Chapter 38

Jealousy

God she felt like crap, it had been one hell of a night for Haley Long and somehow she felt that it was only going to get worse. First Rose, she had beaten the holy hell out of her and left her writhing in pain, then to top it off she had to have her Dragon Powers removed in the most painful of ways. In her life she had never experienced something so painful, it was as if a part of her had been ripped away and it left a space, a gap in her that couldn't be filled by anything. And it seemed that the only solution was to get them back but her only problem was that she didn't have the faintest idea to do that. Lying down in her brother's bed she pressed the ice pack to her head and let the feeling of cold try to sooth her pain, but it was to no avail. Alcohol didn't help, Aspirin didn't help and ice didn't help, so what the hell was she going to do about all of this. To make it worse, her son was going to think that she was insane, and that she had gone off on some bender and gotten the crap kicked out of her. Her original plan was going wrong, and now it seemed that the Dark Dragon had the upper hand on her family. And that made Haley wonder why her family was always stuck with the chore of fighting the Dark Dragon, why did they have to carry the burden of saving the world?

Maybe it was because of her Grandfather? He up until the point of her brother becoming the American Dragon had been the only one to fight the Dark Dragon and live, and then when it came to her brother the situation became even more diluted. With his exploits in the Magical World, the Long family had become perhaps the most famous name in the world and everybody, from leprechauns to trolls would be watching them to see what they'd do about the Dark Dragon. They would be watching Jake in particular. And it wasn't as if he was a teenager where his once concern was if the hot girl in chemistry wanted to go to the dance with him or something. He had children, he had wife, hell he had grandchildren now, he had so many concerns, so many that the well being of the Magical World just took the back seat. As it should have been anyway, they should have learned to take care of themselves and stopped depending on the Dragon's to clean up the mess, but they didn't and it had literally ripped her family apart. Now their families greatest enemy had returned, and he was going to rip the shreds of what was left of the Longs into bite sized little pieces.

Sometimes she just wished she was human, and that she had a normal human family. At one time she had actually made that choice, and she had ended up spending twenty years of her life in China, the place where she had built her life, it was an attempt to forget about everything the Magical World had done to her and her family. But she should have known that once you were a part of the Magical World, you never left it and it was a foolish notion to believe that you'd ever be able to get away from it, in that world, Family Names and Blood kept you tethered to it, and she unfortunately belonged to the Magical World's most known family. And there would be no escape from that whatsoever.

Then there was Luong, her only child, and that at the moment was a complicated relationship. She knew that he was skeptical about this he didn't doubt that the Magical World existed, but he doubted that it was a place that he wanted to be. And that had caused her to lost contact with him, once again something that she could blame on Magic and the Dragons. That had changed tonight, in her need to get him to safety from the paws of the Dark Dragon she had brought him closer to her, and then she considered that maybe being a Long and the prime target for most of the evil things in the magical world wasn't so bad, it had brought her son back to her. But that all rested on the edge of a very small knife.

"Hey Sis," Jake asked walking into the bedroom. "How are you feeling?"

Haley rose up slightly. "Like shit on a bun, but I assumed you knew."

"I know the feeling, trust me on this one I've been hit and beaten up so many times that I usually just end up powering through it." He smiled.

Her sinuses were backed up slightly, and the way she spoke demonstrated that clearly. "But I never was under all of the pressure that you where, you were the American Dragon the star of the Magical World, I was your sister, the backup in case you screwed up one day and got yourself killed."

"You sound jealous of me." Jake pointed out with a hint of amusement.

His little sister shook her head vehemently. "Oh no I certainly was never jealous of what you did as the American Dragon, maybe a little bit from all of the attention that Mom and Grandpa gave you, but nothing else made me that way, I know was I was never once jealous of your duties."

Laughing Jake slapped his knees gently. "So between having to battle Hunters, Monsters and Shadow Demons, you were jealous of the attention that they gave me? Come on Haley, they were just trying to keep me from killing myself, I was a teenage boy, I wanted to sit around and Ogle girls all day, I wanted no responsibilities, yet I got them all dumped on me at once, so if anybody should be jealous, I should be jealous of you."

"Me?" Her eyes widened with slightly amused shock.

"Yes, you didn't have to be the American Dragon, you got to be the normal kid," Jake explained as if he was lecturing her. "I wanted that, hell I wanted everything in my life to be normal but nothing ever was, my own wife is the crowning jewel to how weird my life is, I never let it bother me like it did you though, if I had handled it like that I don't know how I-…"

"You would have handled it like I did, run away and build a life far away from it all, but like me it would have caught up with you." She finished.

Jake shook his head. "Not necessarily, I would have gone to Canada."

Narrowing her eyes, she stuck her tongue out at Jake. "Ha ha, funny."

In route to the Long Family Apartment, Brooklyn Bridge, in the Vehicle of Rose and Jake Long.

"Ok," Alyssa spoke into her phone. "So I'm gonna go with my mom to check out what's going down with my dad, and I'll meet you over there when I'm through."

Rose hadn't said anything sense the end of her little tantrum on the New Jersey Turnpike, and even when Alyssa tried to turn on a conversation she'd ignore her and keep driving. She didn't want to talk she wanted to think about what she was going to next, she wanted to find out her miscalculation and correct it, and her obvious miscalculation was telling Jake that she wanted a divorce. If she hadn't than Trixie would never have come back into their lives and she would have been free to make it up to her husband, she just knew that Jake was sitting there listening to a bunch of crap that made her sound like the bad one through and through, and while she was willing to admit that she had acted poorly in her jealously, she wasn't the bad one. "Mom, Erin and Jackie are taking Johnny to Bellevue, I'm gonna head over there once we get this matter settled, so what are you gonna do after this happens."

