His lips were soft, but firm. Pressing further and further into me. His hands gripped my cheeks like he couldn’t bare to let go. This closeness made all the fear disappear into background noise. It wasn’t until I tried to raise my hands up to touch him that I remembered where we were.

My handcuffs clanked against the metal poll and Colin pulled away enough to breathe. His forehead was pressed against mine and his breath lingered between us. I found myself trying to connect our mouths again despite the situation.

It was like time had frozen and nothing else mattered.

Luckily, Colin wasn’t so easily distracted. He pulled away completely and turned to unlock the chains. When I was free, he roughly pulled me over to where Carmen was sitting. He unlocked her handcuffs with one hand. Colin didn’t dare let go of me.

He was afraid of losing me again. And I understood why. I was reckless, and stupid. I left him behind even when I had promised not to. I’d be lucky if he ever trusted me again.

“Colin! Did you find him? They’re waking up-” Alalai came into the cellar with a bat in his hand and a sack of something labeled ‘Sleeping Powder’. Alalai cut off whatever else he was going to say when he saw Carmen.

Colin unlocked the handcuffs just in time for Carmen to launch herself into Alalai’s arms. They kept their greeting’s briefer than Colin’s greeting. I blushed at the thought.

What am I doing? We are standing in the middle of a cellar about to be surrounded by evil dragons and I’m blushing! What is wrong with me? Colin pulls me out of the cellar and toward a long winding staircase.

“We have to go now.” Colin was tugging me forward. It was just like the first day we met… except his fingers are intertwined with mine now. And I’m blushing. And stumbling over myself. Why can’t I focus on anything?

“There’s scales covering his body…” Alalai pointed out. I looked over at him and smiled wide. I nodded. There were scales sticking out of my skin like little floating islands. And my teeth were sharp like shark teeth. And… and I’m really tired.

“No time to worry about that now. We have to get out of here. The sleeping powder trick won’t work a second time.” Colin pushed forward. They headed toward the stairs. Alalai was the only one with something resembling a weapon. A baseball bat. Who brings a baseball bat, I wondered.

“Ooh yeah, beat me some bad guy. I do love me a good swing.” The baseball bat said from Alalai’s hands. Alalai held the bat like a baseball player at home plate. Ready to swing at a moments notice.

“Did… did that baseball bat just talk?” I can’t be that out of it, right?

“That’s right I talked,” The bat snapped back. Sure enough, it really was a baseball bat talking to me. Even with it somehow enchanted to talk like a sassy old woman, I wasn’t sure a bat was going to do anything about the dragon lurking above. The thought of his voice alone gave me the chills.

Alalai turned the knob of the basement door and let the door creak open as slowly as he could. No noise came from the floor above as we waited for the attack that was sure to come. With both hands held firmly on the bat, Alalai charged up the last of the stairs and through the basement doorway.

The rest of us clambered after him. I couldn’t help but notice how close Colin stayed to me. He was really paranoid that I would leave him again. That was the second time too. There won’t be a third time.

We came face to face with another dragon. This one was smaller than Mr. Tall, Dark and Scary. That didn’t mean I would win in a fight against him. The dragon smiled a crooked grin and prepared to launch himself at Colin and I.

He was interrupted by a screaming baseball bat to the face.

“Yeah, hit him harder. Hit him real good!” The baseball yelled. I grimace. This baseball was taking this a little too far. With the smaller dragon knocked out “real good”, we trekked our way toward the front of the house.

With in a minute, I had my hand on the front door.

“It was too easy. It shouldn’t have been that easy.” Colin says. I glare at him. Is he trying to get us killed? Does he like knocking on wood?

I want to yell at him that now is not the time to be jinxing us, but before I can, the doors burst open and I am thrown against a wall. My head slammed hard against the old wooden interior and things go a little fuzzy.

There’s ringing in my ears. And there are people shouting. Shouting my name. Someone is tugging at my arm. I just want to sleep. Can’t they just let me sleep? I grumbled something but even I am too tired to make sense of the words spilling out.

