Page 8 of Draco's Fire

Tyson froze. He was sure he heard her wrong. He turned to her, looking at her confused, "Excuse me?"

She pulled her arms together, looking cold. "I'm just simply pointing out that if you hadn't tried to make it so hard for me to have protection at the rally, this could have been avoided. Micheal might not even.."

"Don't even finish that sentence!" Tyson snapped, pushing himself off the wall. "Where the fuck do you get off thinking that because we didn't have extra security, Micheal would be alive!? This wasn't someone that just decided to do this. This was planned out, and no amount of security would have changed that."

Her eyes hardened, and her jaw tensed. She crossed her arms, "I'm saying maybe. We can never know for sure, Tyson. We can never be sure if this was just a plan someone made the night before."

Tyson laughed, but it wasn't funny. This was infuriating him. He ran a hand through his hair, "Fuck, Shayla. I am in no mood for this bullshit! Don't come in here telling me you want to pay respect and then fucking slander me because I made a choice not to incorporate murders into the rally."

"Murders!" She dropped her jaw, "My people don't murder. We simply use violence when it's necessary, which at the rally was! If you would just listen."

"I don't want to listen!" Tyson growled back. He threw his arms out, "I certainly don't want to listen to you."

"Maybe if you had, this could have been prevented. Maybe if you had allowed the PEACE to fully be there the murders wouldn't have gotten away. Maybe if you had listened to me just a little, we wouldn't be in this mess."

Tyson knew his anger was getting the better of him, and his rage was starting to boil over. He stepped closer to her dropping his tone, "Let me just give this to you straight because apparently, you aren't fucking understanding. The actions of the murders don't make me want to double my efforts with using PEACE. It makes me want to promote peace ten times harder. This, I can tell you, is what will happen. I'm done working with PEACE. I shouldn't have had you there in the first place. You just failed in protecting us anyway."

"Now, hold on a second, Tyson," Gil spoke up, stepping into the closed space. He placed a hand gently on Shayla's shoulder. "Don't let his anger ruin the picture here, Shayla. We are grateful for the protection you offered at the rally. If you hadn't, we might both have gotten hurt."

Tyson stepped away, clenching and unclenching his fists. Shayla looked at Gil, upset. "You're cofounder is an idiot."

Tyson turned towards her, narrowing his eyes.

"Slightly." Gil laughed, trying to make a joke of it, "We are also grieving if you have forgotten. A close friend of ours is dead."

Shayla's eyes flickered over towards Gil, and her eyes shifted into sorrow. "I am sorry about his death. He should never have gone out the way he did."

"Thank you." Gil gave her shoulder a squeeze, "It's nice to hear that from a friendly face."

Tyson clicked his tongue, rolling his eyes. Shayla frowned, "I'm not here to fight. I just wanted to make sure that you were both doing ok. I know this is a hard time."

Gil gave her a soft smile, dropping his arm, "That means a lot. Tyson may not be in a great mood, but I gladly accept the words."

"Maybe if she wasn't spewing shit, I'd be in a more happy mood." Tyson counters and Gil glared at him. He sighed and looked back at Shayla, giving her a sweet smile. "Minus his attitude, everything is going well. I'm glad you came. It means a lot that you personally came here. Thank you. I can walk you to a cab. I think it's going to start raining soon. We wouldn't want that outfit to get ruined."

Shayla looked at Tyson, who was now staring off at the crowd of people leaving. Shayla scowled, "No cab for me. I'm willing to protect myself from people that want to do me harm."

Tyson looked at her and chewed on his cheek. He wanted to ask her if that included murdering innocent people, but he remained quiet. He could feel Gil's eyes burning a hole into the back of his head. He simply clicked his tongue, and went back inside, leaving the two alone.

Six

Shayla

The wiki article didn’t mention how dreamy Tyson looked in his Armani suits. Shayla scrolled the page looking for some connection.

“Stalk much?” she said to herself as she scrolled all through the article. The problem was that she couldn’t stop thinking about him. It wasn’t just how handsome he was either, which he was for sure, but also his improbable philosophies.

“Who the hell ever heard of a dragon being a pacifist?” she continued the conversation with herself.

“Did you say something?” one of her pod mates, Collin, was eavesdropping again. Such a putz.

She rolled her eyes in agitation. “Nothing to you, Collin.”

“Oh, okay. They have a word for people that talk to themselves you know? What was it again?” Collin really fancied himself as clever.

“Is it, eat my shit?” Shayla went right for the kill on this one, since she was absolutely not in the mood.

Collin pretended this was an actual conversation. “No, I don’t think that’s it.”

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