Shattered (6 page)

When Caleb failed to show up to breakfast the next morning, Trinity barely gave his absence a second thought. It wasn’t unusual for him to sleep until noon. And now that she was aware of his nightly adventures in dragon flying, she finally understood why he’d been so exhausted all this time.

She was exhausted too; once Connor had let her out of the barn, she’d gone upstairs to her bedroom to try to get some sleep. Instead, she’d lain awake, rehashing the conversation with Emmy over and over again until she wanted to throw up. A few times she tried to open the connection between them—to apologize for the fight—but Emmy had either fallen asleep or intentionally shut her down. It wasn’t until the sun started peeking over the horizon that she finally fell into a restless slumber, only to be woken up an hour later by Grandpa calling her to breakfast.

When lunch came and went and Caleb still hadn’t emerged from his bedroom, she decided to go check on him. She was dying to talk to him—not only to apologize for the night before, but also to get his advice on Emmy. Since Caleb was the only other person in their group who had ever worked with dragons, he usually served as expert when Emmy got into one of her moods.

“Caleb? Are you there?” She quietly pushed open his bedroom door, not wanting to startle him. She needn’t have worried; he was still thoroughly passed out on the bed, his eyes rolled to the back of his head. To the casual observer, he might have looked dead, or at least locked in a deep coma. But Trinity knew better.

He was back in the Nether. Again.

She sighed, mixed emotions swirling through her as she looked down at him. Part of her wanted to shake him into consciousness—all the while screaming at him for being so irresponsible. For checking out on her when she needed him once again. Lately these trips were getting all too frequent and each one was lasting far too long.

Of course, anytime she asked him about it, he got all defensive. She got to see Emmy every day. This was the only way he could spend time with his beloved dragon Fred.

Trinity got that, she did. But at the same time, she knew all too well the consequences of spending too much time in the Nether. Not only could it rot you and your brain from the inside out like it had her mom, but, according to Connor, it could also have an addictive quality. The more you went, the more you wanted to go. The reality of the Nether fusing to your brain cells, making the fantasy world seem more solid—and more desirable—than real life. There were people in his time, Connor told her—
Netherheads
they called them—who would sell everything they owned—and maybe some things they didn’t—just for one more trip.

She glanced over at Caleb’s nightstand. She wanted to respect his privacy, give him his space, but she needed to know how bad this was getting. So she pulled open the drawer and started counting the Nether gems he had stashed inside. Last week he’d had thirteen. Now…

Only two.

Ugh. Heart racing, she leaned over the bed, prying open Caleb’s fingers and plucking the sapphire he’d grasped in his hand. Sometimes she could jerk him back from the Nether by simply disrupting the energy flow between him and the gem. But this time Caleb only grunted, shifting positions but refusing to regain consciousness.

She’d have to go in after him.

Dropping the gem back into his hands, she closed her own hand around his, trying not to wince at the clammy coldness of his skin as she attempted to prepare herself for entry. She didn’t like going to the Nether. Sure, it was kind of cool at first—a place beyond time and space, existing in the collective unconsciousness of dragons. The Nether could be anything you wanted it to be. You could do anything you wanted to do while in its embrace. It could be a true paradise.

It could also be a true prison, digging its claws into your consciousness, ripping away your sense of reality—your desire to live a real life. Visit too often and the Nether would rob you of your health and send your brain into atrophy. And while it became easier and easier to enter, it became harder and harder to leave.

She closed her eyes and gripped Caleb’s hand and thought of her mother…who never did.

• • •

A gust of wind whipped at Trinity’s face, prompting her to open her eyes. She looked around. The bed was gone. The farmhouse was gone. In fact, the whole state of Texas was gone.

In its place was a broken world, an arid desert stretching out as far as the eye could see. The soil below was parched and cracked, with dead trees raising their gnarled claws toward the sky. In the distance, a blood-red sun bruised the horizon in a motley of purples and pinks.

She cringed. Caleb was evidently not in a good state of mind.

She scanned the emptiness, a feeling of dread encroaching as she searched for a sign of her friend. At first she came up empty. No sign of life in this nightmare world. Then, shielding her eyes with her hand, she looked up to the sky, finally locking onto a small black shadow far in the distance.

