“Three…two…” The gun jabbed into her temple painfully, and this time she did cry out. She glanced desperately at Connor, who shot her a helpless look back. He was trying—she could tell. But it wasn’t working. Sometimes it didn’t. And if it didn’t—
Please don’t…Please don’t…
“No!”
A voice from the rafters suddenly rang through the air, followed by the crack of a rifle’s recoil. A moment later, her assailant’s chest exploded, hot blood splattering her face. He stared at her, a split second of terror freeze-framed on his face, followed by recognition, before he stumbled into her, nearly knocking her down as he slumped to the ground.
For a moment, she couldn’t move. In fact, none of them did. They stood frozen in place—everything seeming to happen in slow motion as their minds worked overtime to comprehend what had just happened. It was then Trinity caught a snow-white head poking up from the barn’s loft. A soft gasp escaped her.
“Grandpa!” she cried.
The barn burst into chaos, gunshots ringing out from all directions. The rednecks dove for cover as Grandpa rained shots down from above and Connor let his own lasers fly. Trinity, the only one unarmed, ducked behind a wheelbarrow so as not to be caught in the crossfire.
But her safety was short-lived. The mustached guy found her and grabbed her by the back of the arms, pinning her against his chest like a human shield and dragging her into the middle of the barn. “Hold your fire!” he screamed. “Or she dies.”
The gunshots ceased instantly. She saw Connor peek up from the horse stall he’d been hiding behind, his face grave but appearing uninjured. The other three men were on the ground, writhing, their gushing wounds staining the barn’s floor crimson, their entrails hanging out like spaghetti. It was all Trin could do not to vomit at the scene.
“Just let her go, man,” Connor said, taking a cautious step forward. “And we’ll let you walk away.”
It was then that she realized her captor was trembling like crazy. “Look, man,” he stammered, “I didn’t want to do this. My uncle…he made me come. I didn’t mean…”
“You didn’t do anything,” Connor said in a gentle voice. “We’re all okay. Just walk out the door and pretend you never saw us.”
Walk away, walk away. You never saw us. Walk away.
The effort to push now was almost unbearable—like knives stabbing into her brain. But somehow she forced herself to keep at it, and soon she could feel his hard swallow against her back. “Okay,” he agreed, loosening his grip. “I’m going to give her back to you. Don’t shoot me.”
“We won’t. Just let her go. And it will all be over.”
Let her go, let her go, let her go. Trin could hear both Connor and her grandfather chanting now. She glanced up to see her guardian leaning over the top of the loft. He gave her a small smile. She smiled back weakly, praying this was going to work.
Let her go. Walk away. You never saw us.
Suddenly, the man shoved her forward. She fell to her knees, hitting the ground hard and yelping in pain. But just as she was about to turn around, the barn erupted into flames.
“No!” she heard Connor cry. “Emmy, no!”
Emmy! Oh God. She should have known the dragon wouldn’t have been content to stay away when she realized something was wrong. And now she was here, dive bombing into the barn, fire blazing from her mouth. Trin’s former captor screamed, throwing himself into the hay to try to stop, drop, and roll, as they’d all been taught in school. But dragonfire wasn’t so easy to put out, and the hay went up instantly, the flames ripping through the wooden barn. Trin’s ears caught the cracking of wood and the smoke choked her lungs.
“Emmy! No!” she cried. “Stop!”
“Trin! Get out! Now!” she heard Connor command. His voice sounded a thousand miles away.
She stumbled to her feet, her legs still wobbly from the effort of using her gift. She looked around the burning inferno that had once been a barn. It was old, she realized with dismay, and half-decayed, and they hadn’t had rain for weeks. Her eyes lifted to the loft above. The fire was climbing the walls at an alarming speed. “Grandpa!” she cried. Was he still up there?
She felt Connor grab her hand, trying to drag her away, but she shook him off. Throwing the music box to the ground, she dove for the ladder, taking the rungs two at a time, her hands and feet struggling for purchase on the rotted wood.
