Smoked - Mari Mancusi Page 0,19
When she tried to meet the dragon’s eyes with her own, Emmy seemed to deliberately twist her neck to face the wall instead.
Trin let out a small moan of dismay, turning back to Connor.
“What’s wrong with her?”
“She’s terrified.”
Trinity whirled around to see Scarlet come up behind her. With slow, careful movements, Scarlet climbed up into the truck bed, putting out an open hand. “It’s okay, Emmy,” she whispered. “It’s me, Scarlet. No one’s going to hurt you, okay?”
Emmy seemed to relax—just a little bit—allowing Scarlet to approach. When Scarlet reached the dragon, she put out her hand again, stroking her nose and cooing at her with a soft voice. Trinity watched, feeling helpless and horrified. When she tried to make a move of her own, Emmy startled again. Scarlet glanced back at Trin, a warning look in her eyes.
“I think she needs some time,” she said apologetically. “She’s obviously been through a lot.”
“Time. Right.” Trinity somehow managed a nod, the tears springing to the corners of her eyes again. She forced herself to step back, giving her dragon space.
No, not my dragon, she reminded herself, Scarlet’s dragon.
And then it hit her with all the force of a ten-ton truck. Everything she’d known to be true from the very start but hadn’t really comprehended up until now. After all, it was one thing to know something in theory. Quite another to see it play out before your eyes. And as Trin watched Emmy nudge Scarlet’s arm with her snout—a gesture the dragon had done to Trin a thousand times before—something broke inside her, allowing the cold, hard truth to rush in.
Emmy was no longer hers. Emmy would never be hers again.
But she’s safe, she reminded herself angrily, swiping at the tears with her sleeve. She’s alive. She’s here. She’s safe. That’s all that matters in the end.
Now, if only she could convince her heart that this was true.
Chapter Six
“How does that feel, Emmy? Does that feel any better?”
Scarlet paused from rubbing oil into the creases between Emmy’s neck scales, her eyes roving over the dragon, assessing her handiwork. Emmy was still pale and painfully thin compared to her former self, but Scarlet thought she could see a slight blush of color coming back to her scales, and it gave her a small bit of hope.
It had been three days since Emmy had been brought back to Team Dragon, and Scarlet and the others had worked around the clock to make sure the dragon felt safe—if not happy—in her new home. The former airline hangar had indeed turned out to be the perfect dragon cave—large enough for Emmy to stretch her wings and fly if she felt the urge, without the risk of being spotted by anyone from the outside world. Sure, it wouldn’t be the best flying ever—more like swimming laps in a pool, back and forth, rinse and repeat. But it was better than anything she’d had back at the government lab and certainly better than the old McCormick barn.
But Emmy hadn’t seemed interested in flying. Instead, she’d retreated to the sleeping nook they’d constructed at the far end of the hangar. Connor had found and hung some old, moth-eaten red curtains from the terminal to give her privacy, and Trin had painstakingly decorated, collecting some of the shinier pieces of plane fuselage and placing them around the nest as stand-ins for actual dragon treasure.
But Emmy hadn’t seemed to notice their efforts. Nor had she asked to turn on the TV/DVD combo that Trinity’s dad had picked up at a garage sale a few towns over. Even Scarlet’s suggestion of watching the last season of the BBC show Merlin—Emmy’s favorite program—had been dismissed with a shrug. All of which worried Scarlet more than she wanted to admit. As did the fact that Emmy was barely eating or drinking. The others chalked it up to posttraumatic stress, which did seem a logical conclusion, but to Scarlet it seemed more than that. Through their bond, she could feel Emmy’s nervous energy, bouncing around her head. She wasn’t just depressed—she was agitated. Worried about something. But when Scarlet tried to ask her what it was, her words fell on deaf ears.
“How’s she doing?”
Scarlet looked up from rubbing to see Trinity hovering hesitantly between the two curtains, shuffling from foot to foot. She sighed and waved her inside. Trinity obliged, still looking a bit nervous as she approached the two of them, and Scarlet could feel Emmy stiffen under her hands.
It was weird. While