Scorched (21 page)

“Argh! That was so close! Try again, Em! I know you can do it!”

Trinity reached down, palming the tennis ball, then stretching to full height again, preparing for another throw. Emmy hovered a few feet away, her wings beating madly at the air, her eager eyes glued to the ball. Trin could barely believe how big the dragon had gotten, going from the size of a baby bird to a plump, full-grown Chihuahua in just a few days. She supposed it wasn’t too surprising, though, given the dragon’s never-ending appetite. Caleb had told her dragons would eat until they exploded; Trinity was now beginning to believe it.

The little dragon did a showy flip, then tossed Trin an impatient look, once again eyeing the ball in her hand. Trinity let the ball fly, watching it spiral high into the open-air courtyard of the west wing. “Have at it, Emmy!” she crowed. “Go, go, go!”

Before Emmy’s birth, if you’d asked Trinity what being a Dragon Guardian meant, she probably would have guessed it was just hop on a dragon and hope for the best—as she had with Caleb in the Nether. But in real life, it turned out, there was a lot more to it than that. The Dracken had created a highly regulated training regimen—one, they insisted, all Guardians go through. From offensive maneuvers to healing arts, defensive tactics to stealth operations—the program covered it all. It was like training to be all the character classes in a Dungeons and Dragons handbook at once—all with the aid of an actual dragon.

The green dragon’s face was awash with concentration, her eyes drilling into the falling ball. She pulled back her head, waited for just the right moment, then opened her mouth.

Whoosh!
The flames shot from deep in her throat, hurtling through the air and smacking the tennis ball square on. The ball burst into flames before falling harmlessly to the ground in a puff of black smoke. Trinity let out a loud whoop of triumph, pride gushing through her.

“Yeah, baby! That’s how it’s done!” She held out her hand as the dragon flew by, slapping her palm against an outstretched wing. Emmy squeaked in excitement, dropping to the ground and doing a little victory lap around the still-smoking tennis ball. Trinity couldn’t help but giggle.

“You’re pretty proud of yourself, aren’t you?” she teased.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught the guard making his move, crossing the courtyard, then disappearing through the door at the far end of the room. She glanced at her watch, her smile fading.
Right
on
time.
She turned to Emmy.

Okay, we’ve got five minutes. Let’s do this.

She ran to the edge of the courtyard to the west wall, where a colorful tapestry, depicting a dragon fighting a medieval knight, hung from floor to ceiling. To a casual onlooker, the wall would seem solid and seamless behind its flashy decor. But Trin had studied Aiko’s blueprints and knew there had once been a door, covered up by drywall when the Dracken remodeled. A door that led to a series of twisty passageways which employees had once used to transport trash or receive deliveries. From what Trin could determine from the blueprints, these back hallways culminated at a large underground garage, where a single elevator offered an unguarded exit—a chance to escape.

Trin pulled back the tapestry, scanning the blank wall, running her fingers over its smooth surface. She’d been timing the patrols all day and had calculated five minutes between shift changes. Which meant they didn’t have time to get this wrong.

It
should
be
right
about
here,
she told the dragon.
Give
it
a
try.

Emmy pulled back her little head, letting loose a long, steady stream of fire. The drywall cracked and hissed under the heat but soon melted away, revealing, to Trinity’s excitement, the outline of a door underneath. She beat out the flames with the emergency fire blanket they’d given her for training purposes, then turned to her dragon.

Good work! Now let’s get out of here.

As she grabbed chunks of charred drywall, ripping them away to unblock the door, she wondered what the Potentials would think when they realized she’d gone. She felt a little guilty, to be honest, just taking off without even saying good-bye. They’d been so nice to her, so welcoming. But she couldn’t trust them to stay quiet if they learned of her plans and she really couldn’t blame them either. Their entire lives had been constructed around the idea that Emmy would stay and grow and hatch baby dragons that they would be assigned to take care of. Without Emmy, there would be no dragon program. No reason for them to remain. She didn’t want to think about where they’d end up if the Dracken turned them out on the streets.

