Shattered (3 page)

She’s fine. She’s going to be fine. Maybe a little grumpy at being woken up in the middle of the night—but otherwise totally fine.

She reached the barn. Forcing her breath to steady, she pulled open the double doors and stepped inside. Her nose wrinkled at the smell of decaying flesh permeating the air. Emmy was a lot of wonderful things, but a neat eater was not one of them. And while Trin was constantly offering to muck out the place or open some windows to air things out, Emmy always refused. Like most dragons, she preferred dark, closed-in spaces, and this suited her just fine. She had even created her own little makeshift burrow at the back of the barn to cuddle up in.

But now that burrow was empty. There was only a pile of crushed hay, littered with bones, confirming Trinity’s worst fears. She swallowed hard. Where was she? Had something happened? Had someone found her? Had they taken her away? She raced around the barn, nausea threatening to consume her as she desperately searched for something dragon shaped, all the while calling out her name.

Emmy? Where are you? Please answer—you’re scaring me!

But there was no answer. Her dragon was gone.

“I’m going to kill you, you overgrown gecko.”

Caleb Jacks stopped for a moment to catch his breath, scanning the treetops above. Searching for something—anything—remotely dragon-like. But the branches only swayed gently in the night breeze, as if mocking his desperation.

“I’m serious!” he cried out. “I’m going to go Saint George on your ass if you don’t get out here this second.”

But his words were met with silence.

And so he pressed on, racing through the forest, stumbling over rocks and roots, the wind stinging his eyes as branches whipped at his face. As he swung his dim flashlight about, every shadow, every flash of movement seemed to take on a dragon shape. But each time he got close, he found only an oddly formed rock or a gnarled stump or a panicked deer caught in a midnight graze.

How had this happened? He’d only turned his back on her for a quick second to check the basketball score on his phone. He’d become curiously addicted to early twenty-first-century sports while whittling away time at their last squat, which still had electricity and cable TV. Now that they’d moved on, his only link to civilization and sports scores was through the disposable cell phone Trinity insisted he carry. And he had been desperate to know the score of the all-important game going into overtime.

So he’d looked down, taken his eyes off the dragon—only for a second. And when he’d looked up again, she was gone.

“Hey, Hot Wings! Get back here and stop playing games!”

Where had she gone? In all the times he’d snuck her out for a nighttime fly, she’d never left his sight before. Was she just growing braver as she grew older—more confident of her surroundings? Or had something called to her, drawing her away?

Either way, he had to get her back. Get her home safe and sound before anyone noticed she was gone. Before Trinity noticed. The Fire Kissed would kill him if she knew he’d taken her dragon out without permission. And if something were to happen to Emmy…well, Caleb didn’t even want to think about what that meant for him.

For the entire world, for that matter.

Maybe
she
got
bored
and
headed
home
, he told himself, reluctantly giving up the search. Maybe he’d get back to the farmhouse and find her curled up in her burrow, snoring loudly, fast asleep.
Yes, that was probably it
, he tried to reassure himself as he lumbered out of the forest, attempting to still his racing pulse as he went. She got tired. She went back. They could laugh about it in the morning.

Oh
please
let
us
be
able
to
laugh
about
it
in
the
morning.

As he trudged over the rolling fields on his way back to the farmhouse, he found himself glancing up into the moonlit sky with uneasy eyes. It still felt strange to cross an unprotected stretch of land aboveground like this. In his world, it would have been a death sentence, with deadly creatures ready to swoop down and flambé you alive at a moment’s notice.

But his world—two hundred years from now—no longer existed, he reminded himself. They’d come back in time. They’d altered the future. There was no longer any reason to fear.

At least that’s what he liked to tell himself. But in his heart, he knew there was still plenty to be scared about. The new time line they’d created was nothing more than an elastic band that could snap back into place at a moment’s notice. One mistake. One misstep.

One missing dragon, falling into the wrong hands…

He shook his head. She was in the barn. She had to be.

“Caleb!”

He looked up, guilt stabbing him in the gut as his eyes fell upon a dark shadow tearing across the field, black curls streaming out behind her in waves. His heart lodged in his throat. Oh no. She was awake. And from her frantic pace, he could make a pretty good guess that Emmy was not in the barn after all.

Half of him wanted to run, to turn around and flee the scene. To not have to explain to her what had happened. To not have to take responsibility for what he’d done. He imagined the horror draining the blood from her face, followed by furious disappointment welling up in her eyes. She would kill him. She would flecking kill him.

