Dragon Within (Book One) Read online

  “Maybe you didn’t do it right.” Trudy sounded disappointed. “Are you sure you didn’t do anything different when you moved those cars?”

  “I’m sure.” I draped my arms over my eyes. “I wanted the wind to blow, it blew. I wanted the cars to move, they moved. Now I want a stupid can to float and I get nothing.”

  “Oh my god,” Trudy said in a breathless whisper.

  “What?” I lifted my arm. “What are you...Whoa.” I sat up. The can was floating along at the end of my bed like it had every right to be defying the laws of gravity and common sense.

  “Wow.” Trudy gazed at the can in awe. “I have always wanted to be able to do that.”

  “But how am I doing it?” I practically wailed. My gaze on the can was not awe filled but terrified. “Oh god, maybe this is like in that movie where that guy got a tumor in his brain and then he could do all this weird stuff but in the end he died.” The can dropped to the floor.

  “Calm down.” Trudy laid a hand on my leg. “You don’t have a tumor in your brain. That’s silly.”

  “Right, because moving things around with your mind is perfectly logical.” Okay, so maybe I was getting a little hysterical, but really, can you blame me? Up until then, I was doing a halfway decent job of convincing myself the other stuff never happened. But I couldn’t find a way of rationalizing a floating can.

  “There are plenty of recorded scientific studies about this kind of ability,” Trudy said. “It’s not dangerous, really. But there’s one thing I don’t understand.”

  “Only one?”

  “Yeah. Like you said, it’s strange you just started doing this stuff. Are you sure nothing like this has ever happened before?”

  “I think I would remember.”

  Trudy nodded. “Then there must have been some kind trigger. But what could it have been?”

  I thought about the guy in the leather jacket. “Is it important?”

  “It might be.”

  I bit my lip. “You remember the guy we saw at the park? The one Kyle said was weird.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Well, I...I think he’s been following me.”

  “What?” Trudy leaned forward. “What makes you think so?”

  “I’m not positive,” I said, “but I think he might have passed us while we were out driving.”

  Trudy’s brow furrowed. “The guy on the motorcycle?”

  I nodded. “And I think I saw him outside the burger shop too. Could he have something to do with what’s happening to me?”

  Trudy shrugged. “I haven’t read all there is to be read on the subject, not even half, and there are so many different theories. So, yeah, I guess he could be responsible, somehow. Anything is possible.”

  I definitely didn’t like the idea of some strange guy messing around with me like that without me even knowing about it. “So how do I get rid of this thing?”

  For the first time during our conversation, Trudy looked at me as if I were crazy. “Why would you want to? It’s awesome.”

  “Awesome? I can’t even control it. What if somebody sees? What if they call the FBI or the people from X-Files, or something? I could end up in some secret underground government lab with mad scientist types dissecting my brain. Does that sound awesome to you?” I would like to repeat at this point that I am not crazy. I’m not a conspiracy theorist, I don’t think big brother is recording my phone calls or reading my brain waves, or whatever. But I was freaking out a little bit and when you get like that your brain starts thinking all sorts of crazy things.

  “That’s a good point,” Trudy said. “So maybe you need to practice it until you can control it. And you probably shouldn’t go telling people about it either.”

  “Don’t worry, this isn’t the sort of thing I want to spread around.” I moaned. “Oh god, this has to be a dream. Any minute now I’ll wake up, I know it. Ouch!” I rubbed my arm where Trudy had pinched me. “What did you do that for?”

  “To prove you aren’t dreaming.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I muttered.

  Trudy put a chunk of chocolate chip cookie dough in her mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully. “Maybe we should try to find motorcycle guy in case he really is responsible for all this somehow.”

  “How we are supposed to do that?”

  “I don’t know.” Her eyes widened. “Oh, maybe Curtis got him on video.”

  It was possible. A guy wearing a leather jacket in a hundred ten degree weather was exactly the sort of odd thing Curtis might video. Though I wasn’t sure how having a video of the guy would help us find him, at least it was something to take my mind off the rest of it.

