by A. S. Oren
“What about your challenge?”
“The challenge was less for them and more for me.” My arms go across my chest again. Flashbacks of my panic attack play in my head. My cheeks heat up. I can’t believe I acted like that.
“What was the challenge?” asks Triton. He walks into our section of the room.
I give a heavy sigh. “They locked us in a cave. The only way to get out was if a full dragon moved the boulder that was blocking the door.” I pause for a second, for them to have a chance to respond, but none of them say anything. “Seeing as you guys know more about me and this curse I apparently have, I don’t really have to tell you what happened next.”
“I don’t see how that is a challenge, it doesn’t have Spearwood’s sadistic humor written all over it,” says Dante
I give a small laugh. “Oh, it was sadistic. How much do you know about my transformations?”
Triton is the one to shrug and answer, “There’s not a lot about them, but they are said to be painful.”
“Is that why you keep asking me if it hurts?” He looks away from me and shrugs again.
“Before today, I’ve only changed in front of one other person, my father. That was only until the age of six. After that, my transformations changed. He told me, they went from the scales rising up through my skin, like yours do, to the skin needing to be removed.” I play with the soda bottle, making the light from the fire reflect off it and onto the floor.
“It starts out feeling like a bad sun burn. My clothes feel like burlap. The burning sensation intensifies until it’s a deep itch. I try to scratch it, but I can never get it. I end up ripping off my skin. Then my muscles start to grow and shift. Imagine being ripped apart and sewn back together every single night, with no relief. I never wanted anyone to see me transform. Tonight, I had an audience for changing into and out of a dragon. Spearwood got exactly what it wanted.”
“That crystal, where did it come from anyway? I’ve never heard anything about that in the lore,” says Horace. He comes in carrying a tray of bowls. Amr follows behind him with two in his hands. He hands me mine and takes a seat at my feet. Inside the bowl looks to be chicken stir-fry with brown rice. “Lore?” I ask. I pick around the chicken and take a bite of rice. It tastes home cooked, thrown together. Not made by gourmet chefs. It’s nice. I forgot how much I missed this flavor.
“There is a lore when it comes to females in the families. It’s said they aren’t born because of a curse. The curse is that they come into their powers before they’re fifteen. That the transformations are actually painful for them. There’s never been anything said that will stop it, until now,” says Dante.
“If females aren’t born into the families, how did I slip through the cracks?”
“Perhaps you were born to an Outcast. It’s rare, but occasionally Outcasts have children that carry on the dragon powers,” says Horace.
“Don’t talk about things you have no idea about,” says Bullock. It’s the first thing he’s said since we got back from the cave.
The tension in the room rises to a suffocating level. “I was just suggesting it as a possibility,” Horace shoots back. I have never heard him get aggressive before.
“We don’t know how you came about, Fire, or who your parents are. We’ll find out somehow.” Dante interrupts both of them before a fight can break out.
“How did that Royal even find something like that, though?” asks Triton, pointing to the crystal hanging around my neck.
I play with my food. “That’s what I want to know.”
“What did Perlow and him say?” asks Amr.
“Perlow wanted me to take it off and give it to him and the Royal, or Paden, put him in his place and made him stand down. It was interesting to watch. After Perlow walked off, I tried to return the crystal to him. I don’t want to owe him anything, but he refused to take it back. He told me to consider it as a payment.”
“Payment? For what?” asks Mirren. I look at him, its odd having him take interest in something I’ve said.
“For choosing to attend Spearwood.”
Bullock shifts in his seat, but says nothing.
“Cryptic much?” says Amr.
“Why did he give it to you in the first place? It can’t be just for that. Royals always have ulterior motives,” says Bullock.
“You haven’t heard? He is determined to make me love him. He wants my hand in marriage and I turned him down. It only seems to have made him more determined.”
“You turned down a Royal?” Bullock asks, as if I’ve spoken a different language.
I shrug. “I’m new to this world. I’m not going to jump because someone in a shiny suit tells me to.”
“You must be stupid then,” says Mirren.
“So I’ve heard.” I return to playing with my food and taking alternating bites.
“How do you know that guy, the dragon that greeted us?” asks Horace.
I stiffen. I don’t want to talk about Hansen. “We went to school together back in Bellingham. He was a year older than me. Here, I’m average when it comes to the grades and school. There, I was considered a genius. By the time I should have been in first grade they had me in third and by the time I was supposed to be in third I was in sixth. Hansen was in the third grade class.”
I play with my food more. The day I first met him plays around in my head. It’s the first time a boy ever made me cry.
I sat on one of the wooden swings, it had been my first day in third grade class. All the kids were older and taller than me. I didn’t understand why I couldn’t be in the first grade class with the rest of my friends. Hansen came up to me and pushed me off the swing and into the woodchips below.
I started to tear up from the initial shock. Wood poked at my skin and scratched up my hands.
“You think you’re better than us, cuz you’re smart. You don’t know anything.”
I stood. A few tears had gone down my cheek, but I had stopped crying. “I don’t think I’m better than you.”
Like vultures, the other kids circled around. “You’re lying! You do think you’re better than us. Or the teachers wouldn’t give you all the special tickets!”
