Dragon Lost

by Lisa Manifold

  “Can we trust anyone?”

  “True,” Margrite said. “Outside of each other.”

  “What do I do? He wants to show up here. I don’t have a good feeling about him anymore. I can’t get a handle on who—or what—this is! Why the hell is someone in my head?” I was so frustrated.

  She tapped her lip. “That’s weird. You didn’t feel bad about him before.”

  While I couldn’t have stopped my outburst, I’m glad she ignored my bitching.

  “Yeah, something has changed. But let’s not talk about that for a minute. We have bigger problems.”

  “Like the fact you got knocked on your ass?”

  “Yes. What happened there? You said it was like seeing me get hit by lightning? What does that even mean?”

  She sighed. “So, we’re moving forward, and I think you’d just hit the gas, and then as soon as we went past the sign, there was a blue flash and you fell off the bike and we went over.”

  “More of shit that’s weird,” I said. “I don’t remember any of that.”

  “Did you hear the voice? Anything?”

  I shook my head. “Nope. I was thinking about how finally we were the hell out of here,” I shot her a rueful grin, “And that’s the last thing I remember.”

  Margrite had an odd expression on her face. “I think we should try again.”

  “What do you mean? I’ve been out for nearly two days! I don’t want to do that again!”

  “No, I think we should go to where the sign is, and try it again.”

  “You think the sign is what did it? Did you hit your head?” This made no sense to me.

  “You have a better idea?” Margrite shot back. “Because as the only person who was conscious, that’s the only thing I see that might have done it. Maybe I’m wrong. I might be. That’s fine. I can admit it. I don’t have to be right all the time, like some of us,” she rolled her eyes toward the ceiling. “But if I’m wrong, you’ll be able to walk past the sign, and no biggie. It was a freak accident. We redo our flights and get going.”

  “I don’t know. What if it happens again? Like when we’re on the plane, or whatever?”

  “Then we deal with it. First thing is to rule out that it was the place we were in. Then we try something different.”

  Listening to her discuss this crazy stuff with logic calmed me. This was how we’d approached nearly everything since being on our own. Look at all the angles and decide what made the most sense. That’s how you survived. Too much emotion, or anything, and you were just waiting for a screw-up. I took a deep breath and forced my mind into the consideration phase.

  Margrite was right. We had to start eliminating what might have caused my accident. Once we’d whittled down what hadn’t, that would tell us what had.

  “Can you get back here again?”

  “It’ll be better now that I’m prepared,” she said. “You walk past it. If you fall down, then I drag you back. I won’t have to deal with a bike trying to kill me.”

  “Let’s do it tonight,” I said. “Can I nap some more?”

  “Why not now?”

  “I don’t want to be all out in the open. It makes me less nervous if we go at night. I don’t feel like myself,” I added. Which was pretty much the understatement of the year. If not the century.

  She looked at me and then sighed. “All right, control freak. Go back to sleep. I’ll get you up later.”

  I didn’t feel good about this. About any of it. It was logical, it made sense. But it felt like shit.

  But as much as I didn’t want to admit it, this was the best plan we had. We needed to figure out whether this whatever would happen again. I mean, we could just ignore it, but that wasn’t my way. It never made anything better.

  I was so used to shit going off the rails that I preferred to just roll on through the shit and clean up on the other side.

  In other words, same shit different day.

  I closed my eyes. I might as well take advantage of the time to sleep. I thought about the door I’d shut in my head earlier. I focused on making sure it was closed and then allowed myself to relax.

  I floated in a darkness. I’d never felt so calm, so easy. My life was a matter of trading one set of adrenaline for another. I’d do a job, and then keep my head down, stash money for getting the hell out of here, and then do another job. That was it.

  Here, in the darkness, it was nothing. Nothing was peaceful.

  The darkness exploded in my head like fireworks, and the voice was back.

  Aodan! Do not shut me out.

  Oh. It was the angry voice. It made me sigh. This side of the guy took a lot of energy.

  What?

  Where are you? I need to come to you.

  Not now.

  It must be now.

  Then it must not need to happen, I thought.

  Silence, as though he was considering what to say next.

  That’s right, asshole. Think carefully. I’m not a stupid kid to be impressed with a firm tone. That ship sailed.

  It does need to happen. I need to see you, and we must speak. I can tell you your history, of your parents—and what you are born to.

  You can’t tell me now?

  No.

  Then we have nothing to say. Go away. I’m busy.

  I envisioned shoving a rich guy (because this guy reminded me of bossy rich guys who occasionally showed up in our part of town) through a door and locking it behind him. I didn’t have time for this crap right now.

  I forced myself to ignore what I knew was somewhere in my head. After a while, I felt myself begin to slip into sleep.

  Then Margrite was shaking me. “It’s time to get up.”

  I looked at her, my eyes bleary. I rubbed them, feeling the burn of being tired. “Already?”

  “Sorry, Sleeping Beauty,” she said. “Come on. I have our stuff all ready to go.”

  “You think we’ll make it out of here?”

  “If we do, we’re done.”

