by Juniper Hart
She turned and started to insert the key. He dashed over to her, grabbed her hands and pulled her away from the door. It all happened so fast, Sarah didn’t know what was happening.
“Sarah, you need to listen to me.” he warned, “Don’t. Go. In. There.”
“It’s my apartment.” She pulled free. “And don’t touch me. I have no problem using my Taser.”
“You have a Taser?” he seemed bemused. “I’m going to tell you something, but I’ll warn you, you’re not going to like it.”
“I already don’t like you. You don’t have a lot to lose.”
The mysterious man leaned in, almost as if he was going in for kiss. But, he didn’t. Strangely, she didn’t think she’d mind.
“I know your name because… Well, I’m a dragon, and…” He paused. “You know what? I don’t want to freak you out. I think in time, you’ll remember me.”
She nodded, putting on a face of mock belief. “Makes total sense. And what does that have to do with my apartment?”
“My cousin set a trap for you in there. He wants you dead.”
“Okay.” She pursed her lips. “I have an idea. How about we try this all again, but this time, let’s pretend I have time for this and that you’re not completely crazy.”
He gazed into her eyes and a feeling of recognition swept over her. She didn’t know this man, yet, she couldn’t shake the feeling that she’d seen him before. Something deep in her soul stirred when she looked at him, like they had been lovers in another life.
She almost wanted to believe the guy, but that made no sense. He had a funny little scar across his right eye, like someone had cut him a long time ago. It was barely visible, but when he turned his head, the light illuminated the imperfection on his nearly perfect face. Didn’t she know a guy with a scar just like that? Her mind searched for anything that could place his face in her memory. Nothing. It was almost like a feeling a déjà vu, but the feeling was fleeting.
“What do I have to do to prove it?” he asked, stepping back and spreading his arms to show he meant her no harm.
She cocked an eyebrow way up in the air. “What do you have to do to prove you’re a dragon and that someone is trying to kill me? I don’t know. Spread your wings, maybe? Fly? Breathe fire?”
“You’re hostile today.”
“You’ve never met me.”
“I’ve lived a lifetime with you,” he argued.
She looked up at the handsome lunatic. “Yeah, see, something tells me I would have remembered that.”
He inhaled deeply and held his breath. He looked ridiculous. A grown man with puffed-up cheeks like a blowfish. What was he trying to prove? She started wondering if he was going to hold his breath until she listened to him, like a child.
But that’s not what happened.
After that deep inhalation, his throat changed color. It looked as if a bonfire was aflame inside his throat. His skin was glowing from the heat, illuminating the muscles of his neck.
Instinctively, Sarah stepped back, dropping her helmet onto the bottom of the hallway. Upon a deep exhale, smoke came pouring out of his nostrils. The air that came out was toasty, like it had just come out of a hot oven.
Her sea-green eyes were opened wide in surprise. Sarah wanted to run, but she couldn’t move.
“What was that?” Sarah tried to remember where she kept her Taser. She’d never actually used it, but since college, she always had it in her purse or backpack. She was terrified, but fascinated. “Get away from me!”
“You’re the one that asked me to breathe fire,” he protested. “I just did what you said. Well, I didn’t actually breathe fire. I don’t want your building to go up in flames. However, you can’t deny what you saw.”
She took one long look at the handsome stranger as he exhaled some more smoke. “I need you to leave. Now. I’m calling the cops.”
“At least we’re past the Taser plan.”
“I wouldn’t count on that. If you take one more step, I’m putting that plan into action.”
He laughed and seemed genuinely amused, like she had just cracked an old inside joke instead of threatening to electrocute him. “It’s been so long. I’d forgotten how stubborn you are. Do you want to go to dinner? I’ll explain everything on the way.”
“Seriously? You just told me there’s a guy in my apartment about to kill me. You’ve got something crazy happening inside your body. And, I don’t know you.”
“First, no. There’s nobody in there, just an automated trap. Second, you don’t trust me?”
“Why on earth should I?” she asked him. “You haven’t said anything sane the whole time we’ve been talking.”
He nodded. “Fair enough. Tell you what, Goldie.”
She picked up her helmet, giving him the evil eye. “Goldie? Because I’m blonde? Really?”
“It’s my old nickname for you.”
She stared at him, hard, for a second or two, trying to see if he was just a regular guy trying to be funny by playing a joke on her. Nope. He was telling the truth, or at least he thought he was. She’d always been pretty good at pegging a person’s character. You didn’t make it long in life as a beautiful woman without being a good judge of character.
The guy across from her really thought he was a dragon and that he knew her.
“How about this?” the guy said.
He had striking eyes. Even in the unusual scenario, it was hard for Sarah to avoid staring.
“I understand that you don’t recognize me. It’s fine. You’ve lived many lifetimes since you’ve seen me last. I imagine it’s hard to trust me. To you, I’m just a stranger who seems crazy because you don’t understand my world. But to me, you’re the love of my life. Would you believe me if you found a trap in your apartment?”
“You mean, would I be impressed if you broke into my apartment and set a trap for me? No, not really.”
“I didn’t break into your apartment. I wouldn’t do that to you.”
