The roads were more passable on a bike. They could weave through debris blocking the way and zip down the middle of lanes between the lines of cars that got backed up and abandoned during the first couple of days. Once they got away from the city, the traffic cleared, and the highway remained wide open and abandoned except for a few cars.

People were staying home for the most part, although some still had to go to work. While there were food shortages, some grocery stores remained open. The gas stations they stopped at along the way were operated by attendants. Some restaurants and other shops still appeared to be open in the towns they passed through while getting gas.

They made pretty good time in the long stretches between major cities, weaving back and forth between the lanes and around each other. All that quick riding was balanced out by the fact that many of those stretches were through stretched forested areas, where they would pass a sign for an exit in a mile but not see the exit for another several minutes. It also became difficult to navigate through the abandoned, stopped traffic that was present around every major city.

They barely made it into Maryland before it became apparent that the trip would not take only one day. Lane splitting had worked fine for them before, but here they were, having no luck. The lanes of stopped cars were like a maze. Between two lanes would be free for a little while, only to be blocked by a fender bender when someone had tried to switch lanes and got stuck between them. Sometimes, they could get between cars and into the space on the other side of the lane, but sometimes, they had to back up quite a ways before they found an opportunity where that was possible.

It was utterly exhausting, pushing and pulling the bikes around as much as actually riding them. Several hours before the sun went down, they decided to call it quits. There was a campground in one of the state parks right by the exit. It was mostly empty, aside from a few campers.

“Maybe we should find a paper map and figure out a route that is not on a main highway,” Moira suggested as she lifted her helmet off and wiped away the strands of hair plastered to her face by sweat. “If it keeps being like this, we might as well just walk.”

“That’s a good idea.” Derek did not look up from unhooking one of the duffle bags. He tossed it on the ground and unzipped it. Moira glanced around and hissed when she heard a mosquito somewhere nearby.

“Why couldn’t we have gone to a hotel?” She complained.

“I didn’t want to leave the bikes down in a parking lot.” Derek stood back and assessed their campsite for the flattest spot. “With the way you and Juan described things, I was expecting anarchy.”

“Things have calmed down a little,” Moira said. And they had. People raided everything off the shelves and set up in their homes. The riots blew up and calmed a bit since there weren’t many places left to block traffic or cause chaos. But pretty soon, it would become obvious that the problem was not going away. The shelves would need to be re-stocked. The monsters would still roam around. The government was not going to get any better at handling anything. The lull of people trying to deny what was going on would be over soon. “For now.”

“Yeah, for now.” Derek fed the tent poles through the little flaps, and suddenly, there was a nice tent set up for them. Moira clapped her hands. Derek rolled his eyes. “There’s some sleeping bags and stuff in the duffle. You mind setting them up while I get a fire going?”

Moira pawed around for the sleeping bags and pillows. There were also a couple of sleeping pads rolled up and tucked in the bottom. She dumped the whole lot into the tent and spread them around.

“Did you know we were going to camp?” She asked.

“I just wanted to be prepared.” Derek had a little pile of tinder and sticks in the middle of the fire ring. He snapped his fingers and a flame sparked to life in the center of them, sending up a little column of smoke and catching the twigs. He grinned down at his handiwork proudly, then set about stacking larger pieces of wood that he’d scavenged from a nearby campsite.

They popped open some cans of soup, then set them on top of the fire ring grate to heat them up. Moira hated canned soup. It always tasted like cardboard and flavored water to her, but she was starving and decided not to complain. Then, they sat at the picnic table and watched as dusk fell around them. Moira had already told Derek most of what had happened while she was with Jeremy and Caleb, so they ended up fooling around casting spells – making the fire jump and twist around.

“Hey,” Moira said after a while. “I’ve got to show you something.”

Derek watched her with interest as she stood up and went to the edge of the campsite by the road, where there were fewer trees around and above them. Now that it was truly dark out, the silence of being out here in the woods with only a couple of other people camping nearby seemed much more oppressive. She could hear the white noise of cicadas and whatnot, which was a relief, but it still felt like the night around them had a pair of eyes that were watching.

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She shook off the feeling and turned back to look at Derek. He say sprawled across the picnic table, awash in the red firelight. Even though the woods were creepy, his presence made things seem okay. Plus, as she was about to show him, she was uniquely qualified to handle any threats that might come creeping out of the trees.

“Don’t freak,” she warned. Then she took a deep breath, let it out, and imagined being a dragon. In the blink of an eye, she was one. There was no painful physical transformation. This was all magic. One moment, she stood on two legs, and the next, she stood on four.

