Smoked - Mari Mancusi Page 0,57

could there possibly be dragons?

And if that wasn’t crazy enough… She did a double take. Was that really Caleb and Scarlet, riding on their freaking backs?

Guess they weren’t about to miss the party after all.

Trinity’s first thought was she must be dreaming. Because what other rational possibility could there be? Certainly not actual dragons coming in for a landing a few feet in front of her. She tried to pinch herself, to wake herself up somehow. But as Caleb and Scarlet slid off their dragons and approached the cameras, she realized this was no dream.

No. This was a real-life nightmare.

“What the hell is going on here, Caleb?” Connor demanded, stepping up to Trinity’s side as his twin strode toward them with a distinct swagger in his steps. Connor sounded angry, but Trinity could also hear the fear winding through his voice. Not surprising, she supposed. This was everything he’d been warning her against—everything she’d refused to listen to.

“Come on, Bro,” Caleb cried with a self-satisfied smirk on his face. Trin could tell he was enjoying his brother’s distress a little too much. “Haven’t you ever seen a dragon before?”

Connor stared at him, apparently rendered speechless. As the moment stretched out, Trin caught Nate waving wildly at her, then gesturing to the camera. The still-rolling camera, she realized with a start. Crap. They were still live—in front of four million people, no less. If they showed any fear—if they made the world think this was anything more than a planned part of their regularly scheduled program, everything they’d been working toward all this time could end up being for nothing.

Damn you, Caleb! What are you thinking?

“Of course he’s seen dragons,” she rushed in, beaming at the cameras as she took what she hoped looked like a confident step forward. “We were just expecting you a little earlier. But hey—fashionably late dragons are fashionably late. It’s not a big thing.” She swallowed hard, stepping up to the two dragons and daring to reach out, giving each a pat on the nose, praying they wouldn’t see fit to bite her hand off for doing so. “It’s great to see you,” she told them cheerfully, as if they were long-lost friends. “Make yourselves at home.”

“Uh, we’ve got a question from the audience,” Luke broke in, in a hesitant voice. When they all turned to him questioningly, he glanced down at his laptop. “Um, Marie Krakowski in Kansas City asks, ‘We thought Emmy was the world’s last dragon. So where did these two come from?’”

It was the question of the century. Trinity held her breath, waiting for Caleb or Scarlet to answer. Her mind flashed back to Connor’s warning five months before.

It would be naive to assume she’ll always be the world’s last dragon.

Had these two dragons been cloned in the government lab? Had Scarlet and Caleb broke them out somehow? Had they been keeping them a secret this entire time? Suddenly, their frequent disappearances started to make a lot more sickening sense. What a fool she’d been, assuming they just had some kind of bad romance going on.

“Oh, Marie,” Caleb replied, turning to look right into the camera, his eyes twinkling. “Are you really asking us where baby dragons come from?” He made an exaggerated wink. Then he turned to Emmy, doing a big ta-da gesture with his hands. “Zoe and Zavier here are Emmy’s dear children, of course!”

Everyone gasped. Emmy let out a low, horrified whine. Trinity turned to look at her, wishing to God she still had the two-way psychic link they once shared so she could ask one of the million questions swirling through her brain without it being broadcast to the world.

In any case, Emmy wasn’t looking at her. She was staring straight at Scarlet. And the betrayed look in her eyes told Trinity everything she wanted to know and then some.

You promised me, Scarlet, she overheard the dragon cry. You said you’d taken care of them!

Oh God. Trinity shrank backward, fear now rioting through her insides. Emmy knew. She’d known all along.

Of course she knew, you idiot, she scolded herself. It’s not like you could just accidentally give birth and not know it.

Suddenly everything seemed to slide into a stomach-turning place. Emmy must have been pregnant when they’d freed her. That’s where she’d gone the two months before they’d brought her back home. She had to go lay her eggs. And that’s why she’d been so evasive when Trin tried to grill her about what she’d been up to