"You checked on Selphon right?"

She smacked me upside the back of the head causing my skull to snap forward with the force of it. Sometimes the girl didn't know her own strength. Madi looked tired and she had every right to be. This would be the third or fourth time I'd asked that question in the last two hours. "Yes. Of course." She sighed and rubbed her eyes. "I let him out for a brief evening fly around and then I gave him some dinner. I decided that today would be meat day as a treat since you weren't home. He was really agitated and burned the bottom of my pants – I had to get treated for that by the way." Her voice was sour, and she walked with a slight limp.

"Sorry," I muttered. I wasn't really sorry. Her emergency care insurance covered it.

"And next time can you at least mention that you have a lock on your bedroom door?"

"How else am I supposed to keep my parents from finding out about him?" I whined over the lid of my coffee.

"You're lucky you're such a responsible pain in the ass, otherwise they would have wholly invaded your privacy by now. "

"I just want to go back and check on him myself." I slumped over the table in defeat. The time was eight PM in the hospital cafeteria. The mood was sad and somber and – you know like a hospital. It's hard coming up with these descriptions when there's a lot on your mind. Madi and I were sitting behind a large potted plant in a little alcove behind the trash receptacles, drinking hospital coffee (which actually isn't as bad as they lead you to believe) and sharing something they called 'a cheeseburger and fries'. The staff had done some weird thing to try and make it healthy, and the resulting product looked like something that had been sitting in the sun for three days – but the soup and crackers looked radioactive, so we took the lesser of two evils.

I dragged my fingers down my face in exasperation before meeting Madi's gaze. "Where's Saida?"

We wanted to talk with her before we left.

"Not sure, we should probably go look for her," Madi replied through a mouthful of burger. She offered the sandwich to me and I took a tentative bite. "She was really shaken up by this whole thing."

"I mean, I don't blame her."

Every time I tried to think it over, get some sort of rational grasp of the situation, my mind circled back to one thing. There were more dragons. Selphon wasn't the only one and of course that made sense – yet there were more components to it than that. There were different types of dragons. And for some reason we couldn't see them...all the time. They just seemed to start appearing, but from where, from how? It was –

"C'mon, Dave man." Madi rose to her feet. "Let's go find her. I don't even know if she has a way home. We should check on Mark too to be honest." I glanced up to find her looking away at the front entrance to the emergency room. She brought her hand to the side of her head and she cracked a nervous smile.

"Why do you worry about her so much?" I keyed in. Madi was an arrogant type, usually taking to her own before even bothering with the pack of others. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I worried if she was lying about the concussion she didn't have.

"It's just that –" she dropped back down in her chair with a sigh. "She's alone all the time. I keep an eye on her in graphic design, but she doesn't really talk to anyone besides that friend of hers. She's got a motorcycle, a one-seater, she never goes anywhere with people and people don't go with her – and no one came to see her while she was getting checked up. Even Kiara's family is here. Well obviously, they're here – but Saida's here all alone."

"I see."

"I've grown up with her, David," Madi murmured. "She's a little icy – but I've known her since the first grade. She wasn't in every year with me, but every year it seemed like less and less people associate with her. Even teachers don't pair her in group projects."

"Wow." Stellar response, but what else am I supposed to say to this? "Did she get a ride here in the ambulance?"

Madi nodded stiffly.

"Then let's go find her." I rose to my feet, just happy to have an excuse to ditch the five dollar badburger. "I'll ask if she wants a ride home with us, I'm sure my parents wouldn't mind."

She seemed comforted by that and rose to her feet. There was a slight sway to her stance, and I placed one bandaged hand on her shoulder to keep her steady. The movement hurt. "You sure you're okay?"

"I'm fine." She shrugged me off. "Let's get out of here before the police come and ask for a statement, I'm not sure what we're supposed to say to any of their questions."

Because obviously we couldn't tell the truth.

We checked in with my parents before wandering around all the first floor waiting areas. They were chatting with a doctor, prying for the information I had requested about Kiara. Though the operation was over, she still wasn't stable enough to leave intensive care. My mom tried to talk us out of wandering around some more, but we insisted, saying that we just needed to look for a friend. Madi looked around expectantly and I knew she was searching for her dad out of habit – but he was home already, dead asleep and looking after the dog. He had to work early the next morning and couldn't stay when Madi insisted that she did.

