Free Don't Slay the Dragon (The Chronicles of Elizabeth Marshall Book 1) by Rachel Lucas Page A

together, sometimes the go-between. The speaker for the group. She was the person I knew best.  She was the artist, the writer, the creative one.  She was my best friend.
    Beth Ann was the student, the scholar.  She was the one that drove the grades.  She did the studying, took the tests.   She was very intelligent, genius level.  She had been the driving force for the Naval Academy and college. She was very focused and goal-oriented. She was a type-A personality, organized to a fault with borderline obsessive-compulsive disorder.
    Bethany was a shy, vulnerable twelve-year-old girl.  She was awkward and nervous, especially around the opposite sex.  Bethany had been created out of a need to stay pre-pubescent.  When Lisbeth didn’t want to deal with the pressures of being a teenager and young adult, she escaped into Bethany.  Bethany was safe and often protected by the others.
    I’d met Lizzy a time or two when I’d thought Lisbeth was just being scared and insecure.  She was a seven-year-old child with a history of abuse.  The doctors at the state hospital had discovered that Lisbeth had been molested by a neighbor when she was seven years old.  She’d been a latch-key child while her mother had been at work.  Sadly, a prime victim.  Doctors thought Lizzy may have been her first “split”.  She was terrified of adult men, especially ones with facial hair.  Doctors felt her molester had probably had facial hair.  Lizzy was an eternal child, never aging, never maturing.  She was kept sheltered by the others too, since she’d been the most injured.
    Jade was an adult woman, cold and cynical.  She was in her mid-thirties, hard and stubborn.  Many times when Lisbeth was digging her heels in about something, i t was Jade doing the goading.  Jade had a perpetual attitude and a chip on her shoulder the size of Mt. Everest.
    There was a teenage boy named Mick.  He was the cutter and had a fascination with knives and weapons.  He’d left the scars on her arms.  He was another one created to help her deal with the pressures of her life.  Cutting was something she could control when the rest of her life seemed to be spinning out of control.  Mick was sneaky and clever, a thief and a shop-lifter, sullen and rebellious if confronted directly.
    Vesper, of course, had been the martial arts champion.  He was of an unknown age, adult male, and undoubtedly lethal .  He had the temper, the lightning-quick reflexes, and no conscience.  Schizophrenic and paranoid, he was the one you didn’t want to tangle with alone.  He was deadly and threatening with everyone he came into contact with. Except me. I was his safe zone, the one person he wasn’t threatened by.  Somehow, through the long-time, positive connection I had with Lisbeth, I seemed to be the only person he wasn’t threatened by.
    Skye was one of her more fanciful, whimsical personalities.  She was more fairy than human and lived in a colorful kingdom of her own making.  Skye was one of Lisbeth’s escapes into fantasy.  It was where she went to completely get away from her life.  Skye had royal blue hair and deep blue eyes, sparkling skin and floated rather than walked.  She was mischievous in a playful way, light-hearted and fun to be around. She was partial to a bow and arrows.
    When she played her complex, fantasy board games, her character’s name was Sashan.  Sashan, I would later learn, was tall and regal, a beautiful blond elf with magical abilities.  Lisbeth had gone into such detail to create this character that Sashan was very much real to her.   She was a strategist, and a planner. She was of royal lineage and had a long list of talents and was skillful with various weapons. 
    There was Liz, a middle-age snob, wealthy and judgmental.  There were times that Lisbeth would make snide, rude remarks about other students at school, their clothing or make-up.  I thought she was just being funny with her upper-middle -class voice and