Caught Between Dragons

by Meg Ripley

  Becca nodded with a slight smile as she chose the high-backed leather armchair to sit in. Dr. Drake’s office was homey, with a couple of paintings of calming landscapes hanging on the walls, antique lamps, and other small notions like a deck of playing cards sitting on the coffee table. Popular novels were mixed with the medical books on the shelves. Pictures of him with his family took the place of where most other therapists would display their degrees and certifications.

  Dr. Drake didn’t hold a clipboard or anything to take notes on. An open leather bound journal was on his desk with a pen next to it, but his hands were clasped politely in his lap to show that his attention was purely on Becca.

  “From what I heard about your panic attacks and nightmares, in addition to what you went through,” he began, “I believe this is a case of post-traumatic stress disorder. There’s nothing to be ashamed of, Becca. I’d probably be more worried if you were not having a reaction like this.”

  Becca nodded, unsure if she was truly ready to open up about her experiences at all.

  “There’s no pressure to jump into all the gory details,” Dr. Drake said reassuringly. “Why don’t we just start with something safe. How did you meet Jeremy?”

  Smiling with relief, Becca began to recall the day that she went to interview for the job that had brought her to Jeremy. As Victor asked her benign questions about the job, she found herself opening up and sharing not only the experiences, but discussing her thoughts and emotions on a deeper level than she had ever contemplated.

  It had not even been a full year, but it seemed like it was a lifetime ago that she had been Jeremy’s employee. So much had happened and she had changed so much from the blushing girl that had entered his office back in May. The stubborn bit of warmth that had clung to the Midwest had been enough to fool Becca, but the cold wind that came in from the Pacific reminded her now that the end of October had passed and that winter was blowing in.

  As the time for their session winded down, Victor shifted his countenance and prompted Becca with a new topic.

  “Now usually,” he said, “I encourage my patients to try keeping a journal, jotting down their thoughts and feelings to help them reflect on things when they don’t necessarily want to open up and talk about something. From what I’ve heard, you already keep a sketchbook.”

  Becca nodded as a knot formed in her stomach, afraid of what he would ask.

  “It’s alright,” he reassured her with a placating gesture as he read the concern on her face. “I’m not going to ask to go through your sketchbooks. I was just going to say that you should continue writing and drawing in them. Try to do it at least once daily and try to write as much as you draw. It can be about how you feel, or just notes about what you drew.”

  She had to stop herself from making an audible sigh of relief. Instead, she smiled and nodded in agreement. Victor added that while he would appreciate being able to see her sketchbooks, is was not necessary and entirely up to her discretion if she wanted to share them.

  Victor smiled as he thanked her for coming in and they set up a time and date for their next appointment. He shook her hand and led her out of the office to the waiting room. The waiting room was empty except for the twins and another figure, a girl with her back to Becca as she talked to the brothers.

  Jeremy and Jadon both looked away from the stranger as soon as Becca entered the room. Their expressions tried to warn her of something, but she was still caught unprepared as the stranger turned around.

  She was average height, with the muscular build of a gymnast, and the wardrobe of a preppy teenager from the 90’s. Her long dark hair reached all the way down to her waist and contrasted sharply with her porcelain skin and pale green eyes. Her lips were thin and her nose round, but there was no mistaking a resemblance between her and the twins.

  “So, you must be Becca,” she said, her tone both pleasant and condescending as she smiled and stepped forward with an outstretched hand. Her toothy smile reminded Becca of a snarling Chihuahua, adorable but sincerely ready to attack.

  Becca smiled her most genuine fake smile as she took the offered hand. “Yes, and you are?”

  “Mimi Ladon.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Mimi insisted that the three of them join her and the elder Mr. Ladon for dinner. Becca recognized the driver, Charles, as he opened the car door for them. It wasn’t much work to piece together that it was Mimi who had sent him to the airport to pick them up. She sat across from the three of them, not really paying much attention to Becca as they drove out from the city to the suburbs.

