Where she immediately takes off to the nearest donation box and sets it aflame.
To my absolute horror, Sir Fine-Britches justlaughs.
The fucking bookstore is on fire and he’s laughing.
Pleasetell me this isn’t my life.
“I told you!” he says, clearly delighted. “She must be yours!”
And clearly, she really is a fucking dragon.
CHAPTER FIVE
It takes me entirely too long to leap into action, grabbing the fire extinguisher and running to the now flambé donation box. I’ve never used one before so sadly, it takes more time than I would like to admit. Did I have to refer to the instruction tag multiple times?
Maybe.
I pull the pin and then have to read the stupid instructionsagainbecause ADHD is a thing. I’m fairly confident that it’s just a point and shoot situationfrom here, but I still have to consult the instruction manual that’s the size of a clothing tag attached by a fucking thread. Pull the stupid pin, aim at the base of the fire, squeeze and sweep. How hard can it be?
Apparently,fucking hard.
The thing makes a fizzling sound and does… nothing.
“A little help would be nice!” I screech at the stranger, trying not to give into my panic and failing miserably.
He seems surprised at the harshness of my voice, but finally, he moves. Grabbing one of the heavy throws on display from the back of one of the reading chairs, he tosses it over the flames and the iguana. This seems to do the trick and, thankfully, I’m pretty sure Betsy hasn’t had the sprinkler system serviced in the last two decades, so they don’t trigger. The last thing I need is to have to clean up burned booksandhave the rest of the store water-logged.
The flames die into smelly plumes of smoke.
“Are you alright?” the man asks, turning towards me.
“I’m fine, but look at this mess! It’s going to takedaysto get the smell of burning books to go away. People are going to get the wrong impression! You can’t burn books in a bookstore!This isn’t Florida!”
I push past him to drag a chair over, using it to prop open the door. Thankfully, since it’s not too hot or humid yet I can at least keep the door open in order to try to clear the smoke out.
He watches me intently.
“Do you need assistance?”
I glare at him. “No, I don’t need assistance,” I bite out. “You could, however, re-capture whatever the hell that animal is before it causes any more…”
Before I can finish my sentence, I feel a bump againstmy shin. Looking down, I see the weird little lizard, rubbing itself against my legs like a cat. Noticing it has my attention, it begins winding through my legs.
“Good thing she likes you,” he comments, watching her as she continues to love on my legs. Her scales are cool and smooth against my shins. “She’s yours. It’d be a shame if we came all this way for nothing.”
“Why do you keep saying ‘she’s mine’? I don’t have any pets, let alone a weird blue lizard that — apparently — sets random shit on fire.”
He grins. “She was just trying to be friendly. She was trying to show her love and affection. Because you’re her one.”
“Well that fire must have been for you, because I don’t have a lizard.”
“Nope,” he says, cheerfully. “It was for you. She would have started one earlier if it were for me.”
“What the hell is she, anyway?”
He looks at me like I have three heads. “She’s. A. Dragon.”
Of course she’s a dragon. Because that makesperfectsense.
