average human’s Reviews > Visions > Status Update

As soon as Elliot senses me, he hops onto my bed and scrabbles up my body to rest around my neck.
His weight comforts me, and I almost forget about my father. Almost. I glare at him. But there are people here now, which means no talking to the dead.
“Thank you,” I whisper, looking at Greyson. “What the hell happened to you?” Elliot shifts at my irritation, and I lean forward, taking in Greyson’s ashen face and the dark circles rimming his eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he blurts.
“Where’s the body?” I flip my legs over the side of the bed to get up, but he holds them in place. “Greyson, depending on how you killed the human, we may not have enough time to hide the evidence,” I hiss. My exhaustion prevents me from accessing that minor aspect of myself that allows me to see my visions on demand. First, I can’t get rid of them, then I can, then I can’t, and now they are being temperamental.
Dad chuckles in the corner. “I love you.”
The man beside Greyson hides his laughter behind a cough. I don’t yet look at him because Greyson looks like he killed a man. “Greyson, you always have to have a plan.” Elliot twitches on my neck, and I feel a huff of his breath hot against my neck. “Elliot and I agree.”
“I didn’t kill anyone.” Greyson shakes his head in disbelief, his shoulders trembling with laughter.
“Oh.” I sit back on the bed, Elliot settling once more. “Are you sure?”
“Why does it sound like you wanted me to kill someone?” His forehead wrinkles, and I lean forward to smooth the skin down.
“It’s been a while,” I murmur, distracted by the soot on his cheeks. Though I’m not sure if I’m telling him I’m disappointed there’s no bloodshed or not, and that disturbs me just a little.
Unable to help himself, the man beside me barks out a laugh before smothering it with a hand. Finally, I look at the guy who came in with Greyson. Tall, really tall, and lean, he has soft brown hair and violet eyes.
“May I kill him?” I whisper to Greyson.
“What?” His hands guide my head away from the newcomer. “Little dragon, I didn’t kill anyone, and please don’t offer to kill people. At least not out loud while we are on a military base. This is Granger, my brother.”
I blink at him and cock my head to the side. At the back of my head, my gift itches, but all it does is tell me that there is partial truth in his words.
“Not biological.” I should probably filter the words that come out of my mouth. Can’t take them back now.
“I’m Granger,” the tall man says before holding a finger to his lips. His hand dips into his pocket and he pulls out a device, and a moment later, a whine pierces my ears, making them ring. “You can hear that?”
“Of course she can, you eejit.” My dad huffs.
“Sorry, sir,” Granger says without missing a beat.
“Wait. You can see him?” My eyes jerk from Dad to Granger and back again.
“Who?” Greyson questions.
“My dad.” I hook a thumb at the old man but ask Granger, “What are you?”
“I could ask the same of you.” Granger crosses his arms, his fatigues stretching over his lean form.
“Don’t know.” I wrinkle my face up.
“Fae.”
“Explains the arrogance.” My mouth is really in rare form today. Usually, I can keep these thoughts to myself.
I’m blaming the fire. Then the weird eye thing.
Elliot huffs again, his breath hot against my neck, and I reach up to scratch him.
“Sweetheart.” Dad picks up my hand, becoming visible to Greyson, whose eyes widen before he shakes it away with a rueful smirk. “Your little Gila monster isn’t what you think he is.”
“Your dad is right,” Granger says. “It’s safe to speak now. No one can hear us.”
“What’s wrong with Elliot?” I pull him off my neck and lay him in my lap. “Does he have smoke damage?”
“Vanessa.” Greyson glides his fingers along my thighs, his thumb making soothing circles across my flesh. “Elliot is a miniature dragon.”
I can feel the lines crease on my forehead as I look down at Elliot and his red swirls. His little black head looks up at me, and with a huff, he expels a breath of fire.
“Oh, you perfect little creature!” I squeal and nuzzle him to my cheek, glancing at my dad as a smile stretches across my face. “Mom and Mama never allowed me to have a pet!”
Now holding my bare arm, Dad grins back at me. “He’s a guardian, Nes. Someone very important sent him to you.”
“I found him in my car.” I set Elliot in my lap. A baby dragon. No, a miniature dragon. “He refused to leave my side.”
“This one looks like a descendant of Drakon. A guardian. Legend says when Cadmus killed Drakon, parts of him broke into a thousand little pieces, creating these little creatures. He’ll grow as big as your powers and protect you.”
Which is all fine and well except… “Did he set my apartment on fire? Because I’m not sure I can find a fireproof place.”
“That’s a good question. Granger?” Greyson looks at his brother, and guilt gnaws at me that we didn’t dive into that first. When we are alone, I’ll ask all the questions I can about his brother and figure out exactly why he felt the need to apologize to me.
