by Lola Gabriel
“Was she a great adventurer?” the girl asked, her eyes shining at the fact that her father had brought up the woman without being prompted. It had always been a touchy subject, and Sawyer eventually learned that it was easier to ignore it than ask her father the burning questions that had eaten away at her since toddlerhood.
“Oh, yes,” Greg said, smiling. “She backpacked all over Asia and Australia before coming here. But she barely started her tour of America before we met and fell in love. Sometimes I feel like I held her back.”
“And will I marry someone like you?” Sawyer asked hopefully, wishing away the tears in his eyes.
“You will marry someone better than me, in a better place than this,” he promised. She didn’t know it then, but his words were laced with regret that he was unable to move her away from the town with his meager resources and disability. It was a source of shame he would take to his grave, feeling as if he had failed not only his wife, but his only daughter, too.
Sawyer started the school year with a renewed hope, the promise of womanhood not far off. Her mother was fresh in her mind when she kissed her father goodbye that morning, and he offered her a few words of wisdom before she left.
“All of this will be meaningless in a few years,” her father had promised her. “You must get through the test that is high school, and good things will be waiting for you, See-Saw, I swear.”
And she clung to that faith as she skipped out of their trailer and toward the public school a mile from the park she called home.
It was an overcast day, Sawyer remembered. The rain was prognosticated, but it held off until she reached the steps of the school with only moments to spare.
“Hey, chinky eyes!” Dawn Lawson called as she slipped into the corridor. “Didn’t anyone tell you that it’s pink day today?” Sawyer looked up and realized that, indeed, everyone wore some form of the color pink in honor of the anti-bullying day. The irony was not lost on Sawyer, but she kept her thoughts to herself.
Ignoring the overweight tormentor, Sawyer hurried down the hall toward her locker, but as she did, Dawn grabbed her by the knapsack and pulled her back, causing the smaller girl to fall to the floor. Her classmates began to jeer at her as she ambled to her feet, clenching her teeth to keep the tears from falling, and she brushed herself off.
“Hey, look!” Jamie Vincent yelled. “Sawyer grew tits! I thought she was a boy all this time.”
“Maybe she still is!” another one of the menaces chortled. “Half girl, half boy!”
Sawyer stared at the ground, well-versed in what to do in such situations. She had hoped that high school would be different, but in such a small town, how could it be? It was the same cruel faces in a different setting.
Just let them get it all out and then they’ll grow bored if you don’t react, she reminded herself, and it might have worked. The entire matter would have been forgotten in a matter of a couple of minutes, the bell would have sounded, and everyone would have gone about their day as if nothing had been said. Sawyer would have packed the scar away upon another one, and there would have been nothing remarkable about that Pink Shirt Day… if Dawn had not opened her mouth one last time.
“Well? Are you a girl or a boy, Sawyer? Sawyer is a boy’s name, isn’t it?” the chubby brat demanded, pushing her. “Let’s hear if you’ve got a low voice or a high squeaky one.”
Don’t react, don’t react, don’t—
“Hey, chinky eyes! Which is it? Did your chinky mom have a chinky boy or a chinky girl?” Jamie cried.
“She doesn’t know,” Dawn announced before saying the words that would seal her fate. “She killed her mom when she was born.”
What happened after that was a matter of speculation and second-hand information pieced together by police and witnesses. Sawyer herself remembered very little about the matter, and she relied on the accounts, for no one had any other explanation for what occurred.
All that was known for a fact was that Dawn Lawson’s jaw was subsequently wired shut for six weeks and Jamie Vincent was unable to ever play any sport again, his dislocated knee permanently damaged.
The incident was quietly brushed aside without any charges laid on the condition that Sawyer be removed from school and not brought back. The fear in the students’ eyes when she left that day was something she would never forget as long as she lived.
It made her feel alive, invigorated, and in control for the first time in her life, and despite the fact that she still wore both Jamie’s and Dawn’s blood on her clothes, she held her head high as her father led her from the school of her nightmares.
Something changed in Sawyer that day, and looking back, she was never sure if it was for better or worse. Gone was the naïve girl who believed that a kind word or a helping hand could solve anything. In her place was a woman who suddenly understood that if she wanted something in life, she needed to assert herself. She loathed that it had taken her almost fourteen years to figure that out.
“Um… miss?”
“Hmm?”
“No rush, miss, but, uh, there’s a line forming behind you.”
Sawyer stared at the barista blankly, realizing that she had been lost in thought for several minutes, and she chuckled with embarrassment.
“Whoops,” she remarked lightly. “That’s what happens when I can’t decide between hazelnut and chocolate.”
“We have a chocolate hazelnut croissant,” the teenage boy suggested helpfully, and she nodded, grinning. She had no interest in anything sweet at all, but she wasn’t going to admit she had been lost in a daydream.
“Sounds perfect.” She turned her head back to look out the coffee shop window, but the girl who had so closely resembled her childhood nemesis had disappeared down the busy block. Sawyer was sure it wasn’t Dawn, anyway, but she could not help wondering what the woman would do if they ever again crossed paths. I would like to think she would shit herself.
