When I finally have enough oxygen inside of me to think semi-clearly again, I look around for Lia. Find her crumpled on the floor in the same spot where Flint had been beating her head against the floor with all the strength of the dragon inside him.

Convinced she isn’t a threat—at least for now—I focus back on Flint who has sunk to his knees at this point. He’s clutching his hands, his face a mask of agony, and for a second—just a second—I feel sorry for him. Which is bizarre considering a few moments ago he was using those very fingers to strangle me.

I beat back the sympathy and take a step away, sliding along the wall in the most unobtrusive manner I can muster. I don’t know what’s happening here, don’t know which of the many, many supernatural forces surrounding us is responsible for Flint’s suffering, but I have a pretty good idea. And if I’m right, things are about to get a million times more dicey. If I’m right, Flint is about to have a very bad—

Jaxon bursts into the room like a dragon-seeking missile, his focus completely and totally on Flint as he races across the room at an unimaginable speed. His eyes, glowing and livid and filled with violence, meet mine for a second before sliding over every inch of me as if cataloging my injuries. Moments later, he’s on Flint, grabbing him by the hair and heaving him across the room into the opposite wall.

Flint hits back-first, hard enough to make the wall shake. Then Jaxon’s on him, his snarls of rage filling the room and echoing off the ceiling. There’s a part of me that wants to run to him, that wants to beg him to hold me and take care of me after he deals with Flint. But there’s another part that can’t get over Flint’s words. That can’t get over the casual way he said Jaxon was part of Lia’s crazy plan.

It doesn’t make any sense. If Jaxon was a part of her plan all along, why did she give him tea to drug him? And why did she shoot him full of tranquilizers?

No, Flint has to be wrong, I tell myself as sobs I refuse to let escape threaten to tear my chest apart. Jaxon wouldn’t deliberately hurt me, and he definitely wouldn’t have had anything to do with killing my parents. He wouldn’t do that. He couldn’t do that, not after everything that happened with Hudson.

Out of nowhere, Flint roars an answer to one of Jaxon’s snarls, and then he starts fighting back. Jaxon’s response is to send him flying once more, this time headfirst into another wall.

Anyone else would be dead after the impact Flint makes, but dragons are obviously built very different from humans—even when in their human form. Because Flint shakes off the blow then whirls around to face Jaxon once again.

But when he brings his arms up to fight, his hands are no longer human. Instead they’re talons, and he punches straight out with them, aiming for Jaxon’s heart.

A strangled scream escapes me, and I slap my bloodied right hand over my mouth, desperate to avoid attention even as Jaxon deflects the blow. Then he reaches out, aiming to wrap his fingers around Flint’s throat the way Flint just did to me, but before Jaxon can get a good grip, Flint starts to shift.

It takes a few seconds, and Jaxon tries to stop him—or at least, that’s what I think he’s doing when he thrusts a hand into the magical rainbow glow that comes whenever Flint changes form. But his hand goes right through it and he doesn’t grab onto anything while we both wait to see what monstrous version of Flint this new edition can add to the story.

We get our answer when he comes back into focus in his full dragon form. Tall and majestic and a sparkling emerald green, all of his power, all of his strength and determination and fire are focused on Jaxon.

Who doesn’t even flinch. He just plants his feet and stares down a freaking dragon like it’s a gecko, waiting for an attack or an opening or who even knows what.

Except Flint is apparently as patient as Jaxon, even in dragon form, and the two circle each other for several seconds.

Jaxon seems to have calmed down. His eyes are almost back to normal and his face is totally blank, totally unreadable. Which is a good thing, because—

Suddenly, the whole tunnel shakes like it’s being hit by an eight-point earthquake. Okay, not so calm, I think as my already shaky knees give way and I hit the ground, hard. I expect the shaking to stop, expect Jaxon to get control of himself, but that doesn’t seem to be on his agenda as the walls start crumbling and bones start falling from the giant chandelier in the center of the room.

Flint shoots a stream of fire straight at Jaxon, who throws a hand up and deflects the fire into the nearest wall. The move seems to infuriate Flint, who lets loose with another blast of fire, this one so hot I can feel it from halfway across the room. And he doesn’t let up. He keeps the fire stream going even as Jaxon continues to block it.

On the plus side, the ground stops shaking as Jaxon focuses every ounce of his power on not getting incinerated while Flint focuses every ounce of his power on doing the incinerating. At first, it looks like we’ve finally reached an impasse, Flint shooting fire and Jaxon holding that fire at bay. But as the seconds tick by, I realize Jaxon is doing more than just deflecting the fire. He’s bending it back toward Flint and using his telekinesis to slowly—so, so slowly—push a stream of it back toward the dragon.