“I’m uncertain. I’ll have to call Tate and ask him. I’m sure he will be here by the end of the day. We can discuss the fire at that point. But, Vanessa, I doubt that very much. This little guy is a guardian. I highly doubt he would put you in harm’s way.” Granger dares death by scratching Elliot under his chin.
My sweet little dragon baby purrs.
What Granger doesn’t know is that that fire didn’t faze me at all. Or burn me. “I’m hungry.” I’m not, but we need a subject change.
“That’s right, you haven’t eaten.” Greyson jumps up, ready to come to my not hungry rescue.
“I’ve got this.” Granger gently pushes Greyson back onto the bed.
“You sure?”
The taller man just shakes his head with a smile on his crooked lips. “Yeah, come on, old man. Let’s chat.”
“I’m immortal, ya fae bastard.” Dad leans in, giving me a kiss to my temple as he flickers in and out before following Granger outside the privacy curtain.
“Oh hey, catch.” Granger tosses a little device to Greyson, the one that apparently kept our conversation private. That little device may come in handy. I wonder if he will let me keep it.
“Thanks.”
Elliot crawls up my body and settles around my neck where he nuzzles me. His long tongue tastes the air and the salt on my neck.
“I’m not hungry,” I blurt, making Greyson smile at me.
“I didn’t think so, but you need to eat anyway.”
Curiosity eats at me until I can’t contain it anymore. “Brother?”
Greyson’s lips tip up into a smile before it falls from his face. “I walked down a long white hall, and the memories tried to push through.”
I bite my tongue, wanting to ask him if it was the hall they dragged him down or not. But I saw that memory, and he wasn’t a fan of that earlier. Instead, I reach out and intertwine our fingers, giving him just a small touch of encouragement.
My throat feels a little better, but still raw. I seem to heal quicker than expected. Maybe I can get out of here tonight instead of tomorrow.
“He opened the door, and I remembered him.” With a sigh, he traces the lines of my palm, his eyes downcast. “I just don’t know if I trust him. I remember one moment in a lifetime. He called me Silas, and all I could think of was how that just didn’t sound right, how it didn’t feel right.”
“Does he feel right?”
“That’s just it. From the moment I hopped out of that van, my body knew where I was, even if my mind didn’t. I’ve been uncomfortable since the moment we got here. Itchy in my own skin. Twitchy. I called the private by his rank with a tone that I don’t remember. It was me…”
“But it wasn’t you,” I finish for him. “Greyson, look at me.”
“I swear if you offer to kill him, Nes—”
“Don’t be so dramatic.” I was definitely going to offer to kill him. Elliot purrs on my shoulder as if in agreement. “We bash him over the head and drag him to a dungeon and question him until he breaks. Aren’t fae allergic to iron?”
“You’d do that for me?” His other hand grips my calf and little sparks of pleasure dance between us. A knowing smile lifts his lips, and his cheeks turn ruddy.
“Don’t do it.”
“You do like me.”
“That was never the question.” I huff at him. How can I explain it so he understands? I like him. I want to mount him. But I don’t know if a relationship is in my future. Now more than ever, I realize there are more layers to myself that I have yet to uncover. Plus, I could never choose between him and Pim, and I wouldn’t want to, no matter how dead my ex is.
I’ve never seen a relationship for myself with my gift, only pain from those who surround me, since I can’t very well see my future and all.
“He isn’t my biological brother.” Greyson steers us back to neutral ground, and I exhale in relief. “He’s fae, and from what I gathered, I’m not.”
“Is that what you talked about that made you look like you aged ten years in the hour you were gone?”
“Yeah, no.” He scratches his neck. “He tried to heal my amnesia.”
“Oh!” I lean forward. “Can he do that?” What an intriguing gift.
“Simmer down, my little fire breathing dragon.”
I give him an undignified snort. “That doesn’t make a lick of sense.”

54%

Okay, so it was a vision, but his dick felt real to me. That has to count for something.
“Should we tell him?” I scratch under Elliot’s chin, and my mini dragon turns his scaly head in Pim’s direction and huffs. A teeny tiny plume of fire flares out to Pim who drops to avoid the flame. “Elliot says no.”
“What the fuck, Nes?”
“Language, Pim.”
“If that’s your real name,” Greyson mutters under his breath.
I blink at Pim as he rises from his crouch. “Don’t you like my mini dragon?”
“Angel, baby, I just want to know how you ended up with a mini dragon.” There’s a slight shake to his voice, as though he doesn’t quite mean his response.
“Found him in my car.” I shrug, enjoying the feeling of his heavy body against my shoulders. “Did you accomplish what you set out to do?”
“No,” he growls.
“So no insight on what’s going on with Apollo?”
“That isn’t why I left…” Too late, he realizes his mistake.
