Shattered (18 page)

“Come on, Caleb. Where are you?”

Connor raked a hand through his hair as he exited yet another bar without having found his twin. He’d already traversed the entire town at least twice and been in almost every restaurant or shop he had come across that had been open for business. Which, oddly enough, few had been. In fact, the whole town seemed eerily quiet, as if everyone were sleeping in.

He’d texted Trinity a couple of times to make sure Caleb hadn’t gone back to the motel, but each time she assured him that she hadn’t seen him and he hadn’t called. Connor didn’t want to admit it, but he was beginning to worry about his twin.

He’s like a bad copper,
he reminded himself.
He’s bound to show up.

But as the morning surrendered to the afternoon, Connor’s apprehension began to grow. Where was he? Had he left town? Caleb had taken off many times during their arguments, but he’d never gone far. Not to mention the van was still parked out in front of the motel and their money was all in the safe, meaning he would have had very few options, even if he did want to take off on them.

At last Connor decided he would grab some food at the local pub and bring it back to Trinity. They could eat and then regroup. Maybe look at a map and figure out where he hadn’t checked yet.

So he headed into the pub and sidled up to the bar. After ordering two burgers—and then changing that order to four to accommodate Emmy—he settled on a stool and waited. The bartender wandered over, filling up a pint glass and pushing it in his direction.

“What’s this for?” Connor asked.

“Your bravery.” The bartender grinned, filling up another glass and holding it out to toast. “And for being my one customer for the day!”

“Is it some kind of holiday?” Connor asked, glancing at the door. “The whole town is dead.”

The bartender raised an eyebrow. “Didn’t you hear?” he asked, sounding a little incredulous.

An uneasy feeling wormed through Connor, though he wasn’t sure why. “Hear what?” he asked.

The bartender reached for the remote and pointed it at the television above them. He pressed a button and the volume rose through the empty bar.

“The victim was identified as twenty-three-year-old Travis White, a drifter who has had his share of run-ins with the police.”

“I don’t get it,” Connor said, looking back at the bartender. “Some homeless guy died?”

The bartender’s face lit up. “Died? Dude, he was ripped apart limb from limb. My buddy Dave works over at the coroner’s office. He texted me a few pics. You want to see?”

“Um, I guess?” Connor said doubtfully, really confused now.

The bartender pulled out his phone. “They’re trying to decide if it’s the same one as down in Texas,” he said as he scrolled through his texts. “The police aren’t saying. But I think it is. I mean, how many dragons can there be in the southwest—”

Connor dropped his beer. It smashed onto the bar floor, glass shards exploding in all directions. “Dragon?” he whispered.

“Yeah, you know, like what happened at that stadium in Vista. Man, you need to start watching the news,” the bartender scolded, grabbing a rag and handing it to a stunned Connor. “You mind wiping that up? Anyway, the military is on their way. They’re the ones who told everyone to stay inside. But I said to my wife, I got a business to run and—”

“I’ve…got to go,” Connor blurted, on his feet. He reached into his wallet and threw a wad of cash on the counter, not bothering to count it.

“Hey, wait! Don’t you want your burgers?”

But Connor was already outside the pub, racing down the street as fast as his legs could carry him. Reaching the motel in record time, he dashed up the stairs then down the hall until he came to their rooms. He pulled the card key from his pants’ pocket, his hands shaking so badly he could barely shove it into the reader. Once the green light finally flashed, he burst into the room.

“Trinity! They’ve found us. We’ve got to…”

He trailed off, scanning the empty space.

Trinity wasn’t there.

Nor was Emmy.

He ran into the other room, just to make sure, his heart slamming against his rib cage. Had the military already come? Had they found them and taken them away? Fear wrenched in his stomach so hard he nearly doubled over in pain.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no, no!”

Forcing himself to close his eyes, he sucked in a much-needed breath as he attempted to regain his soldier’s sanity. When he opened his eyes again, he took another look around the room, more slowly this time, taking in all the details.

Like the fact that Emmy’s bed was no longer by the radiator. And Trinity’s suitcase was no longer under the bed.

He ran to the safe, spinning the dial with shaky hands. He had to do it twice, but it finally popped open. As he stared into the velvet-lined box, he felt all his worst fears coming true. The van keys were gone. So was much of the money. In its place was a page of motel stationery, scribbled on in Trinity’s handwriting. Somehow Connor managed to pluck the letter from the box and stagger over to the bed, plopping down on the mattress to start reading.

