Dragon Mirror- Ties Between the Veil
Six: A Man, A Girl, And A Discover

The light filtered through his blinds, striking his closed lids and making a pattern in his irreparably conscious mind. He had not slept much in the weeks since Raina’s bizarre disappearance.

Zhao propped himself up on his forearms and stared at the window, glancing at the alarm clock. 0647.

He had class in a few hours, but he didn’t think he could stomach attending a lecture on the psychology and creation of false memories. He gritted his teeth and rolled out of his bed.

When he made it into his bathroom, he leaned on the counter and stared blankly into his dull black eyes. What had happened? Was he crazy? Where had she gone?

There were no answers to his questions. And the lack was burning him up inside.

He remembered the day she disappeared on that peak in the Appalachians. He had turned to look at her as the lake seemed to flash into brightness, the center twisting up as if it were a cloth being plucked up from its center by an invisible hand.

Her body had turned to light and had seemed to bend towards the lake, being lifted away as all of it flashed so bright that all he could see was an electric blue afterwards.

There had been silence. Stillness so complete that the hairs on the back of his arms had raised. There was no lake. There was no Raina.

He had spent the next three days wandering the peak. Marking his path on the surrounding hills until his rations ran out, and then he came back to the spot to stare at the empty clearing. He had slowly walked to Raina’s discarded backpack, which he had not touched.

Zhao stared at it and made the decision to leave it instead of bringing it to report her disappearance. He knew he wouldn’t be able to tell the truth. He didn’t even know how to go about explaining how she was missing. Although he had a few ideas from his arduous search around the mountains.

As Zhao had wandered on the second day, calling out for her, he had met a few hikers on the eastern side of the adjoining mountain. They had been concerned and asked if they wanted him to radio in that he’d lost his trail mate.

He had made a snap decision. Tell no one what had really happened. Report it when he hiked back to the truck. He thanked the hikers but told them she hadn’t been missing for very long, and that she would know to go back to their camp before nightfall. And with that he had turned on his heel and headed back to the peak, half hoping that she would actually be there.

Only on the hike back did he remember that Luna had disappeared too.

Reporting her missing, turning over his maps with the highlighted trail and several campsites marked, Zhao immediately realized how bad this was going to look for him.

Once they searched the trails, and found the sites he had camped in overnight, and the peak clearing that was bare except for Raina’s pack, he had immediately regretted not trying to hide the pack or thinking of some other reason for her disappearance.

The next 48 hours had been a living Hell. The first day he had to call Raina’s mother, then his own parents to explain what had happened. Then he went back out with the rangers and a search party. And then they found the untouched pack and lack of campsite.

Zhao could see the moment it dawned on one of the ranger's faces that this might not be the case of a lost hiker. The stocky man was crouching by the backpack and looking around the clearing when he slowly turned his head to stare at Zhao. The man's brows had puckered as he made eye contact and Zhao had felt his stomach drop as the man lifted his com unit to speak.

The next day he was taken into police custody for questioning, which is the same day Raina’s mother and sister arrived at his parent’s cabin.

He was being escorted outside by two officers when they pulled up. Tito stayed in the front seat with her arms crossed, her hair disheveled and dyed a violent green. He remembered that her face had been bare of makeup and her eyes were dark pits of sadness.

Mrs. Vasquez had leapt out of her car. And Zhao immediately saw the recrimination across her face as she surveyed his position between two police officers, even though he wasn’t detained.

“What did ya do to my girl!? Tell me what ya did to her ya bastard!” The officer to his right had stepped past him to hold up placating hands.

“Ma’am, calm down…”

“Ya expect me ta be fucking calm?” She shrieked. She pointed a finger in Zhao’s face as the woman stood eye to eye with the restraining officer. “My girl goes away on a trip to the mountains with her boyfriend and just disappears? But leaves behind all her possessions in her pack? Where’s her cat ya sick fuck? Where my baby at?”

The officer beside him had rushed him off to be questioned at the station. But not quickly enough to erase the image of Raina’s mother trying to physically reach him, as if she could have shaken the answers from his soul.