Special Tickets were a reward system. At the end of the quarter, you could bid on toys or books with your tickets and be able to take it home.
“Yeah, she does get all the tickets!” yelled a girl in the back.
“I won’t try to get the tickets anymore, promise!”
Hansen just laughed, before he picked up the swing and swung it at me. I didn’t have time to dodge, before I knew it, I was back on the ground with a bloody lip and a missing tooth.
“He gave me a bloody lip or bruise on more than one occasion. He turned the other kids against me; to be friends with me was like volunteering to catch a disease.”
“He hurt you and the teachers did nothing?” asks Triton.
I shrug. “The school was small. I don’t think half the teachers were actually certified. Most just read from the textbooks. They said it was his way of showing affection, that he liked me or something like that. And people wonder why some girls always go after and stay with women beaters,” I mumble the last part under my breath.
I put the bowl down. “Eventually, he made me hate school. I gave up. I wouldn’t talk or do anything. Some days, I would even runaway and hide, so I wouldn’t have to go. My father tried everything to get him out of the school, but nothing worked. He even went as far as to talk to his aunt, but she didn’t speak any English. The school told him they would keep us separated at recess and they changed my class, but the teachers could care less. They were more interested in getting in their afternoon cigarette and local gossip, than to make sure I was safe. I was just one kid in a group of many.”
“So what happened?” asks Dante.
“One day, shortly after I had turned nine, they bumped me up to the sixth grade class. I was on the playground. He came up behind me with a group of other kids and they circled me. He push
ed me down and told me that with my bushy hair and pushed up nose that no one in their right mind could ever love me.” I laugh at this.
“At that time, I was a hopeless romantic. Like most little girls, I was in love with the idea of love. I had my Disney Beauty and the Beast themed wedding all planned out. Hearing him say those things, made me snap. I guess you can thank him for creating the short fuse I have now. He was only a little bit bigger than me. I tackled him to the ground and punched him, twice. A few weeks after that, my father decided to homeschool me and pulled me out.”
“Well, at least you didn’t have to deal with him anymore,” says Amr.
I shake my head. “Oh, I dealt with him. Any time I left the Orchard, he was around, like a shadow. At least he was, up until last year, then he upped and disappeared. Now I know where he went. I always hoped he was in juvie.”
“If he’s only a year older than you, how can he transform into the full dragon form, and why did he seem to be friends with the Royal? Royals only make friends with other Royals,” says Bullock.
“How should I know? You know as much as I do.”
Dante rubs his face. “We should get some sleep. We have to be up early tomorrow, in order to make it to breakfast on time. There should be a bedroom for each of us on the third floor.”
Loved Crazed?
Someone knocks on the door. I rollover and moan. I’ve never been more comfortable in my life. I’ve slept in a bed before, but never for an entire night, always during the day, or for an hour or two after dawn. The bed I’m in now has the right amount of firm and soft and the blankets have the sweet scent of lilac engrained in them.
The door opens. “Avvi, it’s time to get up, we have to go,” says Amr.
I cover my head with one of the pillows. “Five more minutes. I want to live in this bed.”
“Nope, we’re on a time crunch. We still need to get our P.A.s and uniforms before going to the dining hall. C’mon, or I’ll have Triton dump water on you.”
I sigh and toss the pillow and blankets off me. I’m still in the sleepers Horace let me borrow. “Fine, I’m up, see?”
I follow Amr down to the first floor. The third floor is a maze of hallways. Too many rooms to count line the walls. I try to comb my hair with my fingers, but they do little in the way of taming my golden curls. I yawn. “I wish we didn’t have to go back now. I could use an actual day off.
Amr laughs. “I think we all could. We’ll have to wait for Saturday.”
“I have tutoring with Bullock on Saturdays, that’s not a day off.”
“Yeah, but now he’s part of the group, so we can all come here for that.”
I stop walking. “Yeah, why are they part of the group now? Dante said he would tell me last night, but that never happened.”
“Uh, well that’s sort of a complicated question.”
I lift an eyebrow. “It is?”
“Yeah, best for Dante to address that one.”
“Well, let’s go find mother duck then.”
He laughs. “He’d hurt us if he knew we called him that behind his back.”
“Let’s make sure he doesn’t find out then.”
We step off onto the first floor. The guys sit straight up when I enter the living room. Their dilated eyes look at me. I take a step back, something is off with them, big time.
“What’s up?” I ask.
A pair of arms go around my waist and I’m pulled backwards into someone’s chest. Only Triton wears that kind of cologne. What the Hell?
“Whoa!” I say, pulling out of his arms and taking a few steps away from him, only to trip and fall on the couch. Right into the lap of Bullock. His hands land on my hips, bracing me.
“Hello,” he whispers in my ear. His voice husky, with none of the snarky attitude it normally has. Soft warm lips graze my neck, sending a shiver down my spine. A flush floods my face and I leap off his lap.
“Okay, what’s wrong with you two?”
“There’s something different about you, Princess,” says Mirren, he stands from an arm chair. I swallow hard.
“And that is?”
“You smell good, like the ocean,” says Dante. He walks in from the kitchen area.
