Page 3 of Ensnared (The Dragon Captured #1)

A Boo Bash.

It’s actually a cute name. Every single time I’ve called home for the past month and change, it’s been the only thing my six-year-old brother has wanted to talk about. Apparently the Boo Bash is a huge school carnival to which everyone wears costumes.

Sammy wanted me to match him, but there was no way I was showing up as Ben Ten’s cousin Gwen. Luckily, he agreed I could wear my MMA attire and gloves, and come as myself, essentially. Blocking off time a week and a half before my fight was hard enough. A ready-made costume was a major plus.

I shouldn’t really be here at all. Sousa will kill me if I eat so much as a handful of candy.

If I hadn’t promised Sammy, I wouldn’t be tempting fate, but as the youngest child in a family with four children, he’s let down a lot.

I don’t want to be the cause of any additional disappointment for the little guy.

“You’re here!” Sammy’s face lights up when he sees me. With his speech delay, it sounds more like, “yow heyah!”

“I said I’d come.”

When he races toward me, I hold out my arms, my hands snagging him underneath his armpits and swinging him around. I can’t believe he’s wearing a jacket in this weather—seventy degrees. Typical Texas fall—but Ben Ten is known by that green jacket with the stripe and number.

The second I set him down, he’s jabbering again. “When I said my sister beat people up for her job, Jackson said I was lying,” he says, which sounds like ‘wying.’

“Where’s this Jackson?” I ask. “I think he needs a punch on the nose.”

“Lizzie!” Mom’s familiar voice behind me has me spinning around for a hug.

Nothing can really prepare someone for the sheer force of my mother.

First I hear the schlepping sound of her flip flops, and then the smell of patchouli slams into my olfactories like a fly swatter.

Last but not least, her arms wrap around me and squeeze .

For a small, slender woman, she really knows how to commit to a hug.

Most people think I take after my dad—discipline, restraint, insane dedication—but they don’t see the real core of who my mother is.

She’s stronger than anyone I know, and she’d do anything in the world for her family.

Once, my vegetarian, save-the-planet mother actually punched a guy who was harassing the girls at the outdoor eating area of a Jimmy Chang’s Mexican restaurant.

Her solid right cross sent him flying backward into the painted monkey on the brick wall.

Dad thought the guy was gonna sue, but I guess he wasn’t keen on telling people that a tiny woman had beaten him up.

“I’m so glad you could come,” Mom whispers, “but don’t punch any of Sammy’s friends, no matter how irritating or rude they are, alright?”

As if she needs to remind me of that. “My hands are licensed as deadly weapons,” I say. “I promise not to use them in any way at an elementary school carnival.”

“Thank goodness.” She releases me.

I finally take in what she’s wearing. “Sammy said we all had to come in costume.” I arch one eyebrow. “You just came as yourself?”

“I’m a fortune teller. That’s a legitimate costume for most people.

” She shrugs. “You came in your normal workwear, too, so you’re one to talk.

” She gestures toward what looks like an enormous, human-sized rubber band launcher.

“Coral and Jade are the cutest hippies you’ve ever seen.

They’re both over there waiting in line to do the bungee jump again, or I’d show you. ”

Oh my word. The school carnival has a bungee jump? “I can practically see Sousa’s eyes bug out right now at the whiff of a thought that I might try that.”

“You should. You only get one life.” Mom’s mantra for as long as I’ve known her. “Just don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

Which rules out precisely nothing. “Thanks, Mom.”

Sammy’s pulling on my hand pretty hard now. “Jackson’s this way.”

I’ve been his go-to bully shield for years.

It’s sad that a six-year-old has needed a bully eliminator for years, but preschoolers aren’t nice to little kids with speech delays.

They used to say he sounded like a monkey right in front of him, as if his speech delay meant he also couldn’t hear.

Or, probably more likely, as if they didn’t care what he thought or felt, because he was different from them.

I usually try to remember to give kids a pass—it’s their parents I should probably blame.

Some adults don’t bother teaching manners to their children, because they don’t have any themselves.

They should be ashamed of the things they say and do, but instead, they’re modeling to make kids just like them.

Luckily, this Jackson kid turns out to be your average loudmouth who doesn’t think, and after just a few insistent explanations, he and Sammy seem to be fine.

An hour and twelve carnival games later, a fun-size Snickers is calling my name.

I’m still not sure why they call them fun size.

There’s nothing fun about one bite, but it’s better than no bites.

I’m seriously wondering how much sugar it would take before I’d get sluggish at tomorrow morning’s stair run when I recognize Jade’s cry for help.

Thanks to my training, I’m good at dealing with rushes of adrenaline. It only takes me two seconds to locate her—bouncing up and down on the bungee line. She’s still shouting, but she’s laughing now, too.

Coral’s dying laughing beside the line, having already gone again herself.

You’d think, since Jade had already gone twice just like Coral, she wouldn’t shriek so much.

The two of them are only a year apart, but they manage to be opposite souls in almost every way.

Luckily, they’re still thick as thieves, almost inseparable most days.

I actually feel sorry for Sammy. There’s no one in our family close to his age, which I know all about, and Coral and Jade are usually playing girly things with no interest in modifying to include him.