  “Let’s go ask him.” I hopped off the bed.

  “Won’t he be asleep?”

  “Probably not.” I started toward the door. “He doesn’t sleep much.”

  Trudy stood. “I’m not dressed.”

  I eyed her teddy bear pajamas. “You were wearing less at the park.”

  “Well, yeah, but those were my clothes. Pajamas are like...like underwear. You’re not

  supposed to let a boy see you in them.”

  “Fine. Stay here. I’ll find out about motorcycle guy on my own.” I was about half way past the living room when Trudy caught up to me all wrapped up in my comforter. I shook my head, but didn’t say anything.

  Our house had four bedrooms, two on either side of the kitchen and living room. My room used to be on the other side of the house, but when Curtis came to live with us I moved in next to my parents so he would have a room for his studio. Losing his parents the way he had, in a botched convenience store robbery, had been rough on him. Bad enough to lose your parents, but to watch them gunned down right before your eyes...it was no wonder he didn’t sleep.

  A yellow light shining from under the studio door told us I was right, he was still awake. I knocked. “It’s me and Trudy, can we come in?”

  “Yeah.”

  Curtis sat in front of his laptop going through the footage he’d shot at the park. The room was warm and crowded with equipment, half of which I didn’t even know the name of let alone what it was for. My uncle was a cameraman for a major studio in Hollywood and whenever he could, he used to buy outdated equipment for Curtis.

  “What’s up?” he asked, looking over his shoulder at us. On the screen was the paused image of an elderly couple strolling hand in hand through the park.

  “There was a guy at the park today,” I said, “and we wondered if you might have gotten some video of him. He was a little older than us, maybe nineteen or twenty, dark hair, wearing sunglasses and a black leather jacket.”

  “Oh, yeah, the Fonz.” Curtis started skipping through the images in his camcorder.

  “What?” Trudy asked.

  Curtis glanced over at her and shook his head. “Never mind. Classic TV reference. Ah, here we go.” He tapped the screen. “There he is.” He hit a key and the video start playing in real time.

  Trudy and I crowded in behind his chair. We were seeing the guy from the back as he left the park and walked toward a by now familiar black motorcycle. Or at least, familiar to me. So much for denying it was the same guy.

  “We can’t see his face,” Trudy said.

  “No, but at least now I’m sure he really was following us,” I said.

  She looked over at me. “Following you.”

  Realizing she was probably right sent icy fingers trailing down my spine.

  “Wait a minute,” Curtis said, pausing the video. “Why was this guy following Abby? Who is he?”

  “We don’t know,” Trudy said.

  “So what makes you think he was following her?”

  Trudy and I exchanged a look. I wasn’t really sure how to answer the question. The more people who knew, the more dangerous it was for me. As soon as I had the thought I got angry at myself. Did I really trust my own cousin less than a girl I’d only known a couple of months? Not a chance. Besides, Curtis was more than my cousin by then, he was like a brother.
r />   “I’m going to tell you something,” I said. “It might sound crazy, but I need you to at least try and believe me, okay?”

  Curtis swiveled his chair around to face me. “Okay.”

  So I told him the whole story, from the wind at the park, to me and Trudy deciding motorcycle

  guy might possibly be responsible for, or at least know something about, what was going on.

  When I was done he sat there a minute, as if he were trying to absorb it all. Then he swung around to face the screen again. “So, you want to find this guy so you can ask him some questions?”

  My mouth fell open. “You believe me too, just like that? Why?”

  He gave me a curious look. “Why would you make it up?”

  “Maybe I’m crazy.”

  “Nah,” he shook his head. “You’re not crazy. Of course, if you go telling other people they might not be as understanding. Especially Brandy. No offense, you know I like her, but if you start floating stuff around her you’re liable to wind up on the front page of Scientific America.

  “Trudy’s right. The first think you need to do is talk to this guy. See what he can tell you.”

