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The Lee I remember wasn’t angry. Not until that last day. Not until I said I wasn’t ready for marriage. Not until the day he left. He thought I was saying that I didn’t love him, but that wasn’t it at all. I was scared. Afraid. I was just a kid. 19 might be old enough to get married legally, but my heart? My heart was still so terrified at the idea of committing to something so big.
Maybe I was wrong.
Obviously, I was wrong.
And now he’s here.
And now he’s gone.
I stare at the door, watching the space where he left. For awhile, I let myself wonder what my life would be like if I hadn’t gotten swept up in an evil organization. What would things be like if Lee and I had stayed together? If I had been braver? Bolder? If I had been more clear as to what I needed or wanted or was able to give, maybe things would have been different than they are today.
Maybe he wouldn’t have walked in here, taken one look at me, and decided that I wasn’t worth his time or energy.
Today, in Lee’s eyes, I wasn’t even worth a smile.
Finally, I take a deep breath and start stocking the shelves. They aren’t going to stock themselves, and by my calculations, I only have twenty minutes until the bakers come back from their lunch break. They aren’t going to want to talk to me, either, so I might as well finish up my work as quickly as possible. Then I can go back to being invisible.
At this point, I’m able to complete tasks easily. I’ve been here long enough that things like placing flour in the right bins, washing the measuring cups, and even organizing the recipes for each type of product is simple. I’m able to do almost everything by muscle memory.
I’m almost finished when I hear the bell ring above the door again. For a brief second, I let myself believe that it’s him, that he’s come back to talk to me. Does he want to clear the air between us? Does he want to apologize for how he acted a few minutes ago?
Maybe he walked out of the bakery and started thinking about me.
Maybe he remembered all of the fun we had together.
Our relationship ended poorly, yeah, but maybe time does heal some wounds. Maybe Lee is ready to talk about how things ended between us. We’ve both grown up and moved on. We should be able to talk like adults, right?
“Just a second,” I call out. “I’ll be right there.” I wipe my hands on my apron and take a quick glance in the little mirror on the wall. I’m convinced it’s only there so we can make sure we don’t have flour on our noses before talking to customers, which happens more often than I care to admit. I take a second and look at my hair, my face, my skin. Once I’m satisfied that I’m flour-free, I paste a smile on my face, and I head out of the storage room.
When I enter the front room of the bakery, though, it’s not him. It’s not Lee. It’s someone else.
Something else.
It’s not a dragon.
I can tell by the man’s shifty eyes that he’s not human, but he’s not from here, either. He’s not a member of the dragon clan. I don’t claim to know each dragon that lives here, but I know most of them. I can definitely recognize dragons by their mannerisms. At this point, the idea of people not being able to tell dragons and humans apart seems foreign to me.It’s like when you have friends who are twins and their differences seem obvious to you, but others can’t tell them apart. I can’t pinpoint exactly what makes a dragon shifter a dragon shifter. They just...they’re just them.
“Can I help you?” I manage to ask, but it’s obvious that this man isn’t here for food. Not for muffins, anyway. Not for pastries. He snarls, just a little, and he doesn’t take his eyes off of me. He’s staring at me like he’s hungry or angry.
Maybe both.
He doesn’t say anything. Instead, he breathes in loudly, dramatically. His shoulders fill the space in the doorway, blocking the exit. No one else can come in. No one else can go
out. He’s got my full attention.
“Did you want to place an order?” I ask quietly, but I already know that he doesn’t. He sneers, narrowing his eyes, and I realize that I won’t be going back to Henrietta’s at the end of my shift. I won’t have the chance to say goodbye, or to thank her for letting me live with her for these past months. I won’t have the chance to pack up my stuff, or clean out my room, or see Lee again.
This man isn’t going to let me go. He’s not about to let me leave the bakery, and I’m all alone. The other bakers are still on their lunch break. Lee won’t be coming back to check on me. No one else has any interest in stopping by the shop while I’m the only one here.
The problem is that right now, I don’t really care about any of that.
I don’t have the energy to be afraid.
I’m too damn tired.
Three months I’ve lived with the dragons. Three months since they caught me and refused to release me. I’m not exactly a prisoner, but I’m not exactly free to go, either. My “new job” at Lucky wasn’t the great world-saving opportunity I thought it would be. Instead, it was a cover for a company dedicated not to saving dragons, but to hunting them. When I went with my colleague, Bernie, on a dragon hunting trip, I thought we were going to rescue sick dragons.
I thought we were going to give them Dragon-X.
