by Jada Fisher
“How was that, witchlet?”
Strength flowed through me as the antidote took effect almost immediately, and I let my eyes flick up to him for just the briefest of moments. “Ever heard of the human saying that pride comes before a fall?”
“No,” he answered curiously. “Why—”
Learning from my last fight, I whipped my body forward and head-butted him in the crotch as hard as I could.
He let out a cry and toppled, holding himself while rocking side to side. I didn’t waste a second and used my rejuvenation to rotate my arms over my head and around to my front. There was a moment of discomfort as both of my shoulders popped out of place, but they slid right back in once my hands were in front of me.
“How—” the man hissed, struggling to get up.
“It’s called being double-jointed,” I answered, running to him and delivering a kick to his middle. He recoiled, and I straddled his chest. “Technically that’s a misnomer,” I continued, bringing both my fists up then slamming them down into his head. He tried to swing at me, but I pinned his arm with my knees. “There’s no such thing as being double-jointed.” Another punch, and he snarled at me. “I just have very stretchy ligaments around my joints. The correct term is hyper-flexibility.” I hit him again, anger swirling within me and making my whole body feel like it was on fire.
I hated fire.
The skin on my scarred wrist was already breaking from the cuffs binding me, blood welling up to join with the man’s as I pummeled him. I could feel my temper carrying me away, but I couldn’t be bothered to cap it.
I had been made a victim so often in my life. Whether in the inferno that took my parents and permanently scarred both Mickey and me, to the foster homes that were less than welcoming, to the visions, to school, I was tired of it, and I wasn’t about to let this jerk take my independence away from me!
“Get! Off!” Somehow, he got his legs under me and kicked me back. I stumbled, landing hard on my own behind.
Before I could get to my feet, my opponent surged forward, his body seeming to ripple and slough off until what I could only describe as a creature hurtled toward me.
It whipped around at the last second, and its tail crashed into my side, slamming me into the far wall. All of the air left my body and I was only aware of pain.
Claws clenched my face, then my skull was yanked forward before being slammed against the wall again.
Nausea rushed me and I slumped to the side. Everything was blurry and I could barely make out the form in front of me. It was somewhere between a large dog and a small horse, with glistening azure scales all along its hide. It had no wings, but four strong legs that supported its high chest and serpentine spine. If my fantasy books were anything to go by, the man was some sort of drake rather than your classical winged dragon.
I would be careful how you play your cards from now on, Seer.
I held my head and groaned, hearing his voice without really hearing it. My eyes closed against the pain, wishing for some sort of reprieve.
Mannix wants you alive, but he never said anything about you having all of your limbs.
With that, the creature returned to human form and walked out, adjusting his jacket as he did. I could only lay there on the dirty floor, waiting for the pain to ebb.
One thing was certain—I had to get out, but it certainly wasn’t going to be easy.
9
Resist. Rescue. Run
When I awoke again, I was both hungry and sore. I wasn’t sure which one bothered me more, but the combination threatened to make me pass out again. I tried shaking my head, as if that would clear the cobwebs and let me think, but that just made the room spin that much more.
“Alright, keep the neck as straight as possible. Good to know.”
I sat up, breathing through the haze of pain that made me wonder if death was a better option. I’d been through some trauma in my life, but none of it had involved head injuries. I wondered if the man who had taken me had fractured my skull or just given me a concussion. I would absolutely be tattling to whoever was in charge. I was pretty sure my ‘seer’ ability, whatever that was, resided in my brain. And since that was what made me valuable to whoever it was that wanted me, I was pretty sure they would be upset that a lowly minion had endangered it.
Then again, I didn’t want to actually get in front of whoever had sent for me. I didn’t know if it was just self-preservation or my foresight, but something told me that if I did, I would never find anyone I loved ever again.
I looked around, trying to occupy myself with finding something that could help me rather than dealing with the fear in the pit of my belly. Like I had noticed before, there were plenty of cobwebs and dirt, but not much else. Not even a boiler.
I sighed and rubbed my head, but that only made it hurt worse. Looking up, I saw a series of thin, but solid-looking, pipes crossing the ceiling.
I struggled to my feet, steadying myself as I went. Feeling around, I tested the strength of each of the pipes until I found something that seemed a bit loose.
Once I had my mark, I wrapped my still-cuffed hands around it and hung down with all my weight. It worked well enough, and I felt it start to wiggle loose.
I persisted, swinging from side to side, and eventually, the length popped out of place with a metallic shriek.
“Nice,” I congratulated myself, smiling brightly. Or maybe maniacally. I wasn’t sure which. Now that I had a weapon, there was just a matter of my bonds.
This would be harder. Sitting down, I toed off my shoes, taking a deep breath.
Although my joints were all a bit loosey-goosey, I wasn’t looking forward to the trick I was about to pull. It was something I had pulled off plenty of times as a kid, but as I got older and slowly became less and less flexible, it grew slightly more painful every time I tried it.
“Come on, Davie. You can do this.”
I placed my left wrist on the ground, thumb facing up toward me. I allowed myself one more deep, shaking breath before stepping on the middle of my hand, forcing my thumb and it’s pad toward my pinky.