Dear Connor and Caleb,

This is by far the hardest letter I have ever had to write. Even putting pen to paper feels like ripping out my heart from my chest with my bare hands. But I’ve been too selfish for too long. I hope you can understand.

Emmy chose me to be her Fire Kissed. To put her first and keep her safe from harm. But it seems I haven’t been very good lately, keeping up my end of the bargain. I’ve been distracted, dealing with the drama and the fights and the tangled loyalties of our little group, and I haven’t done what I promised to do. We call ourselves Team Dragon, but half the time the dragon is the last teammate we consider when weighing our options.

I love you both. Never doubt that for a second. You gave up your entire worlds to come to Emmy’s aid, and I will never forget that. But now it’s time for me to do the same thing.

Please don’t try to follow me or contact me—it will only make things harder. I hope we will be able to meet again someday. But I truly have no idea whether that will be possible.

Love always,

Trinity

Connor’s hands fumbled with the note as numbness spread over his entire body. His knees buckled and he fell back onto the bed. Unable to move, unable to even think. On instinct, he reached out with his gift again, searching for some sign of her, desperate to regain the connection—to beg her to come back. For a fleeting moment, he thought he could feel her, but a second later, the sensation was gone.

And so was Trinity. Maybe forever. Anger rose up inside of him, warring with his fear. He wanted to blame Caleb—for his childishness, his recklessness. But he knew in his heart he was just as much to blame. What he’d gone and done. What he’d promised never to do.

He thought back to her soft lips, hungry against his mouth. Her head, heavy against his chest as his fingers tangled in her hair. He should have never allowed any of that to happen. He’d promised her he’d stay strong. Instead, he’d been weak. Allowed his vulnerability to show. Gave into temptation. And it had cost him.

It had cost him everything.

He lay back on the bed, staring listlessly up at the ceiling, his heart feeling as if it would tear in two. It took every ounce of strength in his body not to run after her, to search the streets until he wore holes through his boots and bloodied his feet—refusing to give up until she was back in his arms where he could protect her and keep her safe. Instead, he forced himself to stay put, to respect her wishes, and let her strike out on her own path.

He tried to imagine her now behind the wheel of the beaten-up old van, a determined look on her face. A small smile tugged at his lips at the image.

That was his Trinity. Stubborn till the end.

“Take good care of her, Emmy,” he whispered, though he knew there was no way for the dragon to hear him. “I hope you know how lucky you are to have her as your Fire Kissed.”

Sky House Elevator—Year 189 Post-Scorch

“Hot
damn
, will you look at that?”

Sixteen-year-old Caleb peered out the glass windows of the elevator in the direction Digger was pointing, his eyes sweeping the barren, burned-out city ruins below. They’d broken through the surface of the world a few moments before and were now shooting up into the air, sliding along a thick vertical track in a three-sided glass tube. The code he’d pickpocketed from that Netherhead down in Shanty Town the day before had worked like a dream—activating the secret private elevator, conveniently mapped out in the guy’s wallet. And Caleb and his buddies were now on their way up to a real, honest-to-goodness sky house.

“You really think one of the Dracken lives up here?” asked Burr, one of Caleb’s drinking buddies from Shanty Town. He hadn’t had much time to gather a crew, seeing as the code would probably change the second Mr. Rich Guy realized he’d been ripped off during his black market journey of self-indulgence. And it was a degenerate lot to say the least.

“Who
else
would live above ground?” Digger asked disdainfully. He flexed his meaty arms and cracked his knuckles. He’d just gotten out of ten years at a forced labor camp mining operation. And would be asking for ten more if caught on this job. But the spoils from pulling off such a heist—in a real sky house—were well worth the risk.

“I used to,” Caleb admitted, looking down at the rusted iron ruins below. He could almost see him and his brother, chasing each other through the rubble, pretending to be Hunter and Dragon. “My family and I lived up here when I was a kid.”

It seemed a million years ago. When he was just a normal boy with a family who loved him and the possibility of a real future. Until, of course, that fateful day when his brother ruined everything, vaporizing Caleb’s entire universe with one clumsy fall. It was Connor’s fault that their father was killed—and yet somehow his brother walked away from the murder scene a hero. And from then on, no one remembered Caleb even existed.

