CHAPTER 4

School the following day brought about some very odd events. Dawn arrived to find everyone being gathered up and pushed into a nearby room by the instructors. At the other end of the hall, she could see some sort of commotion with the dragon guard gathered in what looked like riot gear. It was unusual, to say the least. They rarely needed to rely on modern contraptions to do their jobs. She headed down the corridor to see what was happening.

“Dawn, no. Get back here,” Penelope, one of the school’s headmasters, hissed in her direction.

Dawn ignored her, continuing on down the hallway until she arrived behind the dragon guards.

“Dawn, what are you doing down here? Get back to safety with the others!” her Uncle Connor barked at her. Dawn pretended she hadn’t heard, instead slipping between two guards and looking around for her father. She found him standing at the front of the semi-circle that had formed around a young shifter she knew from one of her classes. His name was Harlan Bonner, though everyone called him Dirt, a cruel nod to the bland, earthy color of his dragon.

Many of the other kids picked on Dirt because he was much smaller and weaker than other shifters his age. He always lost in contests, often not even trying. He rarely spoke to the other kids, and when he did, he tended to stammer. Dawn slipped to the front of the guards for a moment before being pushed back behind one of them in a protective gesture. She peered out from behind him to see what was happening.

“Harlan, let’s talk about this,” Dawn’s father was saying.

Dawn could see around him only enough to see something was wrong. Harlan was not shifted, but he seemed to not be alone. She slipped further to the side to see that he had his arm locked around the throat of another shifter, Tommy Barton. In his other hand was a long shard of glass that appeared to be from a mirror, though she could not see one broken anywhere in sight. She focused in on Harlan, wiggling a bit to get closer to him and away from the thoughts of others.

“He he he sta sta…” Dirt said, struggling to get something out.

“Okay. I get that. I do. He started it, but this is no way to end it. Don’t ruin your life over a misunderstanding.”

Dawn felt a sense of horror rising in her chest as she realized something was terribly wrong with him. Something far worse than just a rage at being picked on by the school bully. This was far worse. She looked around, finding Kergot on the other side of the semi-circle. Her mind spoke to his, making him understand what he couldn’t see just from reading Dirt’s horribly jumbled thoughts. His eyes widened and he nodded quietly before speaking.

“Tommy, I want you to listen to me. Do not move when I approach; do not call out. Just stay very still.”

“What? No,” Owen said sternly, looking in Kergot’s direction.

Kergot merely nodded at him, drawing his eyes away from the scene in front of him and toward the other side of the semi-circle. Owen noted Dawn was partially hidden behind one of the guards and pursed his lips angrily, but remained silent as he waited to see what she had seen. Unlike Kergot, Dawn was not able to project her thoughts to anyone other than Liam, but she could read Kergot’s thoughts, and because of his gift, he could read hers.

The crowd waited with bated breath as Kergot slowly moved toward the two boys, approaching them from behind and reaching around Dirt to pull his hands quietly outward. The glass shard was still curled tightly in his hand, blood dripping from where it cut into his palm. Tommy didn’t move at first.

“Tommy, get out of there. Now,” Owen barked at him and Tommy quickly reacted, launching himself forward toward the surrounding guards.

They quickly moved him behind them while others held their gaze on Kergot, who was still holding the arms of the young man outward. He nodded toward Owen, who stepped forward and removed it from Dirt’s hand.

“Send everyone away quickly. Tell them to send a doctor,” Kergot said in a low voice.

“Everyone get out of here. Josh, keep everyone away from this area. Connor, get the doctor in here fast,” Owen said, not understanding but knowing that there was a reason Kergot was telling him this and that it probably had something to do with his own daughter.

The guards cleared out, leaving only Kergot and Owen. Dawn tried to get free of the guard that had a hold of her, but he held fast, determined to keep her away from whatever was going on behind him. She finally broke free, making a run for it toward her father.

“Owen!” the guard called out in warning to let him know she was coming back into what he perceived as the danger zone.