But there was no place to go.

He planted his feet on the ground, forcing back his fear. She reached him a moment later, her ebony eyes piercing him with concern.

“Have you seen Emmy?” she asked, her voice breathless and scared. “She’s not in the barn and we’ve been looking everywhere. Is she with you?” She glanced behind him, scanning the darkened landscape, wringing her hands together anxiously.

“Um…” He squirmed, shuffling from foot to foot, a thousand lies fighting to escape his lips. She didn’t know he took Emmy out. He could tell her he had no idea, that he was just out on a midnight stroll. He hadn’t seen the dragon at all. She might believe that. Then again, she might not.

“Look, Trin, I—”

A loud screeching interrupted his words. He looked up, his eyes locking on a dark shadow dive-bombing them at top speed.

“Look out!”

On instinct, he threw himself against Trinity, a vain attempt to protect her from the terror descending from the skies. But he lost his balance and they tumbled to the ground in a tangle of limbs. His heart was beating so loud in his ears that it took him a moment to realize she was laughing.

Oh, right.

He rolled off her, his face burning with embarrassment, just in time for none other than Emmy herself to come in for an exuberant landing, charging toward her mistress and covering her face with rough kisses. Caleb groaned, slapping his hand over his face.
And…here be dragons. Right on schedule.

Trinity squealed in protest, trying to give Emmy a disapproving look, which was proving difficult since she’d clearly caught a bad case of the giggles. Emmy took advantage, continuing to slurp her guardian’s face with unabashed glee, as if she hadn’t seen her for a week.

“Okay, okay! I get it!” Trin protested, still laughing. “You’re happy to see me! Geez. You don’t have to knock me over about it.”

Caleb rose to his feet, watching awkwardly, suddenly feeling like an interloper at their joyous reunion. Working with the Dracken, he’d witnessed a lot of dragon/guardian bonds but never one as strong as Trinity and Emmy’s. He had to admit sometimes it made him envious. To have someone who cared about you that much—to have someone look at you with such adoration in their eyes…

Disentangling herself from her dragon, Trinity scrambled to her feet, finally managing that disapproving glare she’d been fighting for. But Emmy was ready for it, giving her guardian a sweet, overly innocent look back, as if to say,
who
me
?

But Trinity wasn’t playing that game. “Don’t even think about it,” she admonished, wagging her finger at the dragon. “You had me worried sick. Why would you just take off like that? You know you’re not supposed to leave the barn.” Then a thought seemed to come to her. “How did you get out, anyway?”

Caleb bit his lower lip.
Don’t tell her it was me. Don’t tell her it was me,
he begged the creature silently. But, of course, unlike his brother and Trin herself, who had the very convenient superpower of bending people’s wills using only their minds, Caleb could only pray the dragon would take pity on him.

Instead, Emmy turned to give him a very distinct look, selling him down the river with a single toss of her head. He couldn’t hear what she was saying, but from the look on Trinity’s face, he was pretty sure the dragon wasn’t disavowing all knowledge of his participation in her little midnight field trip.

He sighed. No good deed and all that.

Sure enough, a moment later Trinity’s eyes leveled on him. “What the hell, Caleb?” she demanded.

He gave her his best guileless look. “What?” he asked, holding up his hands in feigned innocence, though he was pretty sure it would do no good.

“Gee, I don’t know. Big green dragon? Flying around the Texas Hill Country without a care in the world? Instead of, oh, being locked up in the barn where she belongs?” She shot him a pointed glare, as if daring him to argue. “Any of this ringing any bells?”

Caleb shuffled his feet, wondering which explanation would piss her off the least. “Maybe she was sleep flying?” he tried, grasping at straws. “You know, I’ve heard of dragons who do that. Kind of like sleepwalking except…” He trailed off, catching her expression. Yeah, he probably wouldn’t have bought that one either.

“Oh come on, princess,” he cajoled, switching tactics. “Don’t be mad. You know how she hates being cooped up in that stinky barn all the time. She’s a dragon. She needs to get her fly on every once in a while.”

Trinity crossed her arms over her chest, her eyes flashing fire. “Yeah, well, what if someone saw her? What if they captured her? Or reported her to the government?”

He stiffened, offended by her implication. Even though he’d been petrified of the very same thing only a few minutes before. “It’s pitch black. Like one a.m. In the middle of nowhere, Texas. Trust me, we’ve never even seen another—”

He clamped his mouth shut. Crap. He hadn’t meant to insinuate—

“You’ve done this before!” she exclaimed, a growing realization dawning on her face. “This isn’t the first time you two have snuck out while I’ve been asleep.”

