by Jill Haven
After drinking another glass of water, I took a quick shower to wash the sweat off me, even though I’d cleaned up after my shift last night to get rid of the grease from work. When I was done, rather than feeling better in my apartment—I normally loved it because it was safe and comfortable—the room seemed twenty times smaller than usual. With a towel wrapped around my waist, dripping water behind me, I walked over and pulled back the blinds to glance out at the star-dotted sky and trees outside my second floor window.
I just wanted to get outside.
In a hurry now that I’d decided what I wanted to do, I dressed in jeans and a T-shirt and grabbed a hoodie out of the small dresser I had shoved into one corner. I studied my face in the mirror stuck on the wall. Dark circles hung under my green eyes—I’d been told my entire life the pale green was my best feature—and the jagged pink scar on my right jaw seemed more apparent than usual. My brown hair stuck close to my head because I hadn’t really bothered to dry or style it. It was clear I hadn’t been sleeping enough.
I spritzed on some cologne last minute, something I did out of habit more than wanting to impress anyone, and then left like someone was chasing me. I couldn’t help looking at the futon I slept on one last, resentful time.
If I couldn’t start sleeping, I’d be a total wreck at work, and then how would I pay for this place? There was no way I could move home. I’d rather…. Well, Jade wouldn’t let me do that anyway. What best friend would send you back to your violent father? I didn’t want to crowd her, though, at her place.
Sighing, I locked my front door and took off down the steps that led to the outer door and on out into the cool, dark morning. When my shoes landed on the grass outside, I relaxed. The moon was setting, a white glowing face in the sky with a rainbow ring around it. It was one of the first cool mornings we’d had this fall, and I loved it, even though I wasn’t happy with being up this early. I pointed my feet toward a nearby bike trail.
My apartment was on the edge of town near the woods, and I enjoyed the freedom of being so close to the trees. Trees were solid and quiet—a hug for my often-frazzled brain. The bike trail let me look up at the sky which was beginning to turn the deep murky blue of false dawn as I marched and tried to outrun my bad dreams.
What were they really about anyway? I didn’t put a lot of stock in astrology the way that Jade did—she checked our signs in the newspaper every day that we worked together—but even I thought maybe the same dream three times in a week might mean something. I pushed on, walking faster until my leg muscles burned, and I gulped at the air. Those dreams were so scary and so real. Maybe I would just ask Jade’s opinion about them to be safe, not that I was getting all superstitious or anything. Maybe she’d have an idea about how to make them stop.
I’d gotten pretty far along the bike trail, when I heard a branch cracking in the shadowy woods off to my right, and the hairs raised on the back of my neck. Some of the leaves had fallen, and some hadn’t, so that there were large swatches around me that were pitch-black. My stomach heaved and I stopped, straining my ears to see if I could hear the noise again, and I stared in the direction the sounds had come from. I tried to play off my spiraling anxiety with a laugh at myself because the noise was probably a squirrel or a deer, but my body wouldn’t listen. My heart raced, and I dug my hands into my pockets as I stared around. My gut told me someone was following me, but I was probably just being paranoid.
I had problems with feeling hunted when my depression got worse, especially during the winter when the nights were longer. Was I already getting bad this year without realizing it? I sighed. I hated feeling like I couldn’t trust my own body, the constant feeling that my mind was feeding me the wrong signals. It wasn’t a mystery to me that I needed some mental help, even my body was decorated with the results of Dad’s horrible treatment of me. Times like this where I was so sure there was someone out there after me left me feeling unsteady inside my gut, and like I was going crazier than I already thought I might be.
Blowing out a long breath, I turned and power-walked away. If someone was stalking me, they’d have to keep up. I went around the big loop through the woods and left the bike trail from a side path that emptied out into a field and then sped along the road to my apartment to get ready for work. By the time I had another quick rinse and then changed into my work shirt—a green T-shirt with the ‘Go Wild’ logo on the front—I was ready to run away from my apartment again.
