Hanna smiled at Tara and Finn. “Thanks for hanging out with me, you guys.”

Tara and Finn both laughed. “We should be thanking you, Hanna! Not too many people like us. We don’t have any real friends apart from each other.” Tara said.

Hanna’s smile faded. “Hey… I’m sorry. I know how that feels.”

Finn shrugged. “No big deal. We’ve got each other.”

Tara smiled at him. “And that’s enough for us.”

Hanna got the sense that she was intruding on some private world. “Uh… If you two want me to leave…”

Tara looked over at her, startled. “What? No! Why would we?”

“Well… You two seemed to like… Disappear into some little world or something, and so I thought maybe you’d like me to leave and let you enjoy it.” Hanna blushed, feeling stupid for ever thinking that.

Finn laughed, doubling over. He rested a hand on the wall, trying to catch his breath. “Hanna, really? We love having your company. Don’t even think that we don’t want you around, okay?”

“Yeah, sure!” Hanna smiled at him. “It was a pretty silly thought wasn’t it?”

Tara nodded. “Yup. But that’s okay. You only met us a week ago, so how would you know?”

Hanna laughed. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“Come on, let’s go have breakfast.” Finn headed off down a corridor leading to the mess hall.

The two girls followed eagerly, stomachs rumbling.

***

“Come on, Ali! Let me go with you this time. Honestly, why are you and Alonzo keeping me out of everything important?” Hanna crossed her arms, taking a defiant pose as she looked at her brother.

Ali rolled his eyes, crossing his own arms and staring her down. “Because we can’t trust you to obey orders and because I need you doing the interviewing.”

“Ali! I was done with that a week ago, but you wouldn’t know that, would you? You don’t even take the time to look at the reports I’ve compiled. So everything I might or might not find of importance, you wouldn’t see it, because you haven’t taken the time to pay attention! You and Alonzo are so busy with your own investigations or whatever it is, you are doing that you don’t see me or anything else.

"I’ve been making friends and connecting, and you and Alonzo are holed up in the lab with a bunch of mutilated dead people! You’re so self-absorbed, and you’ve pulled Alonzo into it with you! You guys don’t pay any attention to me anymore, and I hate it! I hate you, in fact.” Hanna spat.

Ali huffed. “Hanna, come on. Don’t be silly. We’re looking at the reports.”

“That’s why they’re sitting in a corner gathering dust, and you haven’t touched them since I gave them to you, I suppose?”

“You’re acting like a two-year-old, Hanna. You don’t get what you want, so you throw a temper tantrum!” Ali shot back.

Hanna’s eyes blazed with cold fire. “How dare you? You expect me to act like a grownup when you and Alonzo are acting like a pair of self-absorbed ten-year-olds with a new toy!”

“Yes! I don’t care what you think of me and Alonzo, but I sure do expect you to act like you’re actually sixteen. So grow up a bit!” Ali blazed.

Alonzo walked into the room. But neither sibling noticed him.

“Fine! Maybe I don’t want to go on your stupid reconnaissance mission after all! You and Alonzo can have all the fun. I’ll just go hang out with Finn and Tara.” Hanna stormed past Alonzo, fleeing to a place she knew she wouldn’t be found.

“Who are Finn and Tara?” Ali shouted after her.

She heard him, and as she turned the corner, she shouted back, “You’d know if you paid any attention to me!”

Ali collapsed onto his bunk, deflated. “Every time I try to talk to that girl she gets angry with me! What is wrong with her?”

Alonzo shrugged, sitting down on his own bunk. “Man, you two were really going at it.”

Ali ran a hand through his hair. “Can’t she see how hard I’m trying to make things work? I can’t babysit her, and she acts as though I should. She’s old enough to do what she’s told and take care of herself. Indri told me that maybe I should back off and let her alone as much as possible. I did that. And what does she give me for taking a hands-off policy? She yells at me for not be controlling enough! Honestly. Girls!”

Alonzo just listened silently until his friend was done ranting. “Ali, I don’t know how to fix the things between you and Hanna. I think only you can do it though, and maybe it’s not all her either?”

Ali shook his head. “I don’t know about that, but I do know this. I’m fed up with dealing with her. If she wants to act like that, fine. I’m done. She can do whatever she wants just so long as she does all the things I need her to do and stays out of our way.”

“She won’t do that. She’s as inquisitive as you and I, and she’ll dig for answers to this thing. Maybe keeping her out of the lab isn’t a good idea after all?”

“Alonzo, we’ve been over this! She can’t be in that place. I don’t want her seeing those things.”

Alonzo nodded, looking at his clasped hands. “Me neither, but I don’t think she’s going to grow up if you and I treat her like a baby, Ali.”

“I’m not! You’re not either.” Ali threw his hands up. “She’s being completely unreasonable.”

Alonzo sighed. “Ali, I give up. You obviously don’t want advice. You just want her to be wrong and you to be right. Maybe you’re just using her as an outlet for your irritation and stress. Maybe she’s not the one at fault after all!”

Ali rolled his eyes. “Alonzo, I don’t want to talk about that right now.”

“Fine. Whenever you’re finally ready to admit that you might have been wrong too, let me know. And you owe her an apology. I’m going to go talk to her.”

Ali glared at his friend. “She was the one yelling at me! Why should I apologize?”

“I don’t know, Ali. Maybe because you yelled back, and you weren’t all that nice.” Alonzo shrugged.

Before Ali could respond, he walked out of the room. He headed off to find Hanna.

Ali slumped back against the headrest. After a few minutes, he realized that Alonzo had had a point. He hadn’t treated Hanna very well, and it had been partially his fault. But he wasn’t wrong to try to protect her from the death and pain involved in the investigation, was he? How could he be? He had nothing but her best intentions in mind there.

Sighing, he laid back on the bed, closing his eyes. He was supposed to be sleeping now. It was already 2200 hours, and he was tired out after a long day in the lab.

He and Alonzo had finally made a break through, though, which was one good thing in the day. They had determined that the only creature able to inflict the damage they were seeing was some kind of dragon. The other magical creatures could do that damage on a smaller scale, but only a dragon could completely mutilate bodies at such a rate as he and Ali had calculated.

But this didn’t really comfort him. Dragons were extremely hard to deal with. They had few weak spots, and they were large. Large, but fast. And they could breathe fire, which meant that if you got too close, you would end up dead.

Sighing, he rolled over, opening his eyes and flicking off the light switch. Then he closed his eyes again and in a few minutes, despite the worries he had, he was asleep.