Ugh, not this nonsense again. “Goodbye, Samira.”
I tuck the tryout documents into my Wonder Woman backpack. It has this vintage-looking gold metal badge on it, which is shaped like the W on Diana’s uniform. It makes me want to punch bad guys. Besides, Papi bought it for me last Christmas, so it’ll give me some luck.
My phone’s wallpaper fills the lock screen. It’s a picture of Takeshi Endo, my favorite Blazewrath player. Two years ago, a fifteen-year-old Takeshi had been ready to represent Japan for the second time as his team’s Striker. This photo is from a shoot without Hikaru, his dragon steed. He’s in a brightly lit studio, wearing a simple white T-shirt and skinny jeans as black as his slicked-back hair. One of his sleeves is rolled up, exposing a lean bicep.
He’s been missing for two years. No one has seen him since Hikaru’s murder.
“Wish me luck, Takeshi.”
I tuck my phone into my backpack and head down to the living room, where six different gift boxes, ranging from cufflinks small to dress shirt medium, have been dumped onto the velvet suede couch. The ivory wrapping paper remains untouched on top of my cousin’s gifts.
I spot Mom near the TV. Leslie Anne Wells, the willowy Amazon in blue heels, with a couple of gray streaks in her brown hair. That’s all I got from her. While she has her former ballerina poise and physique, I’m the proud owner of hips that could knock anyone out. My deep-brown skin wins me at least one look of confusion from strangers whenever I’m out with her. Like I can’t be related to her because she’s white. Sometimes I ignore it, even though I’m holding in swear words. Other times I throw knives with my glare and make them just as uncomfortable as I am.
Success rate for the latter is still at 100 percent.
Mom clutches the belt on her denim shirtdress. The words Breaking News appear along the screen with the photo of a man who’s not really a man at all.
Silver scales cover his face. His whole body is made of them, but he hides them underneath a black leather trench coat and matching leather gloves. His eyes flash a bright bloodred at a surveillance camera. And he’s grinning.
This is the man who was once a dragon. A Fire Drake from England, to be exact. His former rider, one of the few wizards to have a dragon steed, cursed him into human form. The curse stripped him of the claws that ripped hundreds of spines apart, of the fire that scorched innocents around the world. Twenty years have passed since the Sire’s rider sacrificed himself to cast the blood curse. Twenty years of peace … until three weeks ago, when the Sire came out of hiding, broke into a dragon sanctuary in Athens, and fled with a Hydra.
“What’s the Sire up to now?” I ask.
Mom dives for the remote control. I’ve never seen anyone turn off a TV that fast. “Another attack at a dragon sanctuary. There seems to be a new one every week.”
I shudder. The Sire and his Dragon Knights, the fanatical followers who serve him, have been setting dragons free all over Europe. They’ll probably move along to other continents soon.
What if he goes to Dubai? Sixteen teams are already at this year’s host city for the Cup. Could the Sire’s antics force the IBF to cancel it as a safety measure?
I need the Cup to happen. I’ve waited thirteen years for this shot at glory, at a taste of home. I can’t wait a second longer.
“What’s happening in that mind of yours, Lana?”
I clear my throat, fishing my phone out of my jeans’ pocket. “Just thinking about Papi and how he’s dealing with all this sanctuary drama. Let me check on him.” Papi doesn’t own a Whisperer, so it’s normal phone calls for him. Thank God the time difference between Florida and São Paulo is only one hour.
The phone rings once, twice, ten billion times.
Papi doesn’t answer.
I hang up and try again. He still doesn’t answer. “Why isn’t he picking up?”
“He could be in a meeting,” Mom says as I shoot Dad a text to call me ASAP. “Carlos is better off than most of us, anyway.” Mom sulks as she walks over to the gifts. “I told you both, didn’t I? You can never trust something that much bigger than you with a will of its own.”
I heave a sigh. “The Sire is a terrorist, Mom. He chooses to be this vile. Dragons aren’t treacherous and terrible by nature.”
Mom’s hardened gaze flickers over to me. “And yet one tried to kill my daughter.”
My groan could rattle walls. That happened when I was five years old. Papi had been a dragon-studies professor in Puerto Rico. São Paulo invited him to help with the adaptation process of the sanctuary’s latest rescue, a female Pesadelo. She had been Un-Bonded, though. Un-Bonded dragons are born without forming a psychic and emotional connection, known as a Bond, with a human rider. They consider humans a threat. Sometimes even food.
I remember Mom’s screams as she watched from the other side of the spell-protected glass. Sometimes I hear them in my sleep. She might hear them, too. She’s so concerned with monsters that she never noticed that her daughter survived a dragon attack with her little five-year-old legs. A daughter who realized on that fateful night she has what it takes to compete in the Cup. Maybe even win. All I needed was a team from my place of birth to be eligible for tryouts.
All I needed was the chance my mother would never give me.
“That was a long time ago,” I tell her, “and it had been my fault.”
“Please don’t defend the indefensible.” Mom glowers. “Dragons are capable of horrendous acts of violence. The Sire is proof of this.”
“So are his Dragon Knights, who are humans.”
“I’m not going to fight with you. Please help me wrap these gifts. We don’t want to be late to pick up Samira and Todd.” Mom swiftly takes the medium box and the wrapping paper to the dining-room table, where red scissors and tape await.
I swallow my cutting retort. She refuses to change her mind about dragons. She won’t let me play Blazewrath. She won’t care that the Sire could snatch my dream away. Tears fill my eyes. I turn around and wipe them away before Mom notices. It kills me not to have her support, but this is what life has been like for the past twelve years. She’ll never change. Neither will I.
Maybe those staring strangers on the street are right. We shouldn’t be related.
BOOM!
Something explodes behind me.
I jump back with flailing arms. Mom’s screaming like it’s the End of Days.
“Don’t panic, people! I got this!” Samira Jones, BFF extraordinaire, stands in my dining room wrapped in blue flames. There’s a halo around her puffy high bun. She looks like a Black angel trapped in burning spray paint. Samira whips out her wand, a copper rod with amethyst crystals on the sides, and aims a silent spell at the kitchen sink. Water glides out of the faucet in a straight line. It strikes the flames from the top of Samira’s head to her camel-colored Nikes.
The fire coils inward, flickering like dying stars, then vanishes.
After she sends the water back to the faucet, Samira’s eyes find mine. She’s beaming as if she’s won a billion bucks. She’s about to say something when there’s a soft snap.
The upper half of her wand tumbles to the floor.
Samira frowns. “Surprise …”