He can’t take the words back now, he already said them. “So you weren’t trying to help us?”
“This should be good,” Greyson muses, repeating the same words Pim used the other night.
“Yes and no.” He winces because he is not helping his case. In fact, I’m irritated with him.
Feeling my discomfort, Elliot crawls down to our entwined hands and hisses at him.
“A Gila monster’s bite is venomous,” Greyson says with far too much enjoyment. “What do you think a mini dragon’s bite will do?”
“Oh, can we find out?” I question with a lot of honesty and not enough restraint.
“The fuck, Nes?” Pim doesn’t let go of my hand.
“You’re dead anyway, and I’m really irritated with you,” I growl out, wondering what Elliot will do. He is, after all, my guardian.
My sweet little monster bites Pim’s thumb.
Pim hisses and struggles to remove his thumb from Elliott’s maw, but I’m evil and I hold tightly to him as Elliot draws blood.
“Do you feel anything?” He looks fine, annoyed, but fine.
“Yes, I feel your vile little demon biting me.”
“Damn, I truly thought he’d be poisonous.”
“That is disappointing,” Greyson comments with a hidden smirk that says there is a dark little corner of his soul that enjoys watching Pim squirm.
“Found some food and your dad took off. It isn’t much but—” Granger pauses after pushing the curtain back, staring from me to Greyson to Pim. After a second, he throws the curtain closed and tosses a few sandwiches on the bed. “How many dead guys do you know?”
“Why? Do you want to be another one?” Ah, there it is, the weird that slips out of my mouth from time to time.
Instead of addressing me, Granger turns to Greyson. “She’s slightly terrifying in a rabid bunny sort of way.”
Greyson smiles at his brother with pride, for me? Or my weird ways? That’s entirely up for debate. “She’s pretty cute, isn’t she?”
“She encouraged her mini dragon to bite me.” Pim stares at our interlocked hands.
“Ah, there it is.” Granger grabs Pim’s hand and turns his thumb over as the ghost grunts in pain. “You’re lucky you are already dead.”
“The hell is that?” Pim grabs his thumb back, but I’m quicker, and I tug him down and grip his other hand.
A squeal leaves my lips at the sight of his veins turning black. “He is poisonous.”
“Not quite,” Granger interrupts, and I’m realizing either he loves to correct people or he’s a geek. I’m undecided on which it is yet. Could be both. He’d be great for Ash.
“Do you know Ash Hayes?”
“No.” Granger rolls right on to what he was about to say before I rudely interrupted him, but I stand by my word, he belongs to Ash. “He’s venomous. You should probably let go of him, Vanessa.”
“What?” I glance down as the black travels up his arms, and I let go. The veins return to normal instantly. “I will not apologize.”
“I know you aren’t sorry, but I am.” Pim grabs my hand again. His bite is healed because he’s dead. “I shouldn’t have just left you alone, but to be honest, I was freaking out. Forgive me?” He brushes the hand with the word ‘fate’ tattooed across the knuckles over my cheek.
“How many boyfriends do you have?” Granger inquires, though his eyes dart to Greyson then back to me. That lone brow he raises says he already knows the answer to that question.
“I have suitors,” I correct.
“Angel.”
“Little Dragon.”
“What?” Their responses amuse me. “I refuse to choose, besides, I’ve had a long day and neither one of these boys will tell you they don’t need the other.” In a conspiratorial whisper, I say, “I’m rather difficult.”
Granger chuckles as he slaps Greyson on the back. “I don’t know, man, I think this one won’t bore you.”
“How many others are there?” I growl as something inside of me awakens with fury at the notion that Greyson may have someone else out there. It wasn’t like we didn’t talk about it, we did. But something changed from then to now, and I am not a fan.
“Whoa.” Granger slowly backs away. “Who were your parents?”
“You know, you are the second person to ask me that this week.” My fury doesn’t dissipate until Greyson tugs my calf.
“You should rest,” he suggests, diverting the conversation to neutral territory.
But I won’t be deterred, not this time. “Answer me.”
“None, little dragon, there’s only you.”
“As it should be.”
“Is it me, or is she more ornery that usual?” Pim leans down to peer into my eyes.
I can feel it happening again, and I look down just as my eyes click and Elliot turns opaque in my lap. Breathing in through my nose and out through my mouth calms me. I focus on his little scales, the red swirling pattern, and each breath in and out.
It’s been far too long since I’ve focused on my inner self. On meditating. Pim isn’t wrong—there is something different about me. Ever since I woke up to my apartment burning all around me—no, before that, long before that, but I only just realized it now—I’ve been feeling it grow inside of me like a plague. As I breathe through my rising panic and regain control, it eases.
“I want to go home,” I whisper more to Elliot than the guys, even though I have nothing to go home to.
I don’t have a home anymore.