It was getting late and we would have to leave soon ourselves. Madi would be sleeping at our house tonight – she wouldn't be able to get to her car until morning anyway.

Everything was unusually quiet as we approached the front help desk. We had checked all the waiting rooms, every bathroom, and just about every place for sitting and anxiety we could find. "Maybe she left already," I mused as we walked.

Madi shook her head in determination. "No, she has to be here somewhere – go on ask."

I stepped up to the desk and gave her a sidelong glare. The nurse behind the computer glanced up with a brief flash of annoyance before wiping the look completely from his face in exchange for a smile. "What can I help you guys with?" He asked in a voice that suggested he worked customer service to pay for his nursing school.

"Hi...this might be a shot in the dark question, but we're looking for someone." I leaned forward over the counter and adjusted my glasses. "We're her ride home and she's...um, wandered off. We were wondering if you saw her."

He raised his eyebrows at me curiously as if he could smell the half lies a mile away. "I can do my best?"

"Her name is Saida Hakim," Madi picked up easily. "About average height from some sort of middle eastern background. Long dark clothes – and a leather riding jacket. She had this bright red scarf, she wasn't wearing it the last time I saw her, but she usually uses it to cover her hair."

"No..." He pursed his lips as if searching the deepest cervices of his brain. It was an act, even I could sense it a mile away. "That doesn't ring a bell – I'm sorry." The nurse shook his head.

"Oh," I said disheartened and took a step back. "Well...thank you for your ti –"

"Wait are you looking for the girl who was with Mr. Hilan?"

"Who now?" Madi and I turned toward the voice the was hiding on the other side of the desk.

"Young guy, only a couple years older than you I'd bet." A middle-aged worker in scrubs pushed stepped back from her desktop and approached the counter. She pushed her glasses up her nose as she looked down at us. "Kinda tall – at least a head taller than the girl you're describing. Bad scar going down the side of his head. Side shave on the same side with the scar -- blue hair?"

My stomach sank down into the waxy floor tiles. "She was with this guy...?"

Madi's face mirrored the worry I felt. "Did he ...was he?"

"Did that scar wrap from the back of his head all the way around to just below his left eye?" I added nervously.

"Yeah. That's Mr. Hilan – he's a regular in here unfortunately."

My stomach couldn't handle those nerves. I grabbed Madi's elbow as tightly as I could, making my hands scream against the stitches as my fingers clenched with anxiety. She put a hand on my shoulder near my neck to center my balance, but somehow, I knew she was doing it to keep herself planted as well. "Where did they go?" I asked, trying to keep the steel out of my voice.

The nurse pointed down the hall. My eyes followed her finger to the elevators hiding behind partially hidden a potted plant. There were a whole lot of potted plants in this place, like you wouldn't believe. "Ah, I see. Thank you. We'll go find them, it's really time for Saida to go home. Her folks will be worried for her. It's getting pretty late."

"Glad I could help," the nurse replied and went to go sit back by her computer.

I took Madi by the hand and dragged her away out of hearing distance. Her eyes were wide, and I could see the shine of fear rushing them like an ocean. I doubted that I looked any better. As we walked, Madi pulled a hair tie from her wrist and tenderly started wrapping the mess on blonde away from her face. She cringed at each twist of the tie like even the tiniest movement made her head spike in pain. "You heard that, right?"

"Looks like we found the name of the guy who threw you off the bleachers," Madi's face was like hardened steel.

"Not just that." I pulled the zipper of my hoodie up as high as it would go. "He's a dragon killer. And Saida is with him."

The sentence hung in the air.

Madi tightened her ponytail one last time. "Okay, let's go."

A/N

Okay guys update time. And we about to hand it all right back. Where are the dragons? They're coming I promise lmao XD THEY WILL BE HERE BUT THEIR TRAIN IS RUNNING LATE.

Time to get all our narrators in one room again. Thats always fun.

;P let's do this thing. Leave a comment below. Love hearing from y'all.