He turned away from the quiet conversation that had been taking place between him and Kergot to see Dawn making a beeline toward them. Rather than stopping her, he told the guard he could go, letting her join him and Kergot by Dirt’s side. The boy now lay on the ground where Kergot had placed him. His eyes were wide and full of fear as Kergot managed to wrap a towel someone had handed him before leaving around the bleeding hand.

“Can you help him?” Kergot whispered.

“I don’t know. It’s bad. It might be too late,” Dawn replied, drawing a curious look from her father.

“If it gets too hard, let go,” Kergot told her. “Don’t let it take hold of you.”

Dawn nodded and placed her hands on Dirt. If he could shift, he could heal himself, but that wasn’t an option right now. He was bleeding and not just from his hand. She placed her hands on his shoulders and held them fast, unaware of anything around her but the sound of his racing heart and the fear that lashed out at her wildly in an effort to find peace.

“It’s okay, Harlon,” she told him. “Just stay calm. The doctor is coming.”

Dawn felt sick. She had never touched someone so sick, not only physically, but mentally as well. The sadness he felt, the rage, it all came across – but there was something bigger, too. There was fear, a fear like nothing he had ever felt. Dawn saw all of the horrible things that had been done to him. Terrible things. Things she wished she didn’t know, but the bleeding was clouding it all, turning in to some sort of horrible nightmare that repeated in his head. At the center of it was Tommy, always Tommy. She began to gasp for breath, trying hard to focus, willing herself not to let go of him.

“Dawn, let go. Let go!” Kergot roared at her.

When she failed to listen to him, her father reached out and grabbed her hands, forcing them away. He scanned her face, one that had grown pale and frightened. The doctor came running in and began to tend to Harlan, examining him. Kergot spoke quietly so as to not be overheard.

“Tommy hit him pretty hard. He has a brain hemorrhage. It’s what caused him to snap and seize. Get him to the clinic before it’s too late,” Kergot told him.

Josh helped get him onto the stretcher they had brought with them, carrying him out as Dawn sat nearby, still trying to pull herself together. Kergot walked over and spoke to her in a low voice as Owen kneeled beside her, clearly uncertain what was happening right in front of him.

“Are you okay, Dawn? Do you need to go with Josh to the doctor’s office to get checked out?”

“No. I’m fine,” she said, her expression turning to one that was angry and determined. “Tommy did this. Tommy is the one who needs to be punished.”

“What are you talking about, Dawn?” Owen asked.

“I saw it, Dad. Tommy cornered him in the boy’s room. He shoved him against one of the urinals and hit the back of his head on the porcelain. That is what caused the bleeding in his head. At first, he just felt rage – uncontrollable rage – and he picked up a piece of the glass that had broken off the mirror beside him, grabbing Tommy and pulling him out here. He wanted to kill him in front of everyone. He didn’t want anyone to pick on him anymore, but then the bleeding got worse. He was frozen. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t respond.”

“Jesus,” Owen said, hanging his head.

“What they do to him, Dad. It’s terrible. The things they have done to him. I know who they are. I know who they all are. They need to pay for this!”

“Calm down, Dawn. Let’s just get you home. Let’s get you home, and we will talk about this when you feel a little better.”

Dawn said nothing, at least not aloud and not to her father. Instead, she turned her mind toward Kergot, sharing the things that she had seen in Dirt’s head with the headmaster of the school. She knew that he would take care of the problem. Her father couldn’t understand, because he was not aware of her gift like Kergot was. Even Liam only grasped a portion of her abilities. Owen McCord, on the other hand, knew she knew what people were thinking without them saying it, but even he was unaware of the extent to which her gift went. Only Kergot knew that, because he was the only one that could even begin to understand it.

“I’ll take care of it,” Kergot assured her silently.

Dawn stood and followed her father from the school, going home for the day rather than attend classes. She let Liam know she was leaving as she stepped out the doors and tried to push what she had seen from her thoughts.