Mom catches my eye and shakes her head from where she’s stuck, manning the bake sale goods. Luckily, I know just what she means, because less than thirty seconds later, the girls ask me for money to do the bungee just one more time. “Mom already said no,” I say. “She’s worried you’ll get sick.”

“I won’t get sick,” Coral says with a sigh. Then her eyes cut sideways.

“Hey, I won’t either,” Jade says.

Which we all know is probably not true. She’s a lightweight in all senses of the word. “Regardless, the answer’s no. You’ve gotten to fly through the air several times. Now, gather up your little bags, and let’s get ready to go.”

“But we haven’t bobbed for donuts yet,” Jade says.

“It’s not over. People are still playing.” Sammy sticks out his bottom lip, but I can tell it’s a manipulation this time.

“I want to do the cakewalk,” Coral says. “I can win for sure.”

“One round of the cakewalk,” I finally say. “If we don’t leave early, we’ll get stuck in the parking lot for half an hour.”

“So?” Sammy asks.

I ruffle his hair. “Oh, shut up.”

We all head for the cakewalk in a little herd. When I was younger, it used to bother me sometimes that I had so many younger siblings. But now that they’re all out of diapers, and I’m not home as much to help out around the house, I’m glad Mom and Dad had so many.

“And are you cake-walking too?” The woman who’s waving all three kids through looks at me expectantly.

“Oh, sure,” I say. “I’ll give it a go.”

Coral bumps me out on round one, snaking my chair just before I can sit. She shrugs and smiles and tosses her head, indicating that I should get out of the circle.

Jade gets cut before Sammy by some exuberant older boy, but the little guy only makes it another round or two. It’s down to just Coral and two very obnoxious boys who seem to be planning to work together to squish her out when I hear it.

It’s a strange sound, like a helicopter that had its tail stepped on.

A whirring, shrill whine. It’s coming from above us, but it’s a bright afternoon in Houston, so I have to shield my eyes to make out anything at all.

When I finally make sense of the genesis of that strange noise, my brain rejects it.

It can’t really be a massive, silver dragon.

It has a large head with a triangular face and horns that curve back from right above its huge eyes.

The scales covering its body glitter in the sun, like burnished sterling.

Its neck curves, long and graceful, its limbs nevertheless broad and massive, and it moves in a very serpentine way, its wings beating wildly as it lowers toward the Boo Bash.

Maybe it’s an elaborate display, because dragons aren’t real .

Only, I can feel the wind created by the beating of its wings.

I can hear the crooning it’s emitting as it lowers toward us.

And when I blink, it doesn’t disappear or distort like an illusion would.

When it lands on the roof at the edge of the school, the brick structure disintegrates, chunks rolling and then striking the ground below.

Its enormous claws crush metal and concrete alike, further damaging the school just to hold up its massive form.

One particularly large piece of rubble strikes an older man on the head, and he crumples to the ground.

By now, I’m not the only one who’s noticed the new arrival, and a few people are running, screaming, away from it. That’s probably what I should be doing, honestly, but I’m too shocked to run. I’m still trying to wrap my brain around what I’m seeing.

I’m here for you , says a horrible, sepulchral voice in my head that I somehow know is the dragon. It’s cold, it’s high, and it’s piercing. You, who can hear me. Come to me, and I’ll spare the others. Make me locate you, and I’ll destroy them all for fun.

I look around to see who else can hear it.

Everyone else around me is now sprinting away or covering their ears.

Sammy dives for me, wrapping his arms around my waist and staring, wide-eyed, at the silver beast. Coral’s holding Jade’s hand, and they’re both fumbling their way back toward me. No one seems to have heard a thing.

I know you’re here. I sense you. I’ll count to ten, and then I’ll start to destroy them, all the humans, until you yield.

When I finally find my mom, she’s staring right at me. Her eyes are wide and frightened, but her head’s held high. She taps her chest, tosses her head sideways at the silver dragon, and then she points at me and mouths the words, “You take the kids and keep them safe.”

Keep them safe? What’s she saying? Why wouldn’t she?—

I hear you. I’m coming. It’s my mom’s voice. I’d recognize it anywhere. She just answered the beast.

Mom’s avoiding the fleeing crowds as she winds her way toward the edge of the school. The creature’s staring right at her, its eyes gleaming, the corner of its mouth turned up into something almost like a smile. It bobs its head.

I am Ocharta, strike blessed. I have need of you.

Mom bows.

And then I feel a tug—a painful pull, like someone has coated me in a sticky film from the scalp of my head down to the webbing between my toes, and they’re pulling , hard. I double down, close my eyes, set my feet, and push back against it with everything I’ve got.

As suddenly as it happens, the tugging stops, but when I open my eyes, Mom’s standing stock still.

She looks the same, except for her hair.

She always had gorgeous, nearly black hair.

It shone like the wing of a raven. It was long, falling in thick, unruly waves past her waist. It’s still long and wavy, but now it’s changed to a metallic shade of grey that sparkles in the setting sunlight.

That’s when I realize that it exactly matches the dragon’s scales.

Mom turns around, slowly, and her eyes cut toward mine.

Go! Mom shouts again, but this time she’s commanding me to leave.

The beast lets out a shriek, and then it launches into the air. Suddenly, it’s swooping and diving, and as it passes, crackles of electricity shoot from its body, striking entire groups of people.

I pick up Sammy, and I grab Jade’s hand, and I run.