The Dragon Awakens

Chapter Twenty Two

"Dragon Warrior...?" Lanie pulled away from her grandmother, frowning at her word choice. 

In response, her grandmother pulled aside Lanie's tank top to reveal her tattoo. And then wordlessly, she pulled up the long silk sleeve of her kimono to reveal the same tattoo, faded but still there on her upper arm. "I know what you are. I know what they've done to you my flower... And I am so sorry." 

Lanie took a couple of steps back, stumbling on the wood of the porch. "You knew? This whole time you knew?" 

"No. I didn't know until you left and we received a letter in the mail from a company that doesn't exist and the wording was far too formal and I knew. I knew because... Because I was one of the founding members. And I trained your mother too." 

"Excuse me?" Lanie stepped even further away from the grandmother she was beginning to think she barely knew. "You mean to tell me that you've been lying to me my whole life? That you knew? That you could have kept me from turning into this... This mindless, killing machine? How could you?" 

Her grandmother wiped a tear from her eye with a quick motion of her hand. "We thought we could protect you so we sent you as far away as we could. But the DA has ways. They always have ways." 

"I grew up so alone," Lanie whispered, falling against the pillar and starring at the worn wooden floor. "I thought, for the longest time, that I was unwanted. An inconvenience. An accident that should have never happened." 

"For a bunch of spies, we sure were stupid in the regard of trying to raise you." 

"Wait, what's dad's involvement in all this?" Lanie's head snapped up and her grandmother stood slowly and made her way to the door. 

"Let me show you." Lanie followed her grandmother into the house and to the back room they used as a library and a sort of photo gallery of their family. There were plenty of pictures of Lanie's parents before her, Lanie as a baby up until about five years old, and then many dwindling pictures after that. Lanie assumed it was because of her going off to school and her parent's jobs, but maybe it was something deeper than that. 

"Why are we looking at pictures?" Lanie sighed, standing in the doorway. 

"A picture is worth a thousand words Kāihuā. Come here," she commanded and Lanie obliged, standing next to her grandmother. She was standing in front of a candid photo of her father standing on a street corner in some unknown city, not looking at the camera but looking incredibly cool. Lanie always assumed it was just an artistic photo her mother took. 

"This was the first photo your mother received of your father. He was an assignment. She was supposed to meet him at a gala, slip something in the champagne, and leave. This picture is a reminder." 

Lanie looked at her grandmother whose face was blank. "She went dark for six months when she left on that mission." 

"What happened?" Lanie asked, frowning. 

Nainai sighed and moved over to her parent's wedding photo, Nainai standing dutifully beside her son. "They fell in love. And I quit. I didn't know the assignment was my own son, whom I hadn't even spoken to since his freshman year of college, and then here he was, managing the books for some of the world's largest terrorists without even realizing it. Your mother saw that he was a good man, a smart and caring man with a strong military background, who would never do something illegal if he knew about it. So she got him out and they had to go into hiding for a while and in the process, they realized they had a much deeper connection than the DA wanting them dead." 

"How did you get out Nainai?" Lanie crossed her arms, still feeling guarded. 

"I, um, killed a considerable amount of people and some other things I can't tell you for your own safety. I left to reconnect with my son and my favorite agent and help raise my grandchild. Your grandfather had no idea the entire time we were married, and over time it drove a wedge between us that I need to fix. Your mother's parents, however, kicked her out of the house when she turned 18. They haven't spoken since," she explained softly, walking past more pictures of her family. 

"So what does all this have to do with me and safety and all that bullshit?" Lanie snapped and Nainai whirled around and slapped her in the arm with her cane. 

"You watch your language around your Nainai young lady. It has everything to do with you. When the DA found out your mother was pregnant they sent an agent to our home to try and kill her but everything was bulletproof of course, and we had a built-in escape route. We had to go into hiding again until you were born. If you try looking, there are no hospital records of your birth on your actual birthday. You were born in our house at the time, and we did so much moving around we had to wait until we settled here to register you." They stopped in front of a photo of Lanie as a baby, sitting on her mother's lap and laughing at something. Her father's hand is on her back, holding her up and the pride and love in his eyes were undeniable. 

"You're kidding me." Lanie glanced again at her baby pictures and realized Nainai was right. Every picture of her as a baby was right here in this house. 

"No. So we homeschooled you but then decided we wanted you to try and be normal so we sent you to that private school and then ultimately boarding school. As for your parents, they made themselves so famous that if the DA tried to kill them it would be an end-all. Plus their jobs involve so much last minute traveling it's nearly impossible to pinpoint where in the world they'll be at any given point in time," she explained. 

Lanie took a deep breath and looked at some photos of her as a toddler in a butterfly Halloween costume. Her mother had made the purple silk wings herself and had spent weeks meticulously painting the detailed spirals and swirls on them. Lanie had felt like she really could have used those wings to fly when she put that costume on; she didn't wear anything else for a month. Next to that picture was one taken of Lanie at 13, standing proudly next to a baby Khan. He was her birthday present along with a few weeks of riding lessons. Little did Lanie know at the time that it was also a going away present; she'd be leaving for her boarding school in a few months at the end of the summer. 

"You took away any part of a normal childhood I could have when you sent me away," she stood, staring down her grandmother with hard eyes. "I hope you realize that." 

Her grandmother shook her head sadly and wiped away another tear. "There's not a day that goes by that I don't regret sending you away but I will never regret what I did to keep this family safe. The three of you are my everything and I will do whatever it takes to keep you safe." 

Lanie frowned and glanced at another picture of her at 15, standing next to her mother at a ski resort in the Swiss Alps. Her parents had actually had some free time in their schedules so they picked Lanie up from school and went skiing for a week at a private resort. Lanie would be training for the DA when she got back from that trip. 

Lanie took a deep breath and turned to her grandmother. They were going to have to work on building their own relationship back up but there was one more important thing they needed to do first, and she wouldn't be able to do it alone. She glanced down at the thumb drive in her hand. "There's something I need your help with but it's not so much for me as for the country. Something I could-couldn't stop. And I need some advice." 

Nainai grinned at her and crossed her hands over her cane. "How about we talk about it over some tea? I do my best thinking with some green tea and honey."