It wasn’t. In fact, he’d been taking Emmy out to fly almost the entire time they’d been on the run. Something, he told himself, she should be thanking him for. There was no way Emmy would be half as docile as she was if she’d been cooped up in a dark barn all this time. And no one wanted a restless dragon on their hands. It usually ended in something—or more likely some
one
—getting burned.

And not in the figurative sense either.

“Trust me, Trin, it’s no big deal,” he tried again. “We’re always careful. We stay below the tree line. She never leaves my sight.”

The lies rolled off his tongue, leaving a bitter taste in his mouth. Where had she gone tonight? Why had she taken off like that? He glanced over at the dragon, narrowing his eyes, trying to demand answers. But Emmy refused to meet his gaze.

Thanks
a
lot, Sulfur Breath. See if I do you any favors again.

Trinity turned to the dragon. “And you! You’ve been going behind my back this whole time?” Caleb could hear her anger was now laced with hurt. “You didn’t even think to tell me?” So much for the happy family reunion. At least he wasn’t to take the entire blame.

“There you are!” interrupted an all-too-familiar voice, cutting through the night air. Caleb’s shoulders slumped. Oh great. This was getting better and better.

He turned to see his brother, Connor, the great and glorious Dragon Hunter, fast on approach. His twin had obviously been roused from sleep to help find the missing dragon. He was still wearing plaid flannel pajama pants and evidently hadn’t even had the time to throw on a shirt. Caleb rolled his eyes. His twin never missed an opportunity to “accidentally” show off his perfect washboard abs—especially if Trinity happened to be nearby.

Connor looked from Trinity to Caleb and back again, his eyes filled with trademark suspicion. “What’s going on?” he demanded.

“Nothing,” Trin blurted out before Caleb could speak. “We found Emmy. Everything’s okay.”

Caleb raised an eyebrow, surprised to hear her cover for him. But maybe he shouldn’t have been. After all, she was always trying to serve as peacemaker between him and his twin.

Not that it really ever worked. Even though the two of them were supposed to be fighting on the same side for the first time in their lives, they still could never manage to agree on anything. Not to mention Connor was always on Caleb’s case about one thing or another. Whatever Caleb tried to do, it was always wrong or not good enough for his hero brother. Half the time he didn’t know why he bothered trying.

He watched as his twin turned to observe Emmy, who looked back at him with cagy eyes. He stifled a laugh. He secretly enjoyed the fact that Hot Wings still didn’t completely trust Connor, and for good reason too. Once upon a time—not long ago in fact—it had been Connor’s mission to slaughter the poor dragon before she could even hatch from her shell, in an attempt to send her race hurtling back into extinction. And while time and Trinity had managed to soften the hunter’s opinion on the reptile species as a whole and grudgingly allow it to continue its existence on the planet, Connor would never become an Emmy super fan. And vice versa.

“How did she get out of the barn in the first place?” Connor asked, giving him a suspicious look. “I locked it from the outside before I went to bed.” His eyes roved over the dragon. “And what’s wrong with her arm?” he added.

“What?” Trinity cried, following his gaze. Her eyes widened and Caleb caught her looking down at her own arm before returning to Emmy. She dropped to her knees before the dragon. It was then that Caleb saw it—a black crust dried over her one soft scale. Dragon blood.

Uh-oh.

“Emmy, what happened?” Trinity demanded, reaching for the dragon’s paw. Emmy snorted, batting Trinity’s hand away with her snout before backing out of reach, giving her mistress an accusatory look. Still annoyed at being yelled at, he supposed. Trinity gave the dragon an unhappy look then turned back to the boys.

“What did she say?” Caleb asked worriedly.

“She says she doesn’t know what happened,” Trinity replied, not sounding like she believed it for a second. And for good reason. Dragon scales were tough—they could withstand bullets even—so it wasn’t like she could have just caught one on a branch or something and had it tear away. She locked her gaze on him. “Do you?”

He squirmed, not sure what to say. He’d just told her Emmy never left his sight. To admit he didn’t know what had happened to her would mean admitting the dragon had taken off on him. Which would mean admitting he’d made a foolish decision to take her out in the first place. He wasn’t about to go there—not in front of his brother anyway. The last thing he needed was to give Connor more ammunition to use against him.