It…wasn’t pleasant, but I didn’t waste any more time griping about it. Instead, I focused on pushing the cuff upward with my free hand.
Bit by bit, I wiggled it, pausing every now and then to adjust my foot’s angle or to get a better grip on the cuffs. Eventually, I was able to get the metal ring past the thickest part of my hand and heaved a sigh of relief.
I shook out my freed hand, the top of it red with anger and a stabbing pain in the tendon of my thumb, but I would get over it. At least I didn’t have to break it to be free, like some people.
I winced, remembering a movie I had watched once where someone had escaped from handcuffs much more brutally than my method, and that helped me speed the process along with the other hand.
Naturally, being my dominant hand, it was much more difficult than my weaker one. The rigid muscles didn’t want to bend or stretch nearly as easily as my left hand. Nevertheless, I managed to get the cuff off and a few minutes later, I was completely freed from my bonds.
I rubbed circulation back into my wrists and took inventory of my left arm. My burn scars had split in several spots, aggravated by both the fight and the abuse from the overly-tight metal bracelet I had been sporting. I was going to need a whole bunch of vitamin E oil, coco butter, and gauze to get it back to normal. Not that my arm was anywhere near normal by most people’s standards, but normal for me was what I hoped for.
Once I had myself gathered, I grabbed the pipe and tucked the handcuffs into the pocket of my jeans. They were ripped and dirty, but otherwise holding up pretty well for being a secondhand pair that I had thrifted.
I approached the staircase leading to the back door, steeling myself for the fight that was sure to come. Considering how thoroughly they had handed my behind to me, twice, I needed to be more careful and use the element of surprise to my advantage.
Yeah, maybe if I was very quiet, I could sne
ak up on a few and knock them out without them knowing I was free!
I snorted at the thought. Yeah, me, the artist with possible head trauma and some strained hands was going to take on a whole gang of men who could probably all shapeshift into fanged, scaly monsters.
I wasn’t going to lie, I was fairly miffed that I had been dazed and bleary-eyed when witnessing my first transformation. For a brief moment, I found myself wondering what Bron looked like when he shifted. Would he be wingless like the man I had fought? Would his scales be dazzling, or dull? Would he be terrifying, or beautiful? I guessed I was going to have to find out, if I ever escaped.
Right, escape. That was what I was supposed to be concentrating on. Not strange pretty boys who had dragged me into a world I’d wanted no part in.
I reached the door, pipe in hand. Just as I was about to reach for the knob, I heard the latch click and barely managed to scuttle to the side just as it swung open. Someone stepped in, and I didn’t have time to observe anything about them before swinging my pipe down on their head. It connected, and the man tumbled down the stairs in a heap.
I paused, holding my breath, and looked down the stairs to see if it was the ringleader I had already fought. I was somewhat disappointed to see that it wasn’t. Just some dark-haired lackey. A lackey’s lackey. How disappointing. Now that the door was open, though, I didn’t exactly have a long time to dwell on wishing it had been someone else. I reached down inside myself, willing myself to be brave, and took a step through the frame.
Only to have a body physically fly past me. Not fly in the way one might expect a fairy or dragon to move, but fly as in something had slammed into them and sent him airborne. He crashed into the wall on the far side of the hall and I gaped openly. Only then I noticed the chorus of cries around me, and the clamor of a fight.
“Davie! What are you doing?” I whipped in the direction of the voice to see none other than Mallory standing there, her hair a wild mess around her head, one of her cheeks bruised, but looking absolutely thrilled with life.
“Escaping!” I called back, a smile breaking out across my face. “What are you doing?”
“Rescuing you! What does it look like?”
I tilted my head back and laughed. “I’m so glad to see you. How did you find me?”
Someone lunged at her, but before I could shout a warning, she stepped back and drove her muscled shoulder into his stomach. He doubled over, and she delivered an uppercut to his chin.
“You left find-my-phone logged in on my laptop the last time you spent the night. This was the last location it checked in before it died. Now are you coming, or do you want to wait for their backup to pile in here and end up catching both of us?”
“I love technology,” I said, running toward her.
The house we were in was just as decrepit as the basement, but with the added bonus of being well-used. I saw open cans everywhere, as flies buzzed frantically, disturbed by the flurry of movement. There were at least three other men out cold on the ground, but not the ringleader I had tangled with earlier.
We burst out of the front door, which was already falling off its hinges, and out onto the grass.
“So, uh, I can explain all this,” I said as we dashed across the lawn. I tried to figure out where I was, but it wasn’t any part of the city I recognized. In fact, I didn’t think we were in the city at all, but rather some sort of abandoned subdivision somewhere far from home.
“No need,” Mallory said, grabbing my wrist and hauling me along behind her. “I know about dragons and shifters and all that jazz.”
“What? How! Does everyone know about this but me?”
“I’m a dwarf, okay? Well, a half-dwarf. I’ve known you were something different ever since I first met you. I just decided to keep it to myself for your own safety and not to step in unless it got dangerous.
“But dragons, Davie? Dragons are definitely dangerous. Of all the underworlders, you had to find them, didn’t you?”
