SAVE POINT 3

Rosabella

Oh my God, it was Sparo! I knew his face anywhere—though it felt so strange seeing his face here, outside of The Game, in a crampy New York coffee shop. A blue, puffer coat only made his muscular shoulders appear larger, and its collar stuck up near his clean-shaven chin and sunglasses. A typical gold chain glinted around his neck. He looked like Blade meets celebrity rapper, and it made something within me tighten in an uncomfortable way—mostly my throat. Why was my throat dry? Maybe because last time I’d seen the dragon shifter, I’d been thinking too hard about his lips… Thank God there were no Baddie Point system prompts to give me away this time.

"Well, call me a dragon!" the dark-skinned man quipped, flashing a smile at me that had mixed results on my insides...mostly butterflies.

From behind his shoulder, I watched Dormouse roll his eyes, "You are a dragon."

"Not the point here," Sparo rolled his eyes back, lowering his voice for a minute to hiss at the nerd, "These people here don't know that." Raising his voice above a normal level and waving a finger, he gestured to the bustling barista behind the counter, "Please get my lovely friends here two, large, iced coffees and—oh, two of whatever those croissant things are...three," he amended as an afterthought, licking his lips, "Definitely three.".

Dormouse looked flustered; the boy threw his hands down in annoyance, thin lines forming on his pale forehead as Sparo spun to pay, and the cash register chimed in the background. "How are you even paying for all this?" he balked at the man.

Sparo lifted a finger to his lips, tucking a wad of extra cash into his pocket with the other hand and sliding into the chair opposite me at the tiny table.

"Okay, I guess I'll just get my own chair then..." Dormouse complained, running a hand through his limp, dark hair and making a big show of dragging a plastic seat from another table across the floor. The legs emitted a high-pitched whining and thudding screech against the luxury vinyl floor. I stifled a laugh at the kid's disgust.

Sparo shook his head like he was completely in the right here and was getting slightly offended about it, "I just got you a coffee now, didn't I?" He turned to me, speaking out of the corner of his mouth in a murmur, "...Is he always this much fun?" ...Like the comment was a secret between the two of us—even though Dormouse most certainly had heard it.

And the smile finally broke out on my face—the one I'd been hellbent on holding back since seeing the man because... Because I'd been trying to forget how magnetic he was...and how I felt when I was around him:

Warm.

Content.

...Magical.

It wasn’t fair. How could one person make you feel all of those things and, also, have saved your life? More than once...

I leaned across the wobbling, round table, lowering my voice into seriousness, "I never got to say thank you for getting me to Prickgada's...for trading yourself for a health pack and the Presence Cheat Code. You saved my life again—"

"Nah," the dragon-non-dragon—really a Red Vodyaracka Skydrake shifter—tried to wave me off with an unbothered hand that had too many rings on it, though I saw a strange solemness coloring his eyes underneath his sunglasses, "you would have done the same for me." He wet his lips, as though to say something more when the nerd flopped down at our table.

Damn it. What was he going to say? My eyes searched his face, but came back empty, leaving me a little uncertain and breathless.

"Dormouse!" Sparo announced, instead, loudly and cheerfully like they were the best of buddies—even if, by the look of the livid stare from the Coder, that most certainly wasn’t true— "What brings you to this fine city? I'm happy to see you again—both of you." He ducked a shy look up at me that made my hands tingle—God, I had to get control of myself. I hoped that my cheeks didn't blush scarlet as I caught his eye. I quickly looked down, reaching for the napkin dispenser in the middle of the table and piling a stack of them for us just to look busy.

"How the heck did you get away from the sorceress?" Dormouse wanted to know, ignoring both Sparo's questions and his chipper tone by interjecting with a sour one, "She was crazy."

The dark-skinned man stirred his straw around in his drink, "Oh, she toyed with me long enough and, then, decided to let me go. Not before I stole some CM though..." He winks at me.

He stole Creator Magic from the Witch? Hence the human form. …And the cash.

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"Sparo, what are you doing here?" I asked, concern leaking into my voice. Wasn't it a little strange that, of all the places we ended up, the Vodyaracka Skydrake was here? In a New York coffee shop? In Earth reality? It made me a little suspicious. I'd have said he was following us, but he was here before us so...

The man cleared his throat awkwardly, "Oh, it's probably just a hope, but I'm chasing down the loser human who cost me my job. You know the prison fired me, right? Literally, terminated—gave my position to damn Helladore all 'cause of one asshole—"

"Goran." His name lodged in my throat even as it came, blurting, out at full speed. My uncle…well, my uncle who had pretended to be my birth dad… The man still twisted my insides into pure rage and regret.

Sparo looked taken aback at my quick response. His huge hands kneaded into a knot at the center of the table like he'd prefer to punch something, "Yeah, that's the one. Supposedly he lives in this shithole city—"

"Ooh, don't insult New York in front of Rosabella," Dormouse warned, "She's from here."