Colin was in front of me. He was slapping my face as I lazily swatted him away. His mouth moved but I couldn’t hear any sound. I grumbled again as he bent down and threw me over his back. His broad shoulder stuck into my stomach, and everything was upside-down. All I could see was Colin’s back. It was a nice back to look at.

My head was starting to hurt, and sounds were starting to filter through the ringing in my ears. Alalai was hitting something with the bat while it screamed for more. A crash to my left told me Carmen got hit hard just like me.

“Alalai! Get Carmen! We have to go!” Colin was running as fast as he could with me over his shoulder. We were out on the front lawn now.

I felt my focus hone in on our current situation. Colin’s hand was cupped firmly on my butt. Was that really what I chose to focus on? Definitely. I tried to get out of Colin’s grip and accidentally elbowed him in the back of the head. He dropped me from the surprise elbow attack. Luckily, I landed in soft grass instead of granite floors.

I scrambled to my feet as Alalai and Carmen sprinted out of the Charliegn House. Colin and I also started sprinting full speed toward the woods. The more trees the better. The safer it would be.

As we entered the woods, I tripped on a tree root that was sticking out of the ground. I fell into a roll and tucked my chin. I started the fall and the somersault as a human, and came out of it as a dragon. That was the most graceful fall I have ever had.

“How did you-” Colin was cut off when the black slithering dragon swooped down and tried to grab him with his pointed claws. Mr. Tall, Dark, and Scary himself has come to see us off.

Leaving us so soon, Zodiac Reid?” The dragon slithered in my direction. That thing new my name. He landed a few yards away and stared us down. His red eyes glowed in the night and would definitely haunt my nightmares.

“But- but Dragones are extinct.” Colin whispered to himself. His voice was breathless and distressed.

“Only in the folklore,” The dragon sneered. He paced closer to us. A scent wafted by me. It was a whiff of Carmen and Alalai. Their scent was easy to detect because somehow I was downwind of them. I didn’t see them anywhere though.

“How?” Colin’s voice steeled. Whatever shock he felt earlier had dissipated. I was glad he wasn’t panicking, but now wasn’t the time to talk it up with Tall, Dark, and Scary. But if I took off, he’d kill me. No capturing games anymore. I didn’t know how I knew, but he would kill me if given the chance.

Carmen and Alalai’s scent was strong now. The wind blew it straight into my nostrils. Somehow, they were invisible, and sneaking up on the dragon.

“Colin, get closer to me.” I whispered. He quietly scooted closer to my wing where he would normally mount to ride. If the dragon noticed, he didn’t say anything.

As I met eyes with the dragon, a white powdery cloud spilled over his face. Carmen and Alalai had become invisible, and dumped sleeping powder on his face. Where they got the sleeping powder, or the invisibility potions is a mystery to me, but when Tall, Dark, and Scary tumbled to the ground in a heap, I didn’t care.

Colin jumped up and prepared for a take off. Alalai and Carmen got on as well. I didn’t have the wing strength to last long flying like this, but I had to try. We just needed a few minutes head start to loose the dragons. A few minutes to escape this nightmare.

Once up in the air, Colin’s grip on my wings relaxed. He lowered himself down to lay on his belly over my long scaly neck. His hands gripped me like he was worried I would disappear again.

“Please don’t leave me. Don’t leave me like they did.” He whispered into my scales. My wings pumped up and down as he breathed down my neck raggedly. He sniffed and even though I couldn’t see him, I knew he was crying. The rushing wind made it hard to hear, but he was clinging to my neck with tears running down his soft cheeks. What had I done?

Who was ‘they’? I’ve never heard him so broken before. So raw and open. I didn’t recognize this Colin, and it scared me. I listened intently when Colin breathed in to speak again.

“I love you so-” The air caught in his throat. “-So don’t leave me behind again.”