  “Even if he knows anything, and that’s a big if,” I said, “how am I supposed to find him? We don’t even have a picture of his face, let alone a name or any idea where he came from.”

  Curtis smiled. “I might have an idea.” He moved the mouse over to the motorcycle and then zoomed in. “Voila.” Curtis sat back. “Who needs a face when we have a license plate number?”

  “It’s a California plate,” Trudy said. “Can you find him using it?”

  “Maybe, if the bike is registered to him, isn’t stolen, and that’s the real license plate. I have a friend I can email for help, but I don’t know how long it might take him to get back to us.”

  Trudy sighed. “So what do we do until then? Should we go looking for him tomorrow?”

  “Yeah, hunting this guy down is exactly what I want to do.” I don’t think my sarcasm was lost on either of them.

  “You may not have to,” Curtis said, staring at the back of the guy on the screen. “If he’s been following you around, then maybe he’ll come looking for you.”

  Not exactly a comforting thought.

  CHAPTER THREE

  In case you’re wondering, no, I didn’t get any sleep that night. How could I with so much on my mind? I lay there on my back with Trudy snoring beside me and stared up at the ceiling until about seven, when the beckoning smell of frying bacon finally coaxed me to crawl out of bed and stumble bleary eyed into the kitchen.

  Trudy was entirely too chipper, talking nonstop all through breakfast. I can’t remember what about. I managed to force a plate of crispy bacon and Belgian waffles into my churning stomach, chasing it all down with a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice. What can I say, my mom loved to cook and she was good at it. On a normal day, I probably would have had a second helping, but that day I was doing good to eat the first one.

  Mom didn’t comment on my lack of appetite, she probably figured I’d stayed up too late eating junk food the night before, which might actually have been part of the problem.

  After my parents went to work, me, Trudy, and Curtis hung out for awhile watching TV, ate some lunch, then went outside to sit on the porch. “So,” Trudy asked. “Do we want to drive around to look for motorcycle guy, or not?”

  I thought I had made my feelings on the subject perfectly clear the night before. Obviously not clear enough. “No.”

  “What are you going to do then? Sit around the house waiting for him to come around and knock at your door?”

  Actually, my plan was to hide in my room and hope I never had to see the guy again. Something about him gave me the creeps. “Can’t we forget about it? Pretend it never happened and get on with our lives?”

  “Kind of a hard thing to forget,” Curtis said.

  “Why would you want to forget?” Trudy asked. “This is the most amazing thing that has ever happened to anybody in the whole history of the world.”

  See, and you thought I was being overly dramatic. I looked at Trudy, wondering if she had been paying the least bit of attention to anything I had said the night before. “Easy for you to say. You aren’t the one who has to deal with it.”

  Trudy drew back as if I’d slapped her. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think... I’m just sorry, okay?”

  I sighed. “No, I’m the one who should be sorry. I didn’t mean to jump down your throat. I guess I’m a little freaked out is all.”

  “I’m sure I’d be freaked out too,” she said. “But I don’t think it’s going to go away. I don’t think you can forget it. That’s why you need to find this guy. Because he might be able to help you.”

  “You really think so?”

  “You’ll never know if you don’t find him and ask.”

  She had a point. I stared off down the quiet street. Heat waves shimmered in the air. And I couldn’t help but think how unfair it all was. It was a lazy, late summer day and if I had anything on my mind at all, it should have been nothing more serious than what I planned to wear on the first day of school. Instead, I had to worry I might accidentally levitate something in front of someone and end up the lead story in the next edition of the National Enquirer. It still felt like some kind of dream, or nightmare, even though I knew it wasn’t. It was much too real.

  Trudy’s cell started to ring some upbeat pop song. She answered. “Hello? Oh, hi, mom. Yeah. Uh huh. Okay, I’ll be home in a bit, bye.” She snapped her phone shut. “I guess I better get back to the house.” She stood.

  “Do you want me to drive you?”

  “Maybe we could walk instead. You know, get some exercise.”

