Scarlet sighed, feeling exhausted. All she wanted to do was go home and sleep for a week. But between the after-funeral gathering her mother was hosting for Bob and his fallen friends and the TV news crews camped out nearby, there would be little chance of getting any actual rest.
She considered going back to the trailer, to help her mother entertain her guests. By now the place would be overflowing with casseroles and condolences from neighbors and friends. But how could she bring herself to stand there, pretending to mourn, accepting the saccharine sweet sympathy the ladies from church would be doling out in droves?
“So sorry for your loss,” they’d say.
When in reality, she had only won.
The monster was gone. Her mother was free. Her grandmother had flown in to attend the funeral, carrying return tickets for both of them to join her on the reservation in New Mexico—to start a new life. It was everything Scarlet had ever dreamed of and more. She had won the freaking lottery in just one night. And things would never be the same again.
She should have been ecstatic. She should have been dancing in the streets. Instead, her legs felt like lead, her heart weighed down by guilt—her mind consumed with thoughts of Emmy. Where was she? Was she okay? Had she escaped the government agents that had swarmed into town with their mammoth tanks and heavy artillery? Sure, Scarlet’s life was about to become much better. But at what price to the dragon who had made it so?
The news reporters were calling the incident an act of terrorism. The president himself had called Emmy a violent fiend. But Scarlet knew better. She knew the sweet, gentle creature who had healed her in the woods would never do something to purposely cause any harm. Emmy had been scared, trapped, forced to defend herself. And if she’d wanted to, she could have done much worse. Everyone who had been hurt had already been released from the hospital. Rebekah’s cousin had suffered nothing worse than a broken nose. The only Vista casualties were four ignorant rednecks who’d seen fit to take the law into their own drunken hands. They deserved what they had gotten and more.
But try to say that to anyone in town. Emmy had no fan club here in Vista.
When she and Caleb had finally arrived at the barn on foot, they’d found Connor and Trinity covered in ash and reeking of smoke, Trinity practically comatose with grief. And when Scarlet had learned that the girl’s grandfather had been killed in the fire, it felt as if she’d been the one to personally light the match. If only she hadn’t uploaded the video. If only she hadn’t gone back to the barn. Her desperate attempt to make life better for her own family had ultimately destroyed another’s.
And Emmy…The dragon wouldn’t speak to her. Wouldn’t speak to anyone actually. She’d curled up in a ball in the back of the van, staring listlessly at the wall. Scarlet had tried to comfort her, stroking her nose and whispering in her ear. But the dragon refused to acknowledge any of it. Finally, Scarlet gave up and left her alone.
“Take care of yourself, Emmy,” she whispered as Caleb slammed the van doors shut. But the dragon didn’t answer. Caleb turned to her, giving her a regretful look.
“She’s just upset,” he told her. “Don’t take it personally.”
“She blames me.”
“Actually, I think she blames herself.” He peered at her with those blue eyes of his. “You gonna be okay? I hate just leaving you here like this. Can we give you a lift back to your house at least?”
She shook her head. “I have my bike. I’ll be fine.”
They fell silent, looking at one another. Then Connor poked his head out the back window. “You do remember we’re running for our lives, right, Caleb?”
“I’ll be right there.” He sighed, giving Scarlet a rueful grin. “Good twin calls, I must obey.” Then he reached out and gave her an awkward hug. His breath was warm across her bare shoulders. “Good luck, Buttercup.”
“You too, Bad Seed.”
And that was it. Caleb climbed into the van, and a moment later the vehicle roared to life, taking off down the dirt road at way too fast a speed.
Leaving her all alone.
That had only been three days ago, but it already felt like a lifetime. She knew in her heart she’d probably never see Emmy again. Yet at times she could still seem to feel the dragon somehow—if she closed her eyes and searched deep within herself. It was as if she could hear Emmy’s heartbeat in her ear, feel the warmth of her breath on her face. The bond between them still felt so strong—even with the physical distance increasing. She tried to tell herself that it was enough to know Emmy was still alive and still okay. But instead, all she felt was an all-encompassing loneliness that threatened to drown her a little more each day.
