The Heart of the Dragon
Chapter 25

Once she was in the jungle, Angie decided to go the tree where she and Hayden sat as she sat down on the low branch and let her tears fall. She suddenly wasn’t feeling this pain because of watching Hayden become a monster, but rather because she ran away from him. She knew this all came as a surprise, she never expected Hayden to become something like that. But yet it scared her, and when Hayden tried to talk to her, she didn’t give him a chance to continue.

She decided that once she calmed down, she would go and apologize to him. After all, it is her last day with him.

But as she began to feel herself relax, she suddenly heard footsteps as she turned to see Mr. Monroe pushing his way through the jungle while talking to someone on his walkie talkie.

“You’re coming in?” he asked into the device, “Alright I’ll be right out.”

She couldn’t hear who he was talking to, but as he continued to push his way through the jungle, she spotted something falling out of his backpack. He didn’t notice it as he walked off, but after making sure he was gone, Angie went over to see what it was, and that’s when she saw that it was his notebook, the one he wouldn’t let anyone see. When she picked it up, she knew she wanted to look into it, seeing how Mr. Monroe has been very secretive about it and how she’s been having a bad feeling about him.

So heading back to the tree, Angie flipped open the notebook and began to examine it. And what she read sent chills down her spine. At first, Mr. Monroe just took down notes about the dragons and hybrids, he even drew some illustrations about the anatomy. But these weren’t the only things in there, written on these pages were ideas about making money off the creatures. One idea showed writing a book about them under a pen name, but there was one idea that really scared Angie.

All of a sudden, she could hear the sounds of helicopters flying from above. She looked up expecting to see them, but that’s when she realized that they must be coming in from the beachside where their jet crashed. And by the sounds of them, she could tell there was a lot. But in order to see if what she read was about to come true, she began to follow the sounds of the helicopters towards the beach. It was a long way to run considering how far she traveled when she fell down the cliff before. But she managed to make it where she hid in the jungle and peeked out to see Mr. Monroe waving down at the helicopters who were hovering above the shore.

At first, Angie only saw 2 helicopters, but when she looked ahead, she couldn’t believe her eyes when she saw more coming. If she had to guess, there was about 30 more on their way, and some of them were jets. As they all slowly began to land on the beach while some had to land in the shallow part of the water, Angie stayed put and watched as Mr. Monroe went over to one of the helicopters as a man stepped out. She immediately recognized the man as Commander Darabont, Mr. Monroe’s boss who they had met before they left for their trip. And hanging on his side, she spotted a handgun.

Angie began to feel her heart racing in fear when she noticed that the other men who had come out from the helicopters and jets all had shotguns, handguns, bolas, machetes, and nets. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing, this was so not a rescue squad. When she turned back to Mr. Monroe and the Commander, she couldn’t tell what they were saying due to the helicopters for making their loud noises. She tried to read their lips as best as she could, but she was able to make out some words such as ‘hybrids’, ‘dragons’, and ‘money’.

Even though she couldn’t hear what they were saying, she knew exactly what it was about. What she had read in the notebook was coming true, and she had to warn everyone. She was about to turn around and head back when her clothes suddenly got caught in some twigs from a bush. She tried to pull them off, but they had caught on hard that she tried to yank them out from the grasps. But when she was able to yank her clothes off, she didn’t notice that she had stepped into view when she looked up and felt her heart dropped when she saw Commander Darabont turning his head and making eye contact with her.

“Miss Brighton?” she heard him say as Mr. Monroe turned to her.

Without hesitating, Angie turned around and took off through the jungle. She could already hear the Commander’s shouting at his crew to go after her. She didn’t dare to look back, she was so focused on getting to the home base as fast as she to warn everyone. Thanks to her legs for giving her the speed, she was able to make it to the home base where she spotted Tammy, Eli, and Jackson outside with the hybrids.

“Guys!” she screamed as she hurried to them.

“Angie?” Tammy gasped when her friend placed her hands on her shoulders for support while hyperventilating “What’s wrong?”

“We need to get everyone out of here!” she panted, “Mr. Monroe didn’t call for help, he called for these military people or something like that to capture the hybrids and dragons!”

At that moment, everyone, both hybrids and the dragons turned their attention towards her with shocked looks.

“Wait, what did you say?” Candace gasped.

“I don’t have time to explain!” she breathed worriedly, “We need to get out of here!”

But all of a sudden, a loud gunshot was heard which caused everyone to freeze in fear. As the shot echoed across the sky, the hybrids and dragons got in defense mode while huddling against each other for support. Nobody made a sound as Angie held onto her best friend with terror, knowing what was about to come to them.

After a few seconds of waiting for something, everyone was suddenly startled by a loud shot followed by a flare in the sky as everyone looked up to see a bright flare that burst in the sky which blinded them. And at that moment, everyone began to hear shouts coming from the jungle followed by hundreds of running feet heading towards them. Nobody had the time to run when hundreds of soldiers appeared from the jungle while dashing towards everyone with their weapons.

And just like, everyone turned to madness.

