Scorched (2 page)

If I get one more snot-nosed kid asking me if the
T. rex
used to dine on people, I’m going to close up the museum and become a history teacher. I mean, really! What are they teaching kids in schools these days?”

Sixteen-year-old Trinity Foxx looked up from her laptop in time to see her grandpa come barreling into the museum’s main office, rounding the corner too quickly and slamming into a table of fish fossils by the door. She winced as he scrambled to stop a four-hundred-million-year-old cephalopod from crashing to the floor.

“Hey! Watch the ancient artifacts,” she protested, logging out of the museum’s Facebook page and rising to her feet. “Some of them are even older than you are. And almost as brittle.”

“Thanks.” Grandpa shot her a smirk as he limped over to his desk, rubbing his knee. “Your concern is truly heartwarming, as always.”

She snorted. “Why are you giving tours anyway? What happened to Gene?”

Grandpa dumped a stack of mail onto his desk, then nearly knocked it off as he shrugged out of his suit jacket. Trinity had to dive to save it from landing in a nearby trashcan, which may or may not have been her grandfather’s intention in the first place.

“Quit right after his last paycheck bounced,” he muttered. “But really, it’s for the best. The idiot couldn’t even keep his Triassic and Jurassic time periods straight. How could he be expected to educate and inspire America’s youth?”

“Right.” Trinity sighed as she walked back over to her desk, ripping open the red-marked “Urgent” envelope at the top of the stack. This one was from the electric company, who’d been threatening to shut off power to the museum for the last three months. She didn’t know why companies bothered wasting paper on fourth and fifth notices. Just because they couldn’t afford to pay the first one didn’t mean they needed a new copy. “Well, I hope you charged the group full price, at least.”

Grandpa walked around to sit behind his desk, avoiding her eyes. “They were from a poor district in Stocktown. Mostly migrant farmer kids and illegals.”

“Of course they were.” Her grandpa’s kind heart was one of his best qualities—but it was also going to be the death of them. “And what about that history museum in Kentucky?” she asked. “The one you loaned the Ornithischian dinosaur exhibit to six months ago?” She flipped through the stack of envelopes, praying for something that resembled a check.

Grandpa waved her off. “Next week. They promised to pay me next week.”

Trinity gave up, plopping the stack of bills onto her desk. It was always next week, next month, next year. Except what Grandpa couldn’t seem to grasp was there wouldn’t be a next week, month, or year if they didn’t start finding a way to pay the bills.

Back in the day, Foxx’s Fantastical Fossils had been a famous West Texas attraction, luring tourists off the highway with exhibits that promised to rival all but the most top-tier institutions. Her grandfather’s collection of dinosaur bones from the Jurassic period alone was well worth the trip off the interstate.

But five years ago the main highway had been rerouted and traffic thinned to a crawl, the roadside attraction now too far a detour for all but the most determined of tourists. And though the money stopped flowing, the bills kept piling up, and much of the collection had to be sold off or loaned to wealthier museums just to keep the lights on and the doors open.

To make matters worse, her grandpa had started replacing some of his former exhibits with what some might call…
questionable
stand-ins, hoping to draw back the crowds. From a mangy Chupacabra corpse to a rack of jackalope horns, Trinity knew it was not for nothing the townspeople had started whispering about “Crazy Old Foxx’s Fossilized Freak Show.” It was only a matter of time, she knew, before they’d be shuttered for good.

And where would that leave her?

“Grandpa…” she started to plead, then closed her mouth. What good would it do? Her guardian, much as she adored him, was the quintessential nutty professor—too wrapped up in his own spectacular inner world to comprehend even the most basic of money matters.

Which left it all up to her.

Since she’d moved in after her mother’s death, she’d done what she could, from taking over the museum’s publicity and custodial duties after school so they could cut back on staff, to cleaning houses and mucking out barns on weekends to earn extra cash. But try as she might, it never seemed like enough. And her carefully constructed world was feeling more and more like a house of cards each day. Every time the phone rang or someone knocked on their door, she’d freeze in panic—convinced it was social services, come to take her away. Her caseworkers had never been truly convinced that her grandpa was capable of taking on the responsibility of an orphaned teenage girl. And they’d be more than happy for an excuse to throw her back into foster care.

But Trin was not going back. Not now that she finally found a family to call her own. And whether that meant hiding their financial situation from neighbors and teachers or begging debt collectors for “just one more extension,” she did what she had to do to keep the two of them together. Last week she’d even pawned her mother’s emerald ring to pay their overdue property taxes.

