Burn(66)

“Where are you going?” Jason asked.

Still holding the napkin to his nose, Hisao sighed. “He won’t be able to start his car with a broken wrist. I’ll at least help him get out of here.” He left, too.

“That’s a kind man,” Darlene said, also rising.

“Yeah,” Jason scoffed, “helping the sheriff who just broke his nose.”

“You think Kelby’s going to keep quiet?” Darlene asked him. “Even if every word this person with the knives said is true”—she glared at Malcolm—“we still have to live on these farms. Kelby will still be sheriff. You think he isn’t going to make us pay for all this?”

“I’m sorry,” Malcolm said. “It was either that or kill him.”

“No, no,” Darlene said, sounding annoyed at herself. “You did the right thing. So did Hisao. But sometimes doing the right thing comes with a price tag.” She sat back down at the table. “What a day.” She glanced at Malcolm again. “Was any of that true? Are you all spies? Because that makes as much sense as anything.”

“It is completely true,” Kazimir said.

“It’s not true at all,” Sarah said, and she and Kazimir glared at each other.

“I was trained,” Malcolm said.

“Obviously,” Darlene said.

“By a religious cult that worships dragons.”

She just blinked at him. “I preferred spies. Let’s go back to that.”

The assassin approached Sarah sheepishly a few moments later, as Mr. Inagawa came back in the door. Her mother handed him his shotgun.

“You were right,” the boy said to Sarah.

“About what?”

“About not killing the sheriff. About making amends in this world.” He reached into his coat and took out the Spur of the Goddess, which still looked like an ordinary dragon claw. He handed it to Kazimir, who took it with surprise. “I’ll come back for this,” Malcolm said.

“You know I cannot work it,” Kazimir said. “You also know that she is the only one who can.”

“That’s probably true.”

Kazimir sounded agitated. “After what I have seen this evening, you seem like you would be a very skilled ally in what we face.”

“That may be true, too,” Malcolm said, buttoning up his coat. “But it may also be true that it takes a dragon to fight a dragon.”

Kazimir said nothing to that.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Malcolm said.

“You’re leaving?” Sarah said.

“I have people to . . .” She saw him search for the word. “Save, if I can.”

“Save from what?” Darlene asked as he walked toward the door.

“Save from me.”

They all watched him go, Hisao stepping aside to let him pass. Kazimir looked at the claw, considering it, as the door shut again.

“I wonder,” Kazimir said to Sarah’s mother, “if you might have any paper.”

Darlene looked confused, but finally just shrugged her shoulders and went to find some.

It was Jason who finally broke the ensuing silence.

“Isn’t anyone going to explain the dragon?”

“I guess I’m staying here tonight,” Sarah said to Jason outside later. Darlene was finishing bandaging Hisao’s nose, and Kazimir had taken the paper Darlene found for who knew what reason.

“Okay,” Jason said. “Sounds good.” He kept staring at her. “You really do look just like her.”

“I am her. In a way.”

“Uh-huh.”

Sarah didn’t know what to do, exactly. She yearned to hug him again, to be in close and smell that Jason smell, to have him wrap his arms around her like he’d done just a few nights ago, to have it be her and him in a secret moment that the world knew nothing about.

But he was a little awkward here, standoffish, like he wasn’t sure what she wanted. She took a step toward him. He took an uncomfortable step back.

“Jason, I—”

“I don’t really know you,” he said, looking worried. “This is weirder than anything that could ever really happen, and this is the second time you’ve acted like you know me super-well but . . .”

“But what?”

He shrugged, still looking worried. “We weren’t that good of friends, really, me and Sarah. I mean, we weren’t enemies, but it’s not like we hung around down at the soda shop or anything.” He looked away. “You always kind of avoided me at school.”

“I did?” she said.

“Yeah, there are hardly any kids there who aren’t white, and I always got the impression you thought things were easier for you if we kept separate. Even though we lived down the same road.”

“Oh, my,” she said, feeling stupid for the grandmotherly phrase. “That’s not at all how it was for us in my world. It was the opposite. We stuck together. We were friends. We were . . .” She blushed a little in the dark.

“We were more?” Jason said, and there was so much surprise in his voice that she laughed out loud.

“No one really knew,” she told him. “That would have got us in trouble in this town. And did. But, yes.” She looked into the shadow where his eyes were.