As I left for the second time that morning, the sun was up and the air had already started to get humid and warm. This might be another one of those obnoxious eighty-degree days at the end of fall when everyone just wanted it to cool down already. The half-mile walk to work had me sweating again, but it would have nothing on the kitchen later in the day when everything heated up.
Muscogee was small, and I only had to walk past the grocery store, the bakery, and the hardware store to get to Go Wild. The natural wood building had a wide front porch that I’d helped build on the front, lined with rocking chairs. Eric Wilder, my boss, and I had painted the trim green a few weeks ago, so the whole building had a spiffed-up, well-cared-for feel that made me proud. Huge front windows looked out onto the porch. I caught Jade’s eye as I walked by one and waved. Her glossy, waist-length black hair was up in a ponytail on the back of her head and seemed to accentuate her slender jaw and high cheekbones. She had her Go Wild T-shirt tied in a knot above her belly button, exactly the way Eric had told her a thousand times not to do.
Jade smiled at me even though she was serving what I liked to call the Old Man Battalion. It was a group of eight guys, all retired and over sixty, who liked to get together and discuss the Civil War every single morning of their lives. It had taken her nearly a year after we both got jobs here to get them to stop referring to her as the ‘Oriental waitress,’ but since she’d educated them on why that was obnoxious, I’d heard them telling other people off for doing similar things. Old dogs could learn new tricks, so why couldn’t my own dad learn not to treat me like garbage? I shrugged off that sour thought, probably brought on by the bad dreams, and tried to focus on how nice the sun warming my shoulders felt.
When I opened the door to go inside, the lights overhead were almost too bright. The walls were clean and white, decorated with paintings of flowers and local wildlife. The floor tiles gleamed, and the booths were all set for customers. I’d done the closing shift last night, so it was nice to see my hard work had set us up for a good day. The Old Man Battalion was taking up one of two long tables in the middle of the room.
Already exhausted, I made my way behind the till counter along the left side of the restaurant, where Eric also had pies and pastries for sale, and on back into the small kitchen. Eric manned the flattop, flipping pancakes, and had eggs and sausages whenever he seemed to sense they needed it. He was so tall that he had to stoop to work, with a huge bushy gray and blond beard. His shoulders were so wide they stretched his T-shirt, and even though he was thick in the middle, he was handsome in his own way. I’d noticed, but he was straight as an arrow. He turned and grinned at me, looking a little silly with a hairnet over his beard that looped up over his ears. I had trouble smiling back.
“Mornin’, kid. You’re early today.”
Ducking my head as I washed my hands at the sink beside the doorway, I shrugged, the usual anxiety that came with talking to people who weren’t Jade scrabbling at the back of my throat, closing it a little. “Was awake. Thought I’d come in.” I cursed myself for speaking so softly but couldn’t make my words louder.
Eric laughed. “Yeah, the full moon had everyone all antsy last night. My dogs wouldn’t settle.”
I shivered, thinking back to that crawling feeling of being followed in the woods. “Yeah.” After that I took over for Eric at the flattop and he went out to do his morning round of telling tall tales with the customers. I finished off everything that was cooking, checked the tickets, loaded the plates, and then put the food under the warmer. Jade c
ame bustling in a few seconds later.
“Hey, hot stuff! You’re here early.” She grinned at me, but she sent me a long look, like maybe she could see how exhausted I was.
“Bad dreams.” She paused mid-reach for the food and instead came over to me where I stood removing the crud from the grill top with a scraper. “Gonna get cold,” I grumbled, pointing at the waiting plates.
She rolled her eyes. A couple of years older than me, she’d been my friend since I was in preschool and she was in first grade, and she knew me fairly well. She came over and leaned her temple against mine, batting her eyelashes at me. We were the same height.
“Spill it.”
I sighed and hung the scraper on the hook on the wall. She searched my face for clues, and I forced a smile. “I’ve been having dreams where I’m trapped in a fire. Three times this week. I barely slept last night.”