She involuntarily glanced down at her finger, still sporting a tan line from where the ring had been—before she’d been forced to hand it over to the shady-looking man behind the bulletproof glass. It had been the only treasure she’d been allowed to keep after her mother’s death and her finger felt naked without it.

But it was worth it to see her grandpa’s face, she reminded herself, when she presented him with the stack of bills. Enough money to pay their property tax and even a little left over to celebrate Christmas. Knowing their home was safe and their family intact was worth more than the Crown Jewels.

She sighed. Some days she felt much older than sixteen.

“Hey, hey!” her grandfather protested, catching her face. “Chin up, young girl! It’s Christmas Eve after all! And I’ve got a surprise for you.”

“A surprise?” she repeated, looking up with curiosity despite herself. “Are you actually going to let me open a gift early for once?” Grandpa had strict rules about waiting until after breakfast on Christmas morning for any unwrapping, and usually Trin was cool with that, enjoying the anticipation and all. But this year she already knew what she’d find under the tree—the expansion pack for her favorite RPG video game,
Fields
of
Fantasy
—and it was killing her to wait.

Sure, she knew it was a shameful indulgence—and the money it cost would have been better spent on paying their bills. But Grandpa had insisted, saying everyone deserved something frivolous at Christmas, and, for once, she’d been too excited to put up much of a fight. Video games were her kryptonite, after all. Her escape when real life got too tough.

“Absolutely not!” Grandpa shot back. “You know the rules.” He wagged his finger at her. She sighed. Maybe after he went to bed she could unwrap the box and download the CD onto her computer, then carefully wrap it up again and place it back under the tree. Terrible, she knew. But otherwise, how was she even going to sleep, knowing it was just sitting there under the tree waiting for her?

“Okay, not a present. Did we win the lottery then?” That would be a surprise she could certainly get behind.

Grandpa smiled mysteriously. “In a sense,” he said. “It’s a new exhibit. Arrived this morning when you were at school, from my guys in Antarctica.”

Last year, when times had been a little better, Grandpa had partially sponsored a small eco-archeological study on the effects of global warming on penguins. But for all the data the team had sent back so far, Trinity had been convinced they were just sitting up there, sucking down glacier-made frozen margaritas and running dollar bills through a paper shredder.

“Well, all right,” she said approvingly. “What did they find?”

“An egg,” Grandpa pronounced. “Perfectly preserved too. Evidently the team was out measuring one of the melting glaciers when they came across it, still half embedded in the ice. They believe it’s been just sitting there, frozen, for millions of years.”

Trinity felt her heart beat a little faster. “And what do they think it is?” she asked, trying not to get her hopes up. She had to admit, a new exhibit like this—if it could be verified—could be sold to pay off some bills. To keep the lights on. Maybe even get her mother’s ring back. “Some kind of bird? A dinosaur egg?”

Please
let
it
be
a
dinosaur
egg. They could loan it out to a bigger museum and collect a fee that would pay their electricity bill and—

“Even better.”

Trinity pursed her lips, enthusiasm deflating as she caught the gleam in Grandpa’s eyes. It was a look she knew all too well—the same he’d worn last summer when he’d presented her with fossilized Sasquatch dung he’d purchased off eBay. It had even, to her chagrin, come with a certificate of authenticity.

She sighed. Maybe they could advertise candlelit tours as romantic…

“Come on!” Grandpa urged. “You’re going to love this. I promise!”

She reluctantly followed him out of the office, heading down what had once been a gorgeous marble hallway, a majestic showcase filled with treasures from around the world. Sadly, today that showcase seemed as extinct as the dinosaurs themselves. The marble floors were cracked and stained and the treasures long gone, with only a few dinky exhibits remaining behind—those that no one had wanted to borrow or buy. It made her heart ache to see the halls that had once teemed with life and history reduced to a cavernous graveyard of broken dreams and empty display cases.

“Here we are,” Grandpa announced, stopping in front of the Millennium Chamber. Trinity raised an eyebrow in surprise. The chamber had lain empty for the last two years, with none of the remaining exhibits deemed worthy of Grandpa’s favorite room. For him to put the egg here—well, he must truly believe it to be something special. She bit her lower lip, her heart thudding in anticipation as she watched him unlock the door and gesture for her to enter.

She did, trying to prepare herself for inevitable disappointment and—

She stopped in her tracks, staring in disbelief at the egg perched in a glass case at the center of the room. It was beautiful. No—that wasn’t enough. It was breathtaking—the size of a basketball and the color of pure gold, its surface intricately etched with what looked like feathers. Or maybe scales…?

