Page 59 of The Underachiever’s Guide to Love and Saving the World

brYCE

It was hard to ride in on a white stallion to save the day when I didn’t have a white stallion. Going on foot was also useless, as it was too slow.

I’d leveled my head enough to realize Courtney would not be so cruel as to leave me in this world for good, even if she had run away to get some space.

Likely, her next step would be to start fixing her mistakes so she could get us both home as quickly as possible.

Home, where she could stop spending so much time around me, her new least-favorite person.

As much as it terrified me, I knew what had to happen next.

I had to win her back before she did something stupid, like try to single-handedly face an army of monsters.

I slipped out of town and headed into the woods. My heart thudding in my ears drowned out the chatter of wildlife. Despite the cool shade of the trees, sweat coated every inch of my skin.

I hadn’t climbed a tree since—I’d never climbed a tree.

At most, I sat on a lower branch. Trees were wobbly and sharp and strangely rough and slippery all at the same time.

Trees broke bones. I’d always thought the act of climbing trees served no purpose aside from recklessly endangering yourself, until now. Now it served an even stupider purpose.

I wasn’t a hero, and no giant eagles were going to provide me with a Lord of the Rings –style Uber lift. But I did have a dragon hunting me that Courtney was convinced wanted us alive.

I selected a tree with branches spaced close enough together that I might stand a chance of hitting one on the way down, should I fall.

As I wrapped my arms around the first branch and clumsily heaved myself onto it, I cursed my heart for getting myself into this mess.

What I was doing proved what I’d always known: love was dangerous.

The difference was now I’d decided it was worth the risk.

I scrambled onto the next limb, legs flailing.

I began counting each limb, taking comfort in the orderly numbers.

“It’s worth the risk,” I reminded myself a second time.

“Worth the very risky risk.” I grunted as I scrambled higher.

“The very scary risky risk.” I was close to the top now, the breeze swaying the trunk.

I crawled up one more branch and gingerly got to my feet.

“The totally stupid idea,” I said under my breath, looking over my shoulder as I scanned the sky. “Courtney, you’d better be right about something for once.”

Courtney wasn’t in on some secret joke, nor could she magically make me happy with my own life like I’d once thought. Deep down, I already knew how to be happy. I just had to let myself feel it. My whole life, I’d been emulating a slug. Feeling nothing, surviving. It was time to live.

So here I was, getting out of my own way, even though it scared the shit out of me.

A screech pierced my ears, followed by a distant thud, thud, thud .

I was in the dragon’s web now.

If Courtney was right, and Greg the mouse wanted us alive, the dragon would deliver me back to the castle and Greg.

Courtney was likely there, too, trying to recapture a dragon or defeat an army.

I’d just have to escape Greg’s clutches and find her.

But first I needed to catch the dragon’s attention.

Dread washed over my body, making my limbs tremble. My foot slipped a little, bits of bark dislodging under my boot and crumbling down through the leaves below.

I replanted my foot, but it was too late.

My body bent one way, then the other. Hands flying desperately, I sought something to hold on to.

I leaned for the trunk but misjudged how far away it was.

My arms pinwheeled as I tried to regain my balance.

My heart felt too light, like I was already falling.

And then I was falling. My stomach lurched into my chest as I plummeted off the branch.

Then suddenly, something snagged me around the middle, pulling me up, up, up, and sending my stomach right back down into my toes.

I pried my eyes open, then quickly shut them again when I caught an aerial glimpse of the forest below.

My feet dangled over nothingness. The firm leg wrapped around my chest combined with the whistling wind made it hard to breathe.

I risked another peek up, which awarded me an unpleasant sight of the dragon’s bristly underbelly.

I didn’t know why Greg wanted us alive, and I didn’t care. If the dragon got me back to the castle before Courtney left, that was all that mattered.

We made it back to the city in record time. The skeletons were closer to the castle now, but still out of range of the archers in the guard towers. The dragon swooped over them and into the city. Snatches of the cries from soldiers and villagers below caught my ears before the wind swept them away.

The dragon made two loops around the castle, and I forced myself to keep my eyes open even while my stomach churned.

The beast’s head whipped to the side, gaze locking on to something below.

