Page 12 of Ensnared (The Dragon Captured #1)

O nce, in sixth grade, I got a stomach bug. It was so bad that I wanted to die. For days and days in a row, I couldn’t eat a thing. No matter what I tried to eat or drink, I threw up.

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.

A fight I know I can’t win.

“No!” Coral shouts. And then she stabs me.

She stabs me? Why would she do that? She did it in my leg, right where Sammy hit me. Against the cottony feeling of departure, there’s now a bright spot of misery. It blooms up hard and quick, and I gasp for breath.

Coral slaps me next. “No, you can’t leave. We can’t do anything without you. You have to do what you told us you would do, what you want us to do. You have to fight. Right now. Breathe. Sit up. Get better.”

I draw in one more ragged breath, though it feels like more than I can bear.

Now that I’m trying, all the misery is back and it’s worse than I remember.

My eyes are burning. My skin’s on fire. My lungs ache and throb and they feel thick, like they’re full of water.

My arm feels like it’s been strapped to electric wires and a current is being forced through it constantly.

I force my eyes to look downward and I can see that it’s streaked with dark lines.

I try to swallow, but I can’t even do that.

“I’m going to get Axel.” Coral stands. “He promised that he’d protect us, and you’re about to die, and he didn’t want that to happen.”

“I hope my death wipes him out. I hope he’s so incapacitated that the other dragons take him down,” I whisper. “That’s when you should leave. Run as far and as fast as you can.”

“How long has she been like this?” Axel strides into the break room like a dark angel, his hair longish, his eyes bright. When my siblings all freeze, he asks much louder, “How long has she been like this?”

“Days,” Coral says. “Three days. She’s dying—I had to stab her leg to revive her.”

“You did?” His hands ball into fists at his side. “You did the right thing.”

“You said you’d protect her,” Coral says. “You suck.”

His eyebrows rise. “I swore to protect you . She was supposed to protect herself, but I guess she didn’t do that very well, did she?”

“You just stuck us in here and left.” Coral’s not backing down. It’s cute, but it’s not very smart. The little fluff we rescued barks once from where she’s standing behind Coral, and then she whimpers.

“I hate that beast,” Axel says.

“You’ve never even met her,” Coral says. “She hates you too, though, just like I do.”

“Can you fix her?” Sammy asks.

Axel can’t understand him, so Jade clarifies. “Can you heal her?”

He sighs. “I’m going to try.” He moves closer, and my siblings part like the Red Sea, seemingly trusting that he wants what’s best for me. I suppose if they’re going to trust any dragon on earth, he’s the one. He’s the only one my death would harm.

“She’s been poisoned with dragon venom,” he says. “How could that be?”

“The dragon your friend killed,” I rasp.

Of course, he has no idea what I said.

What happened?

Right. He can speak to me in my head. I wonder whether I can talk back in the same way. I grit my teeth and think words and try to push them toward him. Green dragon in human form clawed my arm.

Did it work?

I pry my eyes open to try and see.

He’s nodding ever so slightly, so I’m hoping that means he understood.

“I had no idea what that would do to a human,” he says. “It appears to be bad. I’m not sure any other humans have attacked a dragon and lived.” It may be my feverish delusion, but he almost sounds proud.

“What can you do?” Coral asks.

Axel shrugs. “Among the blessed, we’re either strong enough to heal ourselves or we aren’t.”

Fabulous. I’m clearly not. Get ready to have a few bad days when I go.

“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.