CHAPTER 10

“Everything looks good, Dawn. We’re going to take out these outer stitches. The ones on the inside should have already dissolved on their own by now.”

“Will I be able to wash my hair now?” she asked.

“Yes. You can do whatever you like, except shift. I know it has been a while, but you’ll need to stay away from that for at least a couple more weeks.”

“I thought I was okay to shift once the stitches dissolved?”

“It’s just a precaution. The wound is healed, but you are still at risk of splitting it open with too much pressure on it.”

“It’s been weeks! Wouldn’t my dragon healing make it get better faster?”

“Yes, but as I told you before, you might split it open before its healed. It’s just like if you break a bone and it heals before they can set it properly. We have to rebreak it to fix it. I don’t want to have to put you back on a table to repair unnecessary damage.”

“Fine.”

“Good girl,” he told her.

Dawn sat still as he pulled each stitch from her head. The hair around them had begun to grow back, and he accidentally pulled at a couple of them as he did so, but she refrained from flinching as her father stood by watching until he was done.

“All right, that should do it,” he told her.

“Does she need to come back?”

“Not anytime soon, unless there are any issues. Any continuous headaches, blurred vision – the things you’ve already been warned to watch out for. If nothing comes up, I’ll just need her back her in six weeks for a follow-up scan to clear her completely.”

“Sounds good,” her father said as she hopped up from the table.

“I can wash my hair now, right?” she asked hopefully.

“Yes, you can wash your hair,” the doctor replied.

They both thanked him and made their way out to the hallway where they encountered Liam and his father. Dawn smiled at him as they approached.

“How’s our girl?” Mr. Donnelly asked.

“She’s good. Clean bill of health.”

“That’s good to hear. Had us all very worried for a while there,” he said.

“I imagine so,” he replied. “Owen, I need to talk to you for a bit.”

“Sure. Let me get Dawn home, and I’ll come back.”

“I really need it to be now. It’s pretty urgent.”

“I’ll take her home, Mr. McCord,” Liam told him.

“Are you sure, Liam?”

“Of course. I was coming to your house anyway.”

“You were?”

“Yeah. Dawn and I both still have homework to catch on. We were supposed to do it together. Plus, I hear that Mrs. McCord is making a big pot roast with all the sides.”

“Well, if you are coming over to eat, I sure hope it’s big.”

“I know. He can eat his weight in food. I feel like I should write you a check for his meal,” Mr. Donnelly laughed.

“Could you?” Dawn’s father said as if he were serious.

“Dad!” Dawn protested. “Come on, Liam. Let’s go.”

There were chuckles behind them as they made their way from the underground hospital and up through the council building to the outside. Liam opened the door for Dawn and waited for her to sit down inside before closing the door and making his way around to the other side.

“I wonder what your father wants with mine?” she said as he got in and started the car.

“I don’t know if I should tell you this, but Harlan died.”

“What?” Dawn said, feeling a sharp pain in her chest.

“I’m sorry, Dawn. I know you feel bad about what happened to him, but there was nothing they could do for him. He just stopped responding and drifted away, Dad told me.”

“What happens now? Will they do anything to Tommy for what he did to him?”

“I don’t know. I think that is what my father wants to talk to yours about.”

Dawn felt very sad that Harlan was gone. She had been too late and couldn’t save him from what had happened to him. If only he had spoken up, had told someone or maybe if she had known him better, she would have touched his hand or brushed past him closely enough to pick up on what was happening to him before it was too late.

“Do you think he is what caused your brain to bleed?”

“What?” she replied, jolted from her thoughts

“Your father told me that you wouldn’t let go of him. He said you tried to heal him and wouldn’t let go even though it was draining you.”

“Since when do you and my father talk at length about anything?”

“We had some time to kill,” Liam said.

Dawn glanced over at him. She could both see and feel the sadness that washed over him as he thought about how helpless he had been while she was sick – the fear that had gone through him as he ran across the meadow with her unconscious and convulsing body in his arms.

He had been too afraid to try to shift because he couldn’t hold on to her without doing more damage if forced to put her on his back or carry her in his talons. Instead, he had run until he could hardly run any further, beating on the door of a house and begging them to help him as tears streamed down his face. It wasn’t like Liam to be so emotional, but he had been, and it wouldn’t be the last time.

