Page 8 of Driven By Dragonblood
Feet grew restless.
Teeth clenched, I tossed the diary into the box, my gut like lava, but my mind set on ridding myself of this part of me for good as I thought I’d done years earlier.
“I am in control,” I stated my life’s mantra throughclenched teeth and carted both boxes of my old ramblings downstairs.
The awareness of somethingotherfrom my childhood lingered, unbothered by the repeated words that helped me silence the madness and envision it behind walls that no voice could penetrate.
I coaxed flames to life in the fireplace that had only ever seen action on Christmas Eve.
Fed my past to the gold and orange flickers above embers that glowed red.
One by one, the diaries disintegrated into ash, forever gone from existence. But the strange consciousness beneath my breastbone remained, alive and needy, threatening to erupt and devour my humanity.
Jaw set, I strode upstairs to get ready for a night on the town, tiny and somewhat backward as it might be compared to Boston. A shower rid me of dust and filth from having cleaned all day, and crisp jeans and an ironed button-down made me feel semi-normal again, even though I felt anythingbut.
Two hours later, I stumbled back through my front door, a fiery redheaded woman attached to me like a leech. She smelled like flowers, and her mouth tasted like hope. Attraction at first glance had prompted me to initiate, chemistry enough that my sleeping dick had shown interest in someone for the first time since returning to Arizona.
She agreed to take things to my place.
And here we were, both of us halfway to drunk, fucking on my living room floor.
A hissing built in my ears, like a whispered admonishment that I was making a mistake, but I buried myself in the warmth of the woman’s welcoming arms, deciding she would do just fine. Might even be worth keeping around for a while. Maybe we could grow together. Find a new beginningof our own, one where the hollowness that haunted me wouldn’t seem as stark—or dark.
She could be my sunshine, I decided once I lay gasping in her soft hold, her fingers sifting through my hair, her long legs still wrapped around my waist.
Yeah, this could work, I told myself.
The hissing went silent, but I didn’t trust that so-called imaginary friend from my past hadn’t reawakened and planned on sticking around.
Chapter 4
Primrose
Three Months Later
“Looking for crazies, huh?” The old woman peered up at me from the park bench with watery, blue eyes, not a hint of an inner dragon within her whispering to me.
I smiled, having learned over the months that pure humans responded better to kindness than the anger her words simmered to life inside me. “Some people’s inner thoughts can take on a mind of their own. Not everyone who hears voices has mental issues.”
She snorted, lips pressed in a tight line, and glanced around the small park, the first of many such areas I’d explored while traveling in an ever-widening circle around the Grand Canyon. Leaves had burst from branches after their winter sleep, the promise of a new beginning, and gifted me a renewed hope that had dwindled over what seemed like a long winter.
I’d learned in my travels that older humans were full of stories—gossip, lore, and truth. Weeding through the fantasticalproved harder for me, especially since I hadn’t spent much time around others in my childhood. I’d also found that while the older generation didn’t mind answering questions like the younger did, they had similar people skills like my own—almost nonexistent.
At least having lived in isolation for so long, I had a reason for my behavior should anyone pose a question about my inability to converse as well as others.
But being immersed in the human world over the previous four months had earned me knowledge of their ways, better forms of communication—mainly knowing when to keep my thoughts to myself—and how to dress so as not to draw unwanted attention, like the old-fashioned clothing I’d brought from Wyoming had earned me.
“What do you want with people like that, anyway?” the gray-haired woman asked, peering up at me from where I towered over her. “They’re the sickos who take guns into schools and blow themselves up for their religion.”
“Have you heard any good gossip lately about people hearing voices? Do you know anyone personally?” I forced myself to ask—again—rather than storm off for reasons she would never be able to fathom, ones that a recluse like me understood perfectly well.
Another snort of sarcastic laughter shook her shoulders. “All kinds of crazies like that over at Lockwood.”
“Lockwood?”
“Hospital for the crazies out in the middle of nowhere.”
I’d never once considered that humans would lock up people who claimed to hear voices to the extent I did, and I was far from mentally unstable. While my forehead furrowed over the woman’s assumptions, a lightness roused in my chest that I didn’t dare trust. I smoothed down my blouse with shaking hands. “Can you tell me where this Lockwoodis located?” I asked while leaning toward her, my breathlessness betraying my rising hope.