But she had no choice. She had to know for sure whether Darius was telling the truth. If her grandpa was really dead. And if he was, well, at least this way she’d get a chance to attend his funeral. To give him a proper good-bye. Maybe after all was said and done she’d consider coming back here to resume her training. But under her rules this time. She refused to be made a prisoner. Even if it was for her “own good.”

Trinity studied the door. It appeared as if its handle had been removed when it had been covered up, meaning it wouldn’t be easy to pull it open. She bit her lower lip, glancing at her watch. They only had about two minutes left.

Try
to
pry
open
the
door
, she told Emmy.
Use
your
claws.

She still wasn’t exactly sure what she was going to do with her dragon once they were out in the wild. It wasn’t as if Emmy could exactly blend in. And at the rate she was growing, she couldn’t be a house pet for long. But when Trin had floated the idea of the dragon remaining here, where it was safe, Emmy refused to even consider it.

I
go
where
you
go. We are destined…

Deep inside, Trinity was relieved to hear it. The little dragon was a part of her now. She needed Emmy as much as Emmy needed her.

Come
on,
she urged her dragon.
We
almost
have
it.

The sound of a door slamming behind her interrupted their progress. She whirled around, startled, to see a lone figure entering the far end of the courtyard. Horrified, she yanked the curtain down over the gaping hole, obscuring it from view.
What
is
he
doing?
she thought furiously. This place was supposed to be off limits while she was training except for the regular patrols.
Who
would
dare
to
interrupt
the
Fire
Kissed
at
work?

Then she realized exactly who.

Caleb.

Her heart fluttered involuntarily in her chest. She hadn’t spoken to him since the night she’d learned of her grandpa’s death—the night he’d been so cruel. Now, as he approached, she couldn’t help but notice his gaunt face, his hollow, shadowed eyes. He looked terrible, she realized, as if he hadn’t slept in weeks. And was his arm wrapped in some kind of sling?

“What happened to you?” she asked, forcing her voice to stay casual as she gestured to his arm. “Some girl get a little too feisty in the Nether?” She said it as a joke but caught a tinge of bitterness thread through her voice all the same.

Caleb didn’t reply. Instead, he walked straight up to her, coming too close, invading her space. She found herself trembling, her heart pounding in confusion, as he took her hands in his and squeezed them tight. What was he doing? Desperately, she attempted to clear her mind, force it into blankness so he couldn’t discover what she was hiding just beyond the curtain.

“What you do want?” she demanded angrily. “I don’t have time to—”

She stopped short as her eyes met his own—eyes as clear blue as the sky on a cloudless day. Eyes she’d recognize anywhere.

Her face clouded with confusion. “You’re not Caleb,” she gasped. “You’re—”

Connor clamped his mouth over hers, silencing her with a hard, long kiss just as the guard stepped back into the room. She struggled to free herself, but his hands closed around her forearms. As his lips moved against hers, she felt a voice sweep through her consciousness.

Look
under
your
bed. I left you something.

Then he released her, pushing her away. Out of the corner of her eye she caught the guard giving them an amused look before continuing his rounds. She stared at the Dragon Hunter, unable to speak, unable to move. What was he doing here? Had he come to rescue her?

Or finish her once and for all?

Trinity ran to her room, Emmy flying high above her. When she got there, she dismissed her maid and shut the door, locking it behind her. Dropping to her knees, she peered under the bed, pulse beating erratically as she wondered what Connor could have left for her there. Her eyes widened in disbelief as she pulled out a small laptop accompanied by a pair of headphones.

“What the…?” she trailed off, walking the computer over to her desk and setting it down. With shaking hands, she lifted the cover, bringing it to life. She gasped as her eyes fell upon the sole program sitting on the desktop.