It was a pretty strange feeling to stand on four legs. But even stranger still was the pair of wings protruding out of her back. Not to mention the tail. All this combined was difficult to process and control. It was no wonder she could not remain in this form for very long. By the time she finished doing anything while trying to coordinate all these limbs, her brain felt like scrambled eggs. She wondered if she could remain like this for longer if she just laid still.

Derek had not moved. He gaped up at her, much smaller than how he’d appeared to her human eyes. Even though she now towered above him, she could see him just as well as when she sat right beside him, perhaps even better. She blinked down at the weave of the fabric in his shirt, which she could see thread for thread. Her eyesight in this form was incredible.

She sat back on her hind legs and spread her wings just because it felt good to stretch them out. It felt so nice that she left them extended, resting against the road on either side of her body. Derek watched all this with wide eyes. He sat forward and clasped his hands between his knees, looking from them to her while mulling over what to say.

“Did you just change into a dragon?” He asked like he thought he might be hallucinating or something.

Moira nodded.

“Wow.” Derek sat back up and crossed his arms.

Turning back was as simple as becoming the dragon. All Moira had to do was decide to be in her human form again. And then she was. Her skin was once again soft and detached from the clothes she wore instead of being connected to a layer of scales that rippled and followed her movements. For just a second, she felt the loss of the height and the extra limbs keenly. Just a brief burst of what she imagined people meant when they talked about losing a limb. But it quickly passed.

Derek watched silently as she approached, rubbing her arms to get used to this form again. She stopped by the fire and looked down into the flickering flames. A log fell and sent a shower of sparks into the air.

“It only lasts a couple of minutes, but I think if I keep practicing, I can stay like that longer,” She said into the silence.

Derek’s mouth opened and closed, completely and utterly flabbergasted, it would seem.

“Yeah, so…” She looked him dead in the eyes. “If you’re ever worried about me biting your head off for something, just remember that I can literally do that now.”

Derek’s eyes remained wide for a moment, but then they narrowed in pleased amusement. Moira couldn’t help but copy the grin spreading across his face. A chuckle bubbled out of her before she knew it as well.

“Come here.” Derek held out an arm, and she tossed herself down on the seat beside him to lean into his shoulder as he draped it across her. He kissed the top of her head. “I’m sorry for hiding everything about the council. And I’m sorry for getting into the accident and scaring you. There…is that what you wanted to hear? Am I forgiven now?”

“Oh, I see how it is. Now that I’m a big, scary dragon, it’s all I’m sorry, and please forgive me.” She laughed as she settled more comfortably against him.

“Well?” Derek prompted.

“Whatever, sure,” she grumbled, although there was still a smile hurting her cheeks. He just hummed and rubbed her arm over and over until her drowsy eyes fell shut. Finally, feeling content and safe for the first time in what felt like much more than just a week.

“So, how do you do that?” Derek asked. “Can you teach me?”

Moira opened her eyes and pursed her lips. “I don’t think so. It just kind of happened naturally for me one time. Now, all I have to do is decide to turn into a dragon. It’s kind of the same as deciding to lift your arm.”

She lifted her arm up and dropped it. “It’s not even necessarily a conscious thing. You think about picking up something, so your hand does it. I think about needing to do something as a dragon, and suddenly I am one.”

Derek remained silent for a little while, still rubbing her arm.

“There are other people who can do the same thing,” Moira said when it became clear he was lost in thought. “I heard about it and looked up the stories online. There have been two other people who transformed into dragons, and both went on murderous rampages. One was killed – like me, he couldn’t remain a dragon for more than a minute or so, and they got him when he changed back – and the other flew off somewhere, and nobody knows where they went.”

“Have you gone on any murderous rampages?”

“Well…” she rolled her eyes to look up at him. “I wouldn’t say rampages.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“All self-defense,” she insisted. “The council, you know? What are you going to do about all that anyway?”

“Why do you keep thinking I’m going to do something?”

“It is impossible for you not to get involved in shit, Derek,” Moira said flatly.

“Maybe I will get involved in something else.” He stared off into the darkness beyond the fire. The flames cast a warm glow across his features and reflected off his dark eyes. “I’d bet you a hundred thousand dollars the council doesn’t even exist in a month. You said it the other day; there isn’t anything to keep them together anymore. The director will try to keep them all together, but everyone is going to be out for their own interests too much. Juan is only sticking around to enjoy the show.”

Moira thought about that for a little while. “I’d rather not bet against you on that.”

“Smart girl.” Derek patted her on the head. She reared away and smacked his hand.