Dragon 1 Chapter 14 (Patreon)

“You may want to hold on.” The jag’s engine revved as Morgana spun the wheel; we bumped up on the sidewalk, scattering pedestrians as she made the turn late and shot down what I belatedly realized was a one-way street. And we were going the wrong way.

Horns blared as Morgana swerved through the traffic, her tires blazed black rubber against the ground as she took the turn, following where I’d just seen the van. But as I scanned for it, it was nowhere to be seen.

She didn’t pause, pressing the accelerator down to the floor as the jag roared like its namesake and shot down the street. Her head was on a swivel, looking down each street as she went.

I spotted the van, but it registered too late to turn again. “Next street. Take a left.”

She spun the car down the next street. “Where?”

“One street over, heading parallel to us.” I looked down the alleys as we passed, “There.”

Rubber screamed underneath us as Morgana pitched such a fast turn that the car went on two wheels. She flew down a too tight tight alley, her mirrors sparking against the bricks on either side.

I held tightly to the oh-shit-handle and braced myself for something to go wrong and my seatbelt to come in handy. But she made it out of the alley with the car largely in one piece, her bumper sending up a shower of sparks behind us as it hit the curb and she spun out into the street.

“Get me the gun in the back seat.” She barked, switching gears and getting the car going again. The white panel van was ahead of us.

I didn’t hesitate, unbuckling my seatbelt and trusting her. Fumbling around in the back seat, I came back up with a short, stocky machine gun. I did re-buckle my seatbelt as soon as I was back in my seat, though. I wasn’t an idiot. Have you seen how she drives? “Want me to?”

Morgana didn’t answer, instead grabbing the gun and using the butt of the gun to roll down the window. She stuck the gun out the side and sprayed lead at the van. A few stray bullets scratching the hood of her jag, sending up more sparks adding to the mayhem.

The van’s tires blew out. I breathed a sigh of relief. Thank god it wasn’t like car chases in the movies, where they could never seem to hit what they were aiming at. That, or none of them, had Morgana’s skills.

As the van swerved, it lost control and flipped. My heart sank as I realized there wasn’t a red faucet on the side. Instead, it was red letters that I didn’t even bother reading. What had I done?

“Zach, that’s the wrong van.” Morgana’s voice was cold and disappointed. She set down her gun on the dash. Her jag was slowing down, and sirens were kicking up in the distance. There was no way this wouldn’t bring down the hammer on us.

Another van came flying around the corner, quickly dodging the downed van. It jackknifed just long enough to see the logo on its side.

“That—”

“I see it.” Morgana’s expression turned back into a feral grin as she slammed down the accelerator and shifted into gear. The jag’s tires smoked up behind us as she gave chase.

Feeling like I needed to make up for the prior van, I snatched the gun off the dash and rolled down my own window, leaning out and doing my best to sight down the short barrel before spraying the back of the van with bullets. Unfortunately, it was not as easy as Morgana had made it look. The gun soon clicked empty, and the van was still hurtling ahead of us.

Just its back looked like swiss cheese for my efforts.

“What are you doing?” Morgana hissed, “Jadelyn could be in there.”

I started to argue, but then snapped my mouth shut. Her point was fair. “What then?”

“We follow it.” Morgana’s hands creaked against the leather steering wheel.

I could hear sirens in the distance, and I just knew they were coming for us. We’d shot up a van and were driving a clearly beat up jaguar. We weren’t exactly inconspicuous. Someone was going to put out our description, and they would arrest us.

Morgana took a hard right and raced to a parallel street, keeping pace with the van. “They are leaving the area. I need you to ditch the car.”

“Wait, what?” I asked as she unbuckled her seat belt. The car was still moving.

She let go of the steering wheel, using her knee to hold it where she wanted it, and put a hand on the door handle. “I’ll call you when they get to a stopping point.”

I grabbed the steering wheel as she released it with her knee. “Wait, can’t we pull over?”

Morgana’s answer was a click of the driver's side door, followed by her tumbling out of it. I couldn’t believe what I’d just seen. I looked back to find her, but she was gone.

Working on not freaking out, I tried to focus. Steering the car as best I could, I worked to try to piece together what I was supposed to do with the police chasing me down. Morgana really needed to teach me more spy moves if she was going to ask me to do this kind of thing.

The car was at least slowing down, and I was able to steer it straight through an open lane as I unbuckled my own seatbelt and wiggled into the driver’s seat. I got settled in just in time to see the good ol’ blue and red lights in the mirror.

I clicked on my seat belt and slammed my foot down on the gas. The car fishtailed with the sudden acceleration, but it was only for a moment. Then the back wheels caught traction, and the car tore forward. Holy shit, it felt amazing. A little whoop of excitement escaped me.

I was starting to understand why Morgana drove like she did, but I also recognized she had more experience. I was far from a professional driver. That was only reinforced as I started needing to swerve through traffic with half a dozen small heart attacks as people slammed on their breaks or changed lanes.

