Chapter 8 #2
She steadied her breathing, sucking in a breath. “I’ve survived a werewolf-infested mansion. I’ve survived being chased by a yeti. I’ve survived–”
“Please don’t say being locked in a vampire’s castle,” Devon interrupted.
“I was going to say I survived touching a chaos gem.” She waved her burned hand in the air, long since unwrapped after the struggle with the bars.
“Oh, right, okay, sure. Great. It’s all gold. You’re awesome.”
“Let’s not go crazy,” Dewey said. “She’s–”
Devon waved a hand at him, cutting off his words.
“Super awesome,” Dewey said, with a nod.
Paige heaved in another deep breath before she started rocking back and forth. The cage began to slowly sway to and fro, twisting on its rope.
Paige froze for a moment, her features pinching as the rope contorted, and she spun sideways. She licked her lips, pushing the cage to swing in a wider arc. A groan escaped her lips as the cage twirled around, swaying away from the tree branch.
She squeezed her eyes closed for a second as it peaked in the air before diving back toward the ground and arcing upward toward the tree branch. She snapped her eyes open and reached for it, falling a few inches shy.
With another moan, she swung away from it and prepared for another round. This time, her fingers grazed the bark.
“Almost!” Devon hissed.
“Stretch further, Inspector Gadget!” Dewey added.
Paige wrinkled her nose at the statement but stretched her muscles to the limit on her next attempt. She grabbed onto the branch. Her muscles strained, and she lost her grip, sailing away again.
“Damn it,” she growled under her breath.
“It’s okay, Paige. You got this,” Devon encouraged.
The cage surged toward the branch again. Paige reached out, grabbing it with one hand. The dangling prison jolted to a stop. Her shoulder stretched as she struggled to stop the backward progress.
“That’s it, Paige! You did it. Now, climb out of the cage and onto the branch.”
Paige squirmed around, reaching for the branch with her other hand.
She latched onto it, her muscles straining and features pinching with effort.
She shimmied out of the cage, shaking it from around her hips.
It slid away, catching on her knees. She shook her legs again, and the cage sank to her heels.
With a scramble, she managed to free her feet.
She dangled from the branch as the cage broke away, swinging away from her. Sweat beaded on her brow as she adjusted her grip and attempted to climb onto the branch.
“Come on, Paige, you can do it,” Dewey said, his paws curled into fists.
“Paige, look out!” Devon called.
She twisted to glance over her shoulder. Her eyes went wide, and she scrambled to kick a leg onto the tree branch. The cage swung toward her, narrowly missing smacking her in the back as she pulled herself onto the branch.
She collapsed against it, blowing out a labored breath.
“Way to go, Paige,” Devon said.
“Now, shimmy across the branch and down the trunk. Grab the machete, then climb back up to free us,” Dewey added.
Paige grimaced at him before pushing herself up to sit and crawling across the thick bough. It swayed under her weight as she made the slow trek closer to the trunk.
She pushed her hands against the branch, swinging her legs forward as they straddled the offshoot. On her third shimmy, a crack sounded, and the branch shook.
“Uh oh,” Dewey murmured.
Paige’s eyes went wide as the light-colored inner bark showed. The branch dipped lower. Paige scrambled to make it past the crack, but before she could, the bough split. In slow motion, the offshoot slid away from the trunk. Paige plunged downward, landing in a heap on the ground below.
“Paige!” Devon hissed. “Paige, are you okay?”
“I hope so,” Dewey said.
“Me, too,” Devon answered as he searched for any sign of life.
“Otherwise, we’re goners.”
Devon shot him a glance.
“What?” Dewey asked as Paige pushed herself upward with a groan.
“I’m fine. Just got the wind knocked out of me. The branch broke most of my fall.”
“Good, now get up, get the machete–”
Paige held up a hand as she pushed herself to her feet. “I know, I know. Rescue you.”
“No time to waste, Paige. We need to get out of here before she wakes up from her nap.”
“You can expedite the process by swinging toward me,” Paige said as she swiped the machete off the ground from where it had fallen when Devon battled the harpy. She secured it to her waist with a vine hacked off of a nearby plant before she hoisted herself onto a low branch and began her climb.
Dewey wrinkled his nose as Devon set his cage into motion.
He rocked back and forth as Paige scrambled up the large tree and inched out onto what remained of the broken limb.
She straddled it and reached out as Devon swung closer to her.
The cage slipped from her grasp on the first attempt.
On the next pass, she grabbed onto it, struggling to steady herself and not fall off the branch.
“Okay, this is going to be harder than it looks. I’m not sure I can hold on to you and hack the bars apart.”
“Okay, let me hang on to your leg,” Devon suggested, sinking to his haunches and sliding a hand through the bars to grab her pant leg.
“Got it?” Paige asked. He nodded, and she began to hack at the bars. After a few moments, she cut through one and moved on to the next. Sweat drenched her shirt as she hacked three more in half.
“Okay, now, I’ll hold the cage, and you break the bars,” she said, grabbing hold of an intact branch as she wrapped her ankles around each other to steady herself.
Devon yanked back on the first branch.
“Whoa,” Paige said, sliding sideways. “I can’t hold you while you do this. I’m going to let you go. Swing back when you’re finished breaking those. Dewey, you swing toward me.”
She let go of the cage, and Devon swung away.
“What? No way, we’ll collide. I’ll wait until Dreamboat is rescued.”
“Dewey,” Paige argued with a slap to her thigh, “we don’t have time to waste. Just swing over here.”
“I got them, just wait,” he said as he swung toward her and broke the last bar away. On the next pass, he reached for her, and she latched onto his hand. Within minutes, he’d scrambled out of the cage and onto the branch with her.
“Okay, come on, Dewey,” Paige said, waving him over.
The little dragon fluttered around in his cage, unable to get a rhythm going. “I can’t,” he shouted. “I’m too small.”
“We can get to him if we go past her nest,” Devon said.
Paige shook her head, sliding her eyes closed, but she eventually nodded. “Fine, just get on the ground and get ready to go.”
Devon scrambled down the tree as Paige inched her way past the large nest with the sleeping harpy. She held her breath, her eyes fixed on the harpy’s steady breathing.
As she cleared it, she hurried toward the branch holding Dewey’s cage and hauled it upward. In three hacks, she cut a bar at the top, then sliced through the bottom. The slim opening allowed the dragon to fly free.
He fluttered down to join Devon as she made the dangerous trek back. She wobbled her way toward the nest before she started to slide around it. She froze as a monkey screeched somewhere in the jungle.
With all her muscles tensed, she held her breath. The harpy never budged. She blew out a silent sigh of relief and continued her journey. As she reached the center of the nest, a burning filled her nose.
“Oh, no,” she whispered. She squeezed her eyes closed, willing herself not to sneeze. Seconds later, she could not stop it.
“Achoo!” she exclaimed, immediately following it with a wince. She glanced at the harpy, and her heart skipped a beat. The creature peered at her with one rainbow eye.