by Bob Dattolo
She doesn’t put the knife down before she looks back and forth between me and Tiffany a solid ten or twelve times. “I…I don’t know? I told them that she was hurt, and they gave me this huge thing. She shifted but couldn’t eat from the damage. She had to go back and forth like six times before she could get anything down. By that point, she was starving.” Fuck, that’d do it. Going that many times in a row is a bitch for dragons. “She had a ton, but…the bone seems to be mostly in place. I don’t think it’s healed fully, though.”
“No, I’d think not. Not yet. Even with more shifts, I think it’ll take her time to heal that. The bruises should be eased up, though, so that’ll help. Lord knows I looked worse last year when the gym coach nearly beat me to death with metal balls.”
She jerked around to stare at me, “What are you talking about?”
“Umm, gym last year? Our coach hated me. We didn’t know I was a dragon then, so I was her victim the first day. The second day she wanted to make a point about the disgusting stricken, so she hit me with pain spells, then began to pummel me with metal balls. Broke a bunch of bones and wrecked my face. She ended up dying when she lost control of the spells and killed herself. I was holding onto her at that point and she was trying to get me off. So I know how much her face hurts right now. I’m sure it’s way better from the healing than she would be if she were a mage, but it’s still agony. That’d be why she’s loaded to the gills on medication.”
“How can you tell that? She didn’t want you to know!”
Dammit, “I can smell it? I can see it on her. How she’s reacting. I’m pretty sure she told you to bring her back to her room?”
“Yeah? She did. I thought I could take care of her better here, though.”
Fuck. “You’re not wrong, but she wanted there to keep her away from me and me finding out.”
Her shoulders fell, “I don’t know what to do…”
“Just get her undressed and into bed. Let her sleep. You go to sleep. Keep your throat-stabbing knife to yourself and we’ll be fine. I can get her more meat, but I’m thinking that’s beyond her right now. Maybe in the morning.”
She didn’t do much of anything for the longest time before struggling with Tiffany’s clothes. I wanted to chip in and help, then said no to that when I realized they wouldn’t want me doing that. Something tells me that the offering wouldn’t be appreciated.
Tiffany was at least able to stand and move into bed on her own, so that was a plus. She stared at me the entire time, the smell of anger giving way to the smell of fear long before she closed her eyes.
Wooonderful. Just wonderful. Now I have to worry about sneak attacks on top of everything else. Makes me wonder if I can get a place in town and sleep there. That’s a thought. I don’t think I saw anything saying we couldn’t do that. I’m just not sure how often that would come up.
When my eyes popped open at 4:55, I have to admit that I cursed not being murdered in my sleep. I really did. I know I saw 3:30 at one point, so I have less than an hour and a half of sleep under my belt and four years of training telling me it’s time to wake up.
So that’s what I do.
My insides feel amazing. Pristine. As if the pain never happened.
Or, I’m fucking with you.
One of the two. Can you guess which? Does it help to say that I had to stifle a groan as I stood up from bed? I don’t hurt physically, but dammit if it’s not really close to that. Stretching helps, so I work through some basic stretches before heading into the bathroom for some quality morning pooping. Then it’s to the sink to wash up, to my closet to throw on some basic clothes and put my hair back, then out into the hallway.
Dammit, man, I really wish I could sleep longer. That, or that my magic comes back. You know what? Given the two, I’d want my magic to come back more. A lot more.
I can’t tell if it feels any better today, yet I think it feels a tiny bit better than it had. So hard to pick up the difference when it’s still agony, you know? It’s like…I don’t know, imagine being burned in a fire while being poked with needles. Now there aren’t any needles. So the overall pain is pretty much the same, while there are some facets of it that are either gone or I’m simply not catching any longer. The fear is that I’m not catching something because the damage I did is killing off the pathways the pain is traveling on. If that’s the case, that’ll really blow something fierce. Yet better to know, maybe. I know which side I prefer to land on yet landing on the other faster will help me get things in motion that much quicker instead of doing this balancing thing I’ve got going now.
Three people are headed to work out as I make my way to the caf. That’s slightly more than normal this year, yet not a shocker. There are five people at tables inside. Two look like they’ve been here a while and couldn’t sleep. Makes me wonder if they fucked with their magic too much or if it’s just me.
My meal is higher on the meats and I managed to get some raw again, then I corralled a table along the wall. No corner ones available this morning, although that doesn’t stop me from scarfing down my food and wondering if I should try to hit the gym. I’m hoping that taking it easy will allow my magic to heal, so I’m going to hold off. Maybe. Hence the thinking.
I’m nearly done when a semi-strange bronze dragon approaches and sits. He doesn’t have any food yet and watches as I finish. He doesn’t seem predatory, so I didn’t interrupt eating. When I was done, he nodded, “Good morning.”
“Good morning, Jason. You don’t normally sit with me.”
He shrugged, “I don’t. I wanted to pass on a warning.”
“Oookay? What have I done to piss you off now?”
“It’s not for me.” His voice was already quiet enough that the mages in here wouldn’t have been able to hear him, but it dipped lower anyway, “It’s about Levi.”
“What about Levi?”
“Watch out for him? People have seen the two of you talking.”
“Okay? Is he planning something?”
“That’s what I’m hearing.”
Dammit, “More rumors?”
“There are always rumors.”
“Okay, so you’re hearing that he isn’t being a dick to, what, get through my barriers and kill me?”
“Pretty much.”
“And you’ve heard that I have magic that can defeat a truth spell and that I can change my scent so that people don’t know when I’m lying.”
“Do you? Have a spell like that? Can you do that?”
Dammit to hell, “It doesn’t really matter what I say right now. If I have something like that, then you can’t trust it. If I don’t have something like that yet you believe I do, you can’t trust it.”
He shrugged, “Damned if you do, damned if you don’t?”
“You got that right. Here’s something someone else pointed out. If I knew how to hide my scent, wouldn’t I hide the fact that I’m in pain right now?” He sniffed, eyes widening a little. Apparently he didn’t pick up on the possibilities there. “Right? I’d hide the shit out of that if I could. So you can believe what you want, and I can’t change your mind or even try to since everything I do and say is suspect, but I don’t have any ability to hide my scent and don’t know any spells to block truth spells. I’ve been told that either of them is impossible, but I don’t have a clue if that’s the truth or not. I’ve read in multiple places that you can’t do either, just like we can’t dye our hair, so I have to believe that it’s either not possible or just something not known.”
He started to respond, and I held up my hand to stop him.
“I’m not trying to convince you either way. You’ll believe me or not or believe the rumors or not. Last year’s were bad enough, but this year’s seem to be more…not pervasive, but more well thought out, maybe? They’re set up in such a way that no matter what I do, I can’t deny them successfully. It’s all part of the whole thing. Just like last year people were warned that I was trying to collect weaker students to kill them, when
all I wanted was to band together, so we’d all get through. They were told that I’d use that as a way to get to them. Then that I’d ask the entire group. So no matter what I did, I was fucked. And we lost half of our class in that fucking trial. Not counting the other ten percent that chose to become stricken. So I get it if you don’t believe me and believe the rumors. They’re good. I’m left with zero paths for being able to refute them that anyone will believe if they believe the rumors. At which point I need to bow out, because it will just make me look like more of an asshole to people that believe them.”
“Interesting viewpoints.”
I can’t tell from his scent what he believes. “Right? I have no idea if the rumors say anything about this, so I’ll tell you flat-out; I’m simply backing away from everyone that’s not already an ally. I’ll be an ally if people want, but I won’t ask them. I’m not going to approach the group. I’m not going to make any announcements. I’m not going to try to prove my innocence or deny the rumors. People can believe what they want. If I have the ability to hide my scent and evade truth spells, then it won’t matter if I don’t get into things with people. If I don’t, then it won’t matter if I don’t get into things with people. That’s about all I can do to avoid the whole thing. I’ll talk to people that want to talk, but I’ll try my damnedest not to do it if I don’t have to. While that’s kinda lonely, it’s better than dealing with the rest of this shit and people believing the worst of me no matter what I do.”
He absorbed the information without saying anything, then smiled, “I haven’t heard any rumors about you doing that. All sorts of other ones about how you’d react if people talked to you. How you’d offer to protect people and all of that.”
“Yeah, I did that last year and people believed the rumors then, too. This year? I’m not even messing with it.”
“Interesting approach. Should I hold back what you said?”
“Only if you want to. Lord knows if you tell others it’ll get back to whoever’s spreading rumors and it’ll turn into something else. Since I don’t know who’s doing it? Tell or don’t tell. Your call.”
“I have to think about that. In the meantime? Watch out for Levi.” He got up and walked away without waiting for an answer or looking back.
Dammit. Is this a real thing or more rumors?
Chapter 28
The day was filled with comments from people. Stares from Tiffany and Eva. Stares from others. Threats that weren’t outright threats. Dragons approaching and commenting about how I smelled.
Angelica let me know that there were more rumors about me and why I smelled funky. Those were the words that she used, which was a direct quote from what she picked up.
We both fixated on that, which to us means that the rumor spreader isn’t a dragon. That’s just not how a dragon would say it. Like shit, I can get. We can get. Like I’m in pain? Sure. Funky? No. To us, that either means that the person is a dragon and is trying to throw us off or, and this is more likely, they’re a mage reacting to other people talking about my smell and not understanding what’s being said.
That narrows things down, at least a little.
She also heard about the Levi things. She doesn’t have any evidence and hasn’t heard anything directly, which may mean it’s just more rumors. So far, she and the others still trust me. As do my new allies. They took what Levi said to heart, which is a good thing for me.
It still means that I began pulling back hard through the day and closing myself off. Not responding to taunts or names. I asked the others to keep an ear out for what I told Jason to see how it spreads. Let’s see what my little rumor spreader does with the information. I can’t picture how they’d twist it; I’m just thinking that they will. Somehow.
No challenge from Tiffany. They both went to her room to sleep, leaving me in my room alone.
That might be for the best.
