At some point I'd taken a turn for the warehouse, a place I'd promised myself I'd avoid, and happened to stumble upon a small group of delinquents. I felt completely frozen, eyes wide as they stared deep into Roman's.

“Hey, Jules!” Max says from somewhere, and I barely managed to tear my eyes away from Roman to seek him out. He had his own beer and was sitting on some crates nearby, intimately close to Freya. When did that happen? “I thought you weren't coming!”

Maybe that was why she was so defensive over him. I always thought she'd end up with Roman. Or that she'd become president.

Behind me a trash can clanged to the ground, and I felt my blood pressure spike. Roman made to look, lowering his beer bottle mid-sip and leaning to peer around the corner of the warehouse. I took a step in front of him, trying to block his movement, or at least his view.

“You're fucking weird, Riddick.” Sam said. He, Eden, and Alex were standing close to the warehouse and I hadn't seen them when I'd first run around the corner. Freya tittered like a flirting debutante and only stopped when Max stood and fixed Sam with a dirty look.

“Don't be a dick, Sam.” He said as he moved closer to Roman and me. Someone had actually stood up for me. I wanted to be thankful, but the trash can made an unhealthy crunching noise somewhere around the corner, and I knew time was limited.

“He's right!” The words slipped from my tongue before I realized I'd even opened my mouth. Suddenly all eyes were on me and I felt my already scratchy throat go dry as I shrank under their collective attention.

“Oh, hey!” Max smiled, “You can talk!”

At least he seemed thrilled at this development, instead of bitter that up until now all of our conversations had been entirely one sided.

“He's right,” I repeated, “I am weird. Very weird.”

It felt like my mind was stuck on loop. I had no idea where I was going with this, but I knew I had to sort it out quickly.

“In fact,” Sam was fixing me with a strange look as I spoke, voice rusty from disuse, “I'm so weird, that you really shouldn't hang out with me.”

“You alright, Jules?” Max asked.

“I'm sure they've tried to explain it to you,” I gestured towards the others, “That you shouldn't be seen with me. None of you should. And I'm here now, and I think I'd really like to hang out around here.”

Max tried to speak again, but was cut short by a car alarm going off nearby. Unlike the hospital I had nothing to do with this sudden noise, but the tire that rolled in behind me was a good hint as to what did.

“What the fuck,” Roman said, trying to move around me again.

“Yep! I want to just sit right here. Do some really weird stuff. Just hang out, being weird. Maybe I'll do some chanting, summon a demon, eat a rat. I don't know, the possibilities are endless.” I could feel myself slowly losing control of the situation. My throat hurt, and I couldn't help but cough through the sudden grind.

Dumb, stupid, handsome Roman opened his dumb, stupid, handsome mouth and got half-way through his new catchphrase 'Are you okay?' but was thankfully cut off by a column of fire that burst forth from around the corner and melted the stray tire.

The silence was almost deafening as it took me a moment to restart my brain.

“Time to run.” I said, grabbing Roman's shoulder. It was easy to turn him, easier to urge him forward, and I was pleased to see that the others had taken the hint and were now matching our fast pace.

Admittedly the dragon helped with its terrifying chuttering call, and soon we were scrambling en masse towards the far side of the warehouse district.

“What the fuck was that?” Max yelled, reaching out to swat at my shoulder. He looked panicked and I had to wonder if that was the reason for his compulsion to hit me. I knew I wouldn't be able to lie to him, not with that look of utter betrayal on his face.

I tried to turn my focus back to running, letting my feet and possibly magic guide us. If I could get the group somewhere safe then I could give all my attention to the very excited, newly combustible lizard that seemed to be following us.

“JULIAN!” Max yelled, panic quickly giving way to anger, “I'm not gonna ask again!”

“Well,” I managed, darting down an alley between two massive brick buildings. How did I explain this without sounding like a complete loon? “It's a dragon.”

Smooth, Julian.

Once again, Sam Kingsley did not agree, and we skidded to a halt when he tripped up trying not to laugh.

“I'm sorry, you've got to be kidding me.” He said, look of sheer amazement on his face. I knew it was directed at me and not at the possibility of giant, flight-capable geckos.

“What the fuck, Jules. I stuck my neck out for you, tried to include you in shit and now you're lying to my face? You can't honestly believe that's a dragon back there!” Max seemed incredibly angry now, and I felt shame burn in my gut.

“Sorry,” I amended, “I'm pretty sure it's a baby dragon. Still pretty big, though. Actually, maybe average, now that I think about it? I honestly don't know much about baby dragons.”

Another vibrating wail echoed out, growing louder with every passing second.

“Alley!” I pointed, “Door!”

The group filtered in, scrambling quickly for a dark door pressed into the bricks. Alex reached it first and tugged and twisted at it insistently.

“It's locked!” He said, turning to glare, “Incredible directions there, Riddick.”

“Great, this is a dead end,” Eden whispered, rather loudly, “Now what?”

“Are you sure?” I asked, desperate to avoid Max's gaze. I pushed forward, easing myself between bodies until my hand was touching the knob itself. A word flashed across my mind and I tried to focus on it without saying it out loud, then acted surprised when the door opened wide.

