Shattered (9 page)

She reached the dragon, grabbing the blanket and throwing it to the ground. Then she jumped onto the beast’s back, wrapping her arms around Emmy’s neck. She squeezed her as tightly as she could then gave the command.

“Fly, Emmy!” she screamed. “Fly now!”

And so the dragon did.

If you were to close your eyes and imagine someone riding on the back of a dragon, you might conjure up images that could be described as “majestic” and “beautiful” and “regal.” Maybe even “graceful” and “elegant” might come to mind. Sadly this was not the case for Trinity as she desperately tried to hang on to Emmy’s neck as the dragon took flight.

Emmy might have grown a lot since she’d hatched the size of a baby bird—but she still wasn’t near the size of something ride-able, like, say, a horse. She had no space between her wings and neck for Trin to wrap her legs around, and so she was forced to kick them out behind her and let them dangle in thin air, her belly chafing painfully against the dragon’s back as together they tumbled through the skies.

The phrase “flying by the seat of your pants” might have come to mind, if anything had been able to come to Trinity’s mind beyond the fact that she was quite possibly about to die.

“Don’t look down, don’t look down, don’t look down,” she chanted to herself as her arm muscles burned in protest. She’d been afraid of heights pretty much as long as she could remember, and though she trusted the young dragon with her life in a purely esoteric sense, it wouldn’t be Emmy’s fault if she were to, say, not be able to hold on.

As they tore through the skies, the implications of what had happened hit her hard and fast. Their cover had been blown wide open. There would be no hiding now. They’d have to find a way to slip out of town, maybe out of the state. Find another squat to hole up in before the authorities descended.

If she survived this flight at all.

And even then…She thought back to all the cameras flashing, the video rolling. Emmy swinging the chain and knocking out that poor little boy. By the end of the night, they would be the top news story on every channel. On the front page of every paper. Blowing up Facebook, Instagram. Dragons trending on Twitter.

I
thought
they
liked
me!
Emmy’s voice suddenly burst through her thoughts, sounding confused and upset and scared.
Why
did
they
try
to
hurt
me?

Trinity closed her eyes. This was not the time to say I told you so. “I’m sorry, Emmy. People are weird sometimes. Especially about stuff they don’t understand.”

But
I
didn’t do anything wrong. I was just…dancing. So the little ones would laugh.

“I know, Em. I know…” Trin squeezed her neck, feeling the tears slip down her cheeks. “It doesn’t make sense. But now you know. And from now on we can’t—”

Whizz!

What was that? Horrified, she dared look down at the crowd below, her eyes falling upon the distinct outline of a rifle, pointed in their direction. Were they actually shooting at them? There were strict laws against packing heat on school grounds, but that didn’t mean everyone followed them. And each one of them probably felt more than justified in their God-given right to shoot down the creature that had invaded their Friday night lights.

Not that their bullets would do much good. Emmy’s scales were stronger than titanium and only special bullets—made in the future—could pierce her single soft scale to have a prayer of bringing her down. That was one of the reasons it was so easy for dragons to take over the world the first time around. They were practically immune to traditional weaponry.

Trinity, on the other hand, was not. And with her and Emmy’s life force intertwined, a bullet meant for the dragon that ended up hitting her instead could do them both in.

Another shot rang out. Trinity jerked as blood burst from her arm. She screamed, losing her grip on Emmy’s neck as white-hot pain cannonballed through her entire body. For a moment she thought she would let go altogether, that she would tumble off the dragon and fall screaming to her death below. But somehow she managed to hold on, gritting her teeth and pulling herself back into a semi-stable position. But the trail of blood streaming in the wind told her she wouldn’t last long.

“Emmy! You have to land. Now!” she told the dragon. “I can’t hold on!”

The dragon turned her head to regard her mistress once again, her blue eyes now locking onto Trinity’s arm. She gave a loud, angry snarl then changed direction, picking up speed and heading for a copse of trees up ahead. Trinity squeezed her eyes shut, trying to focus on anything but the pain piercing her skin. But visions of tumbling to her death from hundreds of feet up honestly didn’t serve to make her feel much better.

She
won’t let me fall. She won’t let me fall.

Emmy dove down, trading altitude for the protection of the trees, and Trin felt the branches scrape her face and claw at her arms and legs as they dropped into the forest. One particularly gnarly limb slapped hard against her wounded arm, and for a moment she almost lost her balance completely. But somehow she managed to keep a fragile grip on the dragon until Emmy came in for a semi-graceful landing in the middle of a small clearing.

Trin rolled off, crashing down onto the ground with a loud oomph. A rock dug into her back and her ankle jarred. But the pain barely registered, she was so happy to be on solid ground again.

“Emmy…” she tried, wanting to express her gratitude. She tried to turn her head to acknowledge the dragon. But it felt so heavy. So, so heavy.

And a moment later, she fell into blackness.