  “It really is a shame that we’re only just now meeting,” she said glancing between Jeremy and Jadon. “After all, I was born back in 1975. You’ve had plenty of time to reach out.”

  “So have you,” Jeremy said, the corner of his lip twitching with nervous anger. Becca squeezed his hand to remind him to remain civil.

  “Well, father never talked about you much,” she said with her impish smile. “It’s almost as if he’s ashamed of you or something.”

  Becca felt both brothers stiffen on either side of her and she reached out to take Jadon’s hand as well. She saw the scales ripple across the back of Jeremy’s neck at the mention of his father.

  Taking a deep breath, Becca retorted, “Or maybe he didn’t bother telling them about you because they were happy and he didn’t want you to ruin that.”

  Mimi looked sincerely surprised at Becca’s sharp reply. For a moment, her eyes widened and her mouth fell slightly agape before she composed herself and her sneering smile returned.

  “Maybe,” she said as her eyes narrowed on Becca, sizing her up and reevaluating the human girl, “but that was before you showed up and brought the Order of Saint George to their doorstep.”

  Scales rippled beneath Becca’s hands as Mimi’s comment played on Jeremy and Jadon’s tempers. There was also a loud thunk as Jadon tore the handle he had been grasping clean off of the door. The devious little sister grinned at the reaction she had achieved. Realizing that Becca was the pressure point of both brothers, Mimi chose to dig at her further.

  “So, were you working with the Order of Saint George? Is that how you managed to get kidnapped by them?”

  Jeremy was growling now, guttural and animalistic, as his irises began to expand into the hot blue flame of his dragon form.

  “Were you trying to get my brothers killed?” She continued her line of accusations, clearly pleased with the results she was getting. “Do you get a kick out of playing the damsel in distress? Making other people risk their lives for you while you play both of my brothers? Do you think you’re smart, pretending you can love them both, you little slut?”

  Jeremy lost his temper first. Half transforming and letting out a snarl, he struck out at Mimi, but his hand was caught by another clawed hand. Everyone was equally surprised to see that it was Jadon who was restraining his brother.

  Mimi tittered at the display, letting them know that she was the clear winner of this bout of sibling rivalry. Becca glared at her as Jeremy and Jadon sat back down and each took hold of her hands protectively.

  Becca’s heart was racing and her hands began to get clammy as the car pulled into the driveway of the lavish home. Becca didn’t have time to be impressed by the small mansion as her breathing became shallow. It had the style of an old plantation house, with its gleaming white columns and a large inviting staircase leading up to the front porch, but Becca could feel the onset of another panic attack beginning.

  Charles pulled the car around the looping drive and stopped at the front of the house. Holding the door open, he nodded to Mimi as she stepped out of the car, “Ms. Ladon.”

  She was about to step out of the car when Becca began to pitch forward. Jeremy caught Becca as she began to convulse. Her eyes were wide, but she couldn’t see Mimi sitting back in the seat, drawn to the horror of what was happening before her. Jeremy held Becca close, stroking her hair and speaking softl
y to her as the episode took its course. Faintly, she heard Jadon as he threatened Mimi and told her to get out of the car.

  The world was cold around Becca. She pressed her shaking self against Jeremy, but no warmth was to be found. His arms stroked her back as he worried over her and she heard Jadon shut the car door.

  For a minute, all was silent as Becca remained in her paralyzed state of fear. Jeremy tried to get her to complete breathing exercises to calm her, but there was no altering the fast shallow breaths that tore through her lungs. In Becca’s mind, the darkness of the moment stretched for an eternity until a squeak of the car door opening shattered that dark stillness.

  Another voice spoke. It was unfamiliar to her and she felt herself being moved from the car, carried by Jeremy. White lights passed overhead and Becca was back inside the white-walled prison of her previous captors. She saw the jeering face of Nate Stanley hovering over her again, and her mouth tasted of copper, precisely as it did when she almost bit his finger off.

