Page 26 of Ensnared

I wound up in the ER on an IV for three days.

That felt like a day at Disneyworld compared to how I feel right now.

My skin’s on fire. My vision’s blurry. I can’t eat or drink. I can’t even stand up to go to the bathroom. For someone who makes their living fighting, someone who dreads the idea of facing danger without any strength, this is my worst nightmare.

Coral and Jade are beside themselves, which makes it even worse.

“Try one sip of water,” Coral says for the fifth time. . .in the last hour.

I can barely shake my head.

“She feels really hot,” Jade says. “Here’s another rag.”

They keep placing them on my head, but the heat from my body dries the rag out in minutes. How long can a human survive a terribly high temperature without keeping any fluids down?

“You could try taking Tylenol again,” Jade says. “If she could keep it down, that might really help.”

“We’ve given it to her three times,” Coral says. “Mom says we can’t take it over and over.”

“But she keeps puking it all up,” Jade says.

I don’t have the energy or the heart to tell them that human medicine clearly can’t fix me.

Their voices blur together in my brain, and I can’t tell where one begins and the other ends. It would be great if it was because I was falling asleep, but I doubt that’s where this is going. I haven’t slept in at least a day—the sun set not long after I stumbled back inside, and it’s going down again right now.

Has it been one day?

Or two?

The mixture of their voices washes over me like waves crashing over the sand, draining and disappearing as fast as it shows up. They’re bickering now, but it doesn’t upset me. Maybe their fighting will keep them alive and kicking. Maybe that’s the key to their survival.

No! I’m the key.

I struggle to swim upward, from oblivion back to clarity. It feels important somehow, like if I let go I’ll just be. . .gone. I push, but the harder I push, the more it hurts. I want to dive back down, but I can’t. I have to keep pushing.

But the pain is like a wave. It rolls over me, burning, searing, and shredding. I want to disappear, because then it will all stop. I’m pushing against it now for no reason that I can recall. The more I push, the more the pain grows, and I want to quit. I’m about to let go again when I hear a voice I know.

It’s Sammy, and he’s crying. “Liz is dying.”

“No, she’s not,” Jade says.

“Yes, she is.” Sammy hits my body then, striking my thigh as hard as he can with his tiny fist.

I don’t even so much as twitch. I’m barely conscious of the fact that he did it. And I realize that he’s right.

This disconnected feeling?

It’s because I’m dying.

That dragon didn’t kill me—the red demon saved me before he could. But it was too late. He’d already pumped me full of whatever toxin earth dragons have on their claws, and it’s ending me slowly, like a lobster being boiled alive. At least my siblings got to see me and tell me goodbye. At least my body wasn’t mangled or eaten.

But I can’t have them lose me like this, with no closure. Not after having their mother snatched at a party. I try to move my lips, willing my tongue to work. I need to tell them that I love them. I need to tell them to be strong. I need to tell them to try to escape, to move away from the water. To hide from all sounds.

Something fluffy’s licking my face with a tiny tongue.

“I think she may already be dead,” Jade whispers, her eyes wide like saucers, her skin pale. “I can’t hear her breathing.”

Why would I breathe? It’s not necessary now, and it’s so, so hard. Every breath feels like a fight.