The Dragon's Daughter

Chapter 6

I raised an eyebrow at him, "They disrespected the man in black?"

"They did."

"So you started a fight with some guy that could shoot phasers from his hands?" Jess decided to join the conversation.

Sy shrugged. "Basically."

"Over some CD's?" Her eyes narrowed at him.

"Jonny Cash CD's. That makes them more than just a piece of plastic. That makes them sacred!" His forehead was scrunched up in frustration that anyone would even question him on this.

By now, Jess had fully turned around and was gawping at him. "You are so, so profoundly stupid."

"I know," he told her. "I don't deny that I'm an idiot. My father calls me 'idiot' almost as often as he calls me 'Sy.'"

"Stop trying to make me feel sorry for you and get on with the story." Jess cut her eyes at him, and he rolled his back and continued.

"Then, they hit this one wall while trying to zap me, and BOOM! Explosion. When I was able to get back up and run again, they couldn't blast stuff. I don't know what the hell happened. But they thought I did it somehow."

"Hence the fight." I finished for him.

"Yep."

"I do kind of feel bad for you right now." Jess looked at Sy with furrowed brows. "Not because you got hurt, but because you didn't have the sense to run away from danger. What the hell is wrong with you?"

"So many, many things."

Sy never broke eye contact with Jess as he answered her, and she responded to his gaze simply with a whispered, "Damn."

"Well, on that note... maybe I should go take Jess home. But I'll text you after I drop her off. If you're still here, I'll come back and check on you."

"Yeah. OK." Sy smiled. "That would be nice. Or stop by my house. Help me wallow in self-pity and tend my wounds."

I laughed at him and rolled my eyes. "Only if we listen to Johnny."

"It's a bet," he happily agreed.

Jess and I walked in silence towards my Explorer. A silence she promptly broke once we were inside and the seatbelts clicked in place. "I saw you talkin' to that blond dude earlier. Who was he? He was lookin' sharp. Had some nice sneakers. He give you his number or what?"

I rolled my eyes. "Well, I got his number."

Jess squealed and for a second, I thought about not telling her the rest of the story, but she started asking me details and questions. I considered it for a moment and made a decision.

"Jess, he wasn't trying to hook up with me, if that's what you're thinking."

"What? Say that again. What you mean then by you got his number?"

"Just that he gave me his number. But not why you think."

"You need to spill." She was looking at me with a death glare that I knew was meant more for Gabe than myself. "Was he some kind of creeper?"

"That remains to be seen. Look you have to promise not to freak out."

"I reserve the right to freak out. I make no promises."

I sighed. "Well, it's weird."

"The longer we go here, the more freaked I'm getting."

"Fine." I conceded, "But don't say I didn't warn you. That guy told me that he needed my help to save the world. That what happened at Walmart was going to happen everywhere if I didn't help him find some ancient artifact my dad had hidden."

"Your daddy?" Jess could not keep the smile from her face. The smile bloomed into laughter.

"That's what I said."

"We're gonna go to your place and reverse google that guy's number. Find out what brand of psycho we're dealing with."

I smiled at her. "You sure you wanna do that?"

"Gives me an excuse not to head back to babysitting duty. I love my sisters but..."

I heard what she was saying. She'd been like a second momma to them since they were born. She needed a break sometimes and Sarah was home today. She was their actual momma. She should be tending them. At least that was my opinion.

"Alright, my place it is." We smiled conspiratorially at each other, and I put the car in gear.

Soon enough Jess began to fiddle with the radio as we settled back into silence.

I may not have had the words to tell her this, but I was thankful that Jess was coming over. I needed the company after the morning I had and days like today were when being an only child sucked. If ever I had a sister, Jess would be it. We were in the same AP classes. Both smart, both creative. But in some ways, total opposites. Jess was graceful; while I was clumsy. Jess was dark as ebony; I was creamy white. Jess had a fire I admired, and she enjoyed my ability to try and play peacemaker. We both had curls, something we eventually both learned to embrace, starting with me. My own dark hair was flowing in waves down to my back now. She finally let her natural hair grow out into sister locks.

It was so weird that no matter what we looked like, we wanted it to be something else. We'd both tried straightening our hair—that failed miserably. I'd tried getting a tan... something that, to my shame, never really took. She tried her best to stay out of the sun. I wished for longer legs like hers. She wished for bigger boobs like mine.

Jess lost her momma when she was young. The twins' mom was nice to her, and her dad was amazing but always working. I think that was another thing in common: we both tried hard to make up for something we found missing in ourselves. I felt like a freak with my ankle braces and my medical problems. Jess had this hole inside her from losing her mom. We were always trying to be perfect. To be something we weren't, because perfect is impossible. But we were the neurotic imbeciles who tried.

I mean, momma had told me countless times that beauty isn't ever just one thing, and I thought maybe I was finally starting to get what that meant. Perfect is found in pieces everywhere you look. Each of us being a reflection of something extraordinary. But I wished I could pick out the broken bits of my own reflection, twist them around into something I hated a little bit less. I sighed a bit too loudly.

Jess glanced over at me and flashed me a smile. "So, what then?" I knew she wanted to talk about something else. After everything that happened, I could tell something was on her mind. Mostly I could tell it from the way her knee bounced up and down out of tune as she stared out the window nodding her head to the song on the radio.

"How 'bout what just happened?" I let myself sigh again.

"Shit!" she snorted.

"Well?"

"I don't like it," she told me, "One minute I'm in my house, the next I'm standing in the front of Walmart. It's freaking disconcerting is what it is." She fiddled with her shirt hem.

"Do you think it's really magic?" It was the million-dollar question for me. If it wasn't some kind of hallucination, then I didn't know what the hell, and I had no explanation.

"Well, I can't explain it. Didn't people a long time ago call anything they couldn't explain magic?"

"Well... Yeah." I nodded.

"Then, since we don't have another word for it. Let's just agree to call it that."

Suddenly, a weight was lifted from my shoulders. Logic was back in the driver's seat with me. Yes. "Oh, girl. Now you are speaking my language. I like that."

"I thought you might."

I settled back into my seat. Maybe Walmart had only been a nothing burger in the scheme of things. Magic and talk of ancient artifacts were something to be swept to the back of my mind and laughed about years later with friends as we all wondered, "what was that about anyways?" Or maybe if I played my cards right, I could convince myself it never even happened.