No challenge the next day. More comments. Confirmation that rumors have started to adjust to me pulling away, yet that happened after what I told Jason made it around. It was pretty obvious that stuff about me pulling back was from him. The other things started late the next night and continued. Definitely reacting to what he said.
Days started to slide by at that point, with my nerve endings feeling far better on the third day and then me feeling pretty normal by the sixth.
I’ve skipped shifting class every day and managed to fudge my way through the various magic classes. I got a talking to about missing shifting class. I just don’t care enough to risk it. You want to give me detention? Go for it. I’m worried about someone trying to kill me.
As I work a small spell without any pain, then shift and shift back in less than a second, I say a small prayer to Satan for the idea of drinking virgin’s blood from a sacrifice for healing me.
I’m fucking with you. Why did I pick that example?
Because that’s one of the newer rumors that started up yesterday. How I collect kids and sacrifice them for the devil. It’s why I don’t look like a normal dragon. Things like that. Thankfully, that’s one that people just aren’t believing all that much. I wish I could tell who the source of that one is. If it’s the main one messing with me, then they’re missing something compared to the other rumors that spread more.
My hope is that they’re losing their touch. The devil one is pretty pathetic compared to the others that twisted the entire class around their fingers. It’s like a grade school rumor compared to, I don’t know, some master spy level stuff.
During that same time, I tried to pay attention to everything that Levi said and did. At no time did he seem like he was going to attack me or go against me. Then again, he was back to being a little more distant. Every time I saw him, he’d smell a little like worry and regret. I could read into that, but since it’s behind his normal smell which leans more towards hostile, I tried not to.
Saturday morning had me back at the stricken house just after they finished breakfast. I had arranged the visit with Alicia through text this week. She was very excited that I was back to normal, or so it seems, and was curious to see what I could do.
As was I.
Eva and Tiffany were there at least part of last night but didn’t sleep there. Frankly, they glared at me for a while, talked about me under their breath, and left just before midnight. Why? How the hell do I know? Tiffany has been all about the comments and somewhat testing me with nudges and things like that yet hasn’t taken the big step of challenging me. I think she’s passed the time limit of me hitting her, but I’m willing to do it again if she wants to go that route.
I just don’t think she does. Not yet at least.
As I landed in the yard and looked around, I thought back to the glowing clothes in my dresser. Someone tried to wreck them and got hit hard. Again. Same person? No clue. I have got to look around to find out who’s hurt. Someone has to be. I don’t know that they’d be able to block what I set up to happen. Maybe, though. I’m not sure how it’d work if they were in dragon form when they did it. We are naturally resistant to magical attacks, yet if they’re using the magic going out to get through to us? I’m hoping it’d still work.
Maybe I can ask around. Somehow. Staying distant from everyone isn’t doing much for my popularity, but it does seem to be confusing things more. The rumors as of last night are much more desperate and getting worse. I’m hoping that trend continues. Cleo, Cesar, and Stacey have kept their distance, as I had expected. They let me know on the sly that they believe me, but they’re trying to play along at least a little to figure out who’s spreading everything.
Ugh. So much crap moving right now. I just want to get out of this hellhole and move on with my life.
My revenge.
Instead of doing that, I head up the stairs to find the door being opened by Alicia. “Hey, you got here right on time.”
“Good morning. I didn’t think you were gonna be here?” She let me give her a hug, which I thoroughly enjoyed.
“I wanted t
o see what you could do and be here in case anything goes wrong. The store will be fine without me for a few hours. I’ll just open it later. Like I told you, I make more online in a given day than there in a normal week. Unless you’re shopping there.”
We both laughed at her comment, especially since it’s true. “Okay, where’s Jenny?”
The girl of the hour came around the corner, already smiling, “Hey, you came?”
“I did. How’re you feeling?” She looks really good. Except for the fact that I know she’s blind, she looks just like a pretty normal ice mage. Well, except the little scars.
She’s like a changed girl when she smiles, “I can’t believe you were able to do that. I have my magic again! It’s kinda weird and weak, but I swear it wants to get stronger!”
“I’m glad I could help. How’s everyone else taking the news?”
He smile dimmed a little, “Like you’d expect? Upset. Hopeful. You’ve had those fucking things in. They’re a nightmare. Even being blind still? It’s more than night and day. Way more.”
“I’m sure. Now, shall we try this?”
“Yeah? If you really want to?”
“I do? I don’t want to fuck up my magic again for days on end if I can help it, that part sucked. More than I can say. That being said? Let’s see if I can heal your eyes. Somehow.”
“Okay!” She hugged herself, “I’m so nervous!”
“Don’t be. C’mon, let’s find a place to sit down.”
Instead of heading to her room, Alicia brought us to a sitting room area. I can hear others in the house talking quietly and doing various things. They know I’m here; they just don’t want to come in and interfere and cause issues. They really, really want this to work. So freaking much. Gee, I can’t imagine why!
She sat on the couch without even really feeling where it was other than a light touch. I’m thinking she knows this entire place like the back of her hand. “How do we do this?”
“I have my scalpels here. I just need to remove four of your fingernails and a nipple, and we should be all set.”