“Man, that must have sucked dragon eggs,” Gunn, the youngest of the crew, remarked, spitting the black tar he’d been chewing onto the elevator’s glass floor. “I’d be freaking out if I were up here, worrying about dragons every day.” He turned to Caleb. “Of course, I don’t have a big time Dragon Hunter in my family like
some
people.”

Caleb scowled. Seriously, was there nowhere he could go to escape his brother’s legacy?

Thankfully, at that moment, the elevator creaked to a halt and its door silently slid open, revealing the interior of a large circular room, covered in windows, providing a 360-degree view of the ruins below them. Caleb gave a low whistle and motioned for his crew to follow him out.

“Okay, now be careful,” he instructed. “I told Penny to keep the owner busy at her place for the next few hours. But we don’t know if he set up any alarms or traps. Grab whatever you can—the smaller it is, the easier it’ll be to hock later. And meet back here in ten minutes.”

The crew nodded their greasy heads then dashed around the large room, peeking in chests and pulling back curtains. The home was dripping in rich reds and golds and stocked with real wood furniture—something not even the richest Council members could afford down below. Caleb couldn’t help but marvel how each piece had been carved with intricate designs and painted with vibrant colors. The floors were made of marble and great tapestries hung on the walls, depicting beautiful golden dragons with mouths blazing crimson fire. It was so opulent it nearly took his breath away.

But the real awe of the room came from the sun outside, peeking in through the many windows and gracing the entire place with warm rays of light. He imagined himself sprawling out on the sofa by the wall, napping peacefully under the sun’s gentle caress.

But there would be no sleep. It was time to steal. So as his crew busied themselves by pilfering everything not nailed to the floor, Caleb decided to climb the sweeping staircase in the center of the room to see what else he could discover.

At the top of the stairs, he found a large bedroom, complete with a huge, carved wooden canopy bed, draped with thick velvet curtains. He pressed a hand down on the bed’s surface, trying to imagine what it would be like to sleep there. The Dracken probably had no trouble getting girls to come home with them.

Off the bedroom, he discovered an even greater find—a library, filled floor to ceiling with hardcover books with real paper pages. Caleb pulled one out at random, putting his nose to the book to breathe in the comforting musty smell. He shook his head, completely awed by the whole thing. What would it be like to read from these kinds of ancient tomes, instead of just downloading stories to a reader? He found himself turning to page one, dying to read real print just once in his life.

But he got no further than the first sentence when a sudden scream caused him to drop the book. Racing from the library, he ran through the bedroom and down the stairs, almost tripping over Gunn’s body, lying bleeding on the white shag rug. Horrified, Caleb looked around the room, trying to determine what had happened to his friend. Before he could figure anything out, another piercing scream rang out through the air.

Screw
this
. Caleb dashed for the elevator, only to find the door sliding shut in his face. Digger shrugged helplessly then gave a small wave as he cowardly shot back down to the earth below, leaving Caleb trapped in the sky house with whatever was killing the others.

“Get back here, you bastard!”

He bashed his fist against the door, but it did no good. He’d have to wait for the elevator to reach the bottom and pray Digger would at least have the heart to send it back up to him once he got out.

If he managed to stay alive that long.

Suddenly he felt a hot blast of air at the back of his neck. He froze, his breath stolen from his lungs. Slowly, he forced himself to turn around, with no idea what he’d find—or if he’d even live long enough to find anything at all. His eyes rose slowly, coming face-to-face with…

A dragon. An actual dragon…
inside
the house.

The creature stared back at him with big eyes and bloodstained teeth. She had teal scales that sparkled from the light outside and was about the size of one of the meat cows back home. His eyes bulged from his head. She was both impossibly beautiful and totally terrifying all at the same time, and he realized, vaguely, that he should try to back away. To get out of the line of fire. But the glass elevator shaft effectively blocked his path, and there was nowhere else to go. He was trapped.

About to become dragon lunch.

Squeezing his eyes shut, his hands uselessly covered his face in a vain attempt to ward the creature off. He thought wildly of his mother and his brother and wondered if either of them would even notice he was gone. They’d probably never know exactly what happened to him. They might not even care. In fact, there was no one in the entire world that would be all that broken up about Caleb Jacks’s death. Except, he supposed, Caleb Jacks himself. And he wasn’t even a hundred percent sure about that.

You
don’t know if you want to live? How sad.

