Page 45 of Ensnared

“The whole thing’s messed up,” I say.

“Can you still take away my anxiety?” Joseph asks. “I kinda liked that the other guy did that.”

“Wait, you want me to take your anxiety away?”

Joseph grimaces. “It’s always been bad, but since I was picked up and brought here. . .nothing.” He shrugs. “Way better.”

“Um, sure, if you want me to.”

“And my depression too,” the woman with the crow’s feet asks.

“Sure,” I say. “I guess. But until we can figure out how to escape or how to get them to leave?—”

“Or how to kill them,” a tall guy named Kevin says. He’s a college basketball player, and he’s definitely the angriest person in the room.

I don’t even disagree with him, but I can’t have them walking around talking treason. There are too many of them. “We can’t talk like that,” I say.

“Not while anyone else might hear, anyway,” Rachel says.

She’s smart. I like her.

“But my sister already killed two of them,” Sammy says from the stairwell.

“Is that your brother?” the woman with the crow’s feet asks.

“You did?” Kevin’s eyes are wider than I realized they could be.

I shake my head. “No, I stabbed two.” I glare at Sammy. “It’s not the same.”

“He makes up stories sometimes.” Coral grabs him and whispers in his ear. She’s a lot quicker to pick up on things. We can’t go around telling people that I’ve murdered dragons, or Axel could get in trouble. He might even decide that I’m too much work.

“They healed almost immediately,” I say. “Trust me when I tell you that we’re not going to be killing any dragons.”

“That’s good,” Axel says as he opens the door. “If you were, we’d need to have a talk.”

I hate how often he comes and goes, like he thinks he owns the house.

Although, I suppose he does.

“Welcome to Elizabeth’s home,” he says. “I’m her bonded, Prince of the Earth Blessed. I know she harbors some radical views, and I’m trying to work with her on them. I hope you understand that’s between Elizabeth and me, and you are to behave as proper workers should.” He scans them all in turn, but they’re all on their knees, like Penelope was, staring at the ground. “If I hear that any of you are speaking traitorous thoughts, or that you’re not doing as she commands?” He exhales slowly. “I’m not sentimental like her. I’ll just kill you. You’re very replaceable. Don’t forget that.”

And with one little speech, he undoes all the work I’d put in to try and help them be less stressed and abused. Even several days later, they’re still keeping their heads down, not using names around me, and acting like rabbits hiding in holes.

But at least Sammy, Coral, and Jade are doing well. They almost seem happy. Sammy’s spending half the day building things with Legos—Kevin fetches and delivers things, and he found loads of Legos for Sammy the first day. Coral and Jade play with Fluff Dog a lot, who is calming down a great deal. They also take turns writing plays and then performing them, though Sammy’s tired of playing all the male roles. It’s almost like they’ve forgotten that we’re captives, biding our time until we can somehow escape or defeat our captors.

They’re kids. They probably have forgotten.

But I haven’t. I never will.

I spend an hour or two each day training with Penelope, who no longer thinks I’m an idiot. Apparently the visor aids in focus quite a lot. But also, it’s nearly impossible to command another dragon’s ensnared human. Once I have my visor on, she’s as bad at pushing me around as I was. For our session today, I test how far I can sense the humans—several miles, at least—and how hard I need to push a command to make it stick—not hard at all—and how much resistance they can exert against any of my orders.

Not much, sadly.

Since our control over them seems to mirror the dragons’ control over us, that’s disheartening. Penelope was right about the most important part. Our job’s painfully easy. Commanding my ten humans became almost effortless by the third day, and I can see how easy it would be to settle into complacency with a task once it becomes routine.

After Sammy nearly revealed how I’d killed those two dragons, I realized that I couldn’t treat a bunch of humans I don’t know as family. If it was only me, I could risk that kind of familiarity. But Axel did me a favor that day, reminding me that both he and I have a role to play. He’s the Prince of the Earth Blessed. I’m his ensnared. I can’t let them wander around, and I can’t really free them from the leash, either. One rebellious human might be comical to the right dragon.

Lots of them running around will get us all killed.