You know, when you wake up bloody and tied to a chair, it's generally the start of a really bad day. Unless of course, you're into that sort of thing, and that's good on you, but in this particular situation, I personally am not having any fun. My name is Florence Harper. I am 16, Korean- American, panromantic, asexual, genderfluid, and totally screwed. Usually, I can just vape out of here, but I would prefer to keep my pants on for the time being. Little tidbit: I can turn into smoke. Like a wildfire throwing up, or like a really big candle. So today I have to trust Elliot to come track me down.
Finally, someone throws open the door. A woman stalks into the room. She's tall, with a muscular build. Her hair is long and loose, and she's wearing a black pantsuit under her lab coat. She looks like she's a CEO who does CrossFit like it's a religion, not a scientist. "Hello, I'm Doctor Jaxine, the CEO of this organization." She says, her thick red lips a hard line across her face. Ah, there it is. I'm gonna kick this asshole right in the kneecap.
"Hi, dick." I say, "Sorry, my mistake, I meant Doc."
She smiles, a thin, cruel twist of her lips. She places her clipboard on a nearby table and slips her lab coat off her shoulders, setting it next to the board. She turns to me and bends down to be face-to-face. Dumbass.
"Where is the Dragon?"
I think for a moment, then I take a breath like I'm about to tell her all the secrets of the woman I'd die for, then I spit a glob of blood and spit at her face. I grin at her through bloody teeth. "I don't know any Dragons, though the LARP group down by the park might know a few." She sighs, straightening up and wiping my spit off her face.
"I was hoping you were going to be reasonable." She says, laying her right hand on my shoulder. "I'm afraid you've chosen the hard way, unfortunately." Then her left fist comes into very fast, very hard contact with my stomach. I gasp, my toes curl, and I gag, trying to regain my breath and keep my stomach down, my already aching ribs giving a throb to remind me that they are, in fact, still here. "You disappoint me," she says, turning away from me to make a note on her clipboard."
"Funny," I rasp, "that's not what your mom said last night."
She stiffens, then whips back around and backhands me so hard the chair, with myself still tied to it, goes crashing to the floor. I feel my face split open where she hit me, blood oozing out of the cut, and then the second split, higher up on my head, near my right eye where my face made very close friends with the cold linoleum tile of the floor.
I groan, my head throbbing. Oh hey, there's my backpack, it's under the lab table. I was wondering what they did with it. And my hoodie; and my shoes; and hopefully my glasses (admittedly, I can't actually see much.) CEO Doctor crossfitter from hell crouches down beside me. She pulls my head up (by my hair, that dick) to look at her. "Pathetic." She grumbles, dropping me and stalking back over to the clipboard to bitch about me some more. "You know," she purrs, "this could be much easier if you just tell us about Dragon."
"Has anyone ever told you your breath smells like cheap deodorant?"
Her face tightens. She stands and slams her designer pump into my gut. What an ass. I hack, curling in on myself as much as possible. She keeps kicking me. My ribs throb, my head hurts, I'm bloody and exhausted. This fucking sucks.
Ok, I'll be real, I am absolutely terrified right now. I don't know where I am, when I'll be rescued, or who the hell these people are.
Then the facility rumbles. An immense heat rushes through the halls, invading every room with a stifling warmth. I take a breath, drinking in the comforting warmth.
We can hear screaming, the doctor and I. Not happy fun times screaming, but "oh god I'm on fire someone help me" screaming.
Then the door explodes inward. "Hey babe," I rasp to the best of my ability, "About time you showed up." The woman in the doorway is my favorite person in the world. Elliot Quinn, The Dragon of Hearth City, stands in the doorway. She's 6 feet 5 inches of green scaled, 17-year-old, ass-kicking power. She's aromantic pansexual, my polar opposite; I love her so fucking much dude you have no idea. She has a row of spikes that run from the top of her head down her back to the tip of her tail. Her face is the typical dragon snout, with scarlet eyes and slit pupils. Flames burn in her eyes. The top of her head has three sets of curved horns arching backward. Her legs morph into raptor legs from the thigh down. The claws curving from her fingertips are just as menacing (and blood covered) as the ones on her toes. She snarls, fire curling from the edges of her mouth. Doctor Jaxine stands tall, kicks off her shiny black pumps, and books it out the side door of the room. As soon as the door slams shut behind her, Elliot lunges for me, and the restraints around my wrists and ankles fly across the room as she rips them away. I flop entirely onto the ground. The fire in her eyes is gone now, replaced with a fierce worry and panic.
