Page 16 of Ensnared

“You agreed to do as I said,” Axel snaps.

I swallow.

“Who’s taking Liz?” Sammy asks. “Can she ride with me?”

Axel smiles. “I don’t think so.”

There’s no splitting or popping when he shifts. In fact, it sounds more like the purring of a stock car engine than anything else. And suddenly, from a swirl of golden smoke, rises a very large, very beautiful champagne dragon with gleaming scales. He’s as big as a trash truck, but muscular in a sinewy way. Other than the fact that he doesn’t have wings, he looks like the stunning dragons on most every movie I’ve ever seen. His head’s long, his teeth sharp, and his talons terrifying in their length. His belly is slightly lighter than the rest of his body, with pronounced horizontal lines in the scales. There’s a long ridge of pronounced large, upright scales that runs from the tip of his tail to the base of his head. He moves smoothly, gracefully, his muscles and scales both rippling. Unsurprisingly, the color of his scales, like shimmering moonlight on a lake at night, exactly matches my hair.

You’ll be riding with me from now on. Come, ensnared.

“My name’s Elizabeth.”

Get on.

I approach the golden dragon and force myself to climb up onto his back and grip the ridge of scales on his shoulders. His head’s swiveled around so he can watch, and the only thing that keeps me moving forward is the fact that Sammy’s climbing on that massive snake and Coral and Jade are already sitting on the back of the lizard-like dragon, all of them looking almost excited.

If they can do it, so can I.

At least, that’s what I tell myself over and over as Axel starts to race through the streets we used to drive through every single day. So familiar, and now so foreign.

Like our future. Lost in a blink.

5

It took us almost an hour to get home, thanks to the interaction with the dragons. Even without that, we’d have taken half an hour to cover those two miles. But on our way to the dragon’s camp, we move far, far faster than I’d have thought beasts without wings could move.

I saw the silver dragon that electrocuted things—it had wings.

As did the enormous red one that breathed fire.

Why don’t these ‘earth blessed’ dragons have wings? Seems like I’ve been enslaved by the weakest caste of dragon, which isn’t very inspiring. And as we approach the dragon’s den, I see more and more of the awful creatures.

Any hope I’d been harboring that perhaps there weren’t many of them dwindles and then dies.

Silver electrodragons dart and dip and wheel around above our heads. Two of them take down a fighter jet as I watch, the flames from the jet catching a home on fire. I say a silent prayer that the home was empty and that the pilot was the only fatality.

So much for thinking that perhaps the US government isn’t aware of the threat and will soon arrive on the scene to save us.

“Was that a jet?” Coral shouts.

I nod.

Jade’s eyes are wide, but surprisingly, she’s not crying. I’m proud of her for that. She usually devolves into tears when someone complains that she’s talking too much.

Sammy’s clinging for dear life, his eyes tightly clenched most of the ride. The horrible Gordon actually slows down several times when it looks like Sammy’s slipping and waits for him to adjust his grip. For the first fifteen minutes, as we move at a speed that must be close to fifty miles per hour, I keep thinking that we’re surely close to wherever we’re going. But we never seem to stop.

I was counting dragons, the silver in the air and the brown and green ones on the ground, but after I hit a hundred several times over, I stop counting. How many can there really be? Where did they come from? Why are they here?

I don’t bother asking more questions they’ll just ignore.

After nearly half an hour, we start seeing signs for League City—that’s a place I’ve been. Mom has a friend there named Anna. But before we reach the road she lives off of, we veer sharply left and head for Nassau Bay. “Are we going to NASA?”

We came here because that’s where most of the boats that you sent off planet originated.

NASA. They’re here because of NASA. I used to think it was cool that we lived in the town that housed our government’s space program. Now I hate it.

Because it brought them here.