Page 45 of January Bell

How long can I hold my breath?

Well, we’re about to find out.

Taking in a deep breath, I fill my lungs, then exhale, trying to hyperventilate and fill my body with as much oxygen as possible. I don’t even know how I remember that, but weird facts have a habit of popping up when your adrenaline is running high.

That much I’ve learned in the last week or so.

It feels impossible to feel as strongly for Zan as I do right now, but all I can think about is that I don’t want to make this harder on him. I want him to solve this puzzle. I want him to kill the worm chewing through his wing. I want us to get out of here so I can hug him and tell him how grateful I am that he put me first.

One more deep breath.

Now sand is covering my face.

I manage to reach up through the sand and plug my nose, holding my breath as long as I can. It feels like I’m fighting for air, and even though I want to move, want to come up for it, I don’t want to risk Zan getting more hurt down there.

So I hold my breath.

And I hold my breath.

And just when I think I can’t anymore⁠—

BOOM!

A shockwave hits the glass, and the next thing I know, I’ve tumbled out on a wave of sand onto the ground in the clearing.

Zan rips the sandworm off his wing, swearing words the translator doesn’t quite pick up, but I can tell he’s enraged. He must be in a lot of pain.

He scoops me up into his arms and stares deeply into my eyes.

“You should not have done that,” he says, the words icy with anger.

I blink up at him, my eyes gritty from the sand, lungs burning, and wrap my arms around his neck, pulling him in for a long kiss.

“I would do it again,” I finally say.

The chicken clucks happily, flapping her wings as she devours the sandworms. There are only three or four left now that I can see, and they’re huge—easily the size of my leg and the width of my torso.

Absolutely foul.

“They would have killed you,” Zan tells me, following my gaze.

“That was disgusting,” I say, completely exhausted. “Are you hurt? Show me your wing.” Worry spikes through me, and I grab the hard boney scaled part of his wing.

Zan’s face goes blank, and I hiss out in surprise at the ragged, oozing hole the nasty ass worm left in the delicate lavender membrane.

“This is really bad,” I murmur, casting my gaze back to his face.

“I’ve had worse,” he says stoically.

“You’ve had worse?” I gape at him. “You’ve had worse than a giant fucking hole in your wing?”

“I was a soldier,” he says simply. “It will heal in a year or so.”

“A YEAR OR SO?” I explode, kicking slightly, trying to get free of his grip. “Ken, what the fuck? A year or so? Your worms hurt him so bad that Zan won’t be able to fly for a whole year? Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

“I am not fucking kidding you right now,” Zan says.

I don’t bother telling him I was asking Ken and that it was mostly a rhetorical question, since rhetorical questions in general don’t seem to be part of the natural Draegon dialogue. Or maybe they just don’t translate well.

I’ll have to learn his language if I want him to really understand how hilarious I am. Alas.

I turn to where Ken is, not even bothering to tell Zan to put me down, just savoring being in his arms.

“You’re going to get him a healer or whatever it is you have on this hellhole to help him out. We did your stupid little task. Now where’s our fucking food, you piece of water-hogging shit?” I scream at him.

Zan lets out a laugh, the sound cutting off as the ground beneath his feet shakes. It’s not the normal shaking of Ken summoning something to the surface.

I clutch onto Zan, my heart hammering as adrenaline zips through my body again⁠—

And all I know next is darkness.