Huh? He pulled his hands away, jerking his head from left to right, trying to determine where the sudden voice was coming from. But there was no one there.

No
one?
The voice repeated, amused.
But
I’m right here in front of you.

Caleb’s mouth dropped open. The dragon’s lips hadn’t moved. But he’d heard her, as clear as if she were speaking aloud.

“How did you…how do you do that?” he asked in a quaking voice.

The dragon’s mouth curled, almost as if she were smiling. Then she stepped closer and sniffed his face. Caleb tried not to wince as the dragon’s breath tickled his nose, praying the creature wouldn’t decide to take a test bite. Then, to his surprise, he felt a wet roughness on his cheek.

Had the mighty dragon that had just taken out his crew actually licked him?

“I think she likes you.”

A new voice came from the direction of the staircase. Caleb watched as a good-looking guy, dressed in a fine linen suit, drifted down the stairs with ultimate grace.

“Back off, Trinity,” he commanded. “Caleb’s had enough of you for the moment, I think.”

Trinity? Caleb gawked. This deadly beast’s name was Trinity? Like that legendary girl from his history texts?

Trinity the dragon—if that indeed was her name—huffed twin puffs of smoke from her nostrils, as if annoyed by the man’s command, but obediently took a few steps backward, curling her long, scaly tail inward and looking expectantly at the Dracken.

Caleb staggered, barely able to comprehend what was happening here. He’d heard rumors of the Dracken, of course, that they could somehow make dragons bow to their will. But to see it happen in real life? Mind-blowing, to say the least.

“How did you…?” he stammered. “I mean…” He realized dimly that he might never be able to form a complete sentence again.

“Tame a dragon?” the man finished in a kindly voice. “Why, it’s easy, if you have the gift.”

“It…is?”

“Caleb, thank you for coming. My name is Darius. We’ve been expecting you. Sit down.” The man ushered him over to the sofa by the window and gestured for him to be seated. Caleb forced himself to follow, not taking his eyes off of the dragon for a moment. She was still watching him closely, her mouth open and her tongue lolling out in a friendly looking pant. At the moment, she actually looked less mean than his dog back home.

“Don’t worry, she won’t bite,” the man teased. Caleb shot an involuntary look at the bloody corpses of his comrades nearby, his stomach lurching. “Oh right,” Darius chuckled. “What I meant was, she won’t bite
you
.”

Caleb sank to the couch, his heart beating a mile a minute. He folded his hands to keep them from shaking. “Are you going to kill me?” he blurted out, unable to help himself.

Darius laughed softly. “Absolutely not,” he replied. “After all, you have a precious gift. It would be a great waste to kill you.”

“A gift?” Caleb raised an eyebrow skeptically. “I think maybe you’re mistaking me for my brother, Connor. He’s the Dragon Hunter, not me.”

Darius frowned. “Personally, I don’t consider the ability to destroy life much of a gift, Caleb,” he replied. “Do you?”

Caleb looked over at him, surprised. Darius was perhaps the first person he’d ever met who didn’t think his brother walked on water.

“Your brother’s gift is to destroy. Yours is to bring life. And if you agree to work with us, we can bring a lot of life to a lot of people. We may even be able to bring your father back from the grave someday.” He paused, then added, “But I think we’ll start with something a lot more simple.”

Caleb squinted at him, his brain whirling. Was this guy for real? What kind of gift could he possibly have? Him, the brother no one wanted. “What do you have in mind?”

“Your mother suffers from bone cancer, yes?”

Caleb nodded reluctantly, wondering how this man knew so much about him and his family. He suddenly realized stealing the elevator code probably wasn’t the lucky accident he’d assumed it to be.

“Well, for starters, we can cure her of that.”

“
You
can?
” Caleb cried, against his better judgment. Could they really do that? She’d been so sick for so long—it seemed impossible. But then, so was a big-ass dragon licking his face…

He imagined waltzing into the hospital, past the doctors, his mother’s cure clasped in his hands.
Him
—the so-called useless son—finally doing something worthwhile. Something his brother—even with all his superpowers—hadn’t been able do.

Darius smiled. “With your gift, we can do all that and a lot more as well,”

“This gift…” Caleb forced his thoughts back to the present. “You keep talking about a gift. What gift do I have that’s so valuable to you?’

“Why, isn’t it obvious?” Darius asked kindly. “You were born a guardian.”