Smoked - Mari Mancusi Page 0,12
cried. She scrambled to her feet, running after the dragon. “Emmy! Please! No! Come back!”
But the dragon didn’t come back. And soon she had disappeared from the sky altogether.
Chapter Three
“Here we are…home sweet home.”
Scarlet rubbed her bleary eyes, struggling to regain consciousness. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was, the bright light streaming through the truck windows nearly blinding her with its brilliance. Then her eyes fell on Connor, sitting beside her in the backseat of the truck, and it all came rushing back to her.
They had escaped. She was free.
She squinted at the truck’s dashboard clock. While it felt as if she’d only dozed off for a minute or two, evidently hours had passed since the truck had picked them up in the desert; she must have slept through most of the trip. And who could blame her, really? It was the first time in forever she could allow herself to close her eyes and not worry about who would be waking her up…and what they’d want to do to her once they did.
She peered out the grimy window, trying to take in her surroundings. They’d pulled off a narrow desert road and had entered the dirt parking lot of what appeared to be an abandoned airfield, tucked away in the middle of nowhere. There was a single runway, a small terminal with boarded-up windows, a few hangars, and a couple of broken-down prop planes that had seen better days.
She gave a low whistle. “Toto, I don’t think we’re at the old McCormick place anymore.”
Connor nodded as the boy he’d introduced as Luke put the truck in park and popped open his door. “Yeah, we’ve pretty much outgrown anything in the residential market these days,” he informed her. “There are at least two dozen of the Potentials living with us now. Plus, the three Dracken kids come by whenever they can get away from school and their families.” He counted off on his fingers. “Then there’s me, Trinity, Trinity’s father…”
He trailed off as Luke pushed his seat forward to allow him to jump out of the truck. Scarlet watched him go, feeling glued to her seat, an icy worry prickling down her spine as she waited for him to finish his roll call. Waited for the one name she hadn’t heard yet—the one she was desperate to hear.
In truth, Caleb’s name had been on the tip of her tongue since Connor and Trinity had first stepped into her jail cell back at the government lab. But she hadn’t managed to muster the courage to speak it out loud, too fearful of what she might learn. She thought back to the last time she’d seen him—lying unconscious in the back of the government truck, his body weak, his face pale, his mind locked in another world—an alternate reality known as the Nether—unable to escape.
Connor held out his hand to help her out of the truck. “Oh, and Caleb too, of course,” he added, as if it were an afterthought.
Scarlet’s breath let out in a rush of relief. She grabbed Connor’s hand and leapt from the vehicle to solid ground. Then she turned to him anxiously. “So he’s…okay?” she asked. “Caleb’s okay?”
She waited, heart in her throat, as Connor shot an uneasy glance up at Trinity, who was still sitting in the front passenger seat, her eyes glued to the sky above, looking as if she were barely holding it together.
When Luke had first picked them up, Trinity had insisted they drive around to try to track Emmy with the car. But they’d driven in circles for hours to no avail. Even Scarlet—who still had some connection to Emmy through the blood bond they shared—could not seem to pinpoint the dragon’s location. Perhaps it was because she was so drained of spark after all she’d suffered. Or perhaps Emmy was purposely blocking her—there was no clear way to tell. In the end, Connor had called off the search, saying they needed to get back and regroup before heading out again. Trinity had argued, then given in. And she hadn’t said a word since.
Scarlet sighed. She’d tried to warn them. But she supposed she understood why Trinity hadn’t wanted to listen.
Scarlet turned back to Connor. “Well? Is he okay or not?” she demanded, unable to take the suspense any longer. She was worried about Emmy too. But Caleb… Her pulse quickened.
Connor sighed. “He’s alive, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “But he’s been a total vegetable for the last