Page 28 of Ensnared

“We’re bonded. I’m wondering whether I can use my energy to help her.”

“Ooh,” Jade says. “That sounds good. Try that.”

Axel laughs. “It may not be that simple. I’m not quite sure how to do it.”

“If you’d gotten her training instead of abandoning us, you might know.” Coral crosses her arms.

“You’re nearly as scary as your sister. Are you good with swords, too?”

“You’re lucky.” Coral shakes her head. “Just words.”

Axel points at the door. “I need you three to leave. I won’t do a thing to harm her, but I don’t know what’s going to happen when I try. I swore to protect you, and that means keeping you away from any kind of magical backlash.”

Coral looks at me.

I can’t nod, so I blink.

“Once for yes,” she says. “Twice for no.”

I blink once.

“Fine.” She waves and the others follow her out. It takes a moment, but they finally coax the fluffy dog to follow them as well. Coral really is a little spitfire. It won’t be enough to save them if I die, but it’s beautiful to watch. I just need to be strong enough to give her time to grow.

Jade’s just as lovely, and Sammy too, of course, but they aren’t as scary. They’re more light and joy and delirium. I think it’s natural that I admire the child in our family who’s the most like me. If we’d been closer in age, I might have hated her.

“I’m going to try to push some magic into you,” Axel says. “It may hurt.”

I try to snort, but it comes out like a sniff.

“I’ll take that as a single wink.”

He likes them. I’m not sure how I can tell, but I can. The horrible, scary, evil dragon likes my siblings. Whether that will be of any use to them, I have no idea. I doubt it. But it’s strange to see it all the same.

Axel picks up his hands and stacks them, right hand on top, and then holds them over the center of my body. I’m not sure what he’s doing exactly, but his hands start to glow. He slams them down against the middle of my stomach.

A lance of fire melts through to my very core.

Energy I didn’t know I had surges through me, and my body bows, and I scream. I scream louder and longer than I realized I could. I scream until my throat is raw, until it’s ragged, until my vocal cords feel like hamburger meat, and then I keep on screaming.

My screams should die down, but they just keep coming.

Because the pain never lets up.

Nothing is worth this. I should have faded away.

Someone’s banging on a wall or a door or something, but I can’t stop. The screams keep pouring out of me, because the pillar of energy keeps drilling down further and further, like it’s determined to hollow me out entirely.

Finally, Axel drops his hand, and the pain stops. I collapse back to the bed, an empty husk. Whatever reserves I had left are gone now, burned to ash. Before, I felt like I was floating away. My siblings were there, missing me already, worrying about me, stabbing me. Ha. I was at least peaceful in the knowledge that they loved me, they’d miss me, and that they didn’t want me to leave. But this time, I’m not drifting away.

I’m already almost gone. There’s nothing to fade.

Like the last grains of sand draining through the bottom of an hourglass.

Like the last whiff of scent in an empty diffuser.

Like smoke puffing out of the last ember as it cools.

My soul’s evacuating my body when Axel uses one hand’s talon-like fingernail to slice the palm of the other. Then he slices my hand open and presses both of our hands together.