Page 22 of A Dragon's Miracle (Fires of Fate)
Finn
Iwasbeyond myself with worry. I hadn't heard from Ryan in a week now. He'd simply vanished from the dinner party and no one had seen him since. Why would he do something like that? He didn't answer his phone, although I tried calling at least twenty times a day. At the embassy, they told me he'd called in sick for work the day after the dinner party and that was all they knew.
“Probably pregnant,” someone had joked. I'd wanted to punch that guy. But I held myself back, if only because I would have been locked up for violent behavior against humans. And then how would I have continued searching for my friend?
A few days after Ryan's disappearing act, Zed suggested I try ringing up his family, see if they'd heard anything. It was a brilliant idea. The only issue was that I had no idea what their number was or where they lived oranything.
How could I have spent so much time talking to Ryan without really learning anything about him? He’d always been content to let me rattle on and on about things that didn’t matter, and I’d never stopped to consider that he wasn’t sharing very much of himself.
I was anawfulfriend.
It was lucky for me that the internet was a thing that existed. I remembered Ryan mentioning one time that his family was from California, so I used a search engine and looked up all numbers registered to people sharing Ryan's last name in California.
I came up with about a hundred phone numbers. If humans were more like dragons, every one of those people would have been related to Ryan, but sadly, human last names didn't work like that, and I never knew if the person on the other end of the line had even a single gene in common with Ryan until I asked them about him.
So far I'd gone through about twenty numbers with no luck. But I wasn't one to give up so quickly, and so I dialed number twenty-one and held on to hope.
A female voice greeted me on the other end of the line. I pictured a woman in her late forties, maybe early fifties. But then, humans always looked older than they were. Aside from Ryan. Ryan looked perfect.
“Hello,” I said. “I know this must sound odd to you, but are you related to a Ryan Chen?”
The woman was quiet for a moment, then she said, “That's my son's name.”
This could be it!
My heart beat a little faster, but I couldn't let myself jump to conclusions yet. I'd talked to another person who'd had a Ryan in her family a few phone calls ago, but her Ryan had turned out to be thirty and married. “Is your son in his late twenties? Does he have black hair and...” I stopped myself from saying 'the cutest smile.'
“Yes, that sounds like my son.”
Yes!!
“Could I ask who you are?” the woman inquired.
“Yes, of course, I'm sorry. I'm a friend of Ryan's. From the Island of Dragons.”
“Dragons?” she sounded surprised.
“Yes. I met Ryan when he came here to work.”
“That's what he's doing now?”
“You didn't know he was working here?”
“No...” she sounded sad now. “I haven't heard from Ryan in three years. I wasn't even sure if he was...” She broke off, but I could imagine what she'd been about to say.
“He makes everyone worry, doesn't he?” Although I could tell he tried his best not to let anyone notice when he was having trouble—which was stupid, really. Weren’t we supposed to be friends? He never seemed to realize how much people cared about him.
“Is he doing alright?” she asked.
I bit my lip. How could I tell her that I'd called to ask the exact same thing? She hadn't heard from her son in three years and now I was supposed to tell her that he'd gone missing? That was too much.
“I'm sure he's fine,” I said. “I was only wondering if you'd heard from him because it's been difficult to get a hold of him recently.”
“I see. Would you please tell him to call me when you see him?”
“I will,” I promised, heart sinking in my chest because this phone call hadn't brought me any closer to finding my friend.
“Thank you.” She hung up but I got the feeling that she might call back if she didn't hear from her son soon. I hoped by that time I'd have better news for her.
