“So, let me get this straight, that horrible researcher is now a dragon too?” Lynda blurted, as they were having another impromptu meeting at Skyler’s house. This time, they were still crowded around the dining room table, but Ferris and Doug seemed to be having a difficult time staying upright in their chairs. Lynda had a chair that she could be sitting in, but she was instead wandering around the table nervously.

Skyler was listening intently, but seemed too busy fussing over Ferris and Doug to say much of anything yet. His face was drawn with guilt, and he had Vikki on the way over to see if she could analyze any of the chemicals that had been used on the duo.

“Yes, and it must have been recently after Zoey’s abduction… she seems completely recovered, and she has pretty good handling on all of her powers.” Ferris reported, still stealing nervous glances at Doug, like he was going to start acting out of character again. Luckily, he only appeared to be drowsy.

Lynda began bouncing anxiously on the toes of her shoes, as if she was trying to piece together all the information, but couldn’t yet.

“What are you thinking?” Zoey asked, not quite sure why this was an interesting piece of information. She’d been wringing her hands as well, wishing Vikki was here.

“Well, usually the researchers would be seen as too valuable to use in experiments. They themselves know the mortality rates, and would be reluctant to volunteer because of that. We know that they haven’t suddenly improved the system, so why would she volunteer? Especially considering how high up in the organization she already is?” Sullivan asked, pausing to sip his tea. He looked like he wanted to say more for a moment, but didn’t, as that is when Vikki rushed in.

She turned her hands to claws, and after muttering a quiet apology in advance, cut the palms of both Ferris and Doug, then grabbed their hands in her own, closing her eyes in concentration.

All eyes seemed to be on her for a few moments, and Zoey wondered how long it would take for her to figure out what she needed to know. Then, Vikki opened her eyes, but they were again, apologetic.

“I can pick out an ingredient here or there that is plant matter, but it wasn’t a poison, and was mostly man-made ingredients.” She told the room, letting her hands fall to her sides. Zoey could tell she had hoped to be of more aid in this situation. She turned to Zoey, then and added, “My powers are based off of plant dragon DNA originally, then altered. So I’m limited to poisons and antidotes that are only plant related.”

“It’s okay, Vikki, you did your best, and it didn’t seem to be a poison. I’m mostly just drowsy, and I had a bit of amnesia when I woke up. Whatever it was didn’t even effect Ferris.” Doug told her drowsily, the effects still wearing off.

“Maybe we should report Blythe’s kidnapping to the police, I mean they tried to grab Dominic this time, though I’m not sure if he was their main target, or myself, Doug, or Ferris.” Zoey suggested, voice wavering a little.

“I thought we had decided the police were being useless in this case…” Sullivan remarked, voice trailing off. He stared at the table for a moment, as if trying to think, then finally finished, “And to do that, we’d have to tell Bylthe’s parents too.”

“Wait, we never told her parents she’d been kidnapped?” Skyler’s head shot up, looking confused.

His brother merely rolled his eyes. “We didn’t see much of a point, they wouldn’t care either way.”

His voice had taken on an edge that Zoey didn’t understand. She had only ever seen Blythe with her siblings, and hadn’t realized that maybe her friend was such a mother to them because she needed to be. “Where did her parents think she was when she was recovering?”

“Not really my business to share, but again, they wouldn’t have cared.” Sullivan told her dryly, looking as if he didn’t want to talk about it.

“Only reason she was in a hurry to get back is for her siblings. She has a younger sister old enough to look after the youngest ones, but Blythe acts as a peacekeeper too, so she didn’t want to stay away for too long.” Doug explained, his eyes a bit distant.

Everyone seemed a bit uncomfortable after that, and Zoey thought that the meeting might adjourn soon, but before she could allow that to happen, she had to ask about earlier.

“One last thing, Doug, what was that healing- thing you did earlier?” she blurted, causing a few people to jump.

Ferris just shot her a look of confusion, which was understandable, but when Doug did too, she knew she was going to have to prod a little harder. Whatever they had given him was making it difficult for him to remember any details. She hoped this was only a short-term side effect.