Fields
of
Fantasy
. With the expansion pack already installed.

“Oh my God,” she whispered, glancing up at Emmy. Of all the possible things she could have imagined, this was definitely not it. The dragon looked down at the game with mild curiosity, her eyes narrowing at the splash screen depicting a knight slaying a dragon. She gave a disapproving snort.

“Sorry, this game does have its share of dragoncide,” Trin admitted with a rueful grin. “But it’s pretty awesome all the same.” She stared at the screen, elated yet confused as hell. Why had Connor left this for her? Surely it was more than a late Christmas present.

“Guess there’s only one way to find out.” She looked up at Emmy. “Wait for me outside,” she said. “Sound the alarm if someone comes.” She wasn’t sure what the Dracken would do if they found her with an unauthorized laptop, but she didn’t want to find out.

The dragon tossed her head in agreement and Trinity opened the door to allow her to exit. Then she returned to the laptop. It had been rigged, she noticed, to some kind of wireless hot-spot device, giving her Internet access even in this dead zone of a mall. Very clever. With trembling fingers, she somehow managed to log in with her character and waited for the game to load. The expansion pack had a spanking new intro scene that she was desperate to watch, but she forced herself to click through it, not wanting to waste any time.

A moment later, her Elven mage StarrLight appeared on the screen, exactly where she’d left her: dancing on the table in the middle of the town tavern, scantily dressed and double-fisting two large mugs of beer. Trin couldn’t help but laugh. The last time she’d played was with Caitlin, who passionately believed the game’s only redeeming quality was its hook-up potential. Trin had never had the heart to tell her that the majority of the strapping elves she flirted shamelessly with were probably actually forty-year-old men living in their mothers’ basements.

Quickly, she did a search for her friend.

>>HotElfChick69 is not online.

She sighed. That would have been too easy.

She turned her attention back to the situation at hand, directing her character to jump off the table and walk out of the tavern.
Now
what?
she wondered. What did Connor want her to do?

>> Stegosaurus65 has come online.

Wait, what? Trinity scrolled back up the dialog box at the bottom of the screen to make sure she’d read that right. At the same moment, a big, burly, and very familiar-looking level one barbarian walked out of the tavern. Stegosaurus65—she’d recognize him anywhere.

“But that’s impossible,” she whispered. Stegosaurus65 was the character she’d helped her grandpa create last year when he’d been curious to see for himself the game that took up so much of his granddaughter’s time. He’d lasted all of ten minutes before declaring that all the colors and sounds were making him dizzy and he’d never logged on again.

>>Stegosaurus65 invites you to join his party.

She swallowed hard, then hit accept, grabbing the headphones off the desk and shoving them over her ears.

“Um, hello?” she said through the microphone. “Who is this?”

She waited, breath lodged in her throat, for his reply. As the moment stretched on, she tried to prepare herself for inevitable disappointment and—

“Is this thing on?” There was a rapping on the microphone. “Goddamn futuristic technology…”

“Grandpa!” she screeched, then clamped a hand over her mouth, glancing worriedly at her closed door. The last thing she needed was to get caught now. “Is that you?”

“Trinity?” His voice was so loud she had to turn down the volume. “Speak up, girl! I can’t hear you over this blasted thing.”

She laughed even as the tears streamed down her cheeks. “It’s me, Grandpa,” she told him as loud as she dared, while she watched the barbarian on the screen stumble into a tree and get stuck in its branches.
What
a
noob
, she thought, her heart soaring with affection.
What
a
total
noob.

“Where are you?” she asked. “They told me you were dead.” Her hands fell to the keyboard and she instructed StarrLight to give Stegosaurus a hug. It wasn’t the same as a real-life one, but at the moment she’d take what she could get. The whole thing was just so surreal—she could barely believe it was happening.