  I nodded, and got up, taking time to brush my teeth, and ignore the noise in my head. It was like white noise, except it was annoying white noise. He was there, on the other side of my mental door, and he was pissed.

  Tough shit. I had things to do, and I didn’t care for the fact that he didn’t respect that. I wondered what had changed. He’d been nicer at first. Still formal, like he had a stick up his ass, but not as impatient as now.

  I could feel the mean streak in him.

  Which made my level of unease intensify. Why had all this happened with me right as voices started camping in my head? Logically, they were not connected, but somehow, I knew they were. If I’d been a dragon all my life, why did the dragon come out just as I discovered people—one person, really, with dueling personalities—in my thoughts.

  It made me all kinds of nervous that I couldn’t figure out why.

  I finished packing my stuff. Margrite was waiting by the door.

  “You ready?” She asked.

  I nodded. She headed out to the bike and as we got on, stowing our stuff like we had before, I had a sense of déjà vu. But I had my fingers crossed this would go the way it was supposed to, and we’d finally be out of here.

  I drove up to where we were before, next to the city limits sign. Parking the bike on the side of the road where it wasn’t easily visible, I got off and turned to Margrite.

  “Can you get this thing out of here if you need to?”

  She nodded. “I’ll move it and then get you on. Unfortunately, I have practice dragging your ass around.”

  I smiled, but there was no humor in it. What was it that Nala had said? That she felt the reading was important somehow, but she didn’t know how? That’s how I felt now. This was an important moment, but I wasn’t sure how. I just knew it was. Was the reading trying to tell me that?

  Oh, no. I stopped myself and focused on the task in front of me.

  “All right. I’m just going to walk over and try to get past the sign.”

&nbs
p; She nodded again. I could tell that she was nervous. So was I.

  I carefully stopped well before I hit the place where the sign was next to the road. Took a couple of deep breaths and then started walking. This time, now that I wasn’t on the bike, I guess, I could tell that something was going on. A tingle, or a feeling like your skin itching from the inside, started in my arms. Then it spread to my body, and my face.

  This was different.

  I might not have noticed this before because I was on the bike.

  As I made to pass the limits sign, I saw a flash, and then everything went black.

  Like before, but with less pain.

  But I couldn’t stop my fall into the darkness, or the fact that I couldn’t keep myself aware.

  I only hoped that Margrite was up for it.

  9

  When I woke, I didn’t open my eyes immediately. I tried to take stock of where I was, what I was.

  I listened in my head, and like before, I could hear the muttering of voices behind the closed door. I was thankful that whatever had happened, I’d managed to keep the door closed.

  There was something or someone moving around near me—I could hear the shuffling. It didn’t smell good, either. But then, nothing had smelled really all that good to me since the first time I changed into a dragon. So that didn’t mean much.

  It didn’t feel like anything was broken, or anything else, so I opened my eyes. The intensity of the sun in the room, the dust motes floating in the sunlight, the sharpness of the corners of the dresser at the end of where I was—presumably in a bed—struck me.

  “Margrite?” I whispered. My voice had the dragon rumble.

  She appeared from the bathroom—we were back in the same ratty motel.

  “Aodan?”

  I could hear the worry and the fear in her voice.

  That sucked. Big, huge, hairy suckness.

  “Yes,” I said.

  She came closer, a hand out. I don’t think she realized she’d put it out there.

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Should I say I feel a little dragon-y?” I asked, the rumble more apparent.

  “Yes, I think that would be an accurate description,” Margrite answered.

  “What happened?”

  “You put one foot beyond the sign, and there was some kind of spark, and you fell down. I was able to get you back here, but things were different this time. It was like your body was humming, and I broke every speeding law to get you home. Good thing, too. You changed about five minutes after we got here.”

  Because it was safe, the nicer voice said in my head.

  Jesus. No rest from this guy.

  Really? Me passing out again and changing? That’s safe?

  It would have been better in the open?

  It would have been better if I didn’t pass out and lose all control! My irritation and anger spilled out.

  We don’t change out in the open if there is a danger, the voice said. While the words were stern, the tone was not.

  What was going on with the Jekyll-Hyde impression this guy did? First, he was all right, then he was a douche, and now he was all right again.

  We need to meet, the voice said. Then I can help you.

  Help me how? Why can’t you help me now? I found this insistence off putting. To say the least. Things were too unsettled, too out of my normal for me to feel good about adding one more thing to the weird shit happening folder.

  Because this is not the easiest thing to do this way. It will be easier and there will be less chance of misunderstanding if we can meet.

  I didn’t respond, doing my damnedest to keep my mind blank. All right, I thought, feeling myself sigh. Then let’s meet.

  I’d work it out with Margrite. She had even more suspicion than I did, so I’d work out… well, I didn’t know what, but I’d work out some kind of plan with her so that I didn’t end up screwed.

  That’s good, the voice said. I will be able to help you with the transition, and then we can speak of how—

  How I got this fucked up? I thought before I could help myself.

  What do you mean?

  The question came after a moment of silence.

  I mean this is not normal! I’m a dragon! When does that happen, except in books where magic is real?

