and you want us to simply look the other way? Maybe I hit you on the head too hard,” I muttered, the last part more to myself than him. Could Riders suffer brain damage if their host did?
“My father felt threatened . . . and we’re not trying to destroy your world. We like it, actually.”
“No. You’ve destroyed worlds before. Decimated them for their resources like the parasites you are and then moved on to the next world you planned to victimize. And how you’ve been treating our world . . . my world . . . definitely proves you plan on doing the same here.”
“Mistakes,” the Rider pleaded with his voice and eyes. “We didn’t know any better. We were just trying to survive. But we like it here—want to stay.”
“Well you’re not!” I bellowed, finally losing control of my temper. I could feel my dragon fire magic spark to life just under my skin, practically begging for me to release it on the Rider. But I fought the urge because I knew, even through the haze of red that was tinting my vision, that I didn’t want to hurt Cliff.
The Rider’s eyes widened to the size of saucers as he finally realized how much danger he was really in. “We can make a bargain. I swear. Just don’t hurt me.”
“How many have begged for your mercy? How many of my people begged before you slaughtered them in cold blood? Men, women, and children, all of the same, just because of who we are. This is our planet and you can’t have it!” Flames crept up into my fingertips, and I stretched out my palms in Cliff’s direction.
“That was my father! Not me! We’re not all the same! Some of us just want to stay—to live!” the Rider exclaimed as sweat trickled down Cliff’s frightened face. “Please . . .”
“Tell me,” I growled. “Tell me who your father is, and what his end game is.”
“Sena—Senat—Senator Bill Wexington is my father’s human host . . . and my real father is the one inside him . . . our leader,” the Rider stammered.
What were the chances? I had both Senator Bill Wexington’s son, and the son of the lead Rider both as my prisoner. Actually—I chuckled darkly to myself—I knew none of this had happened by chance . . . My birth mother had seen it all and planned for it to happen. There was no other explanation.