“Okay, Dominic was there so he can corroborate my story on this one if you need more details, but I was like-” Her stomach swam as she remembered the gore, but she struggled to keep her lunch down. She raised her hands to the sides of her face, giving her head a quick shake before continuing. “impaled through the sides of my face, by Kistle. She used a tree or something, so Doug was able to get rid of it fairly quickly, but then I still had these large holes in my cheeks.” She turned towards Doug as she was explaining. “You healed them, somehow. Your eyes turned a glowing green, and then they regrew the tissues.”

Ferris swore, then spoke. “I guess we should have asked Dominic to stick around then, not like you can see whats going on directly on your face.” He huffed, slouching back in his chair, as if he was mulling everything over. She caught him working something around in his mouth, as he had done before when he looked deep in thought.

Meanwhile, Doug looked as if he was wracking his brain to remember doing something like that. “I’ve never done anything similar to that before, but I think…” He looked to Skyler. “How would that even be possible?” He asked.

“Maybe… its not a talent inherent to you, Doug. You’re able to tap into it, but perhaps the dragon whose DNA you obtained was also more of a pacifist, and had worked on healing magic instead of offensive magic. When we look at the more common dragons, all have different interests and some magic comes easier to some of us, and other magic comes easier to others. We don’t know much about who our dragons are other than the connection we feel inside, but we never got to speak to them, and some of them died in JARGON as well. I’ve never heard of a dragon whose able to heal like that, but that doesn’t mean that there isn’t a particularly old one who has mastered that craft.” Skyler mused, Zoey following every word. “I don’t encourage anyone getting injured, but it would be interesting to see if you can get this power fully under your control, should you ever need to use it.”

Doug was simply nodding the entire time, looking as if he was trying to remember how he had done it the first time.

“Doug, the necromancer.” Lynda responded, nodding sagely.

“No, Lynda, I am not bringing dead people back to life…” he started, but then Ferris joined her.

“Doug, the necromancer!” Ferris spoke, with just as serious a tone, his lip twitching as if he might laugh, and snickers starting to escape from Lynda. She always knew how to relax the mood in a room. Everyone was so tense lately, and for good reason, so they needed a little bit of silliness.

“Anyway, I should probably get Zoey home before her parents think she’s been taken again.” Sighed Doug, standing up, ears red from the chanting group before him.

“One more thing, Doug.” Skyler mentioned, as if something was just occurring to him.

Doug paused to listen.

“We will have to make some rules regarding your career choice if you do gain complete control over that ability.” Skyler told him strictly. The chanting stopped, sounding a little nervous.

“I understand… I can still become a doctor, but you don’t want me to use my ability, correct?” Doug asked, feet shuffling.

Skyler looked sympathetic. “I can’t have you give away everyone’s secret. I know you’re going to have times where you really want to use it, but you can’t, if it’s as miraculous as Zoey describes. I mean, I don’t even see a scar.” He thought about it again. “I know you’re going to be a great doctor, and help so many people, without that power. Maybe give Nick a call sometime and see if he has any advice for you. Ask if he wants to meet for a coffee-or two, knowing him.”

Doug just gave a halfhearted nod, and Zoey reached out to put a hand on his arm, not sure what she could do. She could think of a lot of times when being able to instantly heal someone could save their life, but not being able to do so made her feel guilty and she wasn’t even in that situation. Neither was Doug, yet, to be fair. They headed out to the truck, her head reeling from all the new information she had received.

“I am sorry, Doug. We will deal with this as it comes along. Let’s try to look at this possible new power as a gift for now, though?” she tried.

“I suppose I should, I mean I am glad I was able to help you with it somehow.” He responded, sounding confused still. “This means I have to talk to Dominic though…” He trailed off, as they got in the truck. He hadn’t started it, but he let his head flop down onto the steering wheel and sighed. “Sorry about how much that was, tonight. That was a lot to take in.”

“It was, but I actually have another question, if that isn’t too much?” Zoey asked, feeling badly for heaping another thing onto his plate. He nodded, so she continued, “Who’s Nick?” She didn’t think she had met him yet.