  How do you know it’s not?

  What the hell are you talking about? I was getting irritated.

  Magic. How do you know it’s not real?

  Well, why wouldn’t it be? I rolled my eyes even though I knew he couldn’t see me. Because what the hell? I’m a dragon, after all.

  Is this the first time you’ve been aware of this?

  What?

  When did you first shift? This is the first time since your birth I’ve been able to contact you, but that doesn’t mean your dragon hasn’t woken before.

  No, this is it, I thought.

  “Hey,” Margrite said.

  She had a look of concern on her face. That wasn’t good. She usually kept that shit to herself.

  “What?”

  “What are you doing?”

  I frowned. “What do you mean?” I swear, I couldn’t turn around without interrogation headed my way.

  “Is he talking to you?” The look of concern increased.

  Oh. “Well, yeah. He is. He really wants to meet.”

  Now she frowned. “How do you feel about that?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t feel good about any of this. What the fuck, M? As soon as we get all of it together, and we’re ready to leave, this happens? Doesn’t that seem a little too coincidental for you?”

  “I don’t think it’s coincidental at all.”

  “How so?”

  “I think this is supposed to be happening. When did you notice that you were feeling different?”

  I remembered I hadn’t told her about when the weirdness began. “When I was stealing the box thing.”

  She nodded. “What did you feel?”

  “My nose was itching like crazy, and I wanted to sneeze, and my throat was scratchy. I…” I stopped. This part was too weird.

  “What?”

  “Smoke came out when I let out a breath.”

  Her eyebrows rose. “Has that happened before?”

  “No!”

  “Calm down, touchy. I’m trying to pinpoint things. This goes along with Nala’s reading.”

  I threw up my hands. “Great! I have Jekyll-Hyde in my head, insisting on getting together like a stalker date, and you’re trying to pin me into woo-woo land! Not sure things could get worse!”

  Margrite stared at me for a moment and then burst into laughter. After a moment, she reached out and patted my hand. “I realize that this is tough on you. You’re wound so tight, I’m surprised you haven’t imploded. I get it, you know I do. You grow up in a shit show, then things went all right, and then they went to hell. So you want to control everything you can. And now you have this big, dragon-sized thing you can’t control.” She stopped because she laughed again.

  “So glad I’m here to provide the comedy.” I crossed my arms and stared over her head.

  “I’m sorry! I’m not trying to piss you off, and I’m not lying when I say a lot of these things scare the shit out of me, but that this happened to you, the most anal retentively controlled person I have ever met, is funny. Come on, Aodan,” she said, smiling. “Don’t be mad. We have to maintain some kind of sense of humor or we’ll kill ourselves with the weight of it all. Does the voice seem more… normal?”

  “You mean he’s not being a douchebag? Yeah, he’s nicer. If you promise not to laugh for two minutes, I’ll admit that he gives me the creeps when he’s in his do it now or shit will rain down on you in doom mode,” I said.

  “I can’t figure it out,” she said. “I’ve been going over and over it, everything you’ve told me, and there’s no reason for him to be a dick. So something is setting him off—but what is it?”

  “Do we care?” I asked.


  “I do. He doesn’t spare you from his dick self.”

  “True,” I agreed.

  “So are you really going to meet him?”

  “I think I need to,” I said slowly. “I wanted to talk to you, try to set things up so you can get me out of there if things go bad,” I added. I hated admitting that because she was right. I liked my control. That was one thing the tarot reading got right. I was the Emperor. My domain was small, but it was mine.

  “If you’re a dragon,” Margrite said, “I’m not sure I can get you anywhere.”

  I didn’t reply right away. It was so surreal to hear her say that like it was no big deal, part of daily business.

  I supposed it was. I was a dragon at times although I didn’t seem to have any control over it. At the moment, I couldn’t even remember what happened when the shifting occurred. But there was no changing the fact that this was happening. Maybe it was a good thing that Margrite was accepting this as part of our normal.

  But it wasn’t. And I didn’t understand it. And no one would give me any info without a big effort and risk on my side of things. Which made me nervous, and extremely suspicious of my weirdo voice buddy.

  “I wish that I could remember something—anything—that happened when I change,” I said. I hated that I felt whiny.

  Margrite shrugged. “Shit happens, Aodan. I know, I know,” she waved a hand at me. “It doesn’t happen to you. You plan for all things, blah, blah, blah. But you can’t plan for everything. I think you need to talk to the voice.”

  “What do you mean? You give me shit when I do,” I jumped in.

  “No, stupid. Ask him how you are supposed to get a handle on this. Explain, without getting all up in it, how this doesn’t fly in your world.”

  It wasn’t a bad idea. He wasn’t willing to tell me anything about me, or my parents—the thought of my mom brought a pang as it usually did. It’s why I didn’t think of her much. It was easy to put her aside because according to my foster parents, and all the guardians that supposedly oversaw my early crappy foster parents my mom had been a drug addict, and no mention of who my father was. Tina hadn’t said that, but Tina wasn’t the same as the rest of my foster parents.