“No, she smells like oranges and vanilla,” says Horace.
“I haven’t even taken a shower today! Knock it off, guys.” I try to get to the door, but Dante has moved to block it. I feel like a deer surrounded by a pack of drooling wolves.
“I could help you with a shower, Avalon,” says Dante.
He did not just say that, did he? My face will melt off from how hot it has gotten. I don’t think it can get any hotter. “Stop it, Dante. You’re freaking me out.”
“You heard her, knock it off, Mathis,” says Bullock. He stands from the couch and gets into Dante’s face.
“She didn’t ask you to speak for her,” says Dante, before shoving Bullock. Bullock barely stumbles, he shoves Dante back.
“Stop looking at her, Lennox!” yells Horace.
“Make me, King!”
I turn just in time to see Horace punch Triton in the jaw. I have to get out of here, they’re going insane.
“Avvi, this way!”
Amr stands on the other side of the couch. He holds his hand out to me. He’s the only one I can trust right now.
I leap and do a double jump over the couch. I grab hold of his hand and he steadies me. We head for the door. Mirren steps in front of it. “You’re not taking her anywhere.”
Amr moves his hand, a wooden chair that is sitting in the corner of the room goes flying. It wraps itself around Mirren’s body. While he struggles, we move past him and Amr opens the door. It slams close behind us and he points his hand at the cabin, the wood grows over the windows and seals the door. They bang on the door.
“He has her!” Dante yells.
We run to our horses. “That won’t hold them for long, we need to get out of here before they can catch up.” We climb on the horses faster than I thought possible and urge them into the forest.
“What was wrong with them?” I yell to Amr.
“Hell if I know!” Within minutes we’re shooting out of the forest. I feel bad for Maryanne. So much running can’t be good for her.
I look behind us every few feet, but don’t see them coming after us, yet. I can’t shake the creepy feeling. Why were they acting like that? Why isn’t Amr affected?
We stop at the edge of the Rose Garden and get of the horses. “We should go to the infirmary, maybe there’s something wrong with you, the guys said you smelled different to them.”
I shake my head. “Dante will figure that we’ve gone there, my apartment has a lock, only I can get in, we can hide there.”
We skid through the halls of the school. Every boy I pass tries to grab or speak with me, it’s beyond unnerving. My heart should be in a humming bird, it has never worked so hard in my life.
We get to the dorms and the door to my apartment. I put my hand on the knob and turn, but it doesn’t budge. I frown. “Why isn’t it opening?”
“You don’t have your P.A.” says Amr, as the thought dawns on both of us.
The door leading into the dorms opens. Three boys step inside, I don’t know them. “Hi,” they all say in unison. I’ve stepped out of fantasy reality and have gone straight into horror.
“Damn it, open!” I press against the door with all my and Amr’s weight. It doesn’t even groan.
The three boys step closer. “You smell good, like chocolate,” says the middle one.
The one to the left shakes their head. “You’re an idiot. She smells like lilies.”
“Freshly baked snickerdoodles,” says the third.
“Enid!” I yell, as a last resort.
The boys inch closer and Amr steps in front of me. The door knob begins to jiggle and I let go of it with surprise. The door opens and Enid looks at me. “Yes, Avalon, how may I be of assistants?”
I grab Amr and pull him into my living room. I slam the door c
losed behind me and let out a breath as I hear the beep, signifying that the door has locked.
Family
“They’re scarier than inferi.” I turn and look at Enid, she looks back with a soft smile. “Thank you, Enid. You just saved our butts.”
“I’m glad to be of service. Is there anything else you need help with at this moment?”
“We need you to patch a video call through to Dr. Quinn, it’s an urgent matter,” says Amr.
Enid looks at me. “Would you like me to do that, Avalon?”
I nod. “Yes.”
“Very well.” She walks over to one of the larger white walls and places her hand against it. “Calling Dr. Quinn now.” A holographic screen appears on the wall.
“Who’s paging me this early in the morning?” asks Dr. Quinn, as he comes into focus, with his hair tussled a morning beard around his jaw and mouth.
His eyes widen when he sees me. “Miss Clementine, Mr. Radcliff, why are you two paging me? Why aren’t you at breakfast yet, or at the very least standing in my infirmary?”
“I have a problem doctor, I can’t leave my room. The boys, except for Amr, are acting strange.”
“Strange how?” he frowns.
“They keep trying to touch me and they all say I smell good to them, but all of them describe it as something different.”
“Oh dear. I was afraid of this, but I wasn’t sure if it was true or not.” He puts his hand to his mouth, I can see the worry in his eyes.
“What is it? What’s wrong with me?”
He glances at Amr, before looking back at me. “I must ask you a personal question first, Miss Clementine, to make sure it’s what I think it is.”
I motion for him to get on with it, I don’t have time to shoo Amr away. I cross my arms over my chest. “What?”
“When was your last menstrual cycle?”
Earth, open up and swallow me now. I wasn’t expecting that. Amr looks anywhere but the wall or me. “Um, a little less than two weeks ago.”
He closes his eyes and sighs. “It is what I think. You’re in heat.”