Chapter 4: The Dragon's Hoard

Chapter 4: The Dragon's Hoard

“Of course,” Mrs. Vance said, her tired face brightening with a sliver of hope. “It’s right through here. Watch your step.”

She led Liam away from the sun-drenched driveway and into the cool gloom of the three-car garage. The air inside was thick with the scent of dust, old cardboard, and forgotten things. It was a cavern of domestic chaos—a deflated basketball, rusted gardening tools, and stacks of yellowing newspapers were piled against the walls. In the corner, sulking by the open garage door, Derek was a silhouette against the bright afternoon, the light catching the angry taps of his thumb on his phone screen. He didn't even glance their way. He was a slumbering, oblivious dragon guarding the entrance to his own treasure cave.

Liam’s pulse was a frantic drum against his ribs. Every instinct screamed at him to be cautious. His beard and glasses felt like a flimsy disguise, and he was sure that at any moment Derek would look up, his eyes would narrow in recognition, and the whole fragile opportunity would shatter. He kept his own eyes down, focusing on Mrs. Vance’s back as she navigated the clutter.

“Here we are,” she said, stopping in front of a wall of neatly stacked, identical brown cardboard boxes. They reached from the concrete floor nearly to the ceiling—a monolithic tower of forgotten childhood. “This is most of it. His father was a stickler for organization, thank goodness.”

She gestured to the tower. “He called it his ‘collection.’ To me, it just looks like a lot of heavy lifting.”

Liam’s mouth went dry. He recognized the boxes. They were heavy-duty storage bins, the kind you buy when you want to preserve something. Not the flimsy kind you use for a casual move. This was deliberate. This was an archive.

He played his part, adopting an air of mild, polite curiosity. “Wow, that’s quite a lot,” he said, his voice a masterpiece of understatement. “What sort of stuff is it?”

“Oh, who knows,” Mrs. Vance sighed, waving a dismissive hand. “Action figures, I think. Comic books. He was obsessed with keeping them in the plastic, said it was for their ‘resale value’.” She gave a short, humorless laugh. “As if anyone would want to buy this old junk.”

Old junk. The phrase was a symphony to Liam’s ears.

He stepped forward, his heart hammering. “Mind if I just peek in one? Just to get an idea.”

“Please, be my guest. I’m not hauling them all out into the sun.”

With feigned casualness, Liam reached for a box at shoulder height. It was heavier than it looked, sealed with thick packing tape. He used his car key to slice through the tape, the sound echoing unnaturally loud in the quiet garage. He folded back the cardboard flaps.

His breath caught in his throat.

He was staring at a perfectly organized row of late-90s Star Wars: Power of the Force action figures, each one sealed in its pristine plastic bubble, the cardboard backing unbent, the colors as vibrant as the day they were printed. He saw Luke Skywalker with his grappling hook, Han Solo in his Hoth gear, and a rare Boba Fett. These weren’t just toys. These were artifacts. He remembered Derek lording his Boba Fett figure over everyone at the lunch table, boasting that it alone would be worth hundreds one day.

Liam forced himself to breathe. To remain calm. He pushed the figures aside gently, revealing a layer of comic books underneath, each one individually bagged and boarded. He slid one out. The Amazing Spider-Man #300, the first appearance of Venom. Even through the plastic, he could see the cover was flawless.

His mind was no longer in the garage; it was a supercomputer, running frantic calculations. He wasn't a collector, but he’d spent enough time on the internet to have a passing knowledge. A single mint-condition, graded copy of that comic could fetch thousands. The figures, dozens of them in this one box alone, could be worth fifty to a hundred dollars each. And there were at least twenty boxes here.

He was standing in front of a treasure trove. It wasn't just a few thousand dollars. It was tens of thousands. It was life-changing money. It was the kind of money that could pay off a chunk of his student loans, serve as a down payment on a condo, or launch a business. It was the kind of victory he had never even dared to fantasize about.

The forty-dollar debt from a decade ago felt laughably small now, an insignificant seed that had, against all odds, grown into a forest of karmic justice.

He had to control his expression. He couldn't let the wild, triumphant elation show on his face. He pushed the comic book back into place and carefully closed the box flaps. He turned to Mrs. Vance, schooling his features into a thoughtful, non-committal mask.

“Yeah, I see what you mean,” he said, letting out a little huff of air as if he were unimpressed. “It’s a lot of… niche stuff. My nephew is into this sort of thing, though. He might get a kick out of some of it.”

He was walking a razor’s edge. If he seemed too interested, she might get suspicious, maybe even Google a few of the items. If he seemed too disinterested, she might just tell him to forget it and throw it all in a dumpster.

Mrs. Vance watched him, her eyes searching his face. “So… are you interested? I was thinking of maybe pricing them out individually, but honestly, the thought of looking up every single one of these little plastic men gives me a headache.”

This was the moment of maximum danger. Liam’s blood ran cold. If she started looking things up, the game was over.

“That would be a ton of work,” Liam agreed, nodding sympathetically. He gestured at the massive stack. “You’d be here for weeks.”

“That’s what I told Derek!” she exclaimed, her frustration bubbling over. “But he just says, ‘It’s your problem, not my problem,’ and goes back to his phone!”

The exact words. The very same phrase that had haunted Liam for a decade, now wielded by Derek against his own mother. The irony was so thick, so perfect, it was almost poetic. It sealed his resolve. This wasn't just revenge anymore. This was a rescue mission. He was saving these valuable relics from the clutches of a man who didn’t deserve them and a mother who didn't want them.

“Well,” Liam said, trying to sound like he was doing her a favor. “I could take the whole lot off your hands. Save you the trouble. But I honestly have no idea what to even offer you for it all.” He let the statement hang in the air, a baited hook.

She looked at the tower of boxes, then back at Liam. He could see the mental calculus in her eyes—the hassle, the time, the sheer weight of it all. He could see her desire to just be done.

“You know what?” she said finally. “It’s taking up so much space. And I have to get this garage cleared out by Friday.” She chewed on her lip for a second. “What about… four hundred dollars? For everything. You haul it all away, right now.”

Liam’s mind went blank for a full second. Four hundred. Ten times the original debt. For a collection potentially worth a hundred times that. It was so perfect, so beautifully symmetrical, that it felt like the universe itself was writing the ending to his story.

His father’s voice echoed in his memory. Pick your battles. Let it go. He had been wrong. So wonderfully, spectacularly wrong. This was the battle of a lifetime, and it was being won not with a fight, but with a quiet, simple transaction.

He forced himself not to jump at the offer. He rubbed his beard, pretending to consider it. “Four hundred is a bit steep for a bunch of old toys, but… it would save you a lot of work.” He paused for a beat, letting her feel the weight of that work. “Okay. You have a deal.”

A wave of relief washed over Mrs. Vance’s face. “Oh, thank you! That’s wonderful.”

“I’ll need to run to an ATM to get the cash,” Liam said, his mind already shifting to the next critical phase: logistics. “I can be back in twenty minutes.”

“Perfect. I’ll start seeing if I can get some of these top boxes down for you.”

As Liam turned to leave, he risked a final glance toward the garage door. Derek was still there, a statue of sullen indifference, scrolling endlessly on his phone, completely unaware that his legendary, mint-condition dragon’s hoard—the foundation of his adolescent pride—had just been sold for pocket money. Liam walked out into the sunlight, his heart singing a victory song that had been ten years in the making. The deal was done. Now, he just had to execute the heist.