“Oh my God,” she murmured, approaching slowly. Maybe her grandpa really
had
stumbled on something big for once. After all, she’d devoured every book in his research library over the last two years and had never come across anything remotely like this. “It has this sheen. Almost—I don’t know—like it’s not even real.”

She found herself reaching out, her hand pressing against the glass. This wasn’t just some fossil. This was a real egg—perfectly preserved as her grandpa had said. Had it really been frozen in a glacier for millions of years?

“Isn’t she beautiful?” Grandpa asked in a reverential whisper. “I’ve spent my entire life searching for something like this. People will come from around the world to see it—once they hear what we’ve found.” He turned to her, his eyes glistening.

“But what is it?” she asked, reluctantly turning away from the egg and back to her guardian, her eyes filled with questions. “What could it possibly be?”

“Why, isn’t it obvious?” He stepped toward the case, a slow smile spreading across his whiskered face. “It’s the world’s last dragon egg.”

Damn, this helmet itched like a flecking bond’ura flea.

Caleb Jacks forced himself to sit straight and tall on the hard wooden bench, staring directly ahead at the other soldiers in his unit. It had been a bumpy two-hour trip to Old Oak Grove, Texas, with no windows or fresh air in the truck, and by the time they pulled up to the museum, Caleb was about ready to vomit in his helmet. But he couldn’t let his discomfort show, couldn’t afford to stick out in any way—not after he’d spent months securing a spot on this elite, black-ops team.

It hadn’t been easy, especially getting placed on this particular mission. But the Dracken had done an excellent job at forging his paperwork, and his years of experience living on the streets down in Strata-D had made him strong and smart. He just channeled his twin brother Connor—the true soldier in the family—kept his head down, followed orders, and didn’t complain. He was, as his commander complimented, a natural choice for the mission.

Caleb swallowed back a chuckle. If only the old bastard knew how right he was.

Cold air flooded the truck, and he forced back a shiver as the rear door opened. All eyes turned to watch their superior heave himself up onto the truck bed, his heavy frame shaking the vehicle as his boots hit the floor one by one. He was dressed in the same standard-issue bulletproof vests as the rest of them, with only a shiny American flag pin to set him apart as the leader of the team. It still amused Caleb to see these people have so much pride in a country that would soon be accused of burning the entire world to the ground.

Just before the back door closed again, Caleb observed two men standing outside. Dressed in black suits and wearing mirrored sunglasses, they whispered urgently to one another. They were the brains of the operation, he noted grimly. The only ones who had any clue what this mission was really about. The rest of them were simply dumb muscle, obeying orders without question. They couldn’t be blamed for what these two men planned to unleash on the world.

“Okay, ladies,” the leader sneered. “You’ve all been briefed on your mission. Anderson,” he barked at the burly, dark-skinned man at the end of the row, “you work to disable the security system and video surveillance. Burn any tapes you find. I do not want to see any of your ugly mugs on the nightly news.”

“Yessir.”

“The rest of you, seek out the objective and secure it by any means necessary. But please, for the love of Christmas, be careful with it. You scramble this sucker and the Pentagon will have my ass.” He leered at his men. “And then I’ll have yours.”

The men tittered nervously while Caleb resisted the urge to roll his eyes. If only they knew how durable their precious “objective” actually was. Hell, you could take a sledgehammer to the egg and you’d be hard pressed to make even the slightest dent. There was a reason, after all, why it’d survived for millions of years.

The captain kept talking, but Caleb stopped bothering to listen. He had his own mission to think about, after all. One far more important than these duffers could ever imagine. His heart thudded in anticipation just thinking about it as he stared down at his hands.

Two long years he’d been here, waiting for this night. Two long years he’d spent alongside his Dracken brothers and sisters—preparing for the Reckoning. Two long years and now the hour was finally here.
He
was here. The one Darius had chosen—out of everyone else—to carry out the most important mission the world would ever know. Sure, partially it was because of his age—he blended in with the rest of the operatives better than the older Dracken would. But still, he had been chosen. He had been entrusted with the future of the world. The street rat criminal of Strata-D. The guy everyone had dismissed as worthless. He would change the world forever.

And he would finally meet
her
.

His heart hammered foolishly at the idea. The legend. The Fire Kissed. The girl who would fly. Was she inside the museum even now, unknowingly waiting for her destiny to unfold? He tried to imagine the look on her face when he told her who she really was, what she would do. Right now, she probably thought herself a normal girl. He used to think he was normal too. She would have no idea of her role in changing the shape of the world.

He couldn’t wait to tell her.

Are
you
in
there, Trinity?
he asked silently as the truck door creaked open again.
Because, ready or not, here I come.