She frowned and a small furrow popped up between her eyebrows that I personally found to be adorable. I wrapped my arm around her, one of the few people I felt comfortable touching like this, and gave her a small hug. She patted my back and spun away, rushing toward the plates.
“Sounds like you’re stressing over a major life change. Maybe the universe is trying to tell you that your plans are about to catch fire.” She smiled brightly, but I cringed.
“Yeah, if that’s the case, it’s not good. These were more like nightmares.”
“Oh.” Her face fell and she grabbed a tray to start arranging the plates on it.
“Maybe I’m feeling anxious because I’m not further along in saving money to move.”
Sadness flickered across her face, a there and gone expression. I knew she hated talking about this because it meant I would be leaving her. “What’s so wrong with Muscogee, I ask?”
“You know—”
“Yes, I do.” She sighed and smiled at me, but it wasn’t the same as before. “It’s time for you to leave. Get a therapist and stuff. To help with… things.”
“Yeah,” I whispered.
She shrugged. “Let me get this food out and we’ll discuss this dream stuff more.” She narrowed her eyes on me, and I groaned, but felt better than I had all morning.
Turned out, she didn’t get back to me. Every person in town must have decided that they wanted someone else to make their breakfast this morning because she brought back a flurry of orders and we didn’t get another chance to talk. I was sweating over the flattop when Eric came back.
“You’re in the weeds,” he said, his cheerful voice booming through the kitchen, making me instinctively cringe. I hated that I reacted that way to him when he’d never done anything wrong. “I’m faster. Go out and help Jade.”
“Oh, Eric, really?” I frowned and turned toward him, crossing my arms over my suddenly roiling stomach. “I’ll pick up the pace.” My heart fluttered in the back of my throat.
He came over and sort of crowded me out of my spot in front of the flattop, stealing my spatula. “Go on. Help her for a little while and then you can come hide back here.” He snagged a hairnet and took care of his beard.
Sighing, I went out front to find out what Jade might need help with and was boggled to see every booth and table full. It had been a while since that had happened, and was usually reserved for a Sunday, after church event. Jade rushed to me and handed me an extra check pad.
“Take the tables in the corner.” She nodded across the room to the booths near that window. “I just sat everyone. Oh my god, why don’t people eat at home,” she grumbled.
I snickered, but my chest was already tight. I hated taking orders. The man there was a stranger, and that was enough to set my teeth on edge. He was probably in his thirties, and handsome from across the room, with black hair. When I got close enough to force a smile and set down his water glass above his silverware, I noticed he had deep hazel eyes to go along with his long jaw and full lips. The way he looked at me, though, eyes wide and a little like he’d seen a ghost, ratcheted up my anxiety.
“C—can I help you?” I could kick myself. I had trouble making my voice louder. He nodded and picked up his menu without looking away from me.
“The breakfast special.”
“Big or little?”
“Big.” His voice was rich and there was something about him that tugged at me, like I should recognize him, but I knew for a fact I’d never seen him before. I knew everyone in town.
“I’ll get that in, sir.” I was almost whispering, but he seemed like he heard me just fine because he nodded. I rushed off to hand the ticket to Eric and take care of the rest of the customers. A while later I delivered the stranger’s food, and the way his eyes followed me around the room began to eat at me. I’d find myself nervously stopping while pouring coffee to glance back at him—he would be watching. I started stumbling over my own feet and forgetting what I was going into the kitchen for as my anxiety skyrocketed. By the time I was able to bring him his check and thrust it onto the table in front of him, I was grateful he’d be on his way out.
He paid with a card and I watched as he signed his name to the receipt with a large, precise loopy scrawl—Mason Hardwick.
“Thanks,” he said, smiling up at me. I forced myself to nod, but everything in the dining room was starting to get to me. The fluorescent lights overhead were too bright and buzzed relentlessly, people laughed and talked too loud, and I could feel my chest getting tighter. I wanted to be hiding in my kitchen.