“Please. You think I’d go off and croak, and let you have all the fun raising the world’s last dragon?” he retorted gruffly, his voice cracking at the edges. On the screen, his barbarian broke out into a jig. She laughed and joined him, feeling totally silly yet totally happy too. Seriously—best game ever.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, then repeated herself louder so he could hear her. “I should have believed you from the beginning.”

Her grandpa’s voice was firm. “You believe now. That’s all that matters.”

He was right, she thought, as she looked around the colorful town square, drinking in all the familiar sights and sounds. It was funny—though the Dracken had created real-life accommodations made of her wildest fantasies, this simple video game felt a thousand times more luxurious.

>>ConnorTheDragonHunter has joined the party.

“Pretty clever, huh?” Connor’s voice broke in through her headphones, just as a dashing blond warrior wielding a two-handed sword walked onto the screen. Trinity’s heart melted a little at the sight of him. Talk about a knight in shining armor…

“It was your grandpa’s idea,” the dragon hunter continued. “I needed to talk to you and you’d blocked me from your mind. But your grandfather knew you wouldn’t be able to resist logging into your precious game.” He walked over and joined Stegosaurus in his dance.

“He knows me too well,” she said with a groan. She wondered where he was now—was he still inside Dracken Headquarters? She glanced at the door, both longingly and fearfully. A part of her wanted to see him so badly, but the other was afraid of what he’d do. He’d obviously seen Emmy in the courtyard. He knew she’d hatched. And if Caleb and the Dracken were to be believed, that meant he was here for one thing and one thing only.

“Why are you here, Connor?” she asked, deciding there was no time to be coy. “What do you want from me?”

Connor’s knight stopped dancing. “What do you mean?”

“Don’t play dumb,” she snapped. “I know all about your little mission to save the world. Specifically the part where you were planning to kill me if things didn’t go your way.”

“Wait, what?” her grandpa broke in. “What are you talking about? Connor’s there to rescue you, not kill you.”

“He probably told you that, Grandpa, but that was never his true mission,” she said in a flat voice. “Was it, Connor?”

She waited for him to deny it. To tell her that Caleb had been lying. That he’d made it all up just to get her on his side. But Connor only sighed deeply. “Yes,” he said at last. “That was my mission.”

She glared at the screen—at his avatar—wanting to be furious, but instead feeling only hurt and betrayal clawing at her insides. “You kissed me,” she seethed. “You made me think we were on the same team. I trusted you. I saved your life from those government agents. And the whole time you were just leading me on! To get me to trust you so you could cut me down when the time was right.”

“It wasn’t like that!”

“Then what was it like?” she demanded. “I think I deserve to know the truth.”

“You’d better start talking,” her grandpa added, the level one barbarian stepping in front of the knight, his massive arms crossing over his beefy chest. “Now.”

The knight nodded, sinking down onto a nearby bench. “You have to understand,” he began in a low voice. “When I first got my orders, I didn’t know anything about you except what I’d learned at the academy. They taught us you were evil, that you’d set dragons on the world. They told us you were the one responsible for all the destruction. For millions of deaths.” She could hear his hard swallow in her ears. “For my father’s death.”

Trinity cringed. In all her self-righteous anger, she’d conveniently forgotten about her future self’s role in this whole mess. She, with the help of her Dracken friends, had inadvertently released monsters upon the world, destroying everything Connor loved. She supposed she could understand why he might be a little reluctant to confide in her.

But still…

“It’s a bit harsh to judge me for something I haven’t even done yet,” she pointed out, “something that I might not even do.”

“You’re right,” he said simply. “You’re absolutely right. And when I finally did meet you—when I started to get to know who you were—I realized the history texts had to be wrong. You weren’t some cold, world-destroying monster. You were just an innocent girl who had no idea of the situation she was about to be put into.” He sighed. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to know I might have to kill you to save the world, all while you’re trying to help me figure out a way to do it?” He paused, then added, “Let’s just say suddenly things didn’t seem so black and white anymore.”

