Page 48 of Claim the Dragon
She recalled that conversation clearly and how she’d only been half listening to him because she’d been hurrying to her room.To do what, she couldn’t remember.
Lorna shrugged, moving her robust frame through the kitchen as if the place were made specifically for her.It was, actually.Neither Ravyn nor Cree were cooks and with the money she’d been able to collect from the insurance on her building, they’d bought supplies and made camp in one of the abandoned buildings above because they knew the enforcers rarely came into this neighborhood.When they just happened to stumble upon the open manhole one day, it had been Cree’s idea to climb down and investigate.He was always looking for an adventure like the ones he read about in the books in her store.
The idea to build a living space down there had come almost immediately when they saw all the open space from the old subway station.In those early days focus had only been on their sleeping rooms and a main area, but then they’d met the Megs and more bedrooms were developed.Lorna had designated the kitchen space and made it what it was today—a large room with shelves full of pots, pans, plates and bowls, a food pantry, sinks that were left there from what they presumed may have been a lunch room area for the old subway workers.
“He’s only nineteen,” Lorna said with another shrug.She was running water in the pot now and walking it back to the stove.“Missed a lot of his childhood.”
“Yeah,” Ravyn said.“After his father died and he went into foster care when he was nine, things started to go downhill for him.”
“Always been rumors about foster parents being abusive to the kids.Taking in as many as they could just to collect checks from the government and treating those kids like crap in return.”
Ravyn nodded.She’d heard a lot about the foster system, but living with her father, she’d always thought anything could be better than being General Walsh’s only child.When she met Cree, she realized how wrong she’d been.
“By the time I caught him sleeping outside my store he was fifteen and barely weighed a hundred pounds.I couldn’t leave him out on the street.”
“Because you’ve got a good heart,” Lorna said and looked at her with a smile.“That’s obvious by all you’ve built down here.”
She’d tried, she really had.Her father had always sworn she was nothing and would never be anything, all because she’d been born a girl.His disappointment in her had been embedded from the first day she took breath, because that had also been the last day of her mother’s life.Those thoughts made her feel melancholy on top of the odd sensations she’d been experiencing while standing here talking to Lorna.
“Yeah.Well, I guess we’ll figure out what to do for him.I mean, I don’t mind him going above with me on shopping trips and things like that.I just worry that one of those enforcers will recognize him and we’ll have trouble getting away if they give chase.”
“Because of his limp,” Lorna said.“I know.But you won’t be able to hold him down here forever.I learned a long time ago that when people set their minds to doing something, they do it, no matter what.”
“Yeah,” she said.“That’s true.He tried to talk me out of going for that knife the other night but I was determined—” Ravyn’s words trailed off as the palm of her hand tingled.
She’d been feeling a little dizzy while talking to Lorna but had thought it would pass as it had when she was in her bedroom.But now she looked down at her hand.It looked normal, but it felt like she was holding something, even though it was empty.
“What knife?”Lorna asked.
When Ravyn didn’t immediately respond the woman came closer, taking Ravyn’s outstretched hand in hers.“What’s wrong?You hurt?”
Ravyn’s head snapped up, her gaze meeting Lorna’s.“No.I don’t think so.”
Lorna nodded.“Maybe you should go sit down and I’ll bring you some food and coffee.You still look sickly.”
Ravyn swallowed as her legs began to wobble again.“No.I’m fine.I’m not sick anymore.I was feeling better and I went to see Happy but he said he couldn’t help me.But I don’t know why I went to see him in the first place.”
“Hmmm, yeah, we’re gonna get some food in you.Probably dehydrated from those days you were sick.”
Lorna continued to talk as she walked Ravyn into the cafeteria where she slid into one of the chairs behind a table closest to the kitchen door.
“Sit right here and don’t move.I’ll be back with some coffee first and maybe a couple of aspirin.You keep squinting your eyes like you’ve got a headache or something.”
Ravyn didn’t bother telling Lorna that she didn’t have a headache.She was trying to remember something because there were gaps.From her argument with Cree about going above, to the time at Happy’s and then meeting with the Megs and Cree at the entrance to investigate, there were gaps in those conversations.And the tingling that had started in her hand was now creeping up her arm.
Something was wrong and there was an urgency to figure out what.She just didn’t know how to do it.