“You’re welcome,” I croaked.
He slid out of his booth and stood. He was tall, but that wasn’t unusual because I wasn’t the largest guy out there, and I had to crane my neck to look up at him. He held out his hand and, reluctantly, I took it to shake. His grip was firm and friendly, but I didn’t like the way he focused so intently on me. “What’s your name?”
“Uh… Haiden.” I extracted my hand from his with a tug, but he didn’t seem to notice.
“I’m sure I’ll be seeing you again soon.” He beamed a huge smile at me and walked at a fast clip out of the restaurant.
Weird.
Jade stopped to grab me by the arm and shook me out of my trance. “Go grab syrup for table five, please?” Her pleading brown eyes and the irritation wrinkling her nose had me wheezing out a chuckle. Discomfort still itched between my shoulders, but I decided to put the odd stranger out of my mind. In spite of what he said, that was probably the last time I’d see him. People didn’t move to Muscogee, they moved away.
No one in their right mind would stay here on purpose.
3
Carlisle
The air didn’t move at all. Not even the leaves on the willow trees surrounding our clan’s small, private cemetery budged, and the mourners at the graveside were stoic. The sun beat down on our shoulders from a clear sky, and much as I loved the heat, I grew sweaty and uncomfortable in my suit.
Dragons weren’t given to fits of emotion like humans, but Thomas McGuire’s face was wet with tears, and he stared at the shiny red casket as it was lowered into the ground completely unnaturally, by machine, like he was thinking about following it down. My gut twisted. Someone would need to watch him closely.
My phone trilled and I groaned as all eyes turned toward me as I fumbled it out of my pocket. Of all the goddamned times it could ring. Judgmental glares rained down on me, but I just smiled and hustled away from the assembly. Picking my way between the gravestones to get far enough away not to be a disturbance, my phone stopped ringing, but then immediately started again. I put my back to the large black marble obelisk that marked the entrance to the Blood Clan cemetery.
Mason’s name flashed across the phone’s screen, so I answered. “Hello?”
A rapid-fire barrage of words washed over me from the other end of the line. I stilled and tried to concentrate as a bizarre mix of Latin and Welsh smacked into my early morning brain, and I blinked up at the sapphire skies.
“You’re going to have to slow—”
But Mason didn’t. He talked until he
ran out of steam, though my stomach twisted and fell to my toes as I heard what I swore was Omega Dwyfol—Divine Omega—in the smattering of Welsh haphazardly slammed together with Latin.
“It’s been a long time since I spoke my first language,” I replied in clumsy Welsh. Mason’s bright laughter carried to me on the phone line. I decided to switch to English and not worry too much about this unpleasant discovery about my rusty language skills. “But are you saying to me that you’ve found a Divine Omega? That’s impossible.” Hope kindled bright inside me and loosened up my tense muscles, however. Had he truly found one? Our search team hadn’t been looking long. This seemed too good to be true.
“Give this news to me again. English, please. Slowly.”
He snorted. “You’ve become spoiled by American imperialism.”
“Mason!” I sighed but then chuckled.
There was a clatter on his end that sounded like people talking and laughing, as if he was in a crowded room. “Fine. I’m in Muscogee, West Virginia. I decided to scout this entire area because it’s sparsely populated. It’s a known spot for our kind to settle because it’s possible to shift and not be seen. They won’t violate the St. George Law.” He lowered his voice as he said that last bit.
I snorted. “We’ve been calling it the Exposure Law for fifty years now.”
It wasn’t difficult to imagine him rolling his eyes. “Yes, well, that’s a misnomer. It’s to keep us all from getting hunted down. At any rate, I thought perhaps anyone living here would be healthier since they’re likely to shift frequently and could potentially be pursued by one of the dragons from our clan. We were checking all the areas dragons were known to frequent.”
“That makes sense.”