“I said it could hold our weight! I never said anything about safety.”
Kai gives me a good shove, which I guess I deserve. Then again, I can’t control external forces, now can I?
Down below, the crowds are mob-like, running out of the park. The other cars on the Wonder Wheel are in full panic, their occupants screaming and trying to punch their way out. The shaky technicians let out the people closer to the ground.
A screech echoes through the park. It fills the air in a swoosh. I unzip my backpack with sure fingers.
“Did you see it?” I ask her.
The ride jolts, like the lever is hitting stop and go at random. There’s one guy left manning the station, because the others are running the hell away.
Kai isn’t freaking, though. Why isn’t she freaking out? Instead, when she sees my dagger in hand, her eyes go wide and she smiles. “Triton’s dagger! I’ve never seen it so close. I have a profound affinity for ancient swords.”
“It’s always the quiet ones,” I say. My dagger makes a terrible scratchy noise as I try to cut our way out. There’s another bang! The Wonder Wheel strains against the pressure, and for a heartbeat, we fall. A shadow flies over us. Our car swings. We’re not supposed to swing. I paid for the stationary seats. But our car swings back and creaks and screeches, and I know we’re breaking away from the rest of the rise.
I shut my eyes hard. “Please tell me I’m not seeing what I’m seeing.”
Kai gasps, elated. “Oh my goddess!”
“Don’t. Move.”
She takes a step forward toward the shadow perching at the center of the Wonder Wheel and ready to pounce on us. “It’s a sea dragon.”
“Okay, so that wasn’t going to be my first guess. I was going to go with flying dinosaur of unusually small size.”
“I’ve never seen one before.” Her eyes are like mirror balls, spinning at the creature.
In the catalog of my childhood storytelling, I always pictured dragons to be the size of Godzilla. This thing is iridescent blue and green, hard and slick at the same time. It huffs into the air and takes off again, undulating through the sky. A row of ridges starts at the dragon’s neck, like a Mohawk, and gets smaller and smaller toward the tip of its tail. The head is what surprises me the most. The sea dragon’s face is soft with eyes that shine golden and glossy, even in the diminishing lights of the park. Until the creature opens its mouth to growl.
“Well, it doesn’t seem to like us, so I say we get out of here.” I stab the door. The blade slides through the metal with some resistance, but there’s good give and I shout, “Stand back!” The lock on the door opens with my second strike. I kick hard, and the door falls and slams into the cement ground, just missing a group of kids running away.
It’s probably not a good time to tell Kai that I’m not a fan of heights either. I stare at the open space below. It’s not that far, but landing without a cushion will hurt.
“You’re not saying we jump?”
“Unless you’ve got a magic portal to get us out of here, the only way is down.”
For a moment, the sea dragon vanishes into a patch of thick fog before making a circle toward us. This close, I can see the barnacles growing around the pink slits of his gills. Of course. All the princesses and pirates and evil sea witches want a piece of me. Why wouldn’t some nearly extinct dinosaur want in on it? I ready my dagger to stab at it, but Kai pushes my hand away.
“Don’t hurt it!”
“It’s trying to eat us!”
The sea dragon bangs into our car once again. We tumble back in. The metal hinges creak and finally break apart. Kai falls into me and holds on. I hold on to her with one hand and my dagger with the other, but we never hit the ground. Talons break through the ceiling to clutch the car, and the dragon starts to fly away with us.
“I think we’re too heavy!” I shout, not at Kai but at the dragon.
It struggles to fly while holding us. We’re barely skimming above the ground, and if he dips below a foot or two, we’re going to ram straight into the carousel. I let go of Kai and ready my dagger to take