Alaida: Meaning- Winged

Chapter 1 | Dawn

I tapped my pencil against the far edge of my desk, fantasizing about what would happen if I randomly Disgifted in the middle class and busted out of the school, free.

I'm Alaida Wick. Born with the 'dragon gift' I can morph into a dragon at will. We call this disgifting. Its a portmanteau of the word 'display' and the word 'gift', because we're displaying our gifts. 

I can also carefully control what gets Disgifted. For example, I could just flare my wings while keeping the rest of me human, or perhaps I could let my talons come out but still look like a human, albeit a human with massive claws studding their fingertips.

The teacher droned on and on and on! If it wasn't History, I didn't care.

See, I'm part of the First Aerial Gifted-Youths Archaeology Team, the unfortunate acronym of which is FAGYAT (say fag-YAT) for short. We just fly around, explore temples, all the cool stuff, basically. So of course History was my favorite class, though I would love it infinitely more if we actually learned about ancient civilizations. Instead, we're just learning about how the American government works. I mean, helpful, but yawn. 

"Alaida, were you going to answer the question this period? Or do you want to answer it after the bell rings?"

I blinked and looked up, my eyes throbbing as they adjusted to the environment beyond the surface of my desk.

The teacher, Mrs. MacMillan glared down at me, tapping a long, scarlet fingernail on my desk. "Well?"

I straightened and plastered a fake smile across my lips. "I'm sorry, could you repeat that?" I could scare you shitless with one claw, I mentally scoffed.

"I asked, what is the subject of this sentence: Nick picked up his glass of water."

The first thought that went through my mind was, Nick! He's one of my sort-of friends, and I have a bit of a massive crush on him. Even the mention of his name alone sends tingles down my spine and my heart starts searing.

The second thought was: Oh come on, we learned this in second grade, and the third was, Oh, she just had to use his name, didn't she?

All in the course of about one singular second. That's how I think.

"Nick is the subject." I said, barely holding back an eye roll. The subject of my life maybe, my mind went. I forced the lovey-dovey thoughts from my head and focused on the wood grain of my desk once more.

  In my defense, I didn't really have a chance of resisting these feelings. He's a little bit taller than average, skin slightly browner than average, with shiny black hair and cute glasses and a huge smile. He's also fiercely loyal to his friends, has just the right amount of nerdiness, and he is unbearably funny. You haven't laughed until you've heard one of his jokes.  

Finally, finally the bell rang. I grabbed my things and stumbled from the tiny desk before sprinting out the door towards my locker with everyone else.

11 - 20 - 41, I thought, twirling the combination lock. It clicked on the first try, and I stuffed my books and homework folder in my backpack. Then I flung the rest of my folders and notebooks to the bottom of my locker, heaved my backpack further up my shoulders and began walking through the ceaseless river of kids toward the exit.

Then of course, I spotted Nick's crewcut of black hair amongst the throng of kids.

My gaze latched on him automatically, uncontrollably. I felt my heartrate increase instantly, followed by trembles in my hands and a burning in my chest. My grip tightened on my backpack straps. Oh no, my mind moaned. Please no.