She shook her head. This wasn’t helping. Being here, thinking about it all. She needed to go back to town. Go to a movie. See if Rebekah wanted to hit the mall. Her friend had been texting her all day, but Scarlet hadn’t had the heart to reply. It all seemed so pointless now. Living a shell of a life in this nowhere town when she knew there was something so much bigger—so much more magical—just out of reach. It was like Harry Potter being expelled from Hogwarts and being forced back under the stairs.
But just as she was about to turn and leave, a shadow crossed her path. She looked up, steeling herself for yet another nosy reporter, desperate for some kind of story angle that hadn’t already been covered half to death on the nightly news. Instead, her eyes fell upon a girl around her own age with olive skin and large brown eyes. She was accompanied by half a dozen other kids, all seemingly of different nationalities. Which was unusual, to say the least. In Vista, Texas, you were pretty much either white or Latino or some combination of the two. Even Scarlet herself, with her Native American heritage, usually stuck out like a sore thumb here.
“You,” the girl said in an overly authoritative voice. “Have you seen the dragon?”
Scarlet rolled her eyes, her curiosity deflating. She should have known. In addition to the media, the tourists and gawkers had been pouring into town daily. Flying in from all over the country and, by the looks of these kids, all over the world. Descending upon the town, hoping to get a glimpse of the mythological beast they’d seen on the news. It was unbearably annoying, though admittedly not bad for tips. This morning the diner had been standing room only for her entire shift.
“They’ve set up an information booth down at Town Hall,” she said, trying to sidestep the visitors. “They can tell you everything you need to know.”
The girl narrowed her eyes. “Can they tell me where she went?”
Scarlet stopped short. There had been a lot of talk about Emmy on the news and around town. In fact, people would pretty much talk about nothing else. But this was the first time she’d heard the dragon referred to as a she rather than an it.
“Sorry, she’s long gone,” she said with a shrug. “No one knows where she went.”
Except for me, she thought, as she started to head back to the place she’d stashed her bike. And it’s not like I’d tell you.
“Why not?”
“What?” Reluctantly Scarlet turned around. She found the girl staring at her with eyes so intense they sent a shiver down her spine.
“Why won’t you tell us where Emmy went?” the girl repeated pointedly.
Scarlet’s mouth dropped. “How…how do you know her name?” she stammered. And maybe a better question: how had she known what she had been thinking? “Are you friends with Trinity?” Her heart started beating fast in her chest.
The girl glanced at her companions. “Yes,” she said. “And Caleb and Connor too. We were part of the same group. We got separated three months ago when the government raided our compound.”
A boy stepped forward. Tall, blond, good-looking. “We’ve been out here, searching for months, trying to find them again,” he added in an Australian accent. “When we saw the news about the football stadium, we came straight away.”
Scarlet stared at him, speechless, trying to sort out what he was saying. Trinity, Connor, and Caleb hadn’t mentioned being a part of a larger group. But then, there hadn’t been much time for details. And it did seem strange it was just the four of them with the grandfather, hiding out like they were without any sort of plan.
Another girl stepped out of the group. She was Asian, petite, and wearing blue braids in her hair. She looked at Scarlet with desperate eyes. “Please,” she urged. “If you know something, you must tell us. We have to find them and Emmy before it’s too late.”
Scarlet narrowed her eyes suspiciously. “Too late for what?”
“A vaccine,” interjected the first girl quickly, before the blue braids girl could answer. “It was created by our leaders and meant to help Emmy adjust to the current atmosphere. Dragons are particularly susceptible to all the toxins in our air—seeing as they were never meant to live in our time period. If Emmy doesn’t get this vaccine soon, her immune system will fail. She’ll grow sick and she’ll die.”
