by Alexis Davie
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.
Ember scowled. “I wish you’d remember me. I know it must be hard for you to see me again after all these years, but I wish you’d at least remember something.”
She felt a little guilty. Her hard expression softened. The guy was obviously earnest. Crazy? Yes, probably. But earnest? Oh, yeah. He thought he was telling the truth, and she’d seen his throat heat up. Something was obviously not human about him, but she wasn’t ready to think about that yet.
“So, in your world, am I also a dragon?” she asked.
“No. You’re a human.”
She checked the clip in her gun. It was there. They were good to go.
“Well, that’s good. I’ve always felt like a human. So, what now, dragon boy?”
He looked at her with a glint of marveling in his orange eyes. He had a strong jaw and Sarah was willing to bet he had washboard abs under that shirt.
He asked. “How are you not freaked out by this? I thought you’d be freaking out.”
“I’m freaking out,” she said honestly. “Oh, trust me. I’m not happy with this. But I can freak out later when I’ve had time to absorb what just happened.”
“I can take you somewhere safe,” he said. “But you’re going to need to do what I say, no matter how strange it might sound.”
She almost said, I don’t need protecting. Then she thought about it. Yeah, she did. She needed protection. She didn’t know Roland and she didn’t know Marilla, and she really didn’t know why someone would be out to kill her. She spent her days making coffee and kept to herself most of the time.
Ember seemed liked he truly wanted to help, and that he was genuinely concerned for her welfare. Her instincts said to trust him. Sarah hated to rely on people. Hated it—from group projects back in high school to group
organizations as an adult. She just worked better by herself. As much as it unnerved her, she couldn’t do that. She would be lying on the ground just inside her doorway, just a shredded pile of Sarah without Ember’s warning. Who knew what else was out there?
Slowly, she nodded her head. “Fine. But, please, tell me what’s going on.”
“Of course.” He grinned at her. He turned his head and for a brief second, she caught a glimpse of his teeth. His canines were much sharper than they should have been.
“C’mon, Goldie,” he said, still smiling. Abruptly, he froze. “Uh-oh.”
“Uh-oh?” She didn’t like the sound of that.
“Load your gun,” he ordered. His demeanor changed, from cool and collected, to intense, almost animalistic. “Now. It’s going to take too long for me to call for back-up. I should have called the EDJ the moment I knew about Roland.”
“The EDJ?”
Ember responded curtly, “Yes. The Enchanted Department of Justice.”
She made a mental note to ask him to explain what the meant, but in the moment, his tone made her feel like she would do anything he said. Sarah loaded the gun, which felt big in her small hands. “What’s going on?”
He sniffed. “They’re here. They must have sent a cleanup crew.”
“Start making sense!”
The moment turned to chaos.
Something shot through the window, shattering the glass around where the word Marilla was still visible. It flew straight for Sarah. Ember’s hand shot out and caught the thing—a steel arrow, quivering about six inches from the side of her head.
“Go!” roared Ember, shoving her towards the door. “Go, now!”
Startled by the sudden movement, she almost wiped out, slipping on the clothes strewn about her room. She was a talented athlete, so she managed to get her feet under her before she got through the door. She could hear something breaking through the glass. When she turned, her eyes widened as fear took hold of her body.
Two beings came through the window, but they weren’t like any animal she’d ever seen and they weren’t humans—not by a long shot. Sarah’s brain refused to validate what she saw. The creatures were tall, bulldog-like beasts with jutting fangs, but they wore cotton-ribbed tank-tops and jeans.