There was only one explanation—someone was working the controls!
I looked up at the Observation Balcony, twenty feet above, and saw a pale, lumpy face studded with patches of angry red acne staring down at me.
“You like that, you little shit?” Chud Larson’s face broke into a savage grin as I struggled to keep my place in the saddle. “You like riding a dragon? Well, you better enjoy it while you can because a wooden dragon is the only kind you’re ever going to fucking ride!”
And then Woody really went wild.
I cried out in fear as the wooden dragon thrashed under me. Dipping and diving and jerking—it was like it was trying to buck me off—which of course, was Larson’s goal, I was sure.
Maybe I should just let myself fall—the net will catch me, I thought.
But then I looked down and saw something awful in the weak sunlight that was finally beginning to seep in through the cavern windows…
The net was gone.
Not completely gone, but two of its four supports had been cut, and the rest was hanging down, flapping uselessly on the far side of the wooden dragon. If I fell now, I would meet the hard stone floor twenty feet below.
I didn’t think I would survive a fall like that, so I hung on grimly, wrapping my hands around the wooden spine in front of me and squeezing the saddle tightly with my knees.
“I’m like a tick on a dog,” I told myself. “I’m dug in tight—nothing can get me off!”
But my positive self-motivation wasn’t working. My hands were slippery with sweat and my thigh muscles were cramping from trying to stay in the saddle. And Chud Larson was jerking the controls so hard that Woody was twisting in ways he never had before. I doubted that even a ride on a real dragon could get this rough—how was I going to hang on?
But hang on I did…until the ropes controlling Woody’s left wing abruptly snapped.
As the huge wooden wing sagged, so did the left side of the dragon. Woody was built to be the size of a Silver-wing and the weight of one wing was enough to pull the entire simulator out of whack.
I gasped as I lost my grip and went rolling out of the saddle and down the length of the sagging wooden wing. I tried to grab onto it, but the wood was smooth from years of use and I couldn’t get a grip. The wing acted like a slide, and I found myself slipping and sliding faster and faster down its length as the ground loomed up below me.
“Help!” I shrieked as I fell. “Help! Help! Hel…”
And then I slid off the tip of the wing and dropped like a stone to the ground below.
21
AURORA
I was sure I was going to die—there was no other ending for this scenario. I never should have ignored Chud Larson—shouldn’t have believed he was no longer a threat. I had been stupid and now I would pay with my life. Now?—
“Oof!” a deep male voice said in my ear as a pair of strong arms caught me.
For a moment I just lay there, trying to believe what was happening. Was I still falling? Or had I really been caught?
Panic took over and I turned to the person who had me in his arms and wrapped myself around him. With my legs around his waist and my arms around his neck, I squeezed myself against him, afraid to let go—afraid this was just a dream that had overtaken my mind in the split second before I hit the stony ground.
“Easy, little one. Easy,” a low voice rumbled in my ear. “I’ve got you.”
“He…I…he made the ropes snap—he shook me off!” I babbled, still gripping my unknown savior as tightly as I could.
“He, who?” my savior asked. “Who was running the simulator?”
“He cut the net!” I gasped and I was crying now—though I didn’t want to.
I had sternly suppressed my tears during the month I’d been at the Academy. Even when I dreamed of my brother and woke with tears in my eyes, I wiped them away quickly. There was nothing more unmanly than crying—I didn’t want to be accused of any “girly” habits that might make people question what they saw when they looked at me.
But now the tears flowed, and I couldn’t stop them. I had come so close to death I could still feel the cold blade of the Grim Reaper’s scythe pressing against my throat! My terror couldn’t be contained, no matter how hard I tried.
“It’s all right—you don’t have to cry. You’re safe now,” the person holding me said. Because he was holding me—his arms were wrapped around my waist and he was helping me cling to him.
