“That,” I breathed unnecessarily, “is a big motherfucking dragon.”
Kevin turned toward me, eyes wide. “Do you think we could just leave it alone and go home now? I mean, honestly. Does it really matter if the bad guys win? We could always just move. I’ve heard living in exile is all the rage right now. Also, I don’t like how inadequate I feel. I liked being the biggest thing in the world before this. Do you know what this does to my self-esteem? You know Gary has a size kink. What if he sees this fucker and we don’t get back together because I don’t measure up?”
“I really don’t think that’s something we should be worrying about right now,” I hissed at him. “In case you didn’t know, there is a fucking dragon five times your size right below you.”
“And it begins. Oh look, Kevin, that dragon is bigger than you. Oh look, Kevin, he’s so charming. Oh Kevin, I’m so sorry, but I have to stay late at the office tonight and don’t know when I’m going to be home!”
“He’s going to hear you!”
He rolled his eyes. “You know our hearing isn’t that good. I’d be worried about him smelling us before he hears us. And his nose is still down in the storm, so that’ll fuck with his sense of smell. Watch. Hey! Hey, you! Unicorn-husband-stealing motherfucker! Up here!”
“Oh my gods shut the fuck up!” I snarled at him, sure that we were about to die.
“Ah, see? Didn’t even hear us.”
And he hadn’t. He moved slowly, his wings taking almost a full minute for each movement up and down. I thought he could probably move fast if he wanted to, but the boney crown was moving side to side, as if he were searching for us. The area behind the crown looked free of protrusions and spikes, but I didn’t know how to use that to our advantage. If only I could get down to it and try to talk to him. I could talk my way through almost anything. If that didn’t work, I could at least try to hit him in the eye as I’d done with all the others. That seemed to work too. Granted, the idea of punching a dragon’s eye that was probably twice the size of me wasn’t too appealing.
We coasted above the Great White for a time, the dragon below us moving almost lazily as he flew over a specific area. There were breaks in the clouds below as the rainstorm started rolling on, and I could see the tiny trees of the Dark Woods so very far away. My stomach felt oily at the sight of it, and more and more of the Great White came into view as the clouds cleared. It was the biggest creature I’d ever seen, all scale and spikes and muscle. Even my vision of him hadn’t truly impressed upon me the sheer scope of him.
“He’s not doing anything,” I said, frustrated.
“And we can’t take him head-on,” Kevin pointed out. “I may be faster, but I don’t know that I can outrun him forever. And I can’t feel him. Not like I could with the others.”
He was right about that. Aside from the initial wave of magic and the voice momentarily in my head, I couldn’t feel anything about the Great White. But it wasn’t as if he wasn’t there at all. Instead, there was a void in my mind where he should be.
Like he was shielding himself from me.
“We can’t keep this up,” I said. “Eventually he’s going to either look up or go back down. And we don’t know how far the others got. We can’t take the chance of him finding them before we do anything.”
“Dimitri will protect them,” Kevin said. “And now that I’ve said that aloud, I realize how ridiculous that is. We gotta do something. Now.”
I closed my eyes and raised my face toward the sun, trying to think of something, anything I could do to get the dragon’s attention that wouldn’t result in the immediate and most likely painful death of Kevin and myself. If only we could get closer somehow and just get him to listen to me. But I didn’t know how amenable he would be to Kevin being near him, and it wasn’t like I could get to him by myself to— I opened my eyes.
“Oh no,” I whispered fervently. “I’ve just had the worst idea ever.”
My skin felt cold as I peered back down at the dragon below us. Either this would work or I would die, and the chances were greater for the latter than the former. But we were running out of time, the forest below us revealed as the clouds disappeared. I thought maybe that’s what the dragon had been moving in circles for, that his massive size had been enough to shift the clouds away.
Smoke streamed from his nostrils, leaving trails behind him that rippled along the massive spikes on his back. His tail moved back and forth almost lazily. The crown of his head turned from side to side as he scanned for something, most likely me.
“I’m gonna do this,” I said, trying to psych myself up. “I’m gonna do this.”
“What?” Kevin asked, starting to sound slightly hysterical. “What are you gonna do?”
“I need you to get above him,” I said, never taking my eyes off the Great White. “Don’t let him see you. The sun is low enough that your shadow should stay behind him if we move quick enough. Get as close to his front as possible, but don’t go any lower.”
He looked back at me with narrowed eyes. “Why do I have a feeling you’re planning something that Gary’s going to yell at me for?”
“Least of my worries right now,” I said through gritted teeth, mouth flooding with saliva in that way that signaled I was about to be sick. “Oh my gods, I am so fucking stupid. Oh gods.”
But I didn’t have a choice.
Kevin moved carefully, making sure to approach the Great White from the rear. It was only moments before we were above him, Kevin’s shadow encompassed by the Great White’s on the earth below. We couldn’t stay right here forever. If I was going to do this, I had to do it soon.
My hands were sweating.
My heart was about to beat out of my chest.
My breaths were light and quick.
Everything was in sharp clarity, the colors bright.
I said, “Listen to me. Whatever you do, you don’t come after me. You get the hell out of here. Find the others. You tell—you tell them this was my choice. That I did this because it was the right thing to do.”
“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.
“I need you to trust me.”
“Trust you? I barely even know you!”
I grinned at him. “Love you too, dude.”
And then I pulled myself up until I was standing on Kevin’s back, the wind whipping around me.
“No,” Kevin said, shaking his head furiously. “Don’t you do it. You hear me? Don’t you—”
I ignored him as I turned away, facing his tail, my arms behind me as I held on to the spike on his back.
“Sam! You sit your ass back down right now!”
I took in a deep breath and let it out slow.
“Who the fuck do you think you are!”
I glanced over my shoulder, winking at him. “I’m Sam of Wilds. See you soon.”