Secrets, Lies and Dragonflies

Chapter 4

"Don't say another word. We must leave.  Now," says a hooded figure as he pulls me back into the bushes and out of sight of the dancing monsters.

"Wait," I say, pulling his hand from my face. "There's a boy. They have him trapped in a cage. I can't leave him."

Asher and Oafish stop dancing.

The hooded figure grabs my arm and won't let go, dragging me away.

"But what about the boy?" I say, frantically trying to keep pace as we weave through the forest.

"They won't hurt him. They need him," the stranger says, his strong grip pulling me along until we reach the cliff I climbed earlier. "We must jump," he says coldly.

"Jump? Are you crazy?" I say, bracing my feet against his yanking motion, trying to pry him off of me. His face stays hidden in the cloak he wears. I can only see his tanned hand clasped around my forearm. He wears a ring with an unusual emblem fashioned at the top—a fish symbol.

Asher and Oafish are making a new path, knocking down everything in their wake. When they are about to reach us, the stranger yells out into the canyon, "Pinion!"

Immediately a jet sized bird falls from the sky, making the same calls I heard earlier when I was certain my life was about to be over.  It swoops twenty feet below us and hovers with another hooded vigilante mounted on its back.

Pouncing out onto the rocky ledge that we're standing on, Asher's giant black-winged arm shoots out just inches from snatching me away. "She's mine!" The tips of his jagged claws graze my shirt as I fumble backward. The ground disappears. My mysterious captor and I free-fall onto the back of the enormous eagle that lies in wait.

Asher's miss sends him into howling cries. Peering over the cliff, his freakish dog-face prowls with fangs dripping. 

Gathering the reigns, the pilot of the giant eagle offers me a strap. "Stand firm and hold tight, child. She's like riding a wave."

Breathlessly, I do exactly as he says.

My kidnapper yells from behind me, "I'll return to the other Target, sir, so you can take her to safety."

"Yes, Bagwis.  You did well, son."  

And with that, Bagwis leaps from the eagle's back and onto the side of the mountain. A gust of wind blows his hood from his head briefly exposing his identity.  A younger man, maybe even a teenager with thick wavy, dark chocolate hair.  Very handsome.  Very handsome and very stupid.  He's heading right back toward a seething Asher.      

"To the cliffs, old girl!" announces the pilot.

Saddled with a fitted harness across her breast, the eagle raises her head and immediately soars away from the ledge. Away from the jaws of Asher. Away from the little boy I left caged and alone. Away from the person who, I'm almost certain, just saved my life.  

"Nice catch!" someone shouts from overhead. Swooping beside us is a petite, brunette woman gliding atop another massive eagle.

"That was too close, Tabitha. She's simply not ready," the mystery man calls back.

She smiles. "You know that's not for us to decide. Lean not on—"

"—your own understanding. Yes. I know," he says gruffly.

Her smile vanishes. "Hang on. Looks like we might have company."

Standing side by side on the edge of the cliff, their mangled wings locked arm in arm like a couple of Rockettes in a chorus line, Asher and Oafish spread their outer, operational wings to form a unified, flight-worthy vessel.  With beady black eyes transfixed on me, they step off the side of the mountain and set sail across the valley, heading directly for us.

"Why don't you get her out of here. We can handle this," Tabitha says.

More cries begin to fill the canyon. Entering from all sides are at least half a dozen people suited up for battle riding atop giant eagles.

Asher's shriveled arm shoots up and he whips something around over his head, like a lasso. 

"Watch out for the bola!" someone shouts.

"Up, Pinion! Up!" yells my hooded pilot.

Asher flings the object toward us.

Our eagle's sharp ascent can't clear the swirling ball-and-rope weapon in time. It catches me across my ankles, wrapping them so tight that I can no longer hold my balance and am wiped clear off the eagle's back.

Suspended thousands of feet above the earth, I somehow managed to still hang onto the reigns. The stranger tries to pull me in, but despite our efforts, my grasp is slowly peeling away. I'm not going to make it. This is it. I'm going to die.  

He must know this, too. Staying buried under his hooded cape, his eyes blaze a deep autumn bronze and he says something so unexpected. "Persevere with purpose, Mackenzie Temple. Grasp onto truth. Do not cling to the events of the past. For you have been called, child."

"Please. Tell my brother...I'm sorry,"  I manage to yell before my fingers slip from the rope. I'm falling to my death. I scream, but nothing comes out. The world is spinning and all I see is a stunningly blue sky.