“Ten dollars and fifteen cents,” the barista told her, and Sawyer slipped a twenty across the counter, glancing over her shoulder at the annoyed line growing at her back. Offering them an easy smile, she accepted her change, left a tip in the jar, and moved aside to wait for her latte and breakfast.
“You’re too young to remember,” the older man standing near the espresso machine commented. “But there was a time when people weren’t so impatient.”
A half-smile touched Sawyer’s lips as she studied the clean-shaved bald man out of the corner of her eye.
“I might be impatient if I was standing behind the spaced-out girl during rush hour, too,” she replied, casting him a sidelong look. “I can’t really blame them. Actually, I think they exercised a fair bit of decorum.”
“Ah! An empath,” the stranger chuckled. “I wouldn’t have guessed it.”
The hairs on the back of Sawyer’s neck rose, and she eyed him, noting his overpriced suit. There was something out of place with him. He didn’t belong in the coffee shop near the college.
“I wouldn’t go that far,” she said slowly, unsure of what to make of the slight alarm she was feeling.
The man turned his regal head to the side, and she took in his profile, wondering if she knew him. Something in her gut was telling her that she had, but she couldn’t place him.
A take-out cup of coffee appeared, and a weathered hand reached out to grab for it, his back to Sawyer now as he moved away, though not before she caught sight of the tattoo on the inside of his wrist. Her heart paused, and she gaped at the man as he disappeared out the door without so much as a backward look.
“Wait!” she yelled after him, spinning to chase him.
“Miss? Your order!” the teenage barista called, his voice fraught with confusion, but she was already on the crowded street, her eyes peeling north toward Cumberland River for any sign of the stranger.
It was as if he had vanished into thin air.
No way, she thought, her shoulders sagging dejectedly. You’re imagining things. There’s no way that
man was one of them. Or… maybe he was one of us?
It was hard to say, considering she did not know exactly what she had gotten herself involved in.
“Miss?” There was a tap on her shoulder, and Sawyer whirled, posed to strike. “You left your order.”
Exhaling, Sawyer thanked the perplexed kid and took the bag and cup from him, shaking her head as if trying to knock some sense into herself. Left alone, people brushing past her on their way to work and classes, Sawyer gazed blankly about, as if seeking direction.
It had been a year since she had last heard from The Order, and some days, she was sure it had all been a weird dream.
More like a hallucination, she thought, gritting her teeth as the memory of what she had done flooded back to her.
She had managed to make herself believe that none of it had happened, and over time, it had become easy to forget. After all, they had disappeared as quickly as they had surfaced, the emails and encrypted texts abruptly stopping, as if The Order had never existed in the first place.
No, Sawyer repeated to herself. Even if you did see the tattoo on that guy’s wrist, it was a coincidence. Lots of people have that symbol. Yet as she willed herself to continue up 21st Avenue toward Vanderbilt University, she couldn’t shake the idea that the man had been there to see her. If he had been, I’ll know soon enough, she reasoned. Contact will be made, and there’s nothing I can do until that happens. If that even happens.
Readjusting the backpack on her shoulders, she glanced at her cell phone, partially to check the time, but mostly in anticipation of a text. Her pulse raced even minutes after the encounter.
Which was probably nothing at all. Get to class before you flunk out of another course, she warned herself. You just got yourself back on track after last year’s fiasco. You can’t afford another distraction. The entire reason you moved to Nashville after Dad died was to start fresh.
She reasoned that at least she had gotten out of Alabama like she had promised her father, determined never to return to the place of her childhood torment. But sometimes, she found herself insurmountably lonely in the big city.
Being a loner had followed her from state to state, and while she was no longer regarded as an outcast in the blossoming city of Nashville, Sawyer could not let go of the deep-rooted insecurity the children in school had ingrained in her. Making friends had not come easily, despite the inherently friendly nature of the other students at the college. While she aspired to be warm, there was an aloofness that kept others at bay when they spoke to her, and Sawyer could not boast about a big circle of friends.
Which was why she had clung to the idea of The Order.
Go. To. Class.
Sawyer shoved the idea of the underground group from her mind and picked up the pace, knowing that all of her dawdlings had caused her to be late for her morning lecture. Whoever the man was, whether he belonged to The Order or not, she still had a life to lead outside of the fantastical world to which the group had led her.
Dragon hunting would have to wait.
4
Anders could not be certain what had woken him, but as he lay in the center of his California king bed, listening to the wind whipping outside the three-story penthouse, he knew it was not the weather.
Slowly, he sat up, his eyes shifting to accommodate for the darkness, amber coals shining into the night. He could sense someone in the condo with him, but as he glanced toward the balcony, he saw nothing except the potted ficus tree rocking perilously on the stone floor.
Who is supposed to be here tonight? he asked himself, wracking his mind. It was Tuesday. That meant that Connor and David were still on the property, but they should not be on his floor of the apartment, the staff fully equipped with their own quarters on the main level for both security and his privacy.
Anders pushed the comforter aside and stepped onto the heated marble floor of his bedroom, his body itching to transform at the first hint of danger. His fingers stretched into claws, protruding against his skin, and he felt the ache of a tail poking at the seat of his pants at his arched back.