There
you
are.

She waved her arms wildly in the direction of the shadow, jumping up and down in an effort to get either dragon or rider’s attention. At first neither seemed to acknowledge her efforts, and she wondered if they really couldn’t see her or were ignoring her on purpose.

She kept jumping and waving anyway. She’d come all this way—to this ugly, dead place—she wasn’t about to leave until she’d had her say.

At last her efforts were rewarded, with a great, teal dragon as large as a one-story house coming in for a graceful landing a few yards away, the ground groaning under her weight. Caleb was straddled across the creature’s massive back, wearing black leather riding pants and a loose white T-shirt, his eyes shielded by dark sunglasses and his mouth twisted in a frown.

“Fred!” Trinity greeted the dragon, keeping her tone light and breezy. At least one of them would be happy to see her. “Good to see you again, girl! And may I say you’re looking extremely shine-a-licious today,” she added with a grin. “Are you using a new shampoo to get those scales so sparkly? You simply must tell me your secret!”

Fred bounded over to her with typical Fred-like exuberance, inadvertently taking her rider along for the ride, as Trinity knew she would. After greeting Trin with a huge slurp on her face, the dragon started sniffing her pockets with a determined air. Trin couldn’t help but laugh as she attempted to shove the enormous snout away. Emmy might be a TV addict, but Fred was addicted only to TV dinners.

“Hang on, girl, I’ve got you covered.”

She closed her eyes, conjuring up a large leg of lamb in her mind—extra bloody, just as she knew Fred preferred. A moment later, the leg manifested in midair—yet another neat trick of the Nether—then dropped before the dragon with a loud plop. Fred proceeded to attack it with gusto, slurping and chomping happily, the bones crunching under her rock-hard molars. Trinity watched, amused and only a little nauseated. She only wished it were this easy to feed Emmy in real life.

“Oh, Sparknado,” Caleb lamented with an exaggerated sigh, sliding down the dragon’s wing and landing on the ground with a thump. “After all I do for you. And still you’d sell me out for nothing more than a stinky soup bone.” He slapped the dragon’s neck affectionately, shaking his head.

As he approached Trinity, she couldn’t help but notice how pale and worn he looked—even here in the Nether, where you were supposed to be able to look any way you wanted to with a simple manifest. She frowned. He was using too much spark, coming here day after day, and it was clearly draining him.

“Nice place,” she remarked wryly. “Come here often?”

He looked around, as if noticing the dreary backdrop for the first time, then shrugged. “Sorry, Princess. If I’d known you were stopping by for tea, I would have conjured up Buckingham Palace in your honor.”

Trinity rolled her eyes. “Can we talk?” she asked, her voice sounding more plaintive then she’d meant it to.

“It’s a free Nether.”

She sighed. Of course he wasn’t going to make things easy for her. And maybe she deserved for it to be hard. She shuffled from foot to foot. “Look,” she attempted, “I’m sorry about last night, okay? I probably overreacted. It’s just…when I went out to the barn and I couldn’t find Emmy…”

Guilt flashed across his face before he could hide it. “You thought the worst.”

“You could have told me you were taking her—”

“If I had, would you have let me go?”

She grimaced. “Honestly?” she admitted. “Probably not.”

“
Definitely
not,” he corrected. “And believe me, I get it. I do. You’re trying to keep her safe. Out of sight, out of harm. I totally understand.” He paused then muttered, more to himself than her, “I understand more than you can ever know.”

Trinity caught his eyes involuntarily flickering to his dragon, and her heart panged at the anguish she saw ghosting his face. In her self-righteous indignation, she’d conveniently forgotten what had happened to Caleb’s own beloved Fred in real life. The reason he had to come here to spend time with her now.

“Caleb…” she tried.

He waved her off. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, dangerous or not, it has to be done. Keeping dragons locked up long term is asking for trouble. Sweet as Emmy is, if she doesn’t get to fly around once in a while, she’s going to start getting restless. And then she’ll start growing wild. Dangerous.”

Trinity sighed, thinking back to their conversation in the barn. Emmy had been so frustrated. So angry. And that was after spending the night flying free. What would she have been like if Caleb hadn’t been letting her stretch her wings on a regular basis?