  At some point during her flashbacks, Becca’s body decided that it couldn’t process what was happening any longer. Faintly, she could hear Jeremy’s voice calling to her, but her body aborted and everything went black.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Waking up was more than difficult. Becca had the familiar sensation of having been sedated just like when she had been kidnapped. Luckily, the room she woke up in this time was not white and was furnished with the most expensive antique furniture she had ever encountered.

  “I feel I must apologize for Mimi,” a voice said from the far side of the room.

  A figure sat in the armchair in the corner of the room, his legs crossed neatly in the grey slacks he wore, his hand-tailored shoes gleaming like obsidian dragon scales. Long, thin fingers held the edges of a newspaper that shrouded the rest of his body from view.

  The paper rustled as the voice continued. “You must understand, in terms of how dragons age, she’s still very much a teenager; every bit as ornery as her brothers were at her age, but spiteful in a way that only she can be.”

  Becca groaned as her brain tried to process the words of the stranger through the fog of being drugged. She blinked repeatedly as her eyes adjusted to the light while she tried to look around the room.

  The nightstand had a familiar glass and pitcher of water waiting for her. Reaching out with shaking hands, Becca poured herself a glass of water and gulped it down. It was cold and burned against her throat, the soreness suggesting that she had been screaming in her sleep.

  As she set the glass back down, the newspaper rustled as Mr. Ladon folded it under his arm and stood from the chair. He was impossibly tall and his dark brown eyes peered out at her from behind round wire-framed spectacles. His neatly trimmed black hair was graying at the temples in fashion that would make any woman swoon. The features of his face were identical to his sons, making it impossible for Becca to immediately engage the feelings of anger and mistrust that she had carefully cultivated for the man since she found out about his existence.

  “How are you feeling,” he asked softly as he sat down on the edge of the bed and reached out one of those long slender hands to check her forehead for a temperature. His voice was soft and velvety, like the lead actor from a black and white movie that Becca couldn’t quite name.

  “Like I was roofied,” she croaked as she sat up the rest of the way and Mr. Ladon handed her another glass of water.

  “Not too far off,” he smiled; the same crooked smile that Jeremy had. “We had to sedate you because you were going to hurt yourself. The boys could barely hold you down.”

  Becca blushed. “I think you’re exaggerating.”

  “Not at all,” he winked. “Are you hungry, Ms. Turner?”

  “Yes,” she smiled. “You can call me Becca.”

  “Nicholas,” he responded as he offered his hand. “Nicholas Ladon.”

  He stood, graceful as a bird and promised to return with breakfast.

  As he left the room, Jeremy and Jadon both came bursting in and rushed to Becca’s side. She smiled as they fluttered about her like a couple of mother hens.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine,” she insisted, taking another sip of water as Jeremy began to take her temperature.

  A couple of minutes later, Nicholas returned with a silver tray piled high with blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, crispy bacon, sausage, fresh cherries, orange juice and milk.

  “Scrambled eggs okay with you,” Nicholas asked as he set the tray down in Becca’s lap.

  The dishes were expensive porcelain, and she was sure that the silverware alone cost a small fortune. After a couple of bites, she looked around at all off the handsome faces that surrounded her. Nicholas was calm and collected, no doubt in partial to his hundreds of years of being around humans. She was sure he’d seen every sort of strange malady. Jeremy was clearly still freaking out about her. Jadon was somewhere in between.

  “I think I’m okay,” she said around a mouthful of pancake.

  Jadon was the first to acknowledge her statement and got up, pulling on Jeremy’s arm to get him to leave Becca’s side. The two of them exited, throwing suspicious glances back at their father.

  Nicholas smiled and gave a small bow to Becca once his sons had left.

  “They really do love you.”

  “How can you tell,” she asked as she placed the piece of bacon she had picked up back down onto the plate.

  “Because,” he said, “They look at you the same way I looked at their mother. She was beautiful, smart, and strong-spirited, just like you.”

