The water feels gross, squishing inside my toes and soaking through my dress, but I ignore it as I take off running again as fast as I can. To be honest, that’s not saying all that much considering the drugs and my raw, wet feet, but I do my best. At least until what feels like a thousand candles burst to life all around me and all at the same time.

As their flames illuminate the room, I stop dead in my tracks. And wish with everything I have that I was back in the dark.

   58

Never Do a

Trust Fall

with Someone

Who Can Fly

At least I know exactly where I am. The tunnels. Not the part of the tunnels I’ve already been in, but one of the side rooms they lead to that I haven’t seen before. Still, I’m sure that’s where Lia has brought me. The architecture—not to mention the bone chandeliers and candelabras—is a hard decorating choice to forget.

Too bad the obviously human-bone candle holders are the least terrifying thing in the place. The same can’t be said for the—at least—two dozen three-foot glass vases filled with blood that line what can only be described as an altar in the center of the room. At the center of which is a stone slab with bloodied ropes.

So, not actually that far off when I snarked about being a human sacrifice. Fantastic.

A quick glance down at my legs shows just why that “water” squishing between my toes felt so gross earlier. Because it’s not water. It’s blood.

I’m covered in someone else’s blood.

Funny how that sets me off worse than anything else in this nightmarish hellscape. But it totally does. I manage to swallow down the scream clawing at the inside of my throat, but it’s a close thing. So close that I can’t stop a little whimper from doing the same.

And that’s before I turn around and see a giant green dragon flying straight toward me, wings beating fast and talons extended.

Not going to lie—I freak out. Like totally, absolutely freak the fuck out—screams absolutely included. I duck down, try to make myself as small as possible as I run for the door, but I know it’s too late even before a volley of flames streams right by me, slamming into the stone wall to my right.

I jump back, try to turn around, but that little delay is all the dragon needs to get to me. Talons wrap around my upper arms, pricking my biceps, as he lifts me straight off my feet and starts flying back across the room.

I struggle against his hold, trying to get him to drop me before he gets too high. But his talons go from pricking my skin to piercing it. I gasp as new pain slams through me, but the dragon gets his wish—I stop struggling, too afraid that he’ll tear me to pieces to risk it.

At the same time, I’m too terrified that he’ll kill me to just do nothing, so I grab on to his feet and try to pry his talons out of and off of me. I know I’ll fall, but at this point it’s the best plan I can come up with. Especially considering the voice inside me that’s been telling me what to do for days now is suddenly, inconveniently absent.

Unfortunately, my prying fingers only make the dragon dig in deeper, and for a second, everything goes black. I take a few deep breaths, concentrate on beating back the pain. And wonder how the hell I got myself kidnapped by both a vampire and a dragon in one night.

San Diego has never seemed so far away.

All of a sudden, the dragon sweeps down, so low that my feet can practically touch the ground. We’re headed straight for the huge double doors on the other side of the room—looks like I was running in the wrong direction earlier—and that might not be a problem except for the fact that they are closed and the dragon’s…hands? paws? claws?…are currently filled with me.

I shrink down, brace for impact and what I’m pretty sure is my imminent death. But about a second before we fly into them, the doors burst open and we soar right through…and over a screaming, infuriated Lia.

The dragon doesn’t pause, just stretches out its wings and starts flying even faster, straight down the long hallway that I’m guessing leads toward the center portico with the huge bone chandelier.

Lia’s running along below us, and she’s fast enough to more than keep up. And at this point, I’m really close to losing it. Because trapped between a dragon and a vampire gives a whole new meaning to the old “rock and hard place” cliché, and that never works out well for the person in the middle.

Plus, I’m getting really sick of being dragged around by supernatural creatures. I mean, sure, I want to believe this dragon—whether it’s Flint or some other kid I go to school with—is trying to rescue me, but the talons currently ripping through my arm muscles tell a different story.

At this point, I’m pretty sure the best-case scenario involves me choosing between death by dragon or death by vampire. Too bad I have no idea which one would be least painful. And does it really matter considering I’ll be dead at the end, anyway?

We’re moving crazy fast, so we reach the center hub of the tunnels in seconds. The only problem? We’re flying straight toward the giant bone chandelier, with its hundreds of lit candles, and the dragon shows no sign of slowing down. Which, fine. He’s a dragon and, I assume, fireproof. Too bad that same adjective can’t be used to describe me or the cotton shift I’m wearing.

Suddenly, death by vampire bite doesn’t sound so bad. Not when the alternative is burning alive in midair.

But at the last second, the dragon pulls his arms up tight to his body, with me still clutched in his talons, and dives right under the chandelier. His goal is obviously to get past it while staying as high and fast as possible. But that drop in altitude is what Lia’s been waiting for, because now she’s leaping off the ground and grabbing hold of the dragon’s tail.

The dragon roars, tries to flick her off him, but she holds on. Seconds later, she’s got her arms wrapped completely around his tail and is slamming us toward the ground as hard as she can.

Which—for the record—is really freaking hard. Especially considering the dragon doesn’t let go of me while we fall.

We hit the ground with a crash. On the plus side, the dragon lets go of me on impact, and for the first time in several minutes, there are no talons digging into my arms. On the negative side, I hit the ground shoulder-first and am now seeing stars of the very not-good variety.

Plus, I can barely move my left arm. A problem that’s compounded by the fact that I am also still bleeding from my wrists, my ankles, my fingers, and now my arms where the dragon was holding me. And, oh yeah, I’m being stalked by a crazy-ass vampire with ritualistic murder in her eyes.

And here I thought Alaska would be boring.

Snarls and screams sound behind me, and I scramble to my knees, trying to ignore the pain in my sprained? broken? dislocated? shoulder as I spin around in time to see Lia and the dragon going at it full force.