Scarlet walked her bike down the side of the road on her way back to the football stadium, confusion and concern weighing her every step. From time to time, she glanced up into the sky—half hoping to see the emerald green dragon, Emmy, swimming among the glittering stars. But save for a few bats diving for mosquitos, the sky remained empty.

As if the whole night’s adventure had been nothing more than a dream.

Or a nightmare as the case might be. The boy had been so furious at her—she was half-convinced he’d shoot her with his strange-looking gun and end things then and there. Instead, he’d taken off, running through the fields, screaming after the dragon, leaving Scarlet behind to wonder what it was she’d just done. She’d tried to ask the boy questions—like why had they locked the dragon in Mrs. McCormick’s old barn in the first place—but he’d only given her a disgusted look before turning away.

And so there had been nothing left to do but to gather her things and head back to Vista Memorial High, where her mother was supposed to pick her up after the football game. If she hurried, maybe she could even catch the end of the game, she told herself, desperate to cling to a shred of normalcy in a night gone wild. The Vultures were playing their biggest rivals, the Mighty Oaks, and it was bound to be an exciting game.

It wasn’t until she got closer to the stadium and found it strangled by police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances that she realized just how exciting it must have been.

“What the…?” she whispered, picking up her pace, the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles lighting her way as the sirens wailed in her ears. Had something happened? Had there been a school shooting or some kind of bomb threat? She’d seen plenty of those on the news in the last couple of years—but nothing like that had ever happened in Vista.

As she drew closer, she started to recognize people she knew. It was a small town and everyone would have come out to support the home team. But no one was tailgating now. Instead, fellow students huddled in close circles, girls sobbing, boys curling their hands into fists, while full-grown men and women staggered past, looking dazed and shell-shocked under the parking lot lights. Reporters were arriving too, leaping from their news vans to lay siege on the emergency teams, waving their microphone flags and demanding answers. What could have happened? Scarlet’s pulse kicked up in growing alarm.

She stopped a girl heading in the opposite direction. Her hair was mussed and black mascara ran down her cheeks. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Why’s everyone freaking out?”

“Didn’t you see?” the girl cried in an incredulous voice, wobbling on pencil-thin legs that didn’t seem strong enough to support her thin frame.

Scarlet shook her head. “See what?”

But the girl just shrugged helplessly, as if the
what
in question were too scary to even speak aloud. She muttered a few half-intelligible excuses then bolted in the other direction. Scarlet watched her go, terror rising inside of her. This had to be a coincidence, right? It couldn’t be related to the dragon. Emmy was such a tiny thing—no bigger than a large dog. Surely she couldn’t have caused this amount of chaos in the short time she’d been free.

Could she?

You
put
her
in
danger. Not only her but the rest of the world.

“Scarlet! Is that you?”

She whirled around in time to see Rebekah running toward her. Her friend’s face was stark white and stained with tears. She threw her arms around Scarlet, almost knocking her backward with the force of the hug, and squeezed her so tight Scarlet was half-convinced she’d pass out from asphyxiation before her friend released her.

“You’re okay!” Rebekah was babbling into her ear. “I thought…Oh God, I thought…”

Scarlet struggled to free herself from her friend’s death grip. “You thought what?” she demanded. “What the heck is going on here, Bek?”

Rebekah stared at her, an incredulous look on her face. “The dragon, of course!” she cried, her voice choked with tears. “The one from the barn. It swooped down out of nowhere and started attacking people for no reason!”

“What?” Scarlet whispered hoarsely. “But that’s impossible.” She thought back to Emmy. Sweet, gentle Emmy. Why would she do something like that? It made no sense.

“Don’t you see?” Rebekah wailed. “This is all my fault! I opened the barn. I set it free. All these people—all of…this…It’s because of me!”

No,
Scarlet wanted to say.
I
did. In fact, I all but talked the dragon into it.
But she found she couldn’t speak the words out loud. It would only make things worse.

“It was a nightmare,” Rebekah continued in a hollow voice. “Everyone screaming and running—trying to get away. Mrs. Hutchinson from the post office fell and got trampled. They had to take her away in the ambulance. And Tommy…” She squeezed her eyes shut, as if unable to continue.

Scarlet stared at her, a feeling of cold, black dread washing over her. “Tommy?” she prodded, trying to speak past her fear. “You mean your cousin Tommy?” Tommy was eight and Rebekah’s pride and joy.

“They took him away in an ambulance,” her friend said flatly. “The dragon…” She squeezed her eyes shut. “Oh, Scarlet, I think I killed my own cousin.”

Scarlet shrank back, her knees buckling, the guilt and panic threatening to swallow her whole. She wanted to tell Rebekah it wasn’t her fault. That it was she who had been the complete idiot, thinking it was a good idea to set a real-life dragon loose on the town.

But at the same time, her brain couldn’t reconcile the cause and effect. Emmy wasn’t a monster. She was sure of it. Only a few nights ago, she’d saved Scarlet’s life for no reason. Why would she go and attack a stadium full of people a few days later? It didn’t make any sense. There had to be more to the story. Some logical explanation why such a mild-mannered creature would suddenly go on a killing spree.

