Page 110 of I Am Salvation

I don’t know the details of what my father and brothers went through, but if it was anything like this…

My God.

Dragon doesn’t need me bursting into tears.

He sniffles a bit as he tells me, and his eyes get glassy, but he doesn’t cry.

I don’t know that Dragon will ever cry.

My guess is he hasn’t cried since his parents gave him away.

Things like that harden a person.

Not that I’d know. But I’ve had enough talks with Aunt Melanie over the years—she’s a psychiatrist—to understand how trauma affects a person.

I bet Aunt Melanie could help Dragon a lot.

She’s retired now, but Dragon…

Dragon might be part of our family someday.

We are in love.

That doesn’t mean we’re going to stay together forever, but…

It’s what I want.

I can’t imagine feeling the way I do about anyone else.

It was quick. But it’s funny. Both my brothers and my sister fell hard quickly.

Well, maybe not so much Brianna. She had been worshiping Jesse from afar since she was a teenager.

Our family seems to fall quick and hard. My own parents did.

Dragon continues to talk, and I continue to listen as I stroke his arm, as I hold back my tears.

“That’s it,” he says. “Nothing more.”

I say a quick prayer that I’ll give him the right words in this moment. The words he needs to hear.

“Dragon, I love you,” I say. “Your strength humbles me.”

“It’s not strength, Diana.” He sighs. “You do what you have to do. Obviously it all affected me. Once I got out of the place, I turned to drugs and alcohol.”

“But you’ve kicked that as well. You’ve slayed all your dragons.” I can’t help a smile.

“I have one left to slay,” he says. “I have to find Griffin. I have to find her before that cult does something horrible to her.”

I wish I could promise him that we’ll find her. I open my mouth to say as much, but then I close it. I can’t make that promise. I don’t promise things that I don’t know that I can keep. And right now, we don’t know if we will ever find Griffin.

We don’t know if she’s even alive.

Dragon’s phone rings then, and he jerks upward. He’s still naked, and my God, his ass is so gorgeous. I can’t help staring at the griffin on the back of his thigh.

The griffin that stays with him at all times but that he can never bring himself to look at.

I hope that changes soon.

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