If they kill me, it might enrage him. It might make him more dangerous.
If they keep me alive…they’ll trade me.
I wish the truth wasn’t so readily apparent, but I know he will. Just as I would for him.
I’m just fucking bait. A token to exchange for a deadly ransom.
Tears stream down my cheeks as she marches us through the arch to the vendor parking lot. I swallow and the shards spear my esophagus.
It must be my imagination, or a trick of some kind. I can still breathe. I wouldn’t be able to breathe if my throat was full of glass.
I have to get away from her…
Lightning.
I haven’t practiced in a month because we’ve been so busy, but Icanmanifest lightning in my hands.
I dig my heels into the gravel and push back against the woman. She presses her body against mine with an angry growl and drops her hold on the bag to shove my shoulder. I throw my arm behind me, getting a hold on the back of her neck.
With all my will, rage, and might, I force magic down my arm and words across my lips. The incantation hisses out painfully and orange light erupts behind me in a bright explosion. I’m thrown forward. My head hits the gravel with a sickening crunch and stars dance in my vision, but immediately, the glass disappears from my throat.
I take a deep, painful gasp, tasting blood. I grope for the bag at my side and roll over, keeping it pinned to me. When I sit up, I see her.
The waitress from the Chubby Radish.
She crawls up to her hands and knees, her head hanging and hair obscuring her face.
“What…the fuck?” I grind out.
Her head whips up and unnatural, stoney features meet me. Her face is frozen, like it was that day at the restaurant when she saw Bastian. There’s an angry black wound across her placid features, and blue liquid drips from her chin.
She blinks once, and her lip pulls back in a snarl as her body contorts. Her arms and legs snap, as if they’re coming apart like fucking tent poles. She charges forward, scrambling on over-long limbs.
I throw my hand out in front of me and summon another flash of lightning. The orange arc snaps from my palm and into the dirt beside her. I kick my feet to push myself away and call another bolt. It smashes her shoulder and burns the side of her shirt, but she keeps coming.
A loudwhoomphand a gust of wind blows my hair in my eyes, but I can still see the insanity as thick, reptilian feet slam down on thewaitress, pinning her to the earth in front of me. I’m frozen as I look up at him. The real him.
A dragon in truth.
Fifteen feet tall. Massive, taloned hands. A broad, golden armored chest over his green scarred scales. And a long maw full of razor-sharp teeth.
The waitress screeches, clawing at the gravel to get to me, or get away from him.
He falls forward, pinning her down completely. Her head spins around with a sickening crunch and she spits something blue on his shoulder. The liquid sizzles against his armor and he roars in pain.
That roar ends with his teeth around her neck. He shakes his head side to side and tears her flesh.
No, it’s not flesh.
The thing beneath him is still squirming. He spits out its head, then dives back down to the shoulder. His teeth shred through it, revealing mechanical bones and plastic sinew. The metal whines as he tears it in half. Its dangling spine sprays milky blue fluid across the parking lot as he throws it aside.
The bottom half of the robot twitches as more fluid leaks out from under Bastian’s feet. He reaches for me and I reach back. His massive claws scoop me up and he holds me to the uninjured side of his chest.
I’m sobbing, clutching his soulbound book so hard my fingers ache. “What was that?”
“I don’t know,” he growls as he tucks me closer, crushing me into him.
“Holy shit!” someone screams behind Bastian, and I hear their running footsteps retreat.