“Oh, he’s Skyler’s best friend. He was in his age group in the facility, and he’s a doctor, so that’s why Skyler suggested I talk to him, especially regarding my new powers-ish.” He smiled. “I want to become a doctor in order to help people like he does, but if I told him that he probably would just make a snide comment. He’s more along the lines of Ferris, but you know, like Ferris he has to love us all in his own way. He comes and checks on us when we’ve been hurt or sick, no matter how busy he is at the hospital. I mean, I’m the primary healer in the group, but I always feel a bit better when Nick shows up to check everyone over. Just because I’m able to be there first, doesn’t mean I’d turn down a pair of more-trained and experienced eyes.” He finished, and Zoey was glad to see that talking had distracted him a little bit. They headed to her house, and she could tell he was still thinking things over, but in a much better mood, and looking a little bit healthier as well.

“Well, I hope I get to meet Nick at some point, under not unpleasant circumstances.” Zoey told him, fiddling with her phone, seeing how Zabrina was doing. Her parents had sent some unimpressed-but-worried messages her way, and she responded that she was on her way home, trying to apologize the best she could. She was lucky enough that they weren’t home very often with their work, but of course, they had been a little nervous after her kidnapping… and her friend’s kidnapping… perhaps she should have been trying a bit harder to not stress them out.

With a quick kiss to Doug, she hopped out of his truck and rushed inside, only to be met by her agitated parents. She suddenly had a little more sympathy for Ben, whose parents she hadn’t met, but apparently had been quite strict before, and were only getting more nervous as things went more and more wrong at their school. Honestly, she had to wonder why their school hadn’t shut down yet for an official investigation with these students disappearing. Like, the local police were most likely under the payment of JARGON, as Sullivan suggested, as they hadn’t even seen them doing much research into the disappearances, and they would definitely be ones to know, being so closely involved. There must be other police departments, or even someone higher up, that was mildly concerned, though?

She shook her head to clear it, now was not the time. She had to convince her parents she was not becoming a neglectful and rebellious daughter in her final year of high school. She tried to sway them by showing them she wasn’t behind in any of her school work-besides the one book report she had due in two days, but that was plenty of time to finish it. She hoped.

After much cajoling with a promise to cook dinner tomorrow in an attempt at an apology, Zoey headed upstairs, wanting to listen to some voice memos Zabrina had sent her. As usual, her friend had used them instead of typing, as she was probably working on filling orders tonight for her tea business, and needed both of her hands. Zoey could never keep straight which days her friend had orders. She did online ones every night, but for the two local stores that carried them, there were specific delivery dates, and they required a much bigger shipment than the average buyer. Zoey had helped on occasion with packing, but she wasn’t sure how her friend managed to keep up with it all, and still managed to make up and design new packaging and teas.

Tonight, however, Zabrina informed her that Ted had been her helper, and so it had been a good bonding experience, as well as she was able to try out her possible new flavours on him.

This made Zoey smile, and also feel a little sadness, that she hadn’t gone on a double date with her friend out of fear for getting her involved, but also that her friend was having such a normal dating experience, other than being budding business mogul and feeding her boyfriend ten cups of tea in one evening. She wondered if she should tell Doug how she was feeling, even if it did come across as selfish, and she didn’t want to make him feel bad for something out of his control. She decided she should, but tonight was probably not the night to do so.

Instead, she cracked the spine on her book report book, and got to work, wondering when her parents were going to bed so she could go grab a snack. They wouldn’t want her staying up so late, but they also didn’t need to know about this book report. She should have eaten at Skyler’s house, as that would have been allowed, but she was just so nervous from sneaking into JARGON that her stomach was doing flips at the thought of food. Plus, her mouth had still tasted like wood and blood until up to a few hours ago.

Now, she was trying to focus on what the main characters in her book were saying, while she wondered if they had any leftover spaghetti in the fridge. “I should learn how to meditate or something. My mind wanders so much it’s like it’s training for a marathon.” She muttered to herself, trying to ignore how her hunger was making her feel vindictive towards the book characters, and trying specifically to not let that come out in her writing.