His thoughts ravaged through her brain in quick succession. Nights crying outside her room, breaking down in his bed at night. He had been more devastated than she had imagined. It was something she hadn’t seen, even since coming home. He had hidden it from her, something he seemed to be getting better at as time passed.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’ve only healed one other person before, and nothing bad happened.”

“What? Who?”

She had never told him about Penelope. It was a faint memory from her childhood, one that had opened the door for Kergot to reach out to her and help her understand her special gifts. He possessed only a fraction of what she did, but he understood more than anyone else possibly could.

“Penelope. Before she and Kergot came here, she had been poisoned by a witch in Scotland. It had taken her ability to fly and her ability to have children. I could feel their sadness. I didn’t know if I could heal her. Before that, I had only saved an animal by chance. I had found him by the road and picked him up, only to find him hopping away moments later.”

“And you healed her of the poison?”

“Yes.”

“How?”

“I don’t know. It just happens. I can feel a sort of surge that leaves my body and joins theirs. Then, they are just better. At least, Penelope was. It was just some sort of poison that caused her system to attack itself, taking away her body’s ability to change in any way outside it’s normal aging process. So, it took away her ability to fly and to have children.”

“And did you get sick when you healed her?”

“Not really. I felt a bit weak, but that was all.”

“Perhaps it has to do with the nature of the illness or how long you held on to him.”

“Maybe. Even Kergot isn’t sure about how it works. No one has ever had healing powers before, as far as anyone knows.”

“Leave it to you to be the first.”

“You’d be bored with me if I were normal.”

“Never,” he said.

Liam smiled over at her as he pulled into her driveway and parked the car. He grabbed his bookbag from the back and made his way inside. The smell of pot roast filled the house, but her mother was nowhere to be found. Stepping into the kitchen, Dawn saw that she had put it in the slow cooker and left a note that she would be back in a few hours.

“Looks like Mom has gone shopping with Aunt Barb. We have the place to ourselves for a while.”

“Probably not for long. Your dad will most likely be right behind us.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Listen, before we start homework, do you mind if I take a shower? My hair is about to itch off my head, and I really want to wash it right now.”

“Sure, go ahead. I’ll get our stuff spread out on the table while you do that,” he told her.

It felt weird to take a shower while she had a guy in the house, even if it was Liam, but she was really at the end of her rope with how greasy her hair felt. Climbing the stairs, she made her way into the shower. It felt heavenly to be able to just stand under the water and let the warmth hit her. It felt even better to finally have clean hair.

Stepping out, she noticed her phone was vibrating on the counter top and picked it up. It was her father telling her that he would be a couple of hours and asking if she was okay. She replied that she was just fine and that Liam was still here with her to do homework together. Her father trusted Liam, despite his admonishments that might seem contrary to that at times.

Pulling on a tank top and some clean jeans, she made her way back downstairs to where Liam sat in the kitchen. They began to do their homework, knocking a good bit of it out in a matter of little more than an hour.

“You want to take a break? My head is beginning to hurt a bit.”

“Why is your head hurting?” Liam asked anxiously.

“Don’t worry, just a little headache from concentrating on the tiny words in that literature book,” she groaned.

“Want to watch TV?”

“Maybe. I just want to lie down for a bit, I think.”

“Okay. I’ll go.”

“No. Don’t go. We still have work to do, and you are supposed to stay for dinner.”

Liam nodded, getting up from the table and following her to the living room. They curled up with one another on the sofa and began watching reruns of an old nineties sitcom. Before Dawn realized it, she had drifted off to sleep in his arms, no doubt a result of her lack of sleep the night before. When she awoke, she found that Liam had fallen asleep as well.

She admired his face, the sharp contour of his jawline, and his full lips. He was so handsome. Dawn had seen the way some of the girls looked at him at school, how they tried to flirt with him or get his attention, but he seemed completely disinterested in them. He was devoted to her in a way most of them envied, and that was one more of the reasons he was her only close friend.

“Are you watching me sleep?” he said, one eye opening unexpectedly.

“Maybe.”

“Why?”

“Why not?”

“You can be so weird at times, Dawn.”

“Is that such a bad thing?”

“No. It’s kind of adorable.”

She smiled down at him, surprised as he reached upward and tangled his fingers in her hair, pulling her toward him. His lips met hers in the softest of kisses.