“Trinity!” she could hear Connor cry from below. “Get down here!”
She ignored him, swinging up into the loft, now filled with smoke and fire. Her eyes fell on her grandpa, lying on a bale of hay, his back pinned by a collapsed support beam.
“Grandpa!” She dropped to her knees. “Grandpa, are you okay?” She attempted to push the heavy beam off of him. But it was no use.
“Connor! Get up here!” she screamed.
“I can’t!” he yelled back. “The ladder’s gone.”
She glanced down. Sure enough, the ladder had caught fire and was no longer climbable. She tried again to move the support beam. But Grandpa reached out and locked a white hand on her arm. His eyes, watery from the smoke, focused on her.
“You need to go,” he told her in a hoarse voice. “Leave me and go. Now!”
“No!” she cried. “I’m not—!”
A crashing sound interrupted her words as part of the ceiling came hurtling down only a few feet away. Trin yelped in pain as a charred piece of wood hit her in the back.
“Emmy!” she screamed. “Help me!”
The dragon appeared, seemingly out of nowhere. At Trin’s instruction, she clamped her claws down on the support beam, lifting it off of Grandpa. Trin was about to let out a sigh of relief until she saw what it had been covering up.
“Grandpa,” she whispered. “Oh no, Grandpa.”
He’d been shot, the bullet having gone straight through from stomach to back, leaving a gaping wound behind. And there was blood. So much blood he was practically bathing in it. He gave her an apologetic look. “I’m sorry, sweetie,” he said.
“Emmy!” she shrieked. Then she turned back to him. “Just relax. It’s going to be okay. Emmy can heal you with her blood. Just like she healed me from my gunshot wound.” She turned around. “Emmy! Heal him. Quick!”
But the dragon only looked at her, shuffling from foot to foot.
“Come on, Emmy! What are you waiting for?”
I can’t heal him, she said at last.
“What? What are you talking about?” Trinity’s voice was screeching with hysteria now. “Of course you can heal him. You healed me, didn’t you?”
Emmy nodded, looking tortured. I healed you. And before that I healed…Scarlet. The healing blood comes from a single scale. It…takes a while to regenerate.
Trinity stared at her, incredulous. “What?” she whispered. “You mean it’s gone?” She glanced helplessly at Grandpa then back at the dragon. “But it can’t be gone!”
The barn shook and another fiery support beam came crashing down. From below, she could hear Connor crying out her name desperately.
“Trinity,” her grandpa interrupted in a hoarse voice. “You need to get out of here. Now!”
“No.” She shook her head, sobs tearing from her throat. “I’m not leaving without you. Emmy’s going to fix you. Please, Emmy!” she cried. “You have to try.”
But Emmy only shook her head. I can’t. I have nothing left.
Fury rose within Trinity now, crashing over her helplessness. “How could you?” she screeched, rising to her feet, storming over to the dragon. “How could you waste your blood on some stupid stranger? And now…now you can’t even save your own family!”
Emmy took a step back, looking wild and horrified. She whined and smoke puffed from her nostrils.
“Without him, you wouldn’t even be here! You’d be stuck in your egg in a block of ice! Everyt
hing you are is because of him! And this is how you repay him?”
“Trinity, stop it!” Grandpa cried. “There’s no time for this nonsense. You need to get out of here. The fate of the world depends on your survival.”
“I don’t give a crap about the fate of the world!” Trinity cried. “I only care about you.” She collapsed on top of her grandfather, holding him tight. She could feel him reaching out and placing a shaking hand over hers.
“I love you, baby. But you must go on. You must face your destiny. If you can’t do it for yourself, then do it for me.” He turned to the dragon. “Emmy, get her out of here. Now!”
Emmy turned to her, a bound and determined expression on her reptilian face. Trinity shook her head vehemently, realizing what the dragon planned to do.
