Page 22 of Dyson

“What do you think you’re doing, knocking me around? I’ll have your ass for this, see that I don’t.” Dyson looked up at the cameras that were all along the street. The one pointed at him, and the others had only been up for a few days. “I don’t care what that says about what happened. We need money, and you’re going to give it to us before I tell everyone what a monster you are.”

“If you mean a dragon, everyone already knows that. And I’m not a monster but a very wealthy man who just so happens to be able to change into a great dragon. Would you like to see him? I can spread out for you right now if that’s what you want.” He let just enough of his dragon go to prove to David and Darling that he wasn’t joking. “It’s up to you but I’ve already had a nice dinner but would chew you two up just to have you gotten rid of.”

“That’s just disgusting. There is no way that you’re going to eat us. We’re humans, and that would be against the law.” He told Darling that he thought there were a great many people who would be thrilled if she and her husband were gone. “You think that? Well, you’d be wrong. People adore us.” Dyson stopped the next person who came out of the shop they were near.

“Hey? Do you know this couple?” The woman glared at David and looked at him, telling him there wasn’t a person in town who didn’t know about the Gregory couple. “She said that people adore her and him. Is that how you feel—”

He never got to finish. The woman was laughing so hard that she had to hold onto the wall to keep herself upright. And every time she looked at the other couple, she laughed all the harder. In just a few minutes, he’d asked four other people, and they had the same reaction. Like having to adore them was the funniest thing that they’d ever heard in their lives.

Dyson was just ready to ask another person when Darling slapped him. It wasn’t hard enough to hurt him. He was a shifter, after all, as well as a dragon. But she did draw blood, and that pissed him off. Just a little. He gave himself a talk about how he was going to be a dad soon, and he didn’t want to be in jail for killing Darling when it was born. Besides, he was reasonably sure that Emma would strangle him if he were to end up there.

Letting enough of his dragon go, he was able to get to his claws on his hand before Grandda put his hand over it. Turning to look at him, his eyes seeing him in blues and reds instead of the human that he was, he shook his head.

“She’s not worth it, Dyson. Not at all. If you want to press charges for her hitting you, I can back you up, but don’t kill her. I have a feeling that Emma would be surely angry at you.” He pulled his dragon back and felt the pain of something searing through his body.

She’d shot him. It didn’t hurt that bad; he was protected from such things, but when he fell back, taking her with him and the gun, it went off a second time, and he didn’t know where that ended up. Lying still on the sidewalk, he tried to reason with his dragon in that killing her now would be wrong.

He still hadn’t moved when the police arrived. David was on the ground as well, but he couldn’t see what he was doing. If he was honest with himself, he was hurting a bit more than he thought from a simple gun. It wasn’t until his brother showed up and Melbourne told him that he’d been shot in the chest. Too near his heart for him to just get up and walk around.

“Play it, young man.” He looked at Grandda. The man seemed to be swaying around. “You’re all right, Dyson, but play this part well.”

It wasn’t until Darling was pulled off of him that he realized that she was dead. The shot through her head told him that, as a human, she wouldn’t recover from this. As he was being told to be still, he got a look at David. He, too, had been shot.

“How are you, Dyson?” He said that he was hurting now. “Well, I hate to sound like a fool, but I’m glad that you’re hurting. I surely am.” He looked at the officer that was near him.

“I don’t know what happened. We were talking, and then I heard something pop. Did she shoot me?” The officer told him that she had shot him and he’d appreciate it if he didn’t die too. “I didn’t shoot her, sir. I swear. She came at me after hitting me.”

“We know that. Grandda here. He’s been telling us what happened. How that shot was able to go through her into her husband is one for the books. We know that she pulled the trigger, too. The gun is tight in her hands.” He asked him again how he was feeling. “I have to talk to your wife and I don’t want to have to give her any bad news. She’s a mite scary when she’s upset, you know.”

“I’ve never been shot before.” He had been, but he didn’t think anyone would believe him if he told them that it had been wartime and that he’d been on the right side of the law. “Is David really dead, too?”

Before he could answer him, he heard screaming and someone cursing at him. He didn’t move, not even when he felt Emma coming to him. As soon as she touched him, he felt better, not great, but better. The screaming person was Poppy, the daughter of the dead couple.

“She killed them. Just like I knew that she would. She killed them dead, and I want to sue her for her money.” The officer, he couldn’t for the life of him remember his name, said that it was her mother who had killed them both. “I won’t believe it. My mother was a saint, and she’d—”

“Oh, do grow up. Neither you nor your parents were all that nice. And calling her a saint should be considered a deadly sin.” The first woman he’d asked laughed a little. “You get yourself out of here before we tar and feather you. Saintly mother indeed. She was the devil herself if you were to ask anyone in this town. And you’ve been worrying that grandda of yours nearly to death since you were old enough to know what money was. Get going before I kick your ass. Damned girl. You’re just lucky that no body asked me about you. You’re worse than the two of them together. Get.”

Poppy left, but she wasn’t far when she turned back to the crowd that had gathered. With Emma holding his hand and Grandda close enough, he felt something close over him and was shocked to see Poppy pulling out a gun as well. Before she could get off a single shot, she was shot by the officer who was near him. And just like that, the entire Gregory family was gone.

The bodies were still lying on the sidewalk when he was taken away in the ambulance. He was glad that the officer was going to bring Emma and Grandda with him. He wanted them out of the way of the press when they showed up. It was a small town, but word would spread quickly, and it would be no time for some of the larger news organizations to get a hold of this. Three dead and one injured dragon would make great headlines, he thought with a little laugh.