“It’s not like it was on purpose! You were there when they walked into the café!”
“Okay, fair point.” We reached her moped and she jumped on, tossing me a helmet before revving the engine and speeding off.
“I’m not sure where the heck we’re gonna go,” Mallory yelled over the sound of wind whipping past us.
“Bron’s!” I shouted back.
“Who?”
“The white-haired pretty boy!”
“You know where he lives!?”
“A lot has happened since I’ve seen you last, okay?” I pulled his address from my memory and repeated it to her. “Do you know where that is?”
“Yeah. I think so. On the rich side of the city, of course.”
“Yup. That whole dragons hording gold thing is actually pretty apt. Did you know that?”
“Unfortunately,” she answered dryly. “My family was in debt to them for many generations. My mom worked her tail off trying to get free and ended up marrying a wealthy human just to get free in the end.”
“Really? Which family?” There was a whole host of questions popping into my mind. I felt like there was a whole world right under my feet that I had never known about.
“Does it matter? Dragons are old and ruthless. It’d be best if we got you out of their clutches as fast as possible. I’m not hip to taking you to this Bron’s place, but if you say it’s safe, I trust you.”
“I think you’ll like him,” I said weakly, holding onto Mallory’s unnaturally muscled waist as best I could. A lot of things suddenly made sense about her.
“Frankly, I’m more concerned if you like him.”
“What? I literally just met him and for half the time I was aware he existed, I thought he was a creepy stalker.”
“Good. Keep that suspicion about you. When it comes to our scaled brethren, I wouldn’t trust them as far as you can throw them.”
“I’ll try to keep that in mind.”
With that, the conversation stopped and we sped toward the city. Although I was no longer a captive, I couldn’t help but feel that we were far from out of the woods.
10
Revelations
Normally, I loved riding backseat on Mallory’s little purple electric moped, but the situation we were in was far from normal. In the lull of action, my mind was flooding with everything it had been putting off dealing with while I was fighting to escape.
“So, a dwarf, huh?” I asked.
A moped rushing along at full speed wasn’t exactly conducive to the best conversation, but who knew when I would get a chance. I had a feeling that our day was far from over. I sincerely hoped that I was wrong.
“Half-dwarf,” she corrected.
“Then where’s your beard?” I said jokingly, cracking a wry smile.
“Shave it off every morning,” she answered, completely serious. “Honestly, I would just let it grow in, but that would kinda ruin my cover in the human world.”
Quickly, I went to change the subject. “Yeah, about that. Why are you in the human world?”
“Like I said, Mom married a guy who was kinda on the fringe of the underworld knowhow. She wanted to get out and that’s what we’ve done. It hasn’t been easy, you know, but I’ve managed pretty well.”
“Doesn’t it get boring?”
“Nah. Not with MMA to keep me occupied. Then again, some might argue that I have an unnatural advantage, being an underworlder and all, but whatcha gonna do? I need some way to express all my pent-up dwarven aggression.”
I snickered a bit, and it felt good to laugh. “Is that what your kind is known for? Bad tempers?”
“Well, I like to think that we have the normal amount of temper, it’s just compressed into a whole lot less body.”
“Oh yeah, that makes sense scientifically.”
“You’re gonna need to learn really fast that there’s a whole new set of rules in our world that have nothing to do with science.”
“You make it sound terrifying.”
; “Because it is. You know all those nightmares you used to tell me about?”
“…yeah.”
“Some of those used to be glimpses of our world.”
“What the hell! You couldn’t tell me?”
She shrugged, and that just made me hold on that much tighter. “Sorry. You made it very clear that you just wanted to be a normal human. So, I decided to just be your best friend and if you did ever get pulled into our world, I would be there to bail you out.”
I couldn’t help but smile at that, warm feelings rushing through me. “You really are a good friend, you know that?”
“I try. Don’t know how good I’m doing, but I try.”
Mallory suddenly swerved off the main road. “Hold on, we’re almost there. I’m going to take a shortcut I know through some construction.”
“Wait, is that safe?”
“Davie, you have two dragon families warring over you and the entire city’s underworld is buzzing about a possible seer. Nothing about your situation is safe, and it won’t be again for a very long while.”
“Fantastic.”
“I know. Life sucks, but it could be worse.”
I raised my eyebrow, wishing I could see Mallory’s expression. “Yeah? How so?”
“You could not have me for a friend.”
“You’re right. That would be much worse.”
I squeezed her ribs a bit and felt her chuckle through my arms. “Just make sure you keep holding on. Let’s see how much damage I can do to this thing before it needs to see the mechanic again.”
“Um, I’m not sure I appreciate the sound of th—”
But then she was revving the engine again and we were racing off.
She wasn’t kidding about it being a bumpy ride. Instead of sticking to actual road, she shot off over a parking lot and then over a field. Grass flew around us as the tires tore up the field, but she didn’t waver.
Sure enough, a few moments later, we were bursting through a construction zone. Thankfully, it was mostly empty. At first, I was concerned as to why, worried that it could somehow be a trap, but then I saw the crew busy laying asphalt down the street. Well, that was one stroke of good luck amidst a whole lot of bad.