These other drivers clearly didn’t understand my pressing need to get through them. Did they not see I was running from the cops? My foot touched the floor as the pedal did. Soon, the speedometer climbed over a hundred and the engine roared as it broke one twenty.

Hitting the turn signal, because some habits just couldn’t be broken. I took the on ramp for I95, running a poor little white economy car off the road.

Behind me, the flashing lights seemed to multiply, as patrol cars poured onto the highway on my tail. It was still a little before rush hour, and I was thankful for that as I changed lanes far too often as the jag’s engine gave me its all. I teetered at the edge of one thirty on the highway, moving like a bat out of hell. I could feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins.

The flashing lights behind me fell back further and further away.

“Phew.” I blew out a breath. I was still working on dodging cars, but I was grateful for the break in distance between me and the cops.

A rhythmic whomping sound came overhead, and I looked up through the tinted sunroof. A helicopter was in the air above me, keeping pace. I was officially in deep shit, and if I made it through this, Morgana was going to hear about it. You don’t just jump out of a car and tell me to escape the cops.

A heavy engine roar caught my attention. I checked my rear-view mirror and saw a charger with its lights on, racing up behind me. Shit.

“Come on little Jag. You can beat the stupid charger, right?” I pushed my foot down even harder, though it was already to the floor. The charger was gaining on me, built for the highway pursuit.

“Pull over.” A megaphone blared as the charger tried to come up on my side.

Right. Like I did everything up to that moment, not realizing they were behind me and wanted me to pull over. Not going to do it now that you asked not-so-politely.

I bobbed and wove, but the highway had cleared out, and the charger rode up on the shoulder to come even with me. Thankfully, Morgana’s windows were one hundred percent illegally tinted. There was no way he could see me.

My blood was pumping, and I could feel that familiar heat in my chest.

The charger’s window rolled down, and an arm came out with a gun. This guy really wasn’t messing around.

Out of most of my options, I did the only thing I could think of doing. I rolled down my own window and belched enough fire to smoke his ride. Praying that the moment I was exposed that no cameras caught my face.

Bright orange flame exploded out of my mouth. The flames engulfed the charger, and a few lingering in my open window. Several loud pops sounded as the charger spun and flipped. In the rear view mirror, I could see just how badly I cooked that car.

Its side door was literally dripping down onto the pavement, and the fire wrapped around it continued raging. Apparently, my dragon fire was pretty hot.

I smacked at the fires at the edge of my window and rolled it back up. It was just a little toasted, ah who was I kidding. Morgana was going to notice that.

The road was clear for the moment, but I suspected there would be cops lining up ahead to form a blockade, and I had no current way to get rid of the helicopter.

I needed another way out.

As the highway bent back towards the Delaware River, I felt my stomach drop. Sure enough, blue sirens were laid out ahead of me in a barricade.

And a few hundred feet ahead of it, they were trying to clear out the construction vehicles.

“Ah shit.” I muttered to myself as I spotted possibly my stupidest decision yet. A semi bed with a ramp you’d use to load up a backhoe. Maybe I’d watching one too many action movies at this point because that seemed like my best option.

Screw it. I veered away from the highway; the suspension bouncing as I left the well paved road and gunned it for the ramp. The jag giving me everything it had.

The bottom of the jag scraped against the metal as it flew up the ramp and I launched myself into the air. Everything seemed to slow down as my heart hammered my chest, adrenaline pouring through my bloodstream.

I got a good look at the cops, not two hundred feet away, their heads all turning together to follow me. The looks were a mix of awe and skepticism. We were on the same page. I had no idea if this was going to work.

I made it. Almost. Yeah, we’ll count it.

The jag clipped the concrete side wall, and the car tilted, throwing me against the driver’s side door. A door that happened to still be smoldering from my earlier torching.

The fire must have screwed with the lock, because when I slammed against it, the door flapped open and the only thing holding me in my seat was the seatbelt. I felt like I was going to float away as the car spun midair.

There was a brief moment of weightlessness before gravity started doing its job. The car plummeted down. Hard.

I was thrown forward just as the airbag deployed and socked me in the face, like a pillowcase full of bricks. I thought it was supposed to be softer than that. It hit harder than a tackling werewolf.

I took quick stock of my body. At least I was still alive, slumped around the deflating airbag. But I was pressed to the seat and moving was a little difficult till the air bag lost a little more air.

A wet stream hit the side of my head, and I realized I was still moving. Disoriented, I looked around to figure out how.

I realized the car was moving downward, slowly. The door to my left wasn’t sealed and was rapidly taking on water. My side of the car was tipping down, and I struggled with my seat belt to free myself. It finally clicked open.

The jag was sinking into the Delaware River. “Good thing I know how to swim.” My tired, beat up body protested as I tried to move.

