Page 1 of Omega Captive of the Golden Dragon (Alpha Dragons #3)
VARIK
M y parents knew by the time I was fifteen, after my pink and orange baby dragon scales shed and my adult scales grew in, that I was a prize. That was when they started building the extra shed out back. I had no idea what it was.
“A surprise,” they told me.
My brother, Valcor, who was a year younger than I, watched with me from the second story window as my parents brought reinforced metal and fire-proofed walls into the grassy area farthest out in the backyard.
When they brought contractors in for electricity and plumbing, we thought that was odd for a shed.
“Is it another house?” I asked Val.
“It looks like it. But small. Not a playhouse but maybe a guest house?”
“We don’t have guests.”
“Maybe someone is coming.”
That excited us. We lived in a rural area and were home schooled. We had online, unmet friends, but that was about it except for when our cousins came for Christmas every year. The two of them were bullies and we didn’t like playing with them. Good thing they only stayed for two days.
Bottom line: We got lonely. Val and I got along well, with only occasional rivalry when we were pre-teens, but it would still be entertaining to have someone new visit. They might have kids our age. Maybe they would be nice.
Whenever we offered to help our parents with their project, they rejected us.
“Go do your homework,” Father said.
“If you helped, it wouldn’t be a surprise now, would it?” Daddy said.
Did that mean it was a surprise for us? Why would we need a separate house? We weren’t rich, but our home had four bedrooms—one for my parents, one for me and one for Val. The spare room was an office.
The surprise had to be visitors. It was the only answer that made any sense.
It seemed our parents were sparing no expense. Maybe the visitors would be renters who would pay to stay there.
We weren’t allowed to poke around the new construction. But Val and I snuck out there one night and got in through the front door which had just been installed but had no knob yet.
The new place was a one room studio with a small, attached bathroom and shower, plus a tiny kitchen area with a very short counter and sink. It was all so new, sawdust still drifted on the floor.
“It’s so cramped. Who would live here?” I asked.
Val shrugged.
I turned and looked closer at the single window on the side. It had been fitted with glass already, which seemed normal, but what was not normal were the bars on the outside. They twisted long and thick, made of black metal.
Seeing that made the entire space seem even smaller.
“There are bars on the windows,” I whispered.
“What? Why are you whispering?”
I pointed. “Look. Bars.”
Val’s eyes in my flashlight beam grew large.
A shudder went through my entire body. “Let’s get out of here.”
Wordlessly, he followed me all the way back to my bedroom and came in with me instead of going to his own.
“I don’t get why a shed has a teensy kitchen,” he said.
“It’s got really thick walls, too.”
We sat up for another hour, kneeling on my bed and facing each other. We kept trying to guess what this could mean. Were our parents planning on helping some criminal? Hiding him while at the same time not trusting him? We came up with many theories. Nothing stuck.
The next day, we asked our parents again.
“What is the surprise?”
“We’ll tell you when the time is right,” they replied, glancing at each other with quick flicks of their eyelids.
Val huffed out a heavy sigh and clomped off.
But I stood watching them, reading their body language and the way they kept looking at me and then each other.
Their nervousness couldn’t have been more fully on display.
Val had missed it, but not me. The air around me took on a sort of slickness.
The living room where I had played all my life in front of the fireplace looked hard and cold.
The rugs were frayed. The fireplace hadn’t been lit in a year. Shadows hung heavy in the corners.
How had I not noticed?
Maybe it was my imagination running wild with all the theories Val and I had discussed last night, but I immediately felt like I was standing in a strange house with people I’d never seen before.
It was ridiculous, of course. My parents were Father and Daddy. They were my safety, my comfort, my source of love. They were my security. Nothing had changed just because they were doing something secret. They were the adults. They could do stuff like that.
As I worked to talk myself out of my paranoia, I went upstairs, my heart still racing.
I went to bed early and played games on my tablet until I fell asleep.
Two days later, the structure out back was painted red with white trim.
It looked like an ordinary little barn storage shed and nothing more.
Not weird or scary or out of place at all.
I told myself even the bars on the windows were probably there so people wouldn’t break in.
After all, it was awfully close to the woods.
That afternoon, Father came to me and asked me if I’d like to finally see the surprise.
I jumped up from my schoolwork. “I’ll go get Val.”
“No. You first. You’ve had your first adult shift. We’re celebrating that with this—this gift.”
His voice changed. Something wasn’t right. But all I heard was the word gift. And where was Daddy? “What sort of gift?”
Father took my hand. “Come on. Let’s go look.”
His hand in mine was oddly cold, as if he’d just shifted. I didn’t remember hearing any flapping of massive wings today, but he could’ve gone into the woods to a clearing for all I knew.
I followed him out back and we walked up to the structure. It was a beautiful job, the fresh paint still gleaming in the sunlight. He led me to the front door and opened it.
Inside, the room had been transformed from wood and sawdust to a beautiful dayroom with a bed filled with pillows and a purple comforter. The window had blue curtains. The kitchen had a small fridge, and a bowl of fresh fruit sat on the counter. Everything smelled of soap and newness.
In the main part of the room was a TV with a game console waiting to be played. The rug under the small couch and table was white and plush.
“Wow.” I turned around. “This is great. What is it for?”
Father went to the counter where a fresh pitcher of pink lemonade sat, my favorite drink, condensation dripping from the glass sides. He poured two glasses and handed me one. It was a rare warm day in the mountains. I took it gratefully and sipped half the glass before looking back up at him.
Father smiled, then held out his hand to my shoulder. As I realized his glass of lemonade was still full, he pressed down hard as if to hold me in place. His image began to blur. The room spun. I dropped my lemonade and heard it crash as if from far away.
Father caught me when I fell and picked me up. “For you, Varik. This is for you.” He carried me to the pillowed bed.
I tried to speak, but nothing came out.
Later, I woke to darkness. I reached out, expecting to feel the familiar surroundings of my own room and bed, only to become more disoriented. I finally found a light and the room of the new shed was revealed to me.
I immediately got up and went to the door. The knob wouldn’t turn. I shook it and it didn’t move. I went to the curtained window and pulled the cloth aside. There were bars on both sides of the glass now, the ends sunk into the thick walls.
I turned and turned, then called out over and over. “Father! Daddy!”
After about ten minutes, I realized with these thick walls and located way out back by the empty woods, no one would ever hear me.
I couldn’t fathom any of it. I couldn’t think.
Then I thought of Val. What would he be thinking right now?
What would our parents tell him? They didn’t know we had taken a tour of the unfinished shed.
Surely, Val would figure out no matter what our parents told him about me being gone that I could be out here.
But he was only fourteen. He had no power.
He hadn’t had his first shift, and even if he had, I remembered we’d seen the fireproofing on the walls when they were delivered.
He wouldn’t be able to break me out with fire or brute strength or anything else.
This was a cage. And all along it was being built for me. But why?