  There was a wistful look in his eyes as he spoke of Jeremy and Jadon’s mother. She had never really heard much about her and assumed it was in part because they didn’t talk about their father either. Nicholas could tell that she was intrigued and gestured for her to continue to eat as he spoke.

  “No doubt you know the boys grew up in New York. The apartment you stayed at was their mother’s, her gift to them when she passed. She left everything to the boys. They were her entire world. I’m sure they’ve told you that I’m quite the villain.”

  Becca nodded and Nicholas continued.

  “I disowned the boys when they insisted on joining the war effort. They had just lost their mother to consumption…tuberculosis. She had made them promise to stay out of the fight, but as soon as she was gone, there was no stopping them.”

  “They were grieving,” Becca said before taking a long sip of the orange juice.

  Nicholas nodded. “I didn’t deny them their inheritance from their mother, but I did deny them the Ladon fortune until they agreed to come back, but they were addicted to the fight. The atrocities of war offered them an opportunity to vent their rage without being discovered. So, they’d take turns with deployments. One would fight, while the other handled a business venture stateside. I’ll admit, I was proud of my boys for their ingenuity. Using their looks to their advantage, they could take turns dying and dually exist as one person.”

  Becca smiled. She knew about the fun they had pretending to be one another in relation to business. Nicholas was smiling too.

  “I decided to let them be. I sent business contacts their way when I could. They were doing fine, so I remarried and Mimi was born. I never told her about them because I didn’t want to interfere with the life they had built for themselves. I thought it would be better if Mimi thought she were an only child. The boys hadn’t shown any sign of wanting to reunite. Of course, Mimi found out anyway, like all women do.”

  His wry smile wrinkled the corners of his eyes. There was no denying the way that he felt for his children, and his account of everything made sense to Becca. Instinctively, she reached out and took his hand.

  “You raised good kids.”

  Nicholas was momentarily surprised by her contact, but smiled warmly as he placed his other hand over hers. “You’re what makes them good.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  After Becca finished her brea
kfast, she found that the closet was already stocked with clothes that were her size. She laughed as she remembered just how rich Mr. Ladon was and how it was probably not as big of a gesture as she took it to be. She picked out a pair of jeans, some knee-high boots and a flowy top of bright autumn colors.

  Leaving her room, Becca began to explore the giant house. There were other spare bedrooms and extravagantly decorated sitting rooms. She came upon one of these rooms and found it completely decked out with monitors and game systems. In here, she found Mimi playing Final Fantasy on a PlayStation.

  Mimi turned around and pursed her lips in embarrassment when she realized that it was Becca. Wordlessly, she turned back around to play her game. Becca didn’t force the encounter, remembering what Nicholas had said about her being a child still in terms of how dragons age. Instead, she moved on to explore other rooms.

  When she found her way to the kitchen, she was not at all surprised to see Jadon there putting on a one man show as he diced and sliced and fanned the kitchen flames with his zeal. He didn’t notice Becca right away, so she decided to come take a seat at one of the prep tables he was using.

  “Bunny!”

  He wiped his hands on a towel as he came around the table to wrap her up in a big hug, lifting her off the floor and spinning her around while she giggled. Jadon kissed both of her cheeks as he set her back down on her feet. “Did you see the video game room?”

  “Yes,” Becca laughed, “Mimi was in there.”

  “She talk to you?”

  “No. I think she was afraid of triggering another panic attack...or just embarrassed about what she did.”

  “Probably just embarrassed,” Jadon conjectured. “If she’s anything like the rest of our family, apologies aren’t really something we’re good at.”

  Becca laughed, “I won’t hold it against her.”

  They both chuckled and Jadon asked her to come taste the Alfredo sauce he was making. He pulled her around the table and dipped his finger into a pot of bubbling white sauce. Smiling deviously, Becca licked it off of his finger, allowing him to insert the whole length into her mouth.