Taking a deep breath, I tried to galvanize myself into action. I moved towards the pocket of air forming on the other side of the car and took deep breaths. Eventually, the car was going to hit the bottom of the Delaware, and the cops were likely already calling a diving crew. At least it would take them a bit to organize. Maybe that would count for something with Morgana.

But it wouldn’t matter if I disappointed her if I were dead. It was time to see if dragons could swim.

The cabin was filling, and I was running out of time. Taking one last big gulp of breath, I swam out the driver’s side door, the car still sinking as it was being carried by the river.

Deciding that going with the river was a much better option than going against it, given my current energy reserves, I held my breath and let the river carry me. Trying to remain streamlined, the river carried me past the car and further down, towards the south end of Philly.

My lungs burned with the need to surface, but I kept telling myself not yet. If I could hold out longer, then maybe the cops wouldn’t see me surface. I don’t know how many times I told myself that, but eventually, my body defied my mind and I kicked up to the surface, gasping for air that seared my lungs.

I was happy to see that the river had been faster than I’d realized. The helicopter was circling a few miles upriver, and I hoped they couldn’t spot me. After taking another deep breath, I ducked back under water and continued to let the river carry me. Every time I came up, the helicopter was further in the distance. Finally, on one of my breaths, I saw that it had circled back to where I’d gone into the river. It hadn’t spotted me.

A laugh bubbled up and escaped as I leaned back in the water, a mix of hysteria and joy. Each pump of my lungs made everything hurt, but I was alive.

After another few minutes, I started paddling over to the side, hoping to come out under a bridge in what looked like Queen Village. People were jogging along the riverside wearing bright workout clothes.

“Oh, my god. Did you fall in?” A jogger stopped and helped pull me out of the river.

“Something like that. Thanks, man.”

“Do you need to go to the hospital?” He asked, helping me to my feet. I looked down, noticing that I still had my shoes on. I’d count that as a win for the day, given how it was going.

“No. Just shaken up.”

The jogger was joined by another. “You should go to the hospital; you have a big cut on your forehead.”

I resisted the urge to reach up and touch it, but now that the second jogger mentioned it, I could feel the sting of raw skin meeting air. “Thanks. I’ll call someone here in a minute.”

“Here, have some of my water.” The first jogger pulled a water bottle off his belt. I took it and sprayed warm water in my mouth. Relaxing against a concrete wall, I handed it back. “Are you sure we can’t take you to the hospital?”

“Fine. I’ll be alright. Just need to get back home.” I realized my phone wasn’t likely to be any good now. I stuck my hands in my pocket and pulled it out on the slim chance it worked.

No luck. The black brick was just that now.

“You can put that in some rice and it’ll work again.” The jogger eagerly provided a solution.

“Thanks.” I stumbled up the steps to the street, giving them a thumbs up to try to alleviate the concern on their faces. Both joggers hesitated for a moment before continuing on their riverside run.

Up at the street level, there was a gas station only a few blocks down the way. It quickly became my next target. People stared at me as I walked along the side of the road sopping wet, but I did my best to not pay attention and act normal.

Which was a complete joke, because the day had been anything but normal. I was involved in a car chase where Morgana blew out a van’s tires. Then I was on my own for a police chase where I took out one car by breathing fire and somehow survived a plunge into the Delaware River.

Just a few days before, I had been a nerd trying to keep my grades up so I could apply to Med School at the end of the year.

The door to the gas station chimed as I opened it. The teller looked away from his small TV with a bored glance before going back to watching the game. I was glad that gas stations saw some crazy things and me being sopping wet didn’t even register on his radar.

Going through the aisles, I found that awkward grocery-like isle and grabbed a cup of instant fried rice. It would have to do.

“Breaking news. A high-speed chase ends with the driver running into the river. Our sources say they have no identity for the driver, but it is suspected he died in the accident. Work is underway to find the body.” Overhead, video that must have been taken from the helicopter became the main picture while the news anchor slid into the bottom right.

“As you can see, the police almost apprehended him during the chase, but he used an incendiary device detonated from the side of his car to throw off the police.” The frame froze. Morgana’s car was too tinted in any of the images to see inside the car. But in the frozen frame, fire was spewing out the side.

I was glad that they hadn’t come up with a better image. If they had one of me breathing said fire, I’m not quite sure where that would land me. But based on Morgana’s warning, it would have likely been the end of my time in the para world and life. “At this time, both officers have been admitted to the hospital, and we wish them a speedy recovery. Next up we have a story about—” I tuned them out and breathed a sigh of relief. I was glad I hadn’t killed the cops in the charger. They’d only been doing their jobs.

“Is that it, sir?” The teller asked as I approached. I gave him my card and was already ripping open the cup and stuffing my phone in it. “Works better if you pour a second one in; they aren’t very full.” The look on his face and the way he said it in such a bored tone hit a chord with me.

There was no doubt in my mind that he was absolutely correct and that he saw the strangest things working at a gas station.