Scorched s-1

by Mari Mancusi

  The two men didn’t wait for an invitation to enter. They pushed into the barn as if they owned the place, overturning bikes and opening storage chests. Trinity turned to Sheriff Bob, begging for an explanation, but the small-town sheriff just gave her a helpless shrug. He would be no help, she realized. It was all up to her.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded of the men. “This is my neighbor’s barn.”

  “Homeland Security, ma’am,” one of the men interrupted. He flashed her a badge so quickly she had no idea whether it was legit or had come from a Cracker Jack box. “Perhaps a better question would be what are you doing here?”

  Her mind raced to come up with a reasonable explanation on short notice. Then she realized honesty might be the best policy—at least partial honesty. “There were men,” she said at last. “They barged into my house. I freaked out and ran here to hide before calling 911. I think one of them might still be in the house.”

  The men looked unsurprised. “No need to be afraid,” the first one said in a voice that told her otherwise. “Those were government agents. We have reason to believe your grandfather may have come into possession of some stolen property. Do you know anything about that?” He gave her a pointed stare.

  His insinuation infuriated her. She met his gaze, her eyes fierce. “My grandpa would never take anything that didn’t belong to him,” she retorted. Then she shot a look over at Sheriff Bob. “Tell him,” she demanded. “Tell him he’d never do something like that.”

  “Well, yes, the girl’s right about that,” Sheriff Bob blustered, looking nervous and unsure. “I’ve known Charlie Foxx for fifty years. He’s good people. He’d never intentionally—”

  “Search the barn,” the first agent interrupted, evidently bored by the glowing tribute for the man he’d been sent to hunt down. He pointed to the ladder. “You check the loft. I’ll finish up here.”

  Trinity sucked in a breath, watching the suited man start toward the ladder. In a moment, he’d be up there and Connor had nowhere to hide. He had his gun, but if he shot it, he’d give his position away to agent #2. The barn would erupt into a war zone, with she, most likely, the first civilian casualty.

  She had to do something and fast.

  Her eyes fell to the sheriff’s revolver, dangling from its holster. Her grandpa was always teasing him about forgetting to secure it. “Someday you’ll shoot yourself in the foot,” he’d say. And suddenly she knew exactly what she had to do.

  She started to stagger, waving her arms wildly around her. “Oh God,” she moaned in an overloud voice, attracting the attention of the agents. “I feel dizzy! I think I’m going to—ohhh!”

  She threw herself backward, with as much drama as she could muster. As predicted, the chivalrous Sheriff Bob dove to catch her. Not an easy move for a man of sixty-five, clocking in at more than three hundred pounds, but the sheriff, to his credit, gave the rescue his all.

  Sorry, Bob, she thought, as she allowed herself to collapse into his meaty grip, letting her arms flop to the side like limp spaghetti.

  “Never mind her,” the first agent instructed. “Get moving.”

  But Trinity’s fingers had already wrapped around the sheriff’s gun, yanking it from its holster. She leapt to her feet, flicking off the safety, aiming the firearm at the two men.

  “Drop your weapons. Now!” she cried.

  The agents froze, looking at one another doubtfully. Trinity waved the gun, hoping they couldn’t detect the fact that her hands were shaking like crazy.

  “Do you even know how to use one of those?” the first agent asked, evidently not quite buying her “I’m a crazy killer and you should be scared of me” routine. Which wasn’t all that surprising, she supposed, seeing as she’d never actually shot at anything but the zombies in her video games.

  “She certainly does.”

  Trin looked up in surprise as Connor dropped down off the ladder with an easy grace.

  He trained his own gun on the agents and gave them a cocky grin. “In fact, you might have seen her handiwork, back at the museum. Man in black? Head blown to smithereens?” He snorted. “The girl’s completely cracked. If I were you, I’d do as she says.”

  The agents exchanged unhappy glances but reluctantly obeyed, gingerly lowering their weapons to the floor before straightening up again. Trin shot Connor a grateful look, a rush of adrenaline surging through her. He gave her a curt nod as he deftly kicked the surrendered guns across the barn and out of reach.

  Now get the sheriff’s handcuffs, she heard his voice in her head. She still didn’t know how he was doing that, but now wasn’t the time to ask.

  “Bob, I need your handcuffs,” she said in a terse voice, turning to the white-faced sheriff. She held out her hand.

  “You don’t want to do this, Trinity,” Bob blurted, sounding as if he were still in shock. Not surprising, she supposed. After all, the last two minutes had probably contained more action than the poor guy had seen since taking office forty years ago. “Please. For your grandpa’s sake, just put down the gun.”

  “Handcuffs, Bob,” she repeated apologetically. She felt bad to freak him out like this, but what choice did she have at this point? “And then turn around and walk out the door. Get back in your car and drive back to the station. Pretend you never saw us.”

  She could feel Connor’s hard stare at her back—he obviously disapproved of letting the sheriff just walk away. But for Trin, this was nonnegotiable. She looked at Bob with beseeching eyes. “Please. Just go,” she begged. “Find my grandpa. Make sure he’s okay.”

  Please believe me, she begged silently. I don’t want you to get hurt.

  For a moment the sheriff didn’t move. Then, with a heaving sigh, he handed over the cuffs and walked out the door. A moment later, she heard the engine roar to life and the car pull away. She knew he could be calling for backup, that they had to act fast. She approached the agents, cuffs in hand.

  “You’re going to be in a lot of trouble,” the first agent said.