“She has to understand it’s for her own good.”

“She’s a teenager, Trin,” Caleb replied bluntly. “Or the dragon equivalent of a teenager anyway, seeing as they mature much faster than we do. But the idea is the same.” He gave her a hard smile. “Imagine a thirteen-year-old who can breathe fire. Do you want to be the one to tell her she’s grounded and can’t go to the mall?”

Trinity grimaced. “Point taken.”

His smile faded. “Keep her locked up and, at best, she’ll start to resent you. At worst…” He shrugged. “She may turn against you. Find another to bond with instead.”

Trinity stared at him, startled. “What?” she cried out before she could stop herself. “She wouldn’t do that. I’m her Fire Kissed. We’re bonded.”

We’re destined…

“Only because she chose you to be,” Caleb pointed out. “And she can un-choose you just as easily.”

Trinity bit her lower lip, wanting to argue. Wanting to insist that Caleb didn’t know what he was talking about. That Emmy was like her sister, her daughter, her best friend—that the dragon would never even think to leave her side. But how did she know that for sure? She thought back to Emmy’s secret nights with Caleb. Her mysterious broken scale.

Emmy had asked Trin if she trusted her. But did Emmy trust Trin?

Slumping to a nearby boulder, she scrubbed her face with her hands.
I’m doing the best I can, Em. You know that, right?

She felt Caleb’s pitying stare. “I’m sorry,” he said suddenly, his voice softening. “Trust me, I’m not trying to freak you out.” He dropped to his knees and took her hands in his. His touch was warm, gentle, and against her better judgment, she found herself meeting his eyes with her own. For one fleeting moment, she wished she could just hide out here in this world forever and leave all the struggles of real life behind.

But that, of course, was impossible. Caleb might be able to justify checking out, but she couldn’t. The world needed her. And so did Emmy.

“Look, Trin,” Caleb continued. “I’m only trying to get you to face reality. We can’t go on like this, despite what my illustrious brother might think. We have to do something. We can’t keep running away.”

“You’re one to talk about running away,” she couldn’t help but mutter.

“Excuse me?” Caleb’s eyes grew hard. He dropped her hands.

She sighed then made a sweeping gesture over the bleak world around them. “How many times have you come here in the last few months?” she asked. “It seems like every time I turn around, you’re back in the Nether.”

“That’s a bit of an exaggeration, don’t you think?”

“Is it?” She raised an eyebrow. “You had thirteen gems last week. How many do you have left?”

His face flushed. “I don’t know. Plenty, I’m sure. I didn’t count them.”

“Well I did,” she said, “before I came here to find you. You have two left. That means in the last week you’ve come here eleven times.”

A shadow of horror crossed Caleb’s face, as if he himself hadn’t realized how much he’d been using. And maybe, she thought uneasily, he hadn’t.

“You shouldn’t be going through my stuff,” he growled, as if that were the real issue here. “And besides, what do you care how often I come?” He scrambled to his feet, turning away so she couldn’t see his face. “This is between me and Fred. It has nothing to do with you. I come here for her. She needs me.”

He gave the teal dragon a heartbreaking look, and Trin winced at the anguish she recognized on his face. She tried to imagine what it would be like if Emmy was the one who had died. Would she herself be finding reasons to come here every day?

Still…

“Look, I’m sorry. I love Fred too,” she said. “She’s a great dragon. Super smart and super sweet. But she’s also dead, Caleb. And there’s nothing you can do to change that fact.” She sighed, hating the harsh hurt she was piling on with her reality check. But it had to be done. “Emmy, on the other hand, is still alive.
She’s
the one who needs our attention now.”

Caleb scowled, the sand swirling around his legs as if swept up in a storm. Behind him, lightning slashed across the sky, mirroring his mood. “She doesn’t need me. She’s got you and my brother. I’m just the a-hole who put her life in danger, remember?”

Trinity shook her head. “Caleb, I already apologized for—”

“Look, you and my brother obviously have everything worked out perfectly between you. Emmy doesn’t need me screwing things up all the time. Hell, it’d probably be better for everyone if I just stayed in here with Fred forever.”