Part of me wants to stay and see what happens, to make sure Jaxon is okay at the end of this. But the voice inside me is finally back and it’s urging me to run, to get away, to leave Flint and Jaxon to their fates and save myself.

Any other time, I’d ignore the voice and stay, just in case I could find a way to help Jaxon. But Flint’s words keep running through my head—about how Jaxon is a part of Lia’s plan, about how Lia is responsible for my parents’ deaths, about how whatever they have planned can’t be allowed to happen.

I still don’t know if what he’s saying is true or not, but if it is…if it is, I can’t count on Jaxon, or anyone else, to help me. I have to escape. And I have to do it by myself.

With that thought at the front of my mind, I start moving toward the exit tunnel. I tell myself to stand up, to make a run for it, but I’m too sick and dizzy to do anything but crawl. So that’s what I do. I crawl toward the tunnel, each movement an agony for my screaming shoulder and raw, aching hands.

Thankfully, Jaxon and Flint are too caught up in their battle to notice me and my slow-but-stealthy progress. I’m hoping to keep it that way as I finally reach the mouth of the tunnel.

Just a little farther, I tell myself as I make it around the corner.

Just a little farther, I repeat like a mantra as I take a second to lean back against the wall and let the pain dissipate.

Just a little farther, I say one more time as I push myself up and off the floor.

I give myself one more second to take stock—stomach rolling, knees shaking, body hurting—and then say screw it and start staggering up the tunnel as fast as my abused ankles can carry me.

I’ve only gone about twenty feet when something hits me from behind, sends me pitching forward, and I hit the ground all over again. Agony slices through me as my shoulder bangs against the ground, and for a second, I’m sure I’m going to pass out.

But seconds later, the pain dissipates, and as I try to wiggle away I realize my shoulder no longer hurts. Or at least, it’s no longer screaming at me like it was a couple minutes ago. I must have knocked it back into position when I fell on it. Or, more specifically, when I was pushed down onto it.

Adrenaline surges through me at the thought, and I wonder if it’s Jaxon who has found me. Or if it’s Flint. I want it to be Jaxon—even with everything Flint said about him working with Lia—but the roughness of the shove says otherwise, as does the follow-up kick delivered to my side.

I’m panicking now, terrified that Jaxon is hurt…or worse. What if Flint was lying? What if Jaxon isn’t a part of Lia’s crazy plan and I just left him alone out there?

I spin around, hands raised in a pathetic defense against what I’m sure is a fire-breathing dragon. And find myself staring into Lia’s wild and unhinged eyes instead. Eyes that only get more demented when she demands, “You don’t actually think you’re walking out of here, do you?”

60

Some Call it Paranoia,

But I Call it an

Evil Bitch Trying to Use

You as a Human Sacrifice

“Don’t say a fucking word,” Lia continues as she grabs me by the hair and starts dragging me up the tunnel. Pain—excruciating, overwhelming, maddening—explodes inside of me, and I clutch at my head, trying desperately to get some relief from the searing, tearing agony of being yanked around by my hair.

It doesn’t work, and for a second the pain is so sharp that I can’t even think. But it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that Lia’s dragging me to my death. If I let her get me back into that room with the blood and the altar, I’m going to die—in what I’m pretty sure is the most awful, most gruesome manner possible.

So, to hell with her warning and to hell with staying silent. Sucking in a huge gulp of air, I let loose with the loudest, most hysterical-sounding scream I can manage while at the same time digging my nails into her hands hard enough to draw blood.

Lia curses and slams my head into the wall she’s been dragging me alongside. Which dazes my already not-functioning-so-great brain but doesn’t get me to shut up. Nothing is going to do that, I promise myself as I scream and scream and scream, even as I struggle to free my hair from her viselike grip.

Lia’s not having it, though, because this time she turns around and kicks me in the face. Not hard enough to fracture my jaw, but more than hard enough to have me reeling backward—which has the added benefit of shutting me up despite myself as everything around me starts to go black.

“Oh, no you don’t, you bitch,” Lia hisses at me. And this time when she hits me, it’s a sharp slap on my cheek. “You are not going back to sleep. The whole reason we’re in this mess right now is because I need you awake for this.”

That’s the best incentive I can think of to make myself pass out again. But unfortunately, that doesn’t seem to be in the cards, since the pain of being dragged along by my hair is definitely keeping me awake. I just hope if I survive this—or even if I don’t—that I’m not completely bald by the end.