“Yes!” I whispered, clenching my fist. I barely heard the insult. I could finally be a dragon without breaking the rules. That almost made this whole crazy exercise worth it.

My trainer snapped her fingers and pointed to a large stack of crates in the corner.

“If you are concerned about modesty, or your clothes, you may change over there,” she ordered in a flat voice. “Though you are eventually going to have to get over that. There will be no time to find a bathroom if you are being chased by snipers in helicopters.”

I hurried over and ducked behind the boxes then shrugged out of my clothes as fast as I could. My body rippled as the dragon burst free again, wings brushing against the wooden crates as they unfurled for the second time that morning. It was still liberating, still completely freeing, even after a whole night of flying around.

My talons clicked over the concrete as I stalked back to the maze, feeling comfortable and confident in my dragon skin. Even Scary Talon Lady didn’t look quite so scary anymore, though she eyed my dragon self with as much bored disdain as she did my human self.

“Hold still,” she ordered, and pressed something into my ear hole, right behind my horns. I snorted and reared back, shaking my head, and she cuffed me under the chin. “Stop that. It’s just an ear bud.

It will allow me to communicate with you in the maze, and to hear everything that is going on around you. So stop twitching.”

I curled my lip, trying not to think about it, even though it was uncomfortable. My trainer didn’t notice. “On my signal,” she continued, pulling out her phone, “you have two minutes to find a good position and prepare for the hunt. If you are shot, you are ‘dead.’

Which means you have two minutes to find another position before the hunt starts again, and I add another fifteen minutes to the overall game. How long we are here depends on how long you survive, understand?”

Crap. That meant I just would have to avoid getting shot. No way I was staying here all afternoon, not with Garret waiting for me. Dragon or no, I’d promised him a surf lesson, and I still wanted to see him. “Yes,” I answered.

“I will be observing your progress from up top,” she continued, “so do not think you can lie about being killed. We will stay here all day if that is what it takes until I am satisfied.”

Double crap. How long I would have to stay alive before this unappeasable woman was “satisfied”? Probably much longer than I thought.

“Two minutes,” Scary Talon Lady reminded me. “Starting…now.”

I spun, claws raking over the cement, and bounded into the maze.

I didn’t see any soldiers as I wove my way through the endless corridors, peeking around crates to make sure the aisles were empty. Everything remained very quiet, save for my breathing, and the click of my talons on the cement. As I crept farther into the room, no one shot at me, nothing moved in the shadows, no footsteps shuffled over the ground. Where were these so-called soldiers, anyway? Maybe this was an elaborate hoax my trainer had cooked up, to make me paranoid. Maybe there was no one here at all…Something small and oval dropped into the corridor from above, bounced once with a metallic click, and came to rest near my claws.

As I stared in confusion, there was a sudden deafening hiss, and white smoke erupted from the tiny object, spewing everywhere. I backed away, squinting, but the smoke had completely filled the aisle and I couldn’t see where I was going.

Shots erupted overhead, and several blows struck me from all sides.

As the smoke cleared, I looked up to see six humans standing atop the aisle, three on either side. They wore heavy tactical gear and ski masks, and carried large, very real looking guns in their hands. My whole body was covered in red paint, dripping down my scales and spattering to the concrete. I cringed as the realization hit. I’d stood no chance against them. I’d walked right into their ambush, and if these were real St. George soldiers, I’d be blown to bits.

“And, you’re dead,” buzzed a familiar voice in my ear, as the figures slipped away and vanished as quickly as they had appeared. “A very dismal start, I’m afraid. Let us hope you can turn this around, or we will be here all day. Two minutes!”

A little daunted now, I hurried down another corridor, attempting to put as much distance between me and the six highly trained soldiers as I could.

Some time later I crouch ed, exhausted, behind a stack of pallets, my sides heaving from the last little scuffle. I’d been running from the soldiers for what seemed like hours, and they always seemed one step ahead of me. I’d slip away from one only to be shot by another hiding atop the crates overhead. I’d enter a corridor to find it blocked by two soldiers, and when I turned to run, two more would appear behind me, boxing me in. I was almost completely covered in paint;

it seeped between my scales and dripped to the floor when I moved, looking very much like blood. And each time I was hit, my trainer’s bored, smug voice would crackle in my ear, taunting me, telling me I had failed again, that I was dead.

I had no idea how much time had passed from the last time I’d been shot. Minutes? Hours? I didn’t think it mattered, not with my sadistic instructor keeping track. Curling my tail around myself, I huddled in the dark corner, breathing as quietly as I could and hoping that maybe the “hide and hope they don’t notice you” method would allow me to survive long enough to get out of here.

A small oval object sailed over the stack of crates, hit the wall, and bounced toward me with a clink. I hissed and shot out of the corner before it could go off. Most of the projectiles lobbed at me had been smoke grenades, which, while I didn’t have to worry about things like smoke inhalation, made it very difficult to see in the tight corridors.

Death by paint usually followed as I thrashed around in confusion.

But the last grenade had exploded in a blinding burst of light, and the soldiers had pumped me full of rounds as I’d stood there, stunned.

Not going through that again, thanks.

I darted for another shadowy corner and ran into a bullet storm.

The bastards were lying in wait right outside my hiding spot, and had trapped me inside a funnel of death. Cringing, I closed my eyes and hunkered down as I was bathed in red paint, again.

“Pathetic,” sighed a familiar, hated voice when the ambush was done and the soldiers had slipped back into the maze. “Let us pray that you are not ever hunted by the real soldiers of St. George, because your head would be mounted over their fireplace in no time.