I followed the direction of its stare and spotted a large courtyard.

Many figures bustled about, but one, in a flowing purple robe, caught my eye. Amy.

For a second, I thought the dragon would incinerate him, but what happened was far worse. It folded its wings back, and we hurtled for the ground. Bitter bile tinged the back of my tongue as my stomach flipped yet again.

Cobblestones cracked from the impact of the dragon’s landing.

Villagers scattered every which way as the beast lumbered forward.

The dragon kept me cradled close to its chest as its three other feet hobbled in a broken but quick gait.

We swerved suddenly. When my brain straightened itself in my skull so I could see again, I craned my neck to find Amy flanked by a few soldiers standing directly in front of us, their mouths open.

My world spun for the millionth time as the dragon tilted me upright and planted me on the ground before them. With a strangely gentle nudge from its two claws, the beast pushed me forward.

Wind knocked me in the back as the dragon took off with one final screech, soaring away. I stumbled forward, nearly falling into a soldier’s waiting arms. Thankfully for my dignity, I managed to keep my footing.

Unthankfully for my dignity, I still managed to find myself in the soldier’s embrace a second later when he declared, “The imposter!” and seized me from behind, his blade zipping up under my chin.

Greg had his dragon hand me over to let Amy do his dirty work? It didn’t make sense.

“What shall the imposter’s punishment be, then?” the soldier yelled at maximum volume into my ear.

“Ah,” said Amy, “a good question. Considering his crimes against the crown, our people, and the whole kingdom—”

Whatever words he had left—probably an abundance—they were drowned out by the loud clanging of bells. Alarmed cries sang out from all the guard towers surrounding us.

“What’s the matter?” my soldier shouted, deafening me.

“The skeletons, sir,” another passing soldier yelled over his shoulder as he ran by. “They’re on the move.”

I squirmed, inching under my soldier’s sword like I was playing a high-stakes game of limbo, poking it out of my way with one delicate finger. My valiant escape met an untimely end, however, both because the potion made me stop edging away, and because Amy saw me.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Amy asked. “Did you think we’d forgotten about you?”

I gulped. “Yes, that’s why I was leaving.

Listen, I’m on your side. I’ll help you guys do whatever, as long as it gets us home.

” I would too. Gone was my fear, and in its place sat determination.

A sort of frantic, desperate determination because I didn’t have any other options in the matter, but still determination.

“How can we trust you?” Amy scowled. “You betrayed the whole kingdom.”

“If I were working for the Evil One, why would his dragon give me over to you to have me captured?”

Amy seemed to consider this, and my hopes lifted.

“The skeletons have breached the outer wall!” a guard yelled from a watchtower.

My heart quickened. “The mouse was manipulating us. I’ll help you. I need to help you so I can get home. Please, I just want to find Courtney, then we’ll be out of your hair.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t possible,” said Amy.

“Lady Courtney’s crimes have been too many.

We’ve already scheduled her hanging in the southern courtyard.

Everyone’s so excited, and if we cancel last minute, it will make for quite a faux pas.

We were headed there to take part in the festivities ourselves when you dropped by. ” Amy chuckled to himself.

“What?” I said. My world closed in, and it was hard to breathe. “What does that mean, you’re hanging her? Like a picture of her?”

“Oh, bless,” said the soldier, clapping me on the shoulder. “Hanged by the neck until dead.”

I wanted to hurl. A tar-black abyss opened in my mind’s eye when I tried to envision a future without Courtney.

It killed me that she didn’t know I’d been absolutely obsessed with her from the moment we met.

She still thought I liked the perfect version of her, when really, I was smitten with the opposite.

I pined over the Courtney who ate KitKats incorrectly.

I had sex dreams about the Courtney who never took her trash to the curb.

I’d fallen for the Courtney who revealed the worst parts of herself and stayed while I showed her mine.

“She’s obviously corrupted, unlike you,” Amy was saying. “We arrested her this morning. We can’t save her. What would the people think?”

I jolted forward, my feet free now that Amy had decided I was one of the good guys.

Then I was running. For once, not away from frightening things, but toward them. My brain felt swollen and stuffy, my ears full of pressure, like I was underwater. My legs burned, but I pressed harder.