“Is this for real?” Scarlet stammered. But even as she asked the question, she could see the answer, written clearly on their faces. They were for real all right. And dead serious too. Could Emmy’s life actually be in danger?
“I’m sorry,” the first girl interjected. “I know this is a lot to take in, and unfortunately we don’t have a lot of time.” She gave Scarlet a pleading stare. “Look. I can tell you care about Emmy—and that means we’re on the same team here. All we want to do is find her and bring her back to the people who can keep her safe. You don’t want anything bad to happen to her, do you?”
Scarlet didn’t know what to say. Of course she didn’t want anything bad to happen to Emmy. But how could she be sure of who to trust? She scanned the group, her mind working overtime. They seemed sincere. But at the same time, there was something strange about them—the way they were looking at her, with a communal focused gaze, intense as a laser beam. As if they were trying to bore holes into her brain.
This was way too weird.
“Look, I—”
The girl in front suddenly grabbed her hands, squeezing them tightly. Scarlet staggered as a jolt of something hard and heavy slammed through her consciousness. For a moment she felt frighteningly cold. Then she felt as if she were being burned alive.
And then…
Her mind flashed with a vision. Of Emmy, bony and sallow skinned, lying in a corner, weeping. There were open sores on her flanks and her blue eyes were dimmed to gray.
Emmy needs you, Scarlet. Please don’t let her down.
The girl let go of her hands. Scarlet conceded a step, her mind a tumble of confusion and fear. She looked up, meeting the girl’s eyes with her own. “I can help you,” she heard herself saying, though she had no idea where the words had come from. “I can lead you to Emmy.”
The other kids broke out into sighs of relief. A few of them grinned at one another and a couple others exchanged hugs. The girl who had grabbed her hands gave her a grateful smile.
“Thank you,” she said fervently. “My name is Rashida. And these are the Potentials. We’re glad to have you on board.”
Chapter Eighteen
“Come on, Trin. You have to eat something,” Connor begged, holding out a slice of feta-and-pineapple-topped pizza in her direction, looking at her with pleading eyes. Trinity stared at it dully for a moment then turned back toward the blank motel room wall across from her. From behind, she could hear Connor’s frustrated sigh, followed by the sound of the pizza slice being tossed back into its cardboard box.
“Leave her alone,” his brother’s voice interjected. “She just lost her grandpa.”
“I know that, Caleb,” Connor ground out. “But starving herself isn’t going to bring him back. And she needs to keep up her strength if we’re going to get through the days ahead.”
Trinity bit her lower lip as they continued to argue as if she weren’t in the room. In a way, she supposed she wasn’t. Her body might be present, but her mind was far off in a distant world of hurt and pain and guilt she couldn’t seem to escape.
It had been Connor’s suggestion to come here—a no-tell motel in southeast Colorado, a full day’s drive from the farmhouse where it had all gone down. He said it would give them a chance to regroup, to wash the ashes from their clothes—to figure out what they were going to do next. They had enough money left over from what Caleb stole from the Dracken to rent two rooms for two weeks. By then, hopefully they’d have a plan.
Instead, all they’d done was stare at the television set for the past week, flipping through the national news stations and watching the shaky home videos taken at the football stadium. Emmy’s grand debut had become an international sensation, and everyone was trying to guess what she could be. Some pundits claimed she was some kind of secret genetic experiment gone bad, escaped from a government lab. Others claimed it was a mechanical hoax created by some publicist to help an upcoming Hollywood blockbuster go viral. There were theories of terrorism, of course, and even a few religious sects proclaiming it a sign of the coming apocalypse—the devil in the form of a dragon.
The president himself had flown to Texas to visit the victims of what FOX News had oh so cleverly dubbed “The Touchdown of Terror.” After a few PR shots of Mr. President walking the football stadium and the burned out barn, he took to the podium and, as the cameras rolled, vowed to find this menace and keep America safe—by any means necessary.