Pausing at the doorway, he opened it and peered into the hallway, his well-honed ears listening for any signs of life, and while he could still hear nothing, he knew he was not alone.
“I know you’re out there,” he growled. “Show yourself or there will be consequences.”
A light abruptly blinded him from the hall, and a snicker reached him. “What are you going to do? Slap me with a subpoena?”
Anders groaned as Amelia wandered toward him, dressed in a pantsuit, not a hair out of place. He had an urge to slap her with something, all right. “Amelia, how the hell did you get in here?”
“I have a key,” she replied sweetly, sashaying closer, her green eyes sparkling with mischief. “You didn’t expect me to give it up when you stole everything else from me, did you, Anders?”
“No, I didn’t,” he agreed. “That’s why I had the locks changed—twice.”
“I guess I have friends in lower places than even you,” she said, and Anders spun to return to bed. He had barely fallen asleep, and he was flying to Amsterdam in a few hours.
I have neither the time nor the energy for her theatrics.
“Remind me to fire my entire house staff,” he muttered, sauntering back into his bedroom, but he was unsurprised to hear her footfalls at his back.
“That probably won’t do anything to keep me from visiting,” she chuckled mirthlessly, and he figured she was right.
“It’s four o’clock in the morning, Amelia. What do you want?”
“What do I want?” she repeated, her voice dripping with sarcasm. “What do I want? How about my—”
“Listen, if we’re about to rehash the details of our divorce, can you make an appointment? My accountant likes me to document my billable hours.”
He could almost hear the scowl on her face.
“I need a favor,” she grumbled.
There is it. “What is it now?” He couldn’t keep the exasperation from his voice.
Marrying Amelia Verwood had been one of his less favorable accomplishments in his long life, and while the nuptials had ended almost a decade earlier, there were days when he still felt that he was bound to her worse than he had been in their marriage.
Their divorce had been as amicable as an Upper East Side power couple could hope for. Amelia was a successful designer in her own right, bringing her own income and two incorrigible children to the union. She had not brought on much of a fight, and Anders had done the divorce thing enough times to walk away relatively unscathed… except for the fact that Amelia would not leave him alone.
“Amelia, I’m leaving for Amsterdam in six hours. If I don’t get some sleep—”
“I need to host a fashion show here next week.”
Anders snorted aloud and fell onto the mattress, sliding his legs beneath the comforter and pulling it over his head simultaneously.
“Hell no,” he yawned. “My Act of God insurance doesn’t cover those kinds of disasters. Have it at the Hamptons house. Or your house. Or the chalet in Aspen.”
“It has to be in the city!” Amelia cried, rushing to sit at the side of his bed. “I have investors coming in from all over the world! Anders, you know that this condo is the most coveted location in probably all of America. Town and Country still calls me, hoping I have an in with you for articles. I keep telling them that I have no say in the condo, even though I poured my heart and soul into decorating and keeping and staffing and—”
“So you kept claiming in our divorce,” Anders interjected, grunting. “Amelia, come on. Your artsy asshole friends always make a mess of everything, and—”
“I swear I will have this place cleaner than it was when we came,” she cooed, batting her eyes flirtatiously. “You’ll never even know we were here!”
“You’ll be in my house. I think I’ll know. Even this place isn’t big enough to avoid the pricks you run with.”
“I’ve arranged
it for Friday night,” she replied smoothly, as if anticipating his every argument. “You’re not home until Wednesday.”
Anders pulled the blanket down and studied her lovely face, blinking.
“How do you know my schedule?” he demanded, but even as the words left his lips, he knew who he needed to fire: his appointment secretary.
Amelia instantly seemed to realize her gaffe, but she shrugged innocently. “Lucky guess?”
“Fine, Amelia. Now, will you please get the hell out so I can get some sleep?”
“Of course, darling!” She bounced up from the bed, but not before placing a kiss on his cheek. She glided toward the door in her modelesque fashion. “Sweet dreams,” she called, closing the door behind him. Anders knew that he was not going to fall asleep again.
He stared at the door, a wry smile forming on his lips.
Amelia had since remarried, and Anders often wondered how Henry Charles managed to keep up with his fiery ex-wife.
I have dragon blood, and I wanted to murder her half the time, he thought with affection, but if Anders was honest with himself, he would have to admit that Amelia was the closest thing to a best friend that he had. And, outside of his family, she was the only one who knew his secret.
It had not happened by design, and when she had discovered who he was, she had handled it with more dignity than he would have ever expected from anyone.
“I don’t claim to understand what is happening with you,” she told him. “But I won’t pretend it doesn’t scare me.”
“I’m a dragon,” he replied simply. “I don’t know what else to tell you.”
“I don’t want to know anything else,” she had answered, and Anders had never respected her more than that moment. They had never discussed it again after that night, but he knew it had always stayed at the back of her mind, wondering what he was capable of and if he would ever turn.
She didn’t know enough about the code or his inherently protective nature to understand that she was probably among the safest mortals in the world. What else could she need but to be covered by an insanely strong and massive beast who couldn’t be killed?