“Stop talking to me like we know each other!”
She wanted to go inside her apartment, lock the door, and call the cops. But she didn’t. What if there was some truth to what he was saying and someone had broken into her apartment?
He stepped back and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his jacket. “Go ahead. Open the door.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “I will.”
“Go ahead. But step back after you open it.”
She hesitated and brought the key towards the door. He didn’t move. He just stood there with that frustratingly familiar, knowing smirk. She unlocked her door, opened it, and stepped back.
Boom!
The inside of the frame exploded with a strange blue substance. It looked like glitter, but it drifted down from the top of the frame with a life of its own, darting left and right. She let out a little yelp and jumped back.
The guy stepped forward, holding out a hand. “Give me your glove,” he ordered.
She looked at the glittering blue substance drifting from the ceiling and then back at him. Slowly, she slid her glove off and gave it to him. He tossed the glove into the doorway.
Immediately upon contact, the blue substance attacked her glove like ants attacking an invader of their nest, ripping into the black material until the glove was just a bunch of fuzz that drifted down to the ground.
“Good thing I didn’t need that glove,” Sarah muttered. “Okay. Enough mysterious oh-it’s-been-so-long garbage.” She gestured towards the last bits of the glittering blue stuff. “What the hell is that?”
“It’s gold flakes,” he replied. “Treated gold with a spell. I’m telling you, Goldie, you’re on Roland’s kill list. If you’d stepped through that door, you’d be dead.”
She looked at the last bit of her glove as it hit the ground. “Okay, you’ve got my attention.”
“So, you believe me?”
“Of course not. But I think you can explain who this Roland guy is.”
He smiled. “I
’ll take that as a win.” As the remainder of the dust settled, he waved his hand in the air of the doorway. “You can go in now.”
She hesitated before sticking her hand in. He was telling the truth. No enchanted blue stuff attacked her. Hesitantly, she stepped in her apartment.
Oh no.
She’d been robbed.
No, that wasn’t quite right. Nothing of value was missing. Her laptop was still on the counter, and if thieves had broken in, they’d have taken that first. But, her apartment was in disarray. Someone had been there. Everything in her apartment was torn up and ripped, from her couch’s cushions to her favorite chair split.
“Fuuuuck!” she snapped. “Seriously?” She stamped her foot, which didn’t do much except alleviate some of the tension she felt. She whirled around, coming face-to-face with the smoke-breathing man. “I swear to God, if I find out this was your doing, I will hunt you down…and…and…be absolutely furious with you!” Really, Sarah? Not much of a threat?
He maneuvered her fingers out of his face. “I think you’re already absolutely furious.”
She couldn’t quite explain it, but somewhere in her gut, she had a feeling that she could trust him, that he hadn’t been the one to screw with her apartment. But more than that, that his soul spoke to hers and comforted hers without even speaking.
He seemed amused by her outburst, which annoyed her. She was a small woman, but she was rather strong and her temper was fiery. Most people took her seriously when she lost it. Some argued. Others just tried to get out of the way. But nobody just smiled. Somehow, that threw her off.
“Who did this?” she protested, picking up a picture of her in Costa Rica.
The picture had been on the little desk by the door where she normally put her keys. She ran her finger over the broken glass gently.
“Roland,” he said.
“Am I supposed to know that means? I think I deserve answers.”
He watched her scurry around, picking up her stuff. “I told you. I’m a dragon shifter and I’ve been looking for you for a long time.”
“Well, you found me,” she grumbled. “They ruined my crockpot! I was making soup. Ugh… that was my dinner for at least three days.”
“They’re trying to send a message,” the guy said patiently. “You’re just lucky I showed up before you walked in that door.”
“I’m lucky, huh?” she looked at the soup all over the floor. “That’s weird. I really don’t feel terribly lucky right now.”
“I can protect you,” he asserted.
“Looks like you’re doing a great job so far,” she hissed, a bit more sarcastically than she meant.
To be fair, it had been a rough day even before the guy had showed up, then there’d been the door fiasco, and then she learned someone had busted up her home for no reason.
“Well, if it weren’t for me, you’d be dead. You need to trust me.”
“You need to leave me alone,” she snapped. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what happened to my door. I don’t even know what happened to my apartment. But I know this—I am not in the mood to deal with any of this shit.”
She started towards the door. “I’m leaving.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. You’ll get out of my apartment and you’ll go anywhere that’s far away from me.”
“No. I’m coming with you. You’re not safe.”
As she started to walk past the man in red, his arm zipped out and caught her around her lower back. Before she could react, he’d pulled her towards him and was kissing her. For a split second, she was too stunned to react. Then, she brought up a knee between his legs into his groin.
He groaned and stepped back, obviously in pain. “That went better in my mind,” he said, tight-lipped.
“I imagine it did. Now, I am not going to tell you again, get out of my way and stay away from me.”
He straightened. The vein on his throat was sticking out. She was impressed that he was dealing with the pain so well. Mental note—tough.
“Look out the window,” he instructed.
“Why?”
“Just do it.”