“That's so weird, it worked for me,” All eyes were back on me and I wanted to cringe, “Hey, we should all really go inside here. Now. So we don't die.”

No one seemed willing to budge, all glaring at me with varying degrees of heat, and I experienced a moment of panic as I realized we were all about to die in a raging fire with no explanation. Worst of all, Max was making this face – that same face my mum gave when I'd almost let my secret out. The look of sheer parental disappointment that made my soul wither just a little bit more.

Luckily (or really, unluckily) the dragon decided this was the best time to make its first appearance, sliding its opalescent head around the corner of the alley to stare at our little group. The noise it made was low and deep in its throat, vibrating scales to create a noise not unlike a rattlesnakes tail.

Around me, everyone was frozen to the spot. Truth be told, I was as well, but only because I feared what reaction they would have to a Real Live Dragon, and how that might affect the Real Live Dragon's temperament.

When I looked back at the others a word crossed my mind, ancient and forgotten. I let it dance in my throat, climb my tongue, and unleash, and for a moment all of their statures changed. I knew deep down that, whatever command I gave them, they would follow it to the best of their ability. The thought churned my stomach.

“Go into the warehouse!” I yelled, my voice tinged with some golden and unseen thing, “Don't come out until it's safe!”

One by one they ambled into the building. There was no sound, no fight, just a slow march into the darkness beyond the door. I closed it behind them, locking it with a thought, and I could feel the previous spell come loose, control of their bodies returned to them.

Fortunately, they weren't able to open the door again, the lock holding so firm the door never so much as shook. Unfortunately, I didn't know any spells for taming dragons. I was fairly certain spells like that didn't exist, and the dragon on the mountain seemed all too pleased to ignore my questions to the contrary. She was hardly any help when it came to her own species, thus my knowledge was extremely limited. Of course, she'd probably change her tune if I brought her this mess.

The dragon before me bared its teeth, letting out its now-familiar call, and I tried to focus back on the magic under my skin. No words flashed across my mind, no spells parsing through the panic of imminent death to save me. Suddenly the mass of scales and fire was bounding towards me and I had just enough of a mind to throw my hands over my face, try to twist away. For a moment my eyes met Roman's in the second story window, as he pounded his fists against surprisingly durable glass.

This wasn't a terrible way to go, all things considered. Sure, it was bound to be extremely painful. As it turns out, baby dragons are nearly as sharp as full-grown-adult ones. And yeah, my life up until this point was filled with endless bad luck. And maybe the closest I'd gotten to having friends in my life had been from mind-controlling my classmates, and maybe I'd never had that terrible, dramatic high school romance that media says is crucial for teenagers.

But Roman Miranda was yelling my name. Roman Miranda was watching from the second story window of an old warehouse as what might possibly be the most terrifying baby in existence leaped at my face, and he was scared for me.

I know it seems like it's taking a long time for the dragon to actually tackle me, but in the real world it was seconds. My mind, as you probably know by now, was just extremely dramatic.

Having any size or age dragon leap on you is both terrifying and painful, so Step Seven is;

Don't. Don't do this thing. Don't go after dragons, ever, for any reason. Even the baby ones. They are allowed to destroy anything they want to and it doesn't matter what your goody-two-shoes conscience says. Wash you hands of the situation and stay in your tree-house. Smart people make this Step One. No one ever accused me of being smart.

If I were smart it probably wouldn't have taken me almost an entire minute to realize I wasn't being eaten. There was hardly any weight on me, and I was snapped out of my confusion by a warm, scratchy tongue licking the side of my face and dragging into my hair.

“Hey, stop that!” I tried not to giggle. Not because it was tickling me – its tongue was like damp sandpaper against my skin – but because the whole situation had taken on a new level of strange. This was a massive mythological beast, designed for murder and mayhem, but I'd never owned a dog in my life and this might've been the closest I'd ever get.

So I giggled while I tried to push its head away. It hummed when my hand rested on its snout, so I gave a few gentle scratches to its pearly scales. When I finally pushed it off and stood, it made to stand as well, hopping in excitement before retreating around the corner. For a moment I panicked again. Maybe baby dragons liked to play with their food, maybe it was just winding itself up for more fun before it devoured me whole.

When it returned my shoulders sagged in relief. It had the partially melted tire clutched in it's sharp teeth, and it placed the clump of rubber at my feet like a gift. Maybe my dog comparison was more accurate than I'd thought.

“Oh,” I said, watching the dragon pounce from place to place, its eyes darting from me to its new toy. I leaned down to try and lift it until a sharp pain in my wrist reminded me not to. “Uh, I can't lift this, buddy.”

The dragon looked no less excited, so I continued on, hoping it might understand what I'm saying, “But, I know someone who would probably love to meet you.”

Love was probably a strong word to use in conjunction with the dragon on the mountain. She never really seemed to enjoy children of any species, but I had no earthly idea what else I could do with a horse-sized salamander, so I grabbed it by the snout and started leading it down the back roads, towards the forest and towards the other massive lizard in my life.

'But wait,' you ask, 'what about the others? Can they get out of that warehouse?'

And that's an excellent question. Somewhere between being tackled by a dragon and realizing it had the intelligence of a very excited puppy, I had completely forgotten anyone else was around.