“Get the hell away from me! Don’t you even try to—”
The dragon’s talons dug into her back, lifting her into the air and flying her through the barn. She screamed and thrashed, kicking uselessly at thin air, but of course it did no good. No sooner had they flown down from the loft than the ceiling collapsed behind them with a shuddering crash.
“Grandpa!”
But there was no answer. And, she realized, as Emmy flew her out of the barn and across the field to safety, there never would be. Ever again.
PART 3:
FRACTURE
Chapter Sixteen
Strata-D—Year 188 Post-Scorch
Connor stepped out of the apartment, the mechanical door sliding silently shut behind him. He sidled onto his motorbike, kicking it into gear. A moment later, he was zooming down the narrow, rock-lined tunnel toward the outskirts of town, his bike’s headlight the only illumination in the cave darkness. After a few turns he ended up at his destination—the South Side Elevator. He parked his bike and walked over to the operator, handing him a couple of coppers and asking him to take him down to Strata-D
“But that’s Shanty Town,” the operator protested, looking at Connor’s fancy Academy uniform doubtfully.
“I know,” Connor said, gritting his teeth. “Just take me.” He handed the man a few extra coppers, and soon they were descending into the bowels of the earth.
Strata-D—better known as Shanty Town—was not a recognized part of the Underground and therefore outside the official jurisdiction of the Council. Which made it a great place to go if you were looking to buy or sell something illegal—or rip someone off who was.
Connor was pretty sure he’d find his brother there, looking to do all of the above.
He stepped off the elevator, wrinkling his nose as the overwhelming stench of urine and feces assaulted his nose. The place was overbuilt, floor to ceiling, with battered tin outbuildings lit by rusty lanterns, offering booze and girls and other black market treasures for just a few coppers. Outside vendors lazily catcalled punters, inviting them to step inside, “Just for a minute!” promising the time of their lives.
Their eyes greedily fell on Connor as he passed, and they stepped up their cries, blocking his path to offer rusted watches, hallucinogenic drugs, and necklaces of fake dragon teeth. He pushed past them, wishing he’d changed clothes before coming down, as he headed toward the town square, peering into each open-air bar for a sign of his brother.
Finally he reached the center of town, decorated with ropes of multicolored Christmas lights strung across metal sculptures shaped to look like trees. He stopped in front of one of them, realizing he’d been followed by half the town, the ragtag group of people swirling around him with awe in their eyes.
“How goes the dragon slaying?” asked one woman with a gaggle of kids clinging to her threadbare skirts.
“Are we winning the war?” added a stooped man who looked old enough to practically remember the Scorch itself.
“What about the Dracken? What are you doing to stop the Dracken?” asked a teen boy whose face was half-covered in scarred-over burns.
“Everything is going great,” Connor assured them, as he’d been taught to say by the Academy. Too much truth was trouble, as his teachers would say. “We’re gaining ground every day.”
“Well, thank God and the Great and Powerful Council for that,” sneered a voice in the back. The crowd parted and Connor watched his brother, dressed in little more than filthy rags, saunter down the path, dragging a nasty-looking mutt behind him. Dogs were technically illegal down in the Underground—the Council claimed they required too much food that could be better allocated for human consumption—but many in Shanty Town kept them for protection.
“Caleb,” Connor greeted in a tight voice. “It’s been a while.” He took in his brother’s sunken eyes and scowling mouth, not sure if he wanted to hug him or strangle him to death. Caleb should have been living at home, with his mother, enjoying all the luxuries Connor’s salary could provide. Instead, he preferred to hang out here.
“Well, I’d hardly expect a great Dragon Hunter like yourself to bother with something as silly as family,” Caleb replied, his voice thick with sarcasm. “You’re way too busy saving the world!”
Connor shifted from foot to foot, feeling suffocated by the sudden wire-tight tension in the stale, underground air. Caleb had never gotten over the fact that the Council had chosen Connor, not him, to join the Academy and become a Hunter after their father’s death. Caleb was the firstborn by seven minutes. Caleb, by right, was the one who was supposed to shoulder their father’s legacy. But it had been ten-year-old Connor who had single-handedly slain the dragon that had murdered their father. And when Connor went before the Council, dragging a severed dragon’s head behind him, Caleb had been all but forgotten. And while this was not Connor’s fault in any way—he’d only done what he’d had to do—Caleb had never forgiven him.
