Smoked - Mari Mancusi Page 0,3
the window, and Trinity’s ears picked up the distant bass of the latest Two Sad Boys tune drifting through the air.
Her pulse kicked up. They’d come. They’d actually come!
The walkie-talkie sitting in the cup holder crackled to life. “Did someone order a flash mob?” asked the voice on the other end.
Trinity grinned, grabbing the walkie and pulling it to her mouth.
“Luke! Oh my God. There’re so many! How did you get so many?”
She could hear the smile in his voice as he replied, “Yeah, well, that’s the interwebs for you. Though they’re going to be mighty disappointed when they find out this well-sourced rumor of a secret show is just that,” he said with a laugh. “But hopefully you’ll be in and out and long gone by then.”
“Absolutely,” she replied, watching the cars surround the facility, parking everywhere as a mob of colorfully dressed raver kids spilled out of every available door. Insta–Burning Man, just add water. “You did good.”
As she set down the walkie-talkie, she could hear Connor’s hmph beside her. She turned to him. “Come on, dude. You have to admit, this is pretty genius.”
Connor shrugged. He’d made it clear he didn’t trust Luke and his two friends, the gamer geeks from Fauna, New Mexico, who had dubbed themselves the Dracken and ran an Emmy fan site online. And Trinity supposed she couldn’t entirely blame him for that. After all, for him, this entire thing was a strange sort of déjà vu. Where he came from—two hundred years in the dragon-scorched future—the Dracken had been the bad guys. The ones who had started this whole dragon apocalypse to begin with…by breaking into a government facility and letting the dragons free.
In other words, exactly the same thing they were doing now.
The Dracken, Connor had argued, shouldn’t exist in this new time line. Not if Trinity had truly stopped the apocalypse. But somehow here they were. Not only here—but contributing to the exact same mission that had led to catastrophe in the first place.
Trinity had tried to convince him that things weren’t the same this time. That these so-called Dracken were gamer geeks, not the trained animal rights activists the original Dracken had been. Heck, just their daily hamburger consumption alone should have clued him into that. Not to mention, this time, they’d formed on their own—without Trinity’s help. And way earlier in the time line than the first time around.
But no matter what she said, Connor remained unconvinced. In fact, she knew if he had his way, they wouldn’t be rescuing Emmy at all. She would already be dead—dragon apocalypse permanently averted.
But he hadn’t killed Emmy when he’d had the chance. Because Trinity had asked him not to. And as much as he hated dragons, he loved her more.
She shook her head, trying to clear her thoughts. Right now, none of that mattered. The point was, they were here. They were going to rescue Emmy. This time it would work.
It had to work.
“Look,” she said, pointing to the road again. “Here come the delivery trucks.”
“Excellent. That’s our cue.”
Connor turned the key in the ignition and stepped on the gas, pulling their own vehicle into line with the others, heading around back, toward the facility’s loading dock. Trinity swallowed hard, her heart pounding in her chest as they followed the other trucks into the belly of the beast. There was no turning back now.
By the time they entered the dock, chaos reigned. Which was exactly their intention when they’d set this plan into motion. Through the website, Luke had rallied a bunch of his followers into placing massive delivery orders of every kind—to be delivered at this very moment. Now, while music fans caused a scene in the front of the building, distracting all the guards, the loading dock would be assaulted from the back with pizzas and furniture delivery and Amazon orders, all arriving at once.
Luke had explained it was like a DoS—denial-of-service—attack on a computer, but in real life. Overwhelm them, knock out their resources, and slip inside unnoticed to stage the rescue. It truly was a brilliant plan.
And this time, it had to work.
Connor placed the truck into park. A harried-looking man with a clipboard ran up to them, sweat beading on his forehead. Connor rolled down the window and gave him his best annoyed look. “What the hell is going on here?” he demanded. “I just need to drop off a box. I’m already way behind schedule.”
The man shook his head. “Hell if I know. They