The Dragon Tree (15 page)

             
How many species are there? What species will I be when I change?

             
“You’re jumping on the Hudson bandwagon, Hiro?”

             
A sudden shadow dimmed Hiroki’s view of his book. He looked up to find Aidan Humphries looking down at him. Gabe and Dudley flanked Aidan, and all three were staring at Billy.

             
Billy leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head, staring right back with a grin. He was content to remain quiet for the moment, but how long could that possibly last?

             
Aidan pulled up a seat across from Hiroki. “I saw your piece of crap car in the parking lot and thought Eva might be with you. Is she here?”

             
Hiroki shook his head. “She’s home, I think. You could drive over there and—”

             
“Thanks, douchebag. I know what I could do.” He turned to face Billy. “You two should be more interested in what I’m
going
to do.”

             
Gabe and Dudley were both smiling maliciously. Gabe kept his hands in the pockets of his jacket, but Dudley was massaging his knuckles so hard they cracked.

             
“Oh I get it,” said Billy. “You’re going to beat us up.”

             
Aidan leaned forward. “Only the one of you who’s trying to steal my girlfriend.”

             
“I think he means me,” Billy smiled.

             
Hiroki was hardly listening to the threatening exchange. His eyes kept darting back to the two stacks of books on the table. Aidan wasn’t stupid. If he noticed what they were reading, he would remember. And if Billy wasn’t careful the next time he took off for a flight and people spotted him… Aidan would put it all together.

             
We’re dead.

             
Billy pushed back his chair with a flourish. “I’m so glad to see you guys again. Why don’t we go outside?”

***

              In early afternoon, Eva woke up alone. The twins had managed to dump her covers on the floor on their way out, leaving Eva shivering on the mattress. She rubbed the goose bumps from her bare legs and slipped off the dress, wrapped a sheet around her body and headed for the shower.

             
When she returned to her room, she caught her father depositing a tray of food on her dresser. He jumped and yelped when he turned and saw his daughter standing behind him with tears in his eyes.

             
“I’m sorry, papa,” she whimpered.

             
Salvadore drew Eva into his arms and brushed her damp hair off her forehead. “I will always give you the benefit of the doubt. I will always forgive you before you ask. And I will always sneak food into your room when your mother isn’t looking.”

             
Eva laughed and wiped her eyes dry. “I didn’t scratch your car, but it’s pretty dirty.”

             
“I’ll give the twins five bucks to wash it,” Salvadore said with a smile.

             
“They’ll never do it for five bucks, but I’ll chip in another twenty and a couple of my t-shirts.”

             
“Good call,” said Salvadore. He gave Eva a kiss on the forehead. “You’re still my pride and joy,
mi hijita
. You always will be. But you
are
grounded.”

             
Eva nodded and hugged him again. “How long?”

             
“Your mother says two years, but I’ll see if I can talk her down to one week. She’s not as tough as she thinks. I have my ways.”

              Eva spent the next several hours cleaning her room. Her mother had been urging her to tidy up for weeks and Eva had valiantly procrastinated. But now that her cell phone and laptop had been confiscated and she had nothing else to do, she found the work tolerable.

             
Despite months of neglect, she was still done with the cleaning by mid-afternoon.

             
Now what?

             
Her eyes drifted to her neatly made bed. She chewed on her lower lip for a moment before peeling back the covers and reaching under her pillow. There it was, right where she left it that morning

             
The fruit.

             
She sat on the edge of the bed, cradling the fruit in her lap. It didn’t appear as exotic to her now as it did the first time she held the black object. The coarse fiber on its exterior wasn’t as off-putting, and the prospect of peeling it off to taste the fruit wasn’t as frightening.

             
You can’t be serious, Eva. You can’t be considering this?!

             
But why not consider it? Considering wasn’t the same as deciding. And besides, now that they knew the leaves were an effective antidote to the juice from the fruit, she could always change her mind… After experiencing the change – and the flight that came with it – just once.

             
Just once.

             
She could climb out her bedroom window, perch on the roof and let the change happen. If she stayed on the backside of the roof and the change didn’t happen until the sun went down, she doubted her neighbors would see anything. And as soon as her wings were fully formed…

             
I can fly away.

             
After hours spent pent up in her room, the thought of flying away was especially appealing. But she came to her senses and shook the thought out of her mind. The change would be terribly painful, and if she started screeching on the roof or scraping against it with her claws, her family was sure to hear her.

             
She felt a tickle on her palm and looked down. The coarse fiber from the black fruit was falling off! It came off in patches and drifted down to the carpet at her feet. She brushed the fruit where the hair remained and it came off easily until the fruit was bare.

             
It’s like the fruit wants me to eat it. It’s daring me… It’s tempting me.

             
But no, that was ridiculous. How could an inanimate object read her mind?               She raised the fruit to her face. Just to smell, that’s all. Just to smell. But the fruit somehow took a detour and ended up pressed against her lips. Her lips somehow parted and her teeth pressed into the soft black flesh.

             
No, no, no! What are you doing?!

