CHAPTER 5

“Go home, Liam,” Owen told him as he opened the front door to find him standing there.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. It’s that way,” Owen replied, pointing in the direction from which he had arrived.

“Please, Mr. McCord. She keeps begging me to come over.”

“No. She doesn’t. I took her phone.”

“You know she doesn’t need a phone, Mr. McCord.”

Owen groaned. He almost felt sorry for Liam at times, always at the mercy of Dawn’s thoughts. There was no shutting her out if she wanted to talk to you. She’d just barrel her way into your brain and force you to give her an audience. Of course, Liam was the only one who didn’t really seem to mind.

“Fine. You can come in for a little while, but then you have to go.”

“Thank you,” Liam told him politely.

Dawn lay in her bed, listening to the exchange. Ordinarily, the little power struggle her father attempted to have with Liam amused her, but today she needed him with her and didn’t have the patience for her father’s attempts to cling to his little girl.

“Took you long enough,” she said as he knocked on her bedroom door.

“You’re welcome, Dawn. I know how much you appreciate my rushing right over to keep you company.”

“Rushed right over? It took me hours to get you over here. What were you doing?”

“My homework! I had loads of it!”

“I needed you here, Liam. I had an awful day.”

“What happened? I heard that there was some sort of commotion with Dirt.”

“His name is not Dirt. His name is Harlan.”

“No one calls him that anymore.”

“Well, they should. It is unkind to call him Dirt.”

“Fine. What happened with Harlan?” Liam said, his tone resigned.

Dawn told him the horrible things she saw. She could see his anger. It was one of the things that she and Liam shared. Neither of them could stand by and let cruelty happen. Liam was just as outraged by the things Tommy and his little group of bullies had done to Harlan as she was.

“Are Kergot and Penelope going to take care of them?” he asked.

“Kergot said he would. I suppose he will tell her to.”

“Good. They will not tolerate that sort of thing in their school. Why did Kergot not already know, though? Isn’t he able to read minds?”

“Yes, but only what someone is currently thinking and only if they are not all jumbled up. My ability to feel them and see past events helps me understand better when what they are thinking doesn’t make sense.”

“I am glad I don’t have your gift,” he told her, reaching for her hands. “It’s a burden more than some grand prize in life.”

“Sometimes,” she replied, laying her head against his shoulder.

They sat on the edge of the bed, quiet. She could feel his breath as his chest rose and fell against the side of her head. It was here that she felt calm. This was the only place. She sometimes felt as though they were pieces in some enormous puzzle that she didn’t yet understand, but it took both of them to complete the picture.

“Dawn, it’s time for Liam to go,” Owen called from the bottom of the stairs.

“He’s such a pain,” she groaned.

“He is just trying to protect you the only way he knows how. Your father is one of the most powerful and revered dragons in the village. He deserves your respect, Dawn.”

“Right. Just like you respect your father.”

“I do respect my father. He just frustrates me. That’s all.”

The sound of Owen walking up the steps could be heard, and Dawn smiled at him playfully.

“I’ll give you twenty euro to get undressed before he gets up here.”

“Trying to get me killed just to amuse yourself?”

“He wouldn’t kill you.”

“As far as you know,” Liam laughed, standing up and opening the door just as Owen arrived at it. “Goodnight, Mr. McCord.”

“Goodnight, Liam,” Owen said with a frown.

“Goodnight, Liam,” Dawn said mockingly.

“Goodnight, turd,” Liam replied on his way down the steps.

“Why would you hang out with a boy that calls you turd all the time?” her father asked.

“Because he loves me and is going to marry me. We are going to have baby turds together one day.”

“That is a disturbing thought on so many levels,” Owen groaned on his way back out the door.

Dawn snickered and called out to Liam with her mind. He was thinking about food again. It was really a wonder he ever thought of anything else.

“I wish you loved me the way you love tacos,” she sent out to him.

“I do, even though you both give me gas,” he shot back.

“You’re such a romantic.”

“That’s why you love me best.”

“Yeah, it is.”

“Are you going to come to school tomorrow?”

“Why wouldn’t I?” she replied, perplexed by the question.

“I know it took a lot out of you today. Do you think Dir…uh, Harlan will be back?”

“No. He might never be back,” she said sadly.

“That’s horrible.”

“You have no idea.”

“I know. Hey, sneak out your window and come have tacos with me.”

“Not hungry, and my dad will kill us both. I’ll let you go eat your precious tacos in peace. See you in the morning.”

“See you in the morning, Dawn.”

She turned her mind to other things, trying to flush away thoughts of what happened today, but images of poor Harlan kept coming back to her. They weren’t of him standing in the corridor with a shard at Tommy’s throat. Instead, she saw him having his head repeatedly dunked in a toilet while they flushed and laughed as he sputtered and begged them to stop.

It was only one of dozens of memories she had seen. They had spanned from the time he was a very small boy to that very morning. Repeated assaults and insults that had finally gotten to be too much. How the other boys could be so cruel was beyond her. She couldn’t fathom having that sort of hate for someone who had never done anything to them.

Dawn turned on some music to distract herself. Soon, her room was filled with her favorite groups, and she was singing along as she picked out what she would wear to school tomorrow. Unlike the other girls, she preferred jeans and t-shirts over more prissy options, and her hair was perpetually in a ponytail. Trying to untangle the mass of wild, curly hair that fell all over her head was too much of an effort.

“You’ll do just fine,” she said as she pulled out a gray tee that read ‘Sorry my dragon ate your sparkly vampire.’

Looking at herself in the mirror, she scowled. She hated the way she looked, but she had no inclination to fix it. Her mother was beautiful. She always did her hair and put on makeup, even if she was just hanging around the house. It was important to her to look her best. Dawn didn’t want to have to do all that stuff, but she wished she could look pretty without it.

Liam never told her she was pretty. She knew that shouldn’t matter, but it would be nice if he said it sometimes. Was it true that they would marry one day, or was it just something she had convinced herself of so long ago that she believed it to be true even still? Liam seemed to believe her, but he was her friend. He was her best friend. Was it possible that was all they were meant to be?

The thought saddened her that she might not know the difference in platonic love and romantic love but she hadn’t ever been like other girls. No one wanted to date her. They were all afraid of her or thought she was weird. It was only Liam that seemed to accept her as she was. He teased her, but never in a mean way.

Perhaps he didn’t love her as more than a friend, and one day she would have to accept that, but he was the only one she had eyes for and couldn’t imagine her life without him. It was hardly going to be easy to find a husband that would accept that she wanted to be with him so much all the time. Then again, why did she need a husband? If Liam was somehow not the one, maybe there was no one else for her.

Once again, she found herself saddened by her own thoughts. Rather than dwelling on them further, she decided that it might be best if she just called it a night and went to sleep. It was a long time coming, but she finally began to doze off after calling out to Liam to make sure he was home okay. He told her he was about to go to bed, too, and that was all she needed to know to find some peace.

Her mind reached out to find his heartbeat, using it to lull her into a peaceful sleep that she knew would end all too soon when the morning alarm went off to get ready for school. Liam was her lifeline. Hopefully, he always would be.