The soldiers fired dart guns at the creatures while also shooting out nets and bolas. Angie was so frozen in shock as she watched the scene where the dragons and hybrids tried to fight back, but when they did, some gunshots were heard as she saw some of the dragons and hybrids collapsing to the ground with gun wounds.

“NO!” she screamed.

“Remember!” she suddenly heard Darabont’s voice shout “Don’t kill unless you have to! I want most of them alive!”

Angie couldn’t take her eyes off of the scene where a fire was already starting to spread. She watched as the creatures got shot with dart guns, caught in nets, and were tangled by the bolas. And those who tried to attack all got shot by the guns, and she couldn’t tell if they were alive or not.

“Look out!” Candace suddenly yelled when she jumped in front of them and used her wings to knock into a soldier who had tried fire a net at them.

But at that moment, a dart shot right into the hybrid’s shoulder as she felt herself go limp.

“Candace!” the humans screamed as they caught her body before it could hit the ground.

She was fighting to stay awake when she noticed the Commander standing above them as she gave him a threatening growl before slowly slipping into sleep. Holding Candace protectively in her arms, Angie kneeled there breathing heavily while staring up at the Commander who she no longer saw as a person, but as a monster. But at that moment, Angie and her friends felt themselves being yanked up by their arms as they struggled against their captors while being pulled away from Candace’s sleeping body.

At that moment, Angie took the moment to look around and saw the soldiers taking away the captures dragons and hybrids who were all knocked out while leaving behind the ones they shot dead. She couldn’t tell how many were dead, but not a lot as the ones who were captured. But just looking at them sent her chills and heartbreak, especially by the blood she saw on the ground, and most of them weren’t from the dead soldiers they had managed to kill off.

“To be honest,” Commander Darabont suddenly spoke to Angie “I never excepted to bring your friends along because now I gotta replace some way to take care of them.”

“What the hell is going on here?!” Jackson demanded when his father appeared “Dad! What’s going on?!”

“What has to be done,” Mr. Monroe replied while picking up his notebook Angie had dropped during the struggle as he turned to her “Thank you for replaceing my notebook, Miss Brighton, I’ve been looking for it.”

“Can someone explain what is going on here?!” Tammy commanded.

“I can tell you what’s going on” Angie offered with a scowl “All of this that’s happening right now is all for profit. Mr. Monroe never arranged for help to be sent to take us home, he called for Commander Darabont to send his soldiers to capture the hybrids and dragons. Not only did he wanted to study them, but he figured he might as well make some money out of this.”

“Dad,” Jackson spoke with shock “Is that true?”

“I’m sorry, Jackson,” he replied, though showing no emotion.

“Oh, I’m sure you are,” Jackson spat, “It’s all you ever care about; being famous and being rich. You really are a greedy bastard.”

“Hey!” Mr. Monreo snapped as he tried to storm up to his son when Commander Darabont held his arm out to stop him.

“Take it easy, Professor,” he ordered when he turned to Angie and spotted something that caught his eye “Whoa, hold on a second.”

He bent down in front of her while staring at her dragon heartstone necklace that was hanging out in front of her.

“What do we have here?” he remarked while cupping the pendant in his palm and admired its beauty “Where did you get this?”

“It’s a gift,” she answered in a grunt.

“I’ve never seen anything like this” he breathed amazed when he yanked it from her neck causing the string to break.

But at that moment, everyone suddenly heard a loud roar when a hybrid pounced onto the Commander and tackled him to the ground. Angie couldn’t believe it when she realized that it was Hayden who she had feared had gotten gunned down or captured. But as she watched as Commander Darabont tried to fight Hayden off him while already getting scratched up, a thick chain was thrown around the hybrid’s neck by a soldier who pulled Hayden off of the Commander as the other soldiers began to hold him down and restrain him.

“No!” Angie screamed while struggling against her captor’s grip “Leave him alone!”

She could hear Hayden’s grunts and growl while trying to fight off the soldiers. But it was no use when he felt himself being restrained with heavy chains that held his arms behind his back tightly as a strong muzzle was strapped around his mouth which he tried to bite off with his dragon teeth, but he could barely open his mouth to do so as he kept growling while trying to get up. But the soldiers had him held down while making room for their Commander to see him.

“Well,” he spat while wiping away the blood that was oozing out from a scratch across his cheek “You surely are an aggressive one.”

Besides the one on his cheek, he only had scratches on his arms. Some were deep and were still leaking out blood while the others were just reddening.

“Oh, he can do much worse than that” Angie warned, “They all can.”

“Too bad we won’t get to see it happen.”

At that moment, he pulled out her dart gun and aimed it at Hayden who was still struggling against his retrains.

“I sure would love to study this one,” he smirked before shooting the dart at the hybrid’s shoulder which caused Angie to give a loud gasp.

As he slowly began to pass out, Hayden got dragged away by the soldiers when the Commander turned to the humans.

“Let’s go,” he ordered as the soldiers pulled up Angie and her friends and began to take them into the jungle.

Just when they thought they were going home, all felt that hope was lost. With most of the dragons and hybrids captures and some dead, Angie and friends feared what was to happen to them next.