  “Really? And here I thought you were going to give me a medal,” she muttered as she worked to cuff him to a nearby post. Connor followed suit, commandeering some old rope from the back of the barn to secure his buddy to the ladder. Trin had to admit, his knots looked good. Futuristic Boy Scout, perhaps?

  Once both men were secure, she turned to her partner-in-crime, drawing in a breath. “Now let’s get out of here.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Walk slowly,” Connor instructed. “As if nothing’s wrong.”

  Trinity forced her steps to slow, trying to still her racing heart as they walked down Old Oak Grove’s Main Street as if on a casual Christmas Eve stroll. She even managed to force out a “Merry Christmas” to Mr. Jenkins as he hurried home to meet his wife and daughter. She imagined her neighbor stepping into his warm, cozy house, probably with a fire in the fireplace and a hot meal on the stove. Baby Ava crying “Dada!” and holding up her little arms for him to scoop her up and give her a welcome home hug. A normal, family Christmas that Trinity had always wanted so badly—and seemed destined never to have.

  A lump formed in her throat.

  Walk, she scolded herself. As if nothing’s wrong.

  But everything was wrong, and the enormity of what she’d just done hit her hard and fast. Had she really just stolen a policeman’s gun, then turned it on two Homeland Security agents before taking off with stolen property? How many laws had she broken in just that five-minute stretch alone? How much jail time would she face for those crimes if caught? She imagined herself on trial, up on the stand, telling the jury a wild story about a boy from the future, trying to stop the dragon apocalypse. At least she’d probably end up in Shady Brook rather than prison given that story, along with her mom’s history. Though the thought didn’t make her feel much better.

  “So what now?” she demanded, turning to Connor and allowing the anger to well up inside her, displacing her fear. It was the only thing she could do to force herself
to keep moving, to not curl up into a ball and pray the nightmare would just go away.

  “We have to find someplace safe,” he told her, shifting the pack he wore to keep the egg from plain view. “So we can regroup and figure out a plan.”

  A plan. Right. “You didn’t think to make one of those already?” she replied bitterly. “You know, before you decided to travel two hundred years into the past to save the world?”

  He cringed, and she regretted her words immediately. It wasn’t his fault things had gotten so out of control. She had been the one who insisted they go to her house, the one who’d called 911. In fact, the majority of the mess they were in now was directly her fault. Not Connor’s. All he’d done was save her life and protect the egg. She should probably be a little more grateful.

  She opened her mouth to apologize, but he cut her off. “You’re right,” he said slowly. “You’re completely right. A true soldier is prepared for all possibilities. I wasn’t and I’ve put you in danger because of it. I’m sorry.” He gave her a rueful smile. “Is it too much to ask for a second chance? I’d like to make things right.”

  A chance. In other words, he was asking her to trust him. After all they’d been through, that was a pretty tall order. But what were the alternatives? She could walk away, a fugitive from the law. Turn herself in to the authorities and hope for the best. Or take her chances with this boy from the future—and at the very least have a partner in crime.

  “I suppose I can do that,” she said with a sigh. “And I know where we can go too. A safe place where we can regroup.” After all, if she was going to join forces with him, he had to know she was an equal partner, not just along for the ride.

  He gave her a grateful look. “Where’s that?”

  “My mother’s old house,” she told him. “It was foreclosed on about a year ago, but with all the other bank-owned houses in the neighborhood, they haven’t gotten around to putting it back up for sale. There’s no electricity or running water, but I’m sure we could dig up some candles and flashlights. We’d be safe there—at least for tonight. Until we figured out what to do next.”

  Connor seemed to consider this for a moment. Then he pulled out his transcriber, pressing at the screen. “What’s the address?” he asked.

  “Twenty-three Elm Street,” she replied automatically, trying to ignore the sudden pang as she recited the address she had once proudly called home. She didn’t want to go back there. In fact, she’d promised herself a thousand times she’d never go back there. But what other choice did they have? As Connor said, they couldn’t trust anyone. And there was nowhere else to go.

  Connor looked up from his transcriber. “There’s no record of that address in your personal file,” he told her. “Which means my brother Caleb likely won’t know it exists. Should be safe enough to spend the night at least. Regroup and figure out what to do next.” He gave her a curt nod, soldierlike again. “Lead the way.”

  So she did, leading him out of town, cutting through an old, abandoned ranch, down an unpaved street, across the Old Town bridge until they reached the former interstate, very much a road less traveled. It wasn’t the most direct route to her mother’s house by any means, but it seemed safer to stay off the main roads.

  As they stepped onto the old highway, now cracked and overgrown with weeds, Trinity couldn’t help but remember what it had once been—a bustling thoroughfare of cars and trucks, rushing past as fast as they could in an effort to get someplace better than here. How many times had she stared longingly down this road, wishing she could leave her stressful life behind? And yet now, she found herself looking longingly back instead.

  From here, she could just make out the sparkling Christmas tree illuminated in the center of town. Had it been just last week she and Caitlin had gone down there to watch the lighting ceremony? Scarfing down slices of pizza from Caitlin’s dad’s shop while checking out the cute guys stringing up the lights?

  A choking sob escaped her.

  “Are you okay?” A warm hand slipped into her own and she realized that while she’d been lost in her thoughts, Connor had upped his pace, falling to her side. He squeezed her freezing hand, a comforting gesture that somehow managed to soothe her raging fear. At least she wasn’t alