Rise of the Poison Moon Read Online Free PDF Page A

replied.
    “Jack?”
    “You know—Jack-o’-Lantern? The orange trampler, roly-poly fellow, blasted the front lobby doors last spring? He managed to keep his feet after your mother’s shout, and he tried to take her down.”
    “Oh.” Jennifer’s heart fell—not for the trampler, who deserved to die for daring to attack her mother. But Dr. Elizabeth Georges-Scales had not killed a dragon since she was forced into a rite of passage on her fifteenth birthday. Jennifer knew the woman would be wracked with guilt, no matter how justified she was.
    “It wasn’t your mother,” Susan interjected, reading Jennifer’s thoughts. “Gautierre defended your mom. He was fantastic. Heroic. His tail moved so fast and cut the asshole’s throat right before he crashed into your mom.” The girl turned to the boy. “I’m so proud of you.”
    “Please, Susan. I didn’t want to kill him. But something inside me . . .” Gautierre was a mix of embarrassed and horrified. Plainly, he was still coming to terms with the kill. Before today, he was one of the dwindling number of innocents among them. Now he, like the rest of them, knew what it felt like to take a life. Jennifer felt bad for him, and grateful.
    “Thanks.”
    “The urge is so hard to control,” he continued. He wasn’t talking to any of them. “In that shape. Hearing Mark scream, watching that trampler go after Dr. Georges-Scales . . . I don’t feel like I’m defending a single person. I feel like I’m defending family. My own. I—geez! Every attack feels so personal .” Jennifer could feel herself nodding with him. “There’s no room for thinking. Just acting.”
    Susan rubbed his arm. “It saved Jenn’s mom. Maybe yours, too.”
    “How did Ember get away?”
    “Your mother’s shout hurt most of them,” Catherine explained, “but based on Jack’s autopsy, we think they purposely plugged their ears with tree sap. Only the light would have affected them, so they could scramble. If Jack had been smarter, he’d have escaped, too—but he couldn’t resist the idea of taking out the great Dr. Georges-Scales.”
    “Sap in their ears.” Jennifer lay back in bed. “That’s why they were so bold. They’ve never landed on the rooftop before. Never risked groups of more than three. Now they’ll try again.”
    “Maybe not. They must be down to—what, now? Twelve? And Jack was one of their most experienced. Everyone else in Ember’s gang is a juvenile, some young dumb-ass who came along for the destruction when Winona led the Blaze here. The older dragons still alive under this dome are either allies or loners in the woods by now.”
    “You are suggesting that attrition can win this conflict.” Elizabeth stood in the doorway now, hands on hips; the gaunt form of Jonathan Scales loomed behind her. Jennifer saw relief and irritation in her mother’s tired expression; worry and pride in her father’s. As wretched as things were beneath the dome, Jennifer never forgot how lucky she was: her family, at least, was together under Big Blue.
    Gautierre stretched out his hands and stared at his fingertips; Jennifer thought of Lady Macbeth in a ninth-grade English class an eternity ago, with the Midwestern twist her teach spun on it. Out out, ya dang spot! Geez, now, out!
    “I don’t want to see anyone else die, Dr. Georges-Scales.” He sighed. “And it doesn’t make up for Mark. But I’m still glad there are fewer of them. They can’t keep this up for much longer. Wherever their hideout is, winter’s going to be awful for them.”
    “It’s going to be awful for all of us. You are a brave soul, Gautierre Longtail. And I’m grateful you had my back up there on the roof.”
    “Me, too,” Jonathan Scales said quietly, his long, pale fingers grasping his wife’s shoulder.
    “But dragons are notoriously bad planners, and you are no exception.”
    “Feted and slammed,” Catherine teased, and got the ghost of a grin as a reward.
    “Your theory of