  I knew why she really wanted to walk. She was hoping motorcycle guy would show up. But I was too tired and hot to bother with arguing about it. So we left Curtis at home and walked the five blocks to Trudy’s house.

  Motorcycle guy didn’t make an appearance and by the time we stepped into the shade of her front porch, we were both so sweat soaked we looked like we’d just stepped out of the shower, though I’m sure we didn’t smell like it.

  “You want to come in and cool off?” Trudy asked. “There’s some soda in the fridge.”

  “No thanks.” I stepped off the porch. “I don’t want to leave Curtis for too long.” Really, I was kind of tired of her, but I couldn’t tell her that, now could I?

  “Okay. You’ll call me once Curtis hears anything?”

  “Sure.” I sometimes wonder if things might have happened differently if I had stayed. I suppose they would have, but I don’t know if it would have been better or worse.

  I was about halfway home when I heard the rumble of the motorcycle pull up behind me. My heart jumped up in my throat, but I didn’t stop. I wanted to pretend it wasn’t him for as long as possible.

  The engine cut off. “Abigail.”

  My brain screamed run even as I turned around to face him. Somewhere deep inside I knew he was about to change my life and even though part of me wasn’t ready for it, a stronger part was.

  When he pulled off his helmet I couldn’t help but think how cute he was. Hey, don’t roll your eyes at me. Even given the uncertainty of the situation, it’s not the sort of thing a girl could fail to notice.

  “I don’t know you,” I said, keeping a careful distance between us.

  “No, but I know you.” He got off the bike. “My name is Zack.”

  “That’s nice.” I took a step back. “How, exactly, do you know me?”

  “It’s kind of hard to explain,” he said. “You might not believe me and I don’t want to scare you.”

  “Here’s a tip,” I said, “if you don’t want to scare a girl you’ve never met, you might want to rethink following her around like some kind of stalker. Explain yourself right now, or I swear I’ll run screaming to the nearest house and call the cops.”

  He gazed thoughtfully at me for a long moment, then asked, “Do you know wha
t a dragon is?”

  How do you like that for a question? I blinked, entirely bewildered at the bizarre turn in the conversation. “You mean like in the movies? Those flying lizards that breath fire and stuff?”

  “Yes,” he said, “but then again, no. The movies have it wrong. They distort the truth.”

  “What truth?” I was starting to wonder if this guy had a few screws loose. “Why are we talking about dragons? What has that got to do with why you’re following me?”

  “It has everything to do with it. With you. With me. Dragons were real, Abigail. They still are. And two of them happen to be standing on this sidewalk right now.”

  I stared at him in open mouthed shock, wondering if maybe he was on something and seeing

  things. Then I realized what he meant and I laughed out loud. “Are you telling me that you’re a dragon? That I’m a dragon? Well, that’s really nice and all, but I don’t think my parents would want me talking to a crazy person, so I’ll be going now.” Only I didn’t go. Maybe because that little part of me buried deep inside believed him.

  “I know how it sounds,” he said. “But it’s true.”

  “So prove it.” I crossed my arms and stared at him, not sure whether it would be worse if he could prove it or if he couldn’t.

  “How?”

  I said the first thing that popped into my mind. “Breath fire.”

  “Breathe fire?”

  “Yeah. That’s what dragons do, right? So do it.”

  “I can’t breathe fire.”

  Finally, a little sanity. Though I can’t deny I was a little disappointed. I let my arms drop to my sides. “Of course you can’t breathe fire. You are not a dragon.”

  “Dragons don’t breath fire,” he said. “Fire dragons can manipulate it, that’s where the myth comes from, but they can’t breathe it. I’m not a fire dragon anyway, I’m a water dragon.”

  “Sure you are.” I decided then it was time to go. This whole thing was getting a little too weird. I turned and started to walk away.

  “What do I have to do to prove it to you?” he called after me.

  “Sprout wings and fly,” I said over my shoulder, laughing to myself at the idea. Then it started to snow. Snow. In Arizona. In August. In triple digit weather. Oh, and did I mention it was only snowing on me?