But it was okay. I’d made it outside. A woman leaving with her pride.
Well, a woman leaving, anyway.
I still felt weird. And it was even worse than just a second ago. The nausea graduated into full-body quivers, and the heat I’d been feeling all evening ricocheted through me, making me feel like lava was about to burst from the top of my head.
And then, my body shivered, quaked, and something—God only knew what—started happening. “Help,” I whispered as I rolled out of the bush, hopelessly tangled in the vines and brush. I was going to barf again. Or pass out. Or both.
CHAPTERSEVEN
Imanaged to stay conscious, but as I was untangling myself from the front lawn that seemed to have risen up to ensnare me, I ripped the sleeve of my sweater and still couldn’t find my shoe, but I didn’t care. I wanted to leave. These women were not good people. They were… bad. Bad people. I’d think of a good name to call them later.
I was hotter and dizzier than I’d been even a second ago. Every tick of the clock worsened it. Sweat dripped down my cheeks, coated my skin, rolled down the valley between my breasts. And I gasped as I dropped to my hands and knees like a dog. And I started howling. Like a wolf dying in pain. Whatever these evil women had poisoned me with manifested itself like a demon possession. Pain wracked through my body, almost too much to bear.
Had they poisoned me or was I just too old to be drinking that much? Was this what happened to all women my age when they went to a party for the first time in twenty-something years?
No, not a chance. This couldn’t be it. This was worse than when I’d gone into labor. “I got Tilly’s cold,” I groaned to myself.
That had to be it. Tequila and the flu didnotmix. And yet, this had come out of nowhere. And I’d never had the flu take me to my knees, whimpering like a baby.
I tried to stand, but I stumbled and fell onto my side. My head spun harder, and I made it to my knees and started to crawl, even though I couldn’t see where I was going.This is bad. Am I dying?
Oh man, don’t let me die in the front yard of someone who invited me over out of pity. This was not the way I wanted my story to end. This was not how I wanted someone to find me.
My body ached and cracked, and I choked on a scream as my arms began to swell. To my complete confusion, my clothes exploded off my body, falling in tatters around me in the grass. What in the world?
In summary, I was on the ground on all fours, naked with my ass in the air, and I was hooting and howling like I was on a collision course with death.
With my ass.
In.
The.
Air.
No. This had to be a dream.Hadto be. Clothes didn’t just explode off of people. Bodies didn’t just expand like this. Expand? My body was expanding? As I shuddered and looked down at myself, there was no denying it, I was swollen, and my clothes were strips of fabric on the ground around me. Not because they’d exploded. Because my body had outgrown my clothes.
No woman my age would allow herself to be naked in public and on her hands and knees. Hell, women my age rarely liked to be naked in private, and gravity meant we were hardly ever on our hands and knees. It just wasn’t a good look.
It wouldn’t even be a good look if the world wasn’t spinning. The small world. Or smaller than the normal world.
Huh? I looked around and felt lightheaded. This wasn’t possible. None of this.
The bushes were tiny. Or I was taller. I was walking up right now, I guessed, but somehow, I felt bulkier. Wider. What kind of flu would make me feel taller and wider?
I stumbled along, shaking the ground with every step. Seriously. If the ground trembling wasn’t in response to me, to my steps, the timing of several small earthquakes was an unlikely coincidence. Still.
The lake behind the house—I hadn’t noticed it before—beckoned to me. Called my name. And I walked, stumbled, because my feet were swollen and unmanageable, toward it. Right then, I swore to God I was never ever going to drink tequila again, as long as I lived.
The dock that led into the water looked small, too small for me, but I walked ever closer to it. One step then another. It only took eight in total to get me across the yard which must’ve been smaller than it looked at first glance.
When I glanced down at the water, instead of my black and gray hair, brown eyes, semi-tanned skin, a dragon stared back at me.
Adragon?
I looked again. Yeah. A dragon.
I threw my head back and roared.Roared.
