stuck around, since she didn’t seem to have any friends in Team Dragon. Once upon a time, he would have assumed it was out of loyalty to Emmy. But Scarlet seemed to be avoiding the dragon these days as much as she avoided the others.
Go and talk to her. Now!
He sighed. He’d been trying to work up the nerve to approach her since that first night, when he’d been so eager to get caught up on their mission that he’d basically kicked her out of the room to talk to Trinity. And ever since then, she’d barely spoken a word to him, going out of her way to avoid him. Every day, he told himself he would pull her aside and talk to her about what happened between them in the Nether, yet every day, he ended up chickening out. And now it was like there was this big elephant in the room, and he didn’t know what to do about it.
If only he hadn’t kissed her. If only he’d stayed strong and resisted the urge. But she’d been so sweet, so passionate, so earnest in her attempts to save his worthless hide after everyone else had given up on him. He’d been so lonely, trapped in his icy cold prison, so desperate for the warm touch of another human being. And she’d been more than willing to give it to him.
Scarlet was beautiful. She was sweet and kind and thoughtful. Not to mention smart and resourceful. He hadn’t forgotten the determined look she’d gotten in her eyes when she’d agreed to his crazy plan to go on the suicide mission. To take out armed guards and escape in the truck. To go warn Trinity and Connor the Dracken were on their way. Trinity, whether she wanted to admit it or not, owed this girl everything. And yet, how had she repaid this bravery and selflessness? By coercing Scarlet to hand herself over to the bad guys and spend the next six months being tortured and starved.
All because of me. If I hadn’t been so weak. So pathetic. So addicted…
He felt a familiar rumble in his stomach, a prickling on the surface of his skin. He’d love to have blamed it on being hungry for lunch, but he knew that wasn’t the case. This rumble, this prickle, this itch that could never be scratched—it was the pull of the Nether, creeping up on him again. A pull that would always be there, just beneath the surface, probably for the rest of his life.
He still had no idea how he’d escaped the Nether. He’d been there so damn long—there was no way he should have been able to come back to the real world unscathed like he had. Sure, maybe if Emmy had donated blood from her soft scale—maybe that would have done the trick—but Trinity had told him that the scale had been destroyed by the government, and the blood was all gone. Still, something must have been done to bring him back. So what was it? No one seemed to have any idea.
What about Scarlet? Could she possibly know something?
Caleb’s gaze shifted back to the girl who was now walking her tray out of the restaurant, her eyes downcast and her shoulders slumped, as if she were trying hard not to be noticed. It seemed unlikely that she would have any clue as to why he’d recovered—she didn’t even know that he was a time traveler, for goodness’ sake. But still, it was she who had been there when he’d first opened his eyes. Maybe if she were able to give him a kind of play-by-play of what had happened just beforehand, maybe there would be some kind of clue.
And as a bonus, he could apologize to her—or at least make things less weird between them.
Making up his mind, he left the dinner line, ignoring his stomach’s protest as he set his tray down on an empty table. Then, slipping back into the terminal’s waiting room, he looked left and right, trying to figure out the direction she’d gone. Finally he located her at the end of the hall, silhouetted by the light streaming in through the doorway, dumping her dinner into a large sack. He watched, an uneasy feeling gnawing at his stomach—and this time it wasn’t from hunger or any kind of addiction. What was she doing? Was she bringing the food to Emmy in the hangar? Once upon a time, that might have made sense, but