Page 54 of Serving my Dragon
“Right now, they’re probably heading to an airfield to catch a flight out of the country.”
“Putting them out of reach.”
“Only if they leave the ground.”
“Even if we leave now for the airport, we’re at least a few hours behind them,” I pointed out. “They’ll be gone before we even get close.”
“No, they won’t. They were announcing a big storm as we left the hospital. High winds. Rain. Lightning. Ain’t no one flying tonight.”
In my panic, I’d not been paying attention to the weather, but Juan had a point. The dark clouds had been gathering and hung ominously low.
“You think we have time to find them?” A spark of hope lit within.
“We do, but we’ll need reinforcements.”
“You think we can convince the police to help us?”
“Bah, not those idiots,” Juan scoffed. “I’m talking about asking the familia.”
“I don’t know if we should drag them into this.”
“They’re already involved and you know they’d want to strike back at the ones who hurt Lola.”
Juan made a good point. My family wanted blood. Literally. Carmelita had been at the hospital muttering something about casting a curse. Tía Consuela suggested they use poison. My uncle Diego thought a good ol’ fashion beating was called for. As for my cousins, Emilia and Sophia, they thought the driver of the car who hit Mama needed a taste of his own medicine times two. They’d talked about running him over and then reversing to run over him again.
Savages.
Dios, I loved them.
“I know they’ll want to help rescue Kayleigh, but how are we supposed to explain the fact we need to get Polly back too?” I couldn’t see them wanting to risk themselves for a lizard.
“Easy. We tell them the truth.”
“They’ll never believe us.” More likely they’d hit the floor laughing.
“You think they’ll dare call your mama a liar?”
No, they wouldn’t, hence why Juan texted the family to meet us in Mama’s room at the hospital.
“They’ll never let everyone in,” I argued as we headed there at a speed that had me fearing for my life given the sleeting rain. The storm had hit and it seemed set on drowning the world.
“You really think some nurses can stop your aunts from being with Lola?” They might only be related by marriage, but in their minds, that was as good as blood.
Turned out Juan was right. When we arrived, everyone crowded Mama’s hospital room. We walked into the din of many voices speaking at once but they fell silent at the sight of us.
“What happened?” Santiago asked. “Why did you call a family meeting?”
“Did you find the bastardo who hurt Lola?” Diego slammed a closed fist into his open hand.
Whereas Carmelita frowned. “Where’s Kayleigh?”
“Kidnapped.” I dropped just that single word and the pandemonium of before trebled until Mama—wearing fewer tubes than before—barked, “Quiet.”
The room hushed.
“Tell us what happened, mijo.”
“The asshole targeting Kayleigh found out where we were hiding. They hit Mama on purpose to make sure I was gone so they could abduct Kayleigh and Pollita.”
