“Take down a world-renowned evil organization? Ambitious of you.”
“You don’t seem to think we can do it.”
“On the contrary,” she says, setting her notes aside for a moment and looking at me carefully. “I think that your clan has some of the most beautiful, most enormous creatures in the world, Donny. If you wanted to, you could storm in and light them on fire. You could burn them to the ground.”
“So why shouldn’t we do that?” I ask her. “If it’s just that easy.”
“Well, it’s never that easy, is it? You could do that, but they might have traps. They might have government officials standing by who were ready to grab you. They could go nuclear on you and destroy the forest. If you went out and openly destroyed a pharmaceutical company without proving they are, in fact, corrupt, you could damage shifter-human relations on a global scale. The damage could be unmanageable. Unfixable.”
“You aren’t wrong,” I’ve spent so many nights talking with Wilson, with Cameron, with Lee. Lawrence and I have painstakingly gone over plans again and again, trying to find a way to make sense of everything that’s happened, to try to find a way to breach their security.
We need to find a way to let the world know that these people don’t want to save the dragons.
They want to annihilate us.
“Nicole – that’s the woman’s name – was in the bakery this morning. Reece snapped. I don’t know what the trigger was. He marched down and tried to attack her.”
“Tried?”
“Another dragon stopped him.”
“And then what happened?”
“Wilson brought him here for an evaluation. I cleared him to go home with Wilson.”
“Why would you do that? Why not sedate him?”
“Because he’s still a man. He deserves to be treated with dignity and respect, Sabrina. I didn’t think locking him up was the answer.”
“What is it you want from me, Donny?” She cocks her head, blinking her bright eyes at me. “Again, I’m not judging you. I’m not picking on you. I’m asking you honestly so I know how I should approach this. Are you hoping for reintegration with his old life? Are you hoping to find out what caused him to snap? Or do you want me to fix this guy so he can become a valuable and cherished member of your clan?”
“He can’t go back to his old life, but all of the other options? Yeah. That’s what I want for this guy. I want to find out why he went after Nicole. Why today? What did he think this was going to solve? And I want to know that it’s not going to happen again.”
“You want to be able to trust him,” Sabrina says thoughtfully.
“I want to be able to trust him,” I repeat.
A knock sounds at the door and Jodi pops her head in.
“Sorry to interrupt,” she says. “But your next patient is waiting, doctor.”
“That’s fine,” Sabrina stands and smiles at Jodi. “We’re done here. He’ll be right out.”
“Thank you,” Jodi nods and leaves.
I look at Sabrina and realize something, seemingly for the first time. She’s not this quiet, demure woman I suppose I had pegged her for. Is she a little bit...dominant? She’s always been take charge, but I wonder if there’s more to it than meets the eye. Sabrina notices me looking at her and simply raises an eyebrow, as if waiting for me to speak.
“Where can I find Reece, Donny?”
I write down directions to Wilson’s place, and then I leave the room to go meet with an elderly dragon shifter who has been having stomach pains.
Calling Sabrina was the right move. I know that.
I just hope I didn’t wait too long to do it.
I hope it’s not too late for Reece.
Chapter Eight