The Other Side Read Online Free PDF Page B

were missing unless you checked the numbers. Allie doesn’t notice that sort of thing. I search for other poems about death and war—a few here and there, but the ones most highlighted—and rip them free, too.
    The remaining pieces that she’s dog-eared revolve around sorrow and love. I used to seek those out myself, but now I skip them for ones I don’t quite understand, ones I’m happy not understanding.
    I must drift, because when I next look at the map, we’ve reached the mainland. I check on Colin, positioning my cheek inches from his lips. His breaths are uneven and shallow. I press two fingers to his neck. It takes a few more seconds than last time to find his pulse. Fast—as if he just finished a sprint—but weak.
    No signs of trouble, Grackel informs me. Drop will occur soon.
    â€œAt the edge of town. Out of sight, right?”
    All will go well, human.
    It must. We’ll land safe as the dragons take cover in the mountains. I’ll call 911. On our way to the hospital, as the EMT informs me that Colin’s in no danger whatsoever, I’ll phone Preston, but James will be the one who answers. He’ll hang up fast, because he doesn’t want to waste another second . . . he’ll already be on his way to rescue us.
    I laugh because the alternative hurts too much. I climb into my jump seat, buckle up, and wait for reality to set in.

5
    Reality sucks even worse than I thought.
    My ears pop, my chest tingles. The altimeter spins up. Allie clutches my hand until our knuckles turn white. We settle at fifteen thousand feet. High enough that the locals might mistake dragons for stars or comets, but now in radar visibility, according to Grackel.
    Which means the dragons need to zip in fast, drop the payload—us—and bolt. As Randon accelerates, I think about how eight months ago, my worst days involved suffering through Lieutenant Spencer’s boring lectures on projectile motion.
    Never imagined I’d actually be a physics problem.
    If a crate’s dropped from fifteen thousand feet, traveling at a horizontal velocity of two hundred miles per hour, howfar will it go before it lands? A long damn way. What if the crate has a parachute attached to it? When should that be opened? And then there’s the real stuff like drag and wind shear that we never learned about because those weren’t ideal conditions. No kidding.
    You worry too much, human, Grackel says. Trust me. It is not much different than a rock thrown from a cliff.
    Even if Grackel’s an Einstein in the dragon world, there’s no way she can account for weather, parachute open time, Randon’s exact speed at release. . . .
    Too many variables.
    We’re gonna end up landing in the woods a mile out. Or maybe the tributary. We’ll plunge through the icy film and sink into the murky depths. The crate’s probably airtight, so we’ll sit at the bottom of a frozen river, waiting to run out of oxygen or turn into Popsic—
    Drop will occur in ten seconds.
    Allie tightens her grip, her face gone paler than Colin’s. I remind myself that there’s only room enough in here for one scared girl, and smile at her. “Kind of neat. Think about the stories you can tell all your dragon friends. How you flew a crate into Alaska.”
    She gives the slightest nod and squeezes harder.
    Five seconds.
    I reach over my shoulder and flip the switch that activatesthe LCD. Four squares appear onscreen. Grackel and Baby occupy most of the upper left-hand view. Two are tinged red by Randon’s glow but are otherwise dark. The final square, from the camera embedded in the crate bottom, shows a smattering of yellow lights, distant cat eyes peeking out at us through the abyss.
    Two. Good luck, humans. One.
    Grackel says something else, but I don’t hear, because my stomach’s suddenly lurching into my brain. I bite my lip hard to keep my shriek from joining