Not entirely sure why she was still there and hadn’t stormed out already, she walked over to the window. As much as she wanted to get away, a part of her was terrified, and he did save her life. Why was someone trying to kill her?
She gazed out the window, but couldn’t see anything. The humidity of the air conditioner paired with the recent downpour cast a thick fog across the clear panels. The man rubbed his hand across the glass. The condensation dissipated and a single name was left on the window, as if it had been written with someone’s finger earlier.
Marilla.
The man’s eyes darted down. He cleared his throat. “Never mind. It wasn’t what I thought it was going to be.”
She looked at the name on her window. “How’d you do that? Who’s Marilla?”
“I can explain everything,” he sighed. “You just need to trust me. This place isn’t safe. Roland is after you.” He met her eyes firmly. “You can trust me, Goldie. I’ll protect you.”
She looked at the window then back at her ruined apartment. Someone had been there. Someone had done those things and left her a death trap. Who? She didn’t know. She wasn’t even sure it wasn’t the guy standing at her side. Maybe there was a chance—a tiny chance—that he was telling the truth. She couldn’t bring herself to believe he was a dragon. What sane person would? But, she felt a connection to him, like she did know him.
Not just friends, either. Lovers, maybe. He was so familiar. Even with the frustrating events of the day, she couldn’t help but look at him and feel protected and safe. She cocked her head at him, studying his face. Oddly enough. She did feel like she could trust him.
“Fine.” She could hardly believe she said it. “Fine. But if you try to kiss me again. I’m leaving.”
The very ends of his lips turned up in a smile. “I won’t make any promises.”
3
“So…” she looked around her apartment. Her clothes were still stuck to her body and she was shivering miserably. “What now? You have a plan, I hope?”
“You have any weapons here?”
“I have a gun.”
“Go get it.”
She walked off to her bedroom, or what passed for a bedroom. Basically, it was a small room that barely fit her queen-sized bed. The intruder had even messed up her bed, ripping her sheets and tearing apart her mattress. Her dream of curling up and falling asleep was shattered. Clothes were tossed everywhere. Her favorite t-shirt was sitting on top of her upturned dresser and a few of her bras were hanging from her bedframe.
She sat on the floor, and just looked around. Her day couldn’t get any worse. Of course, she had almost died. Okay, her day could have been worse, but still, she was having a hard time holding back tears of frustration.
“Oh, that’s just irritating,” she said out loud, the anger had mostly worn off, leaving only disappointment behind. “Why did anyone do this? I would’ve been long dead before I could see any of this.”
“It was for me,” the guy said beside her. “Roland knew I was coming after you. He didn’t know I’d get here before you walked in. He wanted me to see your place destroyed.”
That was unsettling. Roland, whoever this guy was, apparently was rather violent and vengeful.
Sarah shook her head in confusion. “I’m starting to not like this guy. Why does he hate you so much? More importantly, why does he hate me so much?”
“Long story.”
“Well, it looks like I’m not going to bed, so I have some time on my hands,” she said, trying to wrap her mind around the fact she was willing to listen to a guy that thought he was a dragon. “Let’s start with your name.”
“Ember.”
The name sent a tingle down her spine. Like his appearance, his name awakened some sort of recognition in her mind. She couldn’t place why she remembered the name or why
the name made her tingle, but it certainly did. Huh. She filed that away in her brain. She didn’t know what this Ember guy did to her to get her to feel all these ghost feelings, but she didn’t have time to worry about it.
“Trust me, you know me...” he said, still trying to convince her.
“Sure.”
“I’m serious.”
“I’m sure you think you’re serious,” Sarah responded.
She stood once again to collect the gun. Moving past a pair of her favorite running shoes, she slid her hands under her bed. Her fingers touched something hard and cold. There it was—the gun that her father had bought her six years ago, when she’d turned eighteen. She kept it loaded and ready. All she had to do was chamber it and fire. She hadn’t found a need for it yet. It sat there for all those years, collecting dust.
When she looked back at Ember, he was staring at her intently. But it wasn’t like most guys. Not Ember. Instead, he seemed to watch her with an almost childlike admiration, not just looking at her body, but deeper. He shook himself out of his trance when she caught him staring, but he didn’t apologize. Sarah decided not to say anything.
“So, Ember,” she said. “Here’s the deal. I don’t trust you completely. I just can’t. You’re obviously crazy. So, here’s what we’re going to do instead. You’re going to explain everything that just happened and then you’re going to give me all the information you have on this Roland fellow so I can call the cops.”
“Bad idea.”
“Nope. A bad idea is talking to a guy that thinks he’s a dragon.”
“Do I have to show you my fire thing again?”
She could tell he was starting to get frustrated. “Not unless you want to get shot.”
“So, you carry a gun and a Taser?”
“At this moment, yes.”
Sarah’s quick responses had always gotten her into trouble. Even when she knew she needed to keep her mouth shut, she just couldn’t. She would have the last word, period. It was the main reason she’d had a rocky relationship with her dad during her teen years. They were too similar. They butted heads about everything, and then neither one of them wanted to back down. When he died a few years ago, Sarah felt a deep loss and wished she would have appreciated him more.