Not that this would matter to Tommy…

“Rebekah, what are you still doing here? I thought I told you to go home!”

The two girls turned as a man’s voice broke through the night air. Scarlet recognized Rebekah’s father on approach, his steps slow and his face grave. Her friend ran to him, throwing herself into his arms, clinging to him desperately as sobs shook her body.

“Dad!” she cried. “Oh, Dad, I was so scared!”

Don’t tell him about the barn,
Scarlet thought as she watched them worriedly.
Now
is
not
the
time
for
confessions.
Suddenly she was glad she’d destroyed the video evidence. When she got home, she’d delete the YouTube upload as well.

Rebekah’s father stroked his daughter’s hair, soothing her with low whispers. Scarlet stood to the side, shuffling from foot to foot, suddenly feeling awkward and out of place. Not to mention consumed by guilt. She wanted to run, to hide, to find a quiet place to try to sort out all that had happened. But at the same time, she felt glued to the spot. She wondered if she should call her mother. Had she seen the whole thing on the news by now? If so, she’d probably be freaking out.

Suddenly she spotted none other than the monster himself, ambling toward them, his bar buddies in tow. She bit her lower lip. The last thing she wanted was to deal with him, but at this point she was desperate to get home.

Making up her mind, she waved him over. “Can I get a ride with you?” she asked. “I don’t want Mom to have to come out here now.”

He gave her a suspicious glare. She wondered if he even remembered what had happened between them earlier in the week or if his drunken state of mind had made him block the whole thing out. When she’d woken the next morning, she’d found the broken sliding glass door taped up with cardboard, but no one had said a word about how it had gotten that way. She’d decided it was best not to bring it up.

“Sorry, I’m not going home right now,” he told her. Even from where she stood, she could smell the stench of whiskey on his breath. He gestured to his friends. “Me and the boys have got some business to take care of.” He patted the revolver strapped to his side and laughed harshly. “We’re gonna go bag us a beast.”

Rebekah’s father looked over at them, his mouth dipping to a frown. “I think you might want to leave that to the professionals, boys,” he said carefully, gently prying his still-clinging daughter off of him. “Sheriff Thomas said the government’s sending out some Homeland Security agents to figure things out. They should be here within the hour. And word is, whatever it is, they want it alive.”

The men exchanged amused looks. Scarlet’s mom’s boyfriend slowly shook his head. “The thing is…Bud…I’ve never really been the type of man who’s content to sit around, picking his own ass, waiting for a bunch of Washington boys to show up and play cowboy,” he drawled. “Sorry, that just ain’t me.”

His boys broke out in laughter at this, sending a chill down Scarlet’s spine. She prayed Emmy had gotten far away from here by now. Out of the reach of the rednecks. No matter what had happened in the stadium, the dragon didn’t deserve to be hunted down by these drunken louts.

One of the monster’s buddies—Robert, she thought he was called—spit a wad of tobacco onto the ground. “This is Vista,” he declared. “We take care of our own in Vista.”

“And we certainly ain’t gonna leave it alive,” insisted a third man. He was younger, goateed. Maybe one of the sons. His grimy T-shirt read “Drinks well with others.” “That thing practically killed a kid right there on the field. What if it decided to come after your little girl here next?” He shot a lecherous sneer at Rebekah.

Rebekah’s father scowled, stepping protectively in front of his daughter. “I just think—”

“Awh, don’t you get your panties in a twist, Rearden,” her mom’s boyfriend interrupted, slapping him hard on the shoulder. “We’ll have this beast bagged and tagged and mounted above the fireplace before those government boys even know what hit ’em.” He reached for his pistol, locking and loading with a toothy grin. “Kapow!
Adios, muchachos!
”

His friends cheered at this, raising their own firearms in mad salute. High-fives and fist bumps were exchanged, followed by a silver flask. As they all took hardy swigs, Scarlet could only hope that the alcohol would screw with their aim.

She stared down at the ground, guilt stabbing at her gut. Poor Emmy. This was all her fault. She thought she was doing something good—getting the dragon to stand up for herself—but instead, just as the boy at the barn had predicted, she’d inadvertently put the dragon’s life in danger. If only there was some way to warn her. Or to help her escape.

But then her eyes fell upon her mother’s boyfriend and a feeling of hopelessness overwhelmed her. She couldn’t even protect her mother from this monster. And he claimed to love her mother.

Emmy was truly screwed.

“Well, I can’t stop you,” Rebekah’s father tried, giving it one last effort. “And I wish you the best of luck. Though for all we know, it’s long gone by now. Flown the coop. You have no idea where to even start to look, do you?”

“I do.”

Startled, Scarlet whirled around, her horrified eyes leveling on Rebekah. Her friend stepped out from behind her father, squaring her shoulders and taking a step toward the mob.

“Rebekah, no…” Scarlet whispered.

“The old McCormick place,” Rebekah stated flatly. “That’s where it lives.” She squeezed her hands into fists. “Now go kill it dead.”