“I’ve come to talk to you,” Connor told him. He glanced at the crowd, who was currently watching the exchange with excited eyes, probably hoping for a good fight between the twins. “Alone.”
“Fine. Follow me.”
Caleb turned and stalked through the crowd, dragging his dog behind him. Connor had to run to catch up. A few minutes later, he found himself sitting on a rickety metal stool in front of a makeshift tin-roofed bar at the end of a narrow alleyway. Caleb ordered a shot of whiskey from the greasy-haired, one-eyed bartender—there was no drinking age down in Shanty Town—handing him a single copper coin in payment. The man turned questioningly to Connor, but he waved him off. The Academy advocated abstinence in anything that might hinder your reflexes. You never knew when they were going to call you into service.
“So what do you want?” Caleb demanded after downing his shot. He slammed it down on the grimy bar and ordered a second.
Connor watched the bartender pour the drink, the liquor splashing onto the bar. “I was just at Mom’s. She told me you ended up in jail again last night.”
Caleb cursed. “Mom should mind her own business.”
“It is her business when she spends her grocery money bailing you out.”
“I didn’t ask her to do that.”
Connor raked a hand through his hair, frustrated. From below, Caleb’s dog growled softly, a warning against the sudden movement around his master. “Caleb, if you keep this up, they’ll throw you in the mines.”
His brother shrugged. “So what? Half my friends are already there anyway.”
“But you should be home, taking care of Mom. She needs you.”
“She doesn’t need me. She has you, the golden son, to take care of all her needs.”
He was impossible. Simply impossible. “What do you want, Caleb? Do you want money?” Connor demanded, reaching into his pocket for his purse. “Your own apartment?” He dumped the leather bag’s contents onto the bar. From the corner of his eye, he saw the bartender eyeing the pile hungrily.
“What are you, crazy?” Caleb cried, scooping up the thirty pieces of silver—Connor’s entire takeaway pay from his last
mission. “That’s a good way to get yourself killed down here!” He shoved the coins back in the purse and presented it to his twin. Connor shook his head.
“It’s yours. Use it to get out of here. You’re my brother. You don’t have to live like this.”
Caleb’s face twisted. He dropped the bag unceremoniously back onto the bar “I like living like this. And I don’t want your money. You can’t just buy me, like you do everyone else, Connor. It won’t work.”
Connor let out a frustrated grunt. “Caleb, don’t shut me out like this,” he pleaded. “We’re brothers. Twins.” He closed his eyes and tried to find their former link. But his brother had long since severed it.
“Don’t you get it?” Caleb asked, a look of disgust clear on his face. “I want nothing to do with you. And I never will. So get the hell out of here and go be the hero you’re destined to be.” He scowled. “And let me be the loser I am.”
Connor rose from his seat, defeated. Leaving the purse on the table, he turned and trudged back down the alley toward the elevator. Before turning the corner, he found himself taking one last look back at the bar and his brother, just in time to see Caleb grabbing his purse and tossing its contents into the air. As silver coins rained down on the grime-caked street, beggar children appeared out of nowhere, scurrying for the money with excited squeals. Caleb looked up, catching Connor’s stare of disbelief, and smiled smugly.
Connor shook his head and turned the corner, arriving at the elevator and instructing the operator to take him up to Strata-A. It was hard to believe how much easier it was to fight fire-breathing dragons than deal with his own twin.
Chapter Seventeen
Scarlet kicked at a piece of blackened wood as she made her way through the ruins of the old McCormick place. The fire, with help from the night wind, had leveled the compound before the fire department could even arrive—leaving a charred skeleton of what had once been the main house behind it. The barn—where the fire had originated—was completely gone, only a scorched shadow left to mark where it once had stood.