             
The potential consequences for what she was doing flooded into her mind just as the juice flooded onto her tongue, and she threw the fruit across the room. It landed in her closet with a wet smack.

             
Eva bolted out of her bedroom and raced down the hall. She slammed the bathroom door behind her and locked it. The twins appeared outside the door immediately – as they usually did – and started working on the handle.

             
“Go away!” Eva yelled.

             
She spun the faucet and cold water rushed out. She bent at the waist to place her mouth under the stream, allowing the water to run over her tongue and wash the dark red fluid into the basin. When the water finally came out of her mouth clear rather than pink, she reached for her toothbrush and started rubbing it on her tongue. The bristles turned pink immediately. She kept rinsing and scrubbing and rinsing and scrubbing, hot tears streaming down her cheeks.

             
After five minutes, she gave up. If her mouth and tongue weren’t free of the dragon blood by now, they never would be. She snapped her toothbrush in half and buried it at the bottom of the trashcan, mopped her tears with her hair and swung open the bathroom door.

             
“You’re acting weird,” said Myra.

             
“Yeah, totally weird,” echoed Anita.

              Safely locked in her bedroom, Eva collapsed on the carpet and cried some more. Her eyes fell on her open closet door and she remembered the fruit inside. She crawled into the closet, found the offending object and used a sweater splattered with juice to pick it up. She gathered up the coarse black fiber by her bed, wrapped it and the fruit inside the sweater’s folds and deposited the entire disgusting package on the top shelf of her closet.

             
Gotta get rid of it. Gotta burn it so the twins don’t find it.

             
Had she acted quickly enough? Had she avoided ingesting the dragon blood? She thought so, but an errant drop of the metallic-tasting juice may have trickled down her throat. Even now, it could be making its way into her bloodstream, preparing to activate the moment the sun dipped below the horizon.

             
She looked out her bedroom window and saw that the sky was prematurely dark. Heavy clouds had moved in over the coast of Northern Washington, dark with the promise of a spring storm.

             
It was 4:45. She would find out soon if she had ingested the blood.

***

              Billy was in the lead as the five teens walked out of the library very casually to avoid attention. To anyone watching, they would have looked like the best of friends.

             
Hiroki was the only one of the five who wasn’t grinning with anticipation at whatever waited once they reached the parking lot. He had seen Billy take a beating from this trio already – had captured the aftermath on film, in fact – and as much as he disliked Billy he didn’t want to drive him back to the Alpine medical clinic to face his mother. “This is your new friend, Hiro?” she would ask with her disapproving eyes. “This boy who gets in fights every other day?”

             
Outside the library, the other boys followed Billy to the back of the building where only the staff parked. They were unlikely to be disturbed if they stayed out of sight. Hiroki found himself pinned between Gabe and Dudley against a brick wall while Aidan slipped off his jacket and Billy cracked his knuckles.

             
Aidan landed the first punch. It was a looping right hand that hit Billy in his ear. Billy hopped away clutching the affected ear and yelping. Aidan followed him, ready to hit him again as soon as Billy looked up, but stopped in his tracks when he realized Billy was laughing.

             
“Oh, you think it’s funny?” Aidan asked.

             
“Pretty funny, yeah,” Billy answered as he rubbed his ear and stood upright. “I’m really ticklish.”

             
“Kick his ass, Aid!” yelled Gabe.

             
“Wipe that smile off his face!” yelled Dudley.

             
“Or stop fighting and
talk
about your differences!” yelled Hiroki. Gabe and Dudley frowned and jammed elbows in his ribs from both sides.

             
Aidan charged forward and threw a few more wild punches. Billy’s hands were dangling by his waist, offering no protection. But Billy was light on his feet and managed to spin out of the way of every punch. He even stuck out his chin so Aidan would have a better target, but dipped and ducked and leaned out of the way the instant before Aidan’s fists would have made contact.

             
“Are you gonna fight or not?!” Aidan hollered.

             
“Ever since I stole you’re girlfriend, I’m more of a lover than a fighter,” quipped Billy. “But if you insist.”

             
Billy ducked another punch from Aidan, but this time he balled his own hand into a fist and drove it into Aidan’s stomach. It landed flush and doubled Aidan over. His knees wobbled underneath him as he struggled to stay on his feet. Gabe and Dudley stepped forward as if to intervene, but Aidan waved them off.

             
“Let me tell you something about your girlfriend that you probably don’t know,
Aid
,” said Billy as he stood over him. “She already knows how ticklish I am. Loves to tickle me behind my big blue ears.”

             
Aidan forced himself to stand upright and took a few more swings at Billy. Billy stood still and let Aidan hit him, but Aidan’s fists only bounced off of Billy’s head. Aidan looked down at his ineffective fists, both throbbing from the painful impact.

             
Billy turned to Gabe and Dudley. “Your boy has a lot of pride and wants to fight his own battles. That’s brave, but not very smart. If you’re really his friends, now is the time to jump in.”

             
Billy leaned back with one heavy fist, and Hiroki caught a glimpse of the skin on the back of his hand. He could just barely make out the pattern of scales as they appeared, slightly discolored – a familiar gray-blue.