Sparo squinted at me in disgust, "You are? They have rats as big as dogs!"

“Did you not hear a thing I just said?!” Dormouse fumed.

"It's okay," I told the nerd, trying to quiet him down and take the conversation and Sparo's attention off me. The man's eyes were a fierce brown, almost piercing into my soul with the way he was looking at me. It was hard to breathe! Couldn’t I stop acting like a twelve-year-old with a crush?! "I don't really even like this place anymore," I babbled, smishing the corners of a napkin together with the pads of my fingers.

"All they get right is their coffee, speaking of which..." Sparo trailed, sliding out of his seat and towards the coffee pick-up counter.

His movement gave Dormouse the opening it looked like his frustrated expression needed. The dork leaned close, whispering, "Are you gonna tell him about the plan and how Goran's trying to destroy The Game? I don't think we should trust him—"

"We can trust him," I murmured back, nodding as my eyes darted to the man's back every three seconds to ensure we weren't being overheard, "He saved my life more times than I can count—"

"And here you are..." Sparo's torso bent over us, presenting the two, iced coffees with a flourish.

...While Dormouse shook his head at me—fingers of his dark hair falling into his eyes. He tried to cover it up by looking out the window at the busy New York street when Sparo caught him. But the dark-skinned man was smarter than anyone gave him credit for, and his sparkling eyes wiggled between my face and the nerd's uncertainly, "...So...what's going on?"

"We're here to find Goran too," I blurted.

“Rosabella!” Dormouse's face and shoulders fell into a mini-meltdown over his iced coffee. I felt bad, but, in my gut, I knew it was the right call, letting the dragon in on our mission.

"Can I talk to you...privately?" the kid hissed at me, not even caring to hide his open hostility towards Sparo. ...Well, here we went. I’d just landed, face-first, in his doghouse...

I nodded and the lanky kid stood, hunched over and shuffling to the side awkwardly in an attempt to find somewhere in the cramped coffee shop where we wouldn't be overheard...a feat which felt nearly impossible with people shouldering by. I grabbed the boy's arm and hauled him into a corner, pushing past the bathroom door sign for the women's room and yanking the boy inside.

"The woman's restroom? Really?!" he lamented, already looking like he was sweating.

The women's room was really just two water closets painted a God-awful shade of bubble gum, a counter with a sink and one picture of Marlin Monroe hanging sideways from where someone probably hit it walking out three years ago, and no one had ever fixed it. No tampon dispenser. No changing table. Literally nothing that the nerd could be offended by...except for the color pink. It was everywhere. ...And, probably, a constant reminder for the kid that we weren't in the men's bathroom... He needed to get over it.

"You said you want to talk, talk," I spat back.

And he nodded hurriedly, running an anxious hand through his dark hair and ducking his chin again, "I don't think we can trust Sparo, Rosabella. Rainer sent just you and I. We can do this alone—" His pale hands wove in the air as he argued, but I needed to stop him.

"But we don't have to," I told him, getting more passionate about it than I’d expected, "Sparo's smart, and he has the same goal. He could be useful—"

"He could be obnoxious," the kid countered with a raised eyebrow.

So that was why! It was just a difference of personalities. Dormouse was subdued and restrained while Sparo was…well, the exact opposite of that.

I grabbed the boy by both shoulders, trying to get him to look at me directly. "One hundred percent, he's going to be obnoxious," I told him squarely, "But teaming up is our best chance of finding Goran—"

"Okay, okay, okay," Dormouse griped, admitting defeat and shaking his head incessantly, "I get it, you win. But you owe me big time—"

"Agreed," I said, my own shoulders sagging, just relieved that he'd conceded.

And I pushed open the heavy women's restroom door, throwing all my weight against it to get out of the place. This was going to go alright. With the three of us, we could find Goran. Sparo would be a good asset in our search. ‘Asset’? I shook my head at myself. When had I become so methodical....and was I so sure that I wasn’t just focused on the first three letters of that word where the man was concerned? The wood of the door was cold on my palms, and I saw the restaurant was even busier than when we'd stepped aside—mirroring my mind.

But Dormouse, in front of me, shuttered and, then, went into full-on, panic mode.

"Oh my God," he wheezed, his face contorting, "She's here!"

I tried to follow his gaze, confused, "Who's here?" What was the kid getting so tore up about now?

"Maude!" he squeaked, his face clenched in utter terror.

I turned. And, sure enough, the willowy, blonde girl stood, hand on her hip, with a brunette girl at the order counter. Her high-pitched voice chattered loudly to the barista behind the counter as she pointed a manicured finger at the menu board overhead.

It was her—Dormouse's crush from The Game Side Mission.

In real life.

And, in real life, it looked like the kid was about to dead faint.