Trinity twisted her mother’s ring. “I guess I know what you mean,” she admitted. “It was kind of the same—once I met Emmy.” She remembered how much she wanted to destroy the egg when she’d first learned of what it was capable of. To snuff out Emmy’s life force before she even had the chance to be born. It was inconceivable to think of now. And maybe Connor felt the same way about her.

“It doesn’t help that I’ve had to spend the last week sharing hotel rooms with this old guy,” Connor added, his character tossing his head toward the barbarian. “Having to hear how amazing you are. How smart and dedicated and loyal you are. How hard you work every day to keep him and his museum afloat. Blah, blah, blah.”

“Well, it’s true!” Grandpa blustered over the headphones. “I owe this little girl everything.”

Trinity stared at the screen, tears welling in her eyes. All this time she’d assumed her guardian had been too wrapped up in his own fantasy world to recognize any of the work she’d put in behind the scenes. But he’d noticed. He’d been paying attention all along. A choking sound escaped her throat.

“I love you, Grandpa,” she whispered, then repeated it louder so he could hear.

“I love you too, sweetheart,” he said. “And I’m not going to let anyone touch a hair on your pretty little head.” He huffed. “I am Stegg the Barbarian after all!” His character beat his chest and roared.

She laughed. “Yes. Very frightening.” Then she sobered. “So what’s the deal, Connor? You still haven’t told us what you plan to do.”

She heard his deep sigh over the headphones. “I honestly don’t know,” he said. “The thought of allowing dragons to exist in the world terrifies me more than you could ever know. But at the same time, how can I go and mercilessly cut someone down in cold blood who has done nothing wrong?” He paused, then added, “And not just someone.
You
.”

His breath hitched and Trinity felt her heart beat a little faster. She suddenly wished she wasn’t in the game but right in front of Connor in real life, so she could look into his eyes and see the truth that she so desperately wanted to see.

“I always prided myself on following orders,” he continued in a rush, “never questioning what they told me to do. But what if they were wrong? What if there is another way? Should I blindly stumble on because some people from an alternate future once told me to?” He cleared his throat. “I can’t. I just can’t. Maybe that makes me a terrible soldier. Maybe they should have never sent me here in the first place. But I’m here now. And I think it’s time to start making my own rules. Find a way to make this all work—where no one innocent has to die.”

His words were passionate, his tone fierce, sending chills down Trinity’s spine. Did he really mean what he said? Could they really have a chance? “What about Emmy?”

“Well, I’m not likely to let her sleep at the foot of my bed or lick my face anytime soon,” he said dryly, “but I’m willing to give her a chance. Most historians claim it was the hybrids that caused all the trouble. If this is true, then it should be okay for Emmy to exist—as long as we can get her away from the Dracken.”

“But wait,” Trinity hesitated. “Can’t the Dracken help us? They’ve got everything you’d need to raise a dragon here, not to mention a good hiding spot.”

Silence fell over her headphones. “What?” she demanded, a cold chill rising inside of her. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“Trinity, honey,” Grandpa interjected at last, “the Dracken tried to kill me.”

She froze, staring at the screen in horror. She suddenly realized that in her joy of seeing her grandpa still alive, she’d neglected to connect the dots in her mind. Darius must have doctored that newspaper, assuming the deed had already been done. And worse, he’d tried to pin the whole thing on Connor to make sure she’d never trust him again.

He’d been so sympathetic. So willing to comfort her when she’d fallen into his arms. Ready to hold a memorial service even—to honor a man he himself had ordered killed. She squeezed her hands into fists. “God, I should have had Emmy flambé that bastard when I had the chance.”

Connor’s knight put a comforting hand on her character’s shoulder. “While I’d definitely be the first to toast marshmallows on
that
bonfire,” he assured her, “there’s no time for that now. I had to trick my poor brother so I could get inside and give you the laptop. It won’t take him long to figure out what I did and return. We can’t be here when he does.”