At this, Caleb had rolled his eyes. “You people are a sensitive lot, aren’t you?” he sneered. “In my time, we’d pray for a single day with as few casualties as this.”
Trinity snuck a glance over at the menace in question, who was currently curled up in a corner of the room, staring at the TV, her cracked black tongue lolling from her mouth. She hadn’t eaten all week and had refused almost all water. She had even rejected the idea of Trin going out and buying a DVD player so she could watch the last season of Merlin. Worse, she hadn’t spoken a word since they left Vista.
Trinity felt a lone tear slip down her cheek. All she wanted was to go over to Emmy, to wrap her arms around her and pull her close. To bury her face in her satiny soft scales and cry until she had no tears left to shed, absorbing the dragon’s strength as her own. But she knew if she did, Emmy would only stiffen and pull away.
And it would be all her fault.
Her mind flashed back to the barn, regret threatening to smother her. She’d been crazed, out of her mind with fear when she’d said those horrible things. When she’d all but accused Emmy of killing her grandfather with her own four paws. At the time, she’d felt so helpless. Forced to stand by and watch the life force of her very last family slip through her fingers like so much sand. Grandpa had sacrificed everything for her when she needed him the most. But when he needed her? She was powerless to save him. Because she couldn’t control her own dragon. And the gift of life that should have been reserved for him had been wasted on another.
That stupid Scarlet. It had been all Trinity could do not to strangle the girl when she and Caleb had showed up during the aftermath. When she had dared look at Trinity with pitying eyes. Who did she think she was? How dare she interfere like she had? She acted like she was part of Team Dragon. Like she had some kind of claim on Emmy.
I’m her Fire Kissed, Trinity had wanted to scream. You’re no one. Just someone my dragon took pity on. You are nothing to her!
But looking at Emmy now, she was no longer sure. And Caleb’s words in the Nether came raging back to her once again.
She can un-choose you just as easily.
Find another to bond with instead.
And the worst part was, Trin wasn’t sure she didn’t deserve that.
Her ears caught a familiar sound, and she whirled around to see Caleb had opened her mother’s music box and wound it up. She’d originally thought it had been lost in the fire, b
ut it turned out Connor had picked it up and chucked it outside the barn while she was busy trying to rescue Grandpa. Now, the princess twirled and Mozart tinkled and twanged merrily, a bizarre soundtrack to the bleak scene.
She knew Caleb meant the gesture to be soothing—it had been the only thing that could lull her to sleep some nights over the last three months. But now all the music could conjure up was the nightmare at the farmhouse. If she hadn’t run upstairs to get the box—if she hadn’t separated from Connor and let him go into the barn alone. If Emmy had just stayed behind like she told her to…
If…if…if…IF!
“This stupid thing!” she screeched, her voice approaching glass-shattering decibels. She grabbed it off the nightstand, staring down at its golden shell, the beautiful princess, with vitriol boiling her blood.
“Trin…”
She chucked it against the wall as hard as she could. It bounced then fell harmlessly back onto the bed. Fury consuming her, she grabbed it again, slamming it against the headboard—over and over and over again—trying to destroy the thing that had inadvertently destroyed her life. From the corner of her eye, she could see the boys looking at her with white, startled faces and her ears picked up Emmy’s worried whine. But she couldn’t stop. Not until it had been completely annihilated.
On a fifth swing, there was a tinkling of glass and a crunch of metal. The box shattered, its pieces raining down onto the bed below. The little princess lay sprawled out onto the pillow, looking up at her owner helplessly, her once-strong legs now twisted and broken. Tears rained down Trinity’s cheeks as she realized what she’d done.
“No,” she rasped, looking down at the ruin of her only worldly possession. “I didn’t mean…”
Desperately she grasped at the broken pieces of wood and metal, trying to put them back together somehow. It was all she had left of her family. She had to fix it. She had to.
“It’s gone, Trin,” Connor said gently, grabbing her shaking hands and clasping them in his own. “I’m sorry, but it’s gone.”