The Dragon's Daughter

Chapter 12

Saturday 3:15 p.m.

WARNING: guns appear in this chapter.

"Fine,"

"Yeah. I could go with a drink," Came the answers from around me. I was so out of it by this point, and dehydrated, I couldn't remember who said what.

We drove for a few minutes in blissful silence. Everybody seemed to ruminate on their own thoughts. Mine were swirling so fast in my head they amounted to basically a vortex of nothing. I even kept my sighs to myself. I wanted to not break the silence in the car and risk the chatter starting up again. It would only make my headache worse. I gripped the side of the passenger seat so tight my knuckles ached but didn't slack my grip. The car was real. It was here and it was my anchor. When we reached the tiny intersection, Hector pulled into the small gas station/ convenience store that most locals knew. It had the unimaginative name of Beach's Quickie Stop as it was on the way to Main Beach from the South End of the island. Most South End kids just called it "The Quickie." The parking lot was empty, and I was concerned it wasn't open, but I saw movement from inside the store. I assumed it was Mr. Anand, the man who had owned the store for years and years. He was an amiable man, and his daughter was two years younger than us, and sweet as honey. I opened the car door to head inside when I heard Hector call out to me in a panic.

"WAIT!"

I turned back to him with my door still open. Jess had her door open, too and was getting out. We both looked at him curiously.

"Get back in the car. We need to get out of here. Now."

Regrettably, his warning came too late as, from The Quickie's door emerged a man, who was most assuredly NOT Mr. Anand. The man who emerged wore a red wife-beater tank and washed-out blue jeans. His scruffy dishwater blond hair was sticking out from under a blue trucker hat. None of that was nearly as important as the sawed-off shotgun he carried in front of him. He clicked the pump-action and glared at us, pointing the business end of the gun at me.

"This is our place! Ya'll get on now!" he hollered at us.

He didn't have to tell me twice. I watched as Jess climbed back into the vehicle, and I made a move to do the same.

"Hold up, Travis!" said another man who emerged from behind the man Travis. "Those girls look nice. We got ourselves pretty well set up here, but we ain't got no girls."

"You ain't wrong about that, Vince." Travis stepped further out of The Quickie and kept the gun pointed at me.

This was bad. Vince had his own gun, a pistol of some type and he had it raised and pointed toward the driver's side, where both Hector and Jess sat.

"You girls just come on out now, real slow like." Vince said, "we got a good set up here, and we'll take good care of you both."

"Yeah, I know that's right." Travis gave a toothy grin that said he definitely would not take care of us at all.

"Sept for you, boy. You stay in the car and keep them hands on the wheel where we can see 'em."

Hector firmly planted both hands on the wheel and promptly sent a thought into my scattered brain, "They think this is the end of the days, and they plan on riding things out right here at a convenience store 'cause they believe it's well provisioned. They will kill to defend this place."

I gulped.

"Now would be a good time to use your powers, Raina!" Hector hissed into my head, "Before they kill us all!"

I swallowed again, though I had no spit to speak of. My tongue seemed to stick to the roof of my mouth, and I had to pry it away to stutter. "Y-you can put the gun down. Travis."

Travis just looked at me, and Vince just chuckled.

"Come on now, pretty thang, ain't no need for nobody to get hurt." Vince pointed at me and then toward the door of the Quickie with the barrel of his pistol.

"As an order, stupid!" Hector's deriding voice echoed in my skull.

Something in me snapped. The man telling me what to do and Hector calling me "dummy" and "stupid" and the cumulative effects of this entire day resulted in me shouting "PUT THE GUN DOWN, TRAVIS!" immensely louder than I'd intended. I'd only meant to say it forcefully, not have my angry voice echoing through the parking lot.

But it worked. Travis looked at me with large eyes and set his shotgun on the ground in front of him.

"Tha nuts is wrong with you, Travis?" queried Vence. "Pick that gun back up!"

"I cain't." Vince moaned, looking mournfully at the gun where it lay.

"Well, why the hell not?"

"Cuz she tole me to put it down," said an exasperated Travis, as though it was the most obvious thing in the world.

Vince began to walk forward to pick up Travis's gun.

I raised a hand to motion him to stop. "Stay where you are, Vince!" I was more collected this time. And again—my command worked. Vince stopped still like he got touched in a game of freeze tag.

"What the hell is happening?" Vince called out, a gun drawn and ready to aim.

"Drop the gun." I ordered immediately.

Vince's gun came clattering down to the pavement. I held my breath for a second as I wasn't sure if a fall could make a gun go off. I should have told him to set it down gently. But... live and learn. In the silence of the parking lot, there was a rustle and the click of a door as Hector exited the car, "Finally!" He sounded exasperated that it took me this long to get the situation in hand.

Then, without another word, he began walking into The Quickie without a care in the world.

"What the..." Jess shouted from inside the car. "Where's that crazy fool going?"

I shrugged and scrambled back into the car and rolled my window down, giving Vince and Travis one final order, "You two," I said, pointing at them, "... don't shoot anyone." I rolled my window back up and shrugged my shoulders at my friend as though to say, "couldn't hurt".

Vince and Travis just stared at us before turning their glare to Hector, who was moving around in the store.

"How long do we wait on him?" I whispered to Jess, secretly hoping she would tell me to hop in the driver's seat and vamoose. But no such luck. She gave me a noncommittal shoulder shrug. I slouched in my seat and pouted.

In a few minutes, Hector returned with three brown paper sacks filling his arms. He climbed in and gave one to each of us.

"Sodas and snacks!" he crowed happily.

After twisting open his soda and taking a gulp, he slowly pulled out of the parking lot, leaving the two end-of-the-world-preppers behind.

Jess and I were flabbergasted. Well, I was for sure, especially with his next declaration.

"What, no 'thank you, Hector?' No. 'You're so thoughtful, Hector?' "

I snorted. "Did you pay for this?" I asked.

"I will when Mr. Anand comes back. A fifty should more than cover it." I heard the quiet fizz of him opening his soda again and I suddenly got so thirsty I dove into my bag and pulled out a Pepsi from inside. My favorite. Had he read that in my mind when I was thinking of getting a soda?

I unscrewed the top, and once the refreshing taste hit my parched mouth, I actually thought, 'Thank you, Hector'.

"You're welcome," he gloated with a baritone chuckle.

The rest of the way to Main Beach was filled with a strange sort of silence.