Page 17

“You’re both on your last warning,” Adella says. “Next time, the punishment will be exile.”

Day and Legend nod, looking down at the ground. Meanwhile, my heart is in my throat. My mind is struggling to comprehend what the fuck they’re talking about. Punishment? It sounds like the guys were in some kind of trouble with Adella. It almost sounds like she made them become my mentors. Something cold and hard claws at my chest. Betrayal. I step on a twig. Legend spins around, his senses sharp.

“Ash?” he says.

“What’s going on?” I ask.

“We were just talking,” Day says.

Guilt is written all over his face. He’s too much of an open book to hide anything from me. Unwanted tears prick at my eyes. I dash them away.

“You guys were ordered to track me down?” I ask. “You were told to… to do everything that we did together?”

“Ash, its not what you think,” Legend stutters.

That’s the best he’s got? No one ever says that when they’re in the right. I’ve heard enough. I turn and run from the party, the dragons. My dragons. I’m sobbing as I run. Tears stream down behind the glasses I always wear now, because Day and Legend like them. I’m a fucking fool. I was falling in love with them. Hoped they were falling in love with me, too. But I was nothing to them. Just a way to get back on their boss’s good side. A convenient thing to use. They must’ve laughed so hard at how much I begged for them, thinking what we had was real.

When will I learn? I have no one. I’ve never had anyone, not since that day in middle school. Then Day and Legend found me. They’re the same as me. They should understand. I thought they really cared. Looks like I was wrong. Even fellow dragons don’t want me. I’m alone again and it hurts so much more because for once in my life, I had hope.

Chapter 6

Over the next couple of days the dragons blow up my phone, begging for forgiveness. Begging to explain themselves. But there’s no explanation good enough. I leave them on read. It kills me, but I have to be strong now. I’ve been alone before. I can do it again. It’s time to move on with my life, the sooner the better. I might not have real friends, but at least I have acquaintances. Work buddies. The kind of people who’ll ask me to go out to pad out the numbers. Which is how I find myself at a full-contact haunted house “experience” on Halloween night. All I wanted to do was lie in bed and eat ice cream and cry about my dragons. Pathetic. They’ve probably forgotten all about me. So I do what any self-respecting baby dragon would do. I dry my tears, get dressed, and get my ass down to the haunted house to enjoy Halloween. Or at least make a decent pretense of enjoying it.

Try as I might, I’m not feeling the schlocky special effects and jump scares. Dry ice can’t impress me after seeing the real smoke that billows from Legend and Day’s dragon snouts. The scare actors have their work cut out for them, trying to get me in the Halloween mood tonight. My workmates are into it, though. They squeal and grab each other as zombies, ghosts and film characters jump out at us. There’s a huge commotion as one of the lawyers is lifted right up and carried off over a vampire’s shoulder for “bloodletting”. My ears are more sensitive since I got in touch with my dragon side. Her screams almost pierce my eardrums. I glance surreptitiously at my watch. How soon can I politely leave? While still telling myself I’m getting out there instead of moping over my dragons?

We go deeper into the haunted house. It gets darker. Hands grab at us from the blackness. Actors snicker and make ghostly noises. Low music hums from hidden speakers, a melancholy and eerie tune. Nothing happens for a long time, and the tension is much creepier than constant action. A chill creeps up my spine. The atmosphere is genuinely getting to me now. Then something grabs my waist. My heart jolts almost out of my chest. I force myself not to elbow some poor scare actor in the face. I’m hoisted up over a strong shoulder. Sigh. Are they capturing me too? I’m really not in the mood for this nonsense. But the actor is only doing his job. I let out a few screams, playing along. He’s really strong, carrying me like a kitten. He takes me back through the lighter rooms. Other visitors point at me and make oooh noises, like I’m in big trouble now. I’m carried right outside the haunted house. The actor heads down the street, walking steadily. He turns a corner, onto another street with large, far-spaced houses. There are carved pumpkins on the porches and fake spiderwebs plastered over the doorways. He hasn’t said a word to me yet. I start to get a little nervous. Is he supposed to take me this far away? I tap the mountainous shoulder under me.

“Er, where are we going?” I ask meekly.

“Home,” he says. “We need to talk.”

Fuck, it’s Legend. My treacherous heart swoops with happiness. I should bash his back with my fists and yell at him, but all I can do is take deep breaths, longing for his scent. Why didn’t I smell him as soon as he picked me up?

“How’d you hide your scent?” I demand.

“Scent-suppressant so I could sneak up on you. Smart, right?”

I huff, refusing to act impressed.

“Put me down right now,” I say. “I was in the middle of a night out. You can’t just kidnap me!”

A dark shape leaps out from behind a shrub in someone’s yard.

“It’s not kidnapping, bro,” says the shape.

For fuck’s sake. Day. He scared the shit out of me.

“So what is it?” I say.

“An intervention,” Legend says.

He sets me on the ground and pulls down his dark hood. A streetlight gives me enough light to see my dragons fairly clearly. Legend looks tired and morose. Day’s hair is messy, like he couldn’t be bothered to style it for once. Are they as depressed without me as I am without them?

“You two stalked me again?” I say. “You really need to get help with that habit.”

“Tell you what, we’ll do that when you face your issues,” Legend says.

“Which are?” I snap.