Quick as a snake, he flipped onto his back, leveled his gun and me, and fired point blank at my chest.

Dammit! I flinched back, not bothering to dodge, knowing it was useless. I wasn’t even surprised when the rest of the squad appeared from hidden nooks and crannies and fired on me, too. Dammit, dammit, dammit, I walked right into that one. I’m sure she will have all kinds of things to say about this.

Closing my eyes, I hunkered down until the storm of paint finally stopped, and waited for my trainer to appear.

As usual, it didn’t take long. Scary Talon Lady emerged from an aisle, shaking her head, her eyes crinkled with disgust. I growled, curling my lips back, as the soldiers took their guns and vanished again, including the one on the floor.

“I know,” I growled before she could say anything. “Pathetic. you don’t have to tell me, I know what I did wrong.”

Her eyes bored into me. “If you knew,” she said in a soft, unamused voice, “why did you do it?”

“I…I thought he was hurt! Really hurt. He’s not a soldier of St.

George—if he really was injured, I wanted to help him.”

“And that,” my trainer said in a hard, icy voice, pointing with a sharp red nail, “is exactly why you failed. Who cares if he was hurt?

He was still your enemy, and you had no business wanting to aid him.” She straightened, giving me a look of contempt. “What is it you should have done, hatchling?”

I bit back the snarl rising to my throat. “Killed him.”

“Without mercy,” my trainer agreed. “Without hesitation. If you are ever in this type of situation again, I expect you to get it right.

Because you may never have another chance if you don’t.”

Dante was on the couch watching some kind of action movie when I got home. He lay there looking perfectly nonchalant, with his head on the armrest, one leg dangling off the side and a soda resting on his stomach. I shook my head as I came through the door, on my way up to the shower. Dante never came home looking like a cow exploded on him.

He glanced up at me, and I held my breath. Ever since that night in my room after the party, we’d been walking on eggshells around each other. In typical Dante fashion, he never spoke of the encounter and acted like everything was fine. I knew better. Around our friends, he was still my smiling, charming, easygoing twin, but mention anything Talon or dragon related, and his smile became forced, his eyes going blank and glassy. He was slipping farther and farther from me, and I didn’t know how to get him back.

“Good God,” he commented as I paused in the frame, feeling hot and sticky and generally cranky. “Were you swimming in it today?”

“Shut up.” The response was mostly out of habit, something easy and familiar, and the tension between us eased a bit as I made my way toward the steps. “Why are you home, anyway?” I asked, keeping my voice light, uncaring. “Aren’t you supposed to be doing something with Calvin and Tyler today?”

“I’m meeting them at the Hut in an hour,” Dante said, taking a swig from the can on his stomach. “Tyler found a new rock climbing spot just out of town, so we’re heading up there to check it out.”

He glanced at me and offered a wry half-grin. “You’re welcome to ‘tag along’ if you like. The guys won’t care, and I’m pretty sure you can keep up.”

He was extending an olive branch and, another time, I would’ve gladly accepted. Beating Dante and his friends to the top of a cliff was exactly what I needed to clear the bad air between us. Tonight, though, I had other plans. Plans that made my stomach squirm in a way surfing, dancing, or rock climbing, never did. Tonight, I would be with Garret.

“No thanks,” I told Dante. “I’ll kick your ass some other time.”

He shrugged and went back to watching TV. I continued toward the stairs but paused, hovering at the foot of the steps, watching him until he looked up again and raised an eyebrow.

“Yes?”

“Dante…” I hesitated, wondering if I should tempt fate like this, especially when we were still on shaky ground. But I continued anyway. “Do you ever wonder…what they’re training us for?”

“What do you mean?”

Hope flickered. At least he wasn’t immediately brushing me off, or pretending he’d forgotten something in his room so he could leave. I raised my paint drenched arms. “Well, look at me,” I stated. “They’re obviously not teaching us the same things. I’m running around getting shot at by lunatics with guns, and you’re sitting in a nice room learning Tea Ceremony or something.”

“Not yet,” Dante said, smirking to show he wasn’t being serious.

“Tea Ceremony is next month.”

“Why is our training so different?” I went on, ignoring his last statement. “I’ll tell you what I think. I think they’re going to separate us. You’ll go to some nice academy for important rich students, and I…I’ll be sent off to military school or something.”

“You’re overreacting.” Dante swung his feet to the floor, watching me with his elbows on his knees. “They’re not going to separate us.”

“How do you know?” I demanded.

“Because my trainer told me.”

“Oh, well, how great for you,” I shot back, not knowing where this sudden anger was coming from. Dante scowled, but the suppressed rage and frustration from this morning, from every session with Scary Talon Lady, surged up with a vengeance. “My trainer doesn’t tell me anything. Just lets me know how pathetic I am, that I’ll never be a proper dragon, that I’m a waste of time and Talon shouldn’t have even bothered hatching me. I hate going there. I hate her, and Talon, and this whole stupid—”