His phone vibrated, distracting him from his spiraling thoughts. When he turned it over to look, he paused, staring at the text message.

Can we meet up to talk?

-Tito

He jiggled his phone in his fingers nervously. He hadn’t thought he’d hear from Raina’s family again except through a lawyer. His parents had come back from China shortly after his questioning with a legal team and a ban on all other contact with Mrs. Vasquez and her daughter.

They had been beyond miffed that he had allowed himself to speak one on one with the West Virginia police. Once the FBI had been called in, his parents had made sure to swath him in the best legal protection money could buy.

He’d only been back in Michigan for the past few days, since his parents had insisted he continue attending UofM. His apartment in Ypsilanti had seemed hollow, since he had rarely lived in it. Now it was his only refuge. They had not wanted to release him from West Virginia, but with no proof of wrongdoing, he had been whisked away by his parents and deposited on the college campus.

They had given him their utmost support to continue being the prized student, and assurances that they would take care of things, and disappeared to attend to their various business prospects. All without any empathy or concern that their son’s girlfriend of several years was missing.

Zhao tightened his grip on his phone. Fuck it.

Sure. Where and when?

He sat at the park throwing peanuts out of a bag at the campus squirrels. He hadn’t been waiting for more than twenty minutes before the critters started creeping up on him. Zhao always carried nuts in his pack when on campus for that reason.

A particularly fat squirrel had crept up the side of the bench and was chittering at him when he looked up and saw Tito come around the wall partitioning the park from the street.

A bright red lace dress flared around round hips and thighs sheathed in black spider web patterned tights that disappeared into calf length leather boots covered in belt buckles. She wore a black half jacket with a hood drawn over braided hair dyed a bright red.

He found himself distractedly wondering how her hair survived the color changes it seemingly went through every few weeks. Since he’d known her, he’d seen dozens of unique color patterns.

She stalked towards him with her head down and the fat squirrel bounded off the bench and off into the trees, scolding. She looked up at it, revealing orange and red eyeshadow and bright red lipstick. She pursed her lips and pulled out her own bag of nuts, tossing several under the fat squirrel’s retreat.

“I love these fat fucks. Used to fish for them with a peanut on a string when I visited.” She dropped her hand and upended the bag onto the ground. Turning, she threw herself down onto the bench next to him, pulling a small leather journal from her other pocket.

“How do you fit all that in such a tiny coat?” Zhao tried to joke. He shifted uncomfortably when she leaned toward him.

“Shut up.”

Zhao blinked at her, but she opened the journal and started to read out loud.

“My beloved Raina, I left instructions with Selene to gift this journal and this key to you after my death along with my pendant. I fear something I have done may have endangered your life. This key is to a lockbox in West Virginia. What is in the lockbox will explain everything and could save your life.

Your Pani.”

She put down the book and looked at him. He stared back. His mind was completely blank, and he couldn’t figure out what she wanted. He opened and closed his mouth a few times.

“Are you fucking dense?”

“I just don’t see what-” Tito cut him off.

“Someone was out to get my sister and my grandmother knew about it!” She handed him the journal, turning the page and pointing.

She pulled an orange fobbed key out of her pocket and held it in front of his face. “The address was on the next page of her journal with the key taped to the back cover. My dumbass sister left this shit in a box and never opened it besides taking out that stupid fucking pendant.”

She took a steading breath because her voice had become elevated and a tad shrieky.

“This calls for a fucking road trip, and you have the wheels and a base of operations in the mountains. You in?”

Zhao looked at the key, and then down at the journal.

Everything that had happened since Raina’s disappearance needled into his soul. His panic, his endeavor with the police and with his parents…

A scowl flashed across his face as he looked at the address. He needed answers and Tito had provided an outlet to find possible explanations. Possibly, even a solution to finding Raina.

“Yes.”

She stood up, pulling the journal from his lap. “I’ll be at your place tomorrow morning.” She stopped and leaned over him. “You leave without me, I’ll fucking kill you.”

Zhao stared at her in disbelief before she turned and walked away, making him wonder what waited for them at the end of the trail of new information.

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