"Your father and I are gonna go into the old Huntslair and get the things we need." Rose said flatly, and she hopped that Alyssa would get the point not to respond to that.

But she was persistent. "You and Daddy, hell that'll be awkward."

"Tell me about it," Rose remarked with a bit of a smirk. "He kind of gave me no choice, you know me being pregnant and all, and hey, we might be able to reconnect."

"You'll be marching all around the sewer, a place to reconnect? Really?" Alyssa asked skeptically.

"Alyssa, me and your dad have tried to kill each other many times," Rose said with a smile. "We don't exactly have the most normal life, so I doubt a sewer would change things."

"Touché." Alyssa said happy that her mother had opened up for a time.

Isle of Draco

This was bad, this was very bad and she needed to get off of the island as quickly as possible. She knew the Isle like the back of her hand and she knew the movements of the guards, but she didn't know if they had changed at all. Being the only Dragon Councilor left alive, she was the last chance to let the Long's know of what happened so that they could stay away from the Isle until the time was right. Even if the Dark Dragon was defeated, it would be a long time before the Dragon State recovered, there was so much that would need to be rebuilt. The Council itself would have to be rebuilt.

And there would be the matter of the Pro Tempore to deal with.

Nebroshka didn't know if he had been coerced or if he had willing done the Dark Dragon's will, but either way he couldn't remain alive. He was a traitor none the less and he would be dealt with like all traitors were, with death.

Now to get to New York, to the last hope that they had left.

Manhattan New York, Abandoned Huntslair Complex, Vault Level.

She had to figure out how to extract the canister from the partial vacuum that it was in, she had been down here way to long and she didn't want the other to start getting worried about her. In the back of her mind she knew that they wouldn't give a damn about her, but still she needed to think that she had their unwavering loyalty. "Computer: open the vacuum plates on the chamber and begin a steady decrease in the vacuum level."

"Affirmative: Vacuum Level at 99.2 Percent," The computer stated flatly as the vacuum chamber began to hiss from decompression. "Warning: restrictions on this chamber have stated that once the vacuum chamber reaches 50 Percent then the Dragon Nerve Gas Toxin Canister will begin an evaporation protocol that will result in the termination of life for testers."

Rebecca furrowed her eyebrows. "What's the protocol for complete and safe extraction of the Canister?"

"Explanation: Full body decontamination suits, and a specialized robotic arm for extraction from the Vacuum, those items can be found in the Private Chamber of Huntsman Sindacco on the primary level," The computer explained from its preprogrammed safety protocols. "Secondary Warning: If extraction is attempted without those items it will result in death."

She scowled. "Shit."

The Long Family Apartment, Manhattan New York

Maybe it was a good thing that she had left everything out in the car, because the situation of having a large gun in her hand and Trixie in her line of sight would mean that she would probably end up putting a bullet in the other woman's head. So it was indeed a good thing that she took Alyssa's advice, otherwise she would have committed premeditated murder tonight.

With her daughter flanking her, she walked into the familiar hallway and stopped when she reached the door to the massive apartment. Directly opposite the door was a stand that had a potted plant inside of it, she nodded to Alyssa who picked up the pot and grabbed the silver key that was under it and gave it to her mother. Rose slipped into the door knob and took a deep breath in, she was going to have to be ready for this and it would be a great exhaustion on her health. But if it meant that she could save her marriage from this invasion from Trixie, than she would gladly take it. And the fetus inside her would just have to get over it.

Not wasting another moment, she looked back to Alyssa and sighed then she pushed the door to the apartment open and it flung back revealing a picture of her worst nightmare. "Well, it was as if someone had written down my worst nightmare and paid you two to act it out for me, what the hell is this?"

"Rose," Jake said looking away from Trixie. "I wasn't expecting you so fast."

Alyssa walked to her mother's left and crossed her arms together and the look in her eyes was a positively seething one. "And I wasn't expecting to walk in here and see you hugging this scum sucking bitch, now tell me Jake did I interrupt? Or should I go out in the hall and wait for twenty minutes?"

"Oh shut up Rose, I was hugging a friend," Jake narrowed his eyes with indignation. "So what's it gonna be Rose, is this where you throw the fit?"

"Your damn right I am Jake," Rose shouted and motioned to Alyssa. "Alyssa you need to go hold onto your father because I don't want him trying to help that bitch when I string her up by her goddamn hair."

Trixie who was standing next to Jake put her hands on her hips. "Are you sure? Do you think that you can get away with killing me so easily Rose?"

"FUCK YOU! AND YOU ARE DAMN RIGHT THAT I'LL KILL YOU BITCH!" Rose shouted as she marched forward and, in a display of her intentions towards the other woman, grabbed a fist full of her black locks and tugged on them.

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Alyssa hold her father back so far successfully, so she would need to make her point to Trixie fast and quick and she knew exactly what to do.

AN: I know that I said that the fight would happen in this chapter, instead I'm planning it at the beginning and most of the next chapter and it will end with Rose and Jake going into the Huntslair and maybe someone else will come with them (I'm not saying who.) I'm sorry if you were looking forward to it in this chapter but I'm afraid you'll have to wait for it in the next one.

Please leave a review if you would be so kind to me