He had never clearly said what he thought, just frowned and looked worried. And Tom wasn't absolutely sure how to respond. It had been five years since he had actually needed to talk to someone or had a personal connection with anyone. And apparently socialization was reversible, because as far as making small talk—or any talk at all—he might as well have been raised by wolves.
He hadn't been a solitary child. He'd always had his buds, back when he was growing up, all the way from his playgroup in kindergarten to what—he now suspected—had been a rather unsavory group of young thugs in his adolescent years. In fact, it could be said that Tom, growing up, had spent far too little time alone with his own mind and his own thoughts.
But the last five years . . . Well, there had been interactions with other humans, of course, some of which still made him cringe. The man who'd tried to rob him outside his father's house. At least Tom hoped he'd been trying to rob him. Though why a barefoot kid in a robe would have anything worth taking, Tom couldn't understand. All he remembered was feeling suddenly very angry. He remembered shifting, and the dragon. And coming to with a spot of blood in front of him, and no one near him.
And there had been other . . . simpler interactions. But there had been practically no social interaction. Every time he'd talked to another human, or another human had talked to him, one of them had pretty clearly and immediately wanted something of the other.
Now, he couldn't see any signs that Keith wanted something of him. At any rate, there was nothing Tom had—what few possessions he'd owned had been destroyed at the apartment—his changes of clothes, his secondhand furniture, his . . . he realized with a start that his thrift-store black-leather jacket would be lost as well, and felt more grief over that than he'd felt over anything else. That jacket had been with him from almost the time he got kicked out of the house. He'd bought it almost new, with the proceeds of his first day as a laborer.
In many ways, that jacket defined him. It had a high enough collar for him to raise and hide his often-too-vulnerable face at moments when he wanted just his tough exterior to show. He'd learned early that looking tough and perhaps just a little crazy saved him from having to do real violence. Which, when anger could literally turn you into a beast, was half the battle.
Tom had lost his home and left without even the clothes on his body. For the second time in his life. And the thought that Keith might want Tom's body made Tom start to laugh—rapidly changed into a cough when Keith looked at him, puzzled. He knew Keith. That was not in the realm of possible.
Keith, for his part, just seemed to want to reassure himself Tom was okay. Having done that, he now sipped the coffee very slowly. "I guess your girlfriend is out?" he asked.
"Kyrie had an appointment," Tom said.
"She's cute," Keith said. "How long have you guys been together?"
Ah. "Well, we work together," Tom said, edging. "And one thing led to the other."
Keith nodded.
"You? Did the girl see any other dragons last night?"
Keith frowned. "Now that you mention it, yeah. She said she saw four dragons later on. One jumped down to the parking lot, and then three others flew away a while later." He shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe she has a dragon obsession. She's fun and all, but it might be more weirdness than I want to handle." He scratched his head and adjusted his hat. "I have weirdness enough at college."
Tom nodded, not sure what to say. And Keith launched in a detailed description of his college trouble, which involved pigheaded administrators and some complex requirements for graduation that Tom—who'd never been to college, only vaguely understood.
And then in the middle of it—he'd never quite understand it or be able to explain it—there were wings.
Only it wasn't quite like that. There was a powder. A green powder, like a shimmer in the air. Tom had sneezed and was about to say something about it, but it didn't seem to matter. It was as if he were floating a long way above his own body.
And Keith jumped up, dropping the cup that he'd been holding. Tom jumped for it, in the process dropping his own cup. Both cups shattered with a noise that seemed out of proportion to the event, and seemed to go on forever in Tom's mind.
And then he turned, but he seemed to turn in slow motion. For one, his body didn't understand that his legs actually belonged to him. And his legs felt like they were made of loose string, unable to support his weight. He tripped over his feet, and as he plunged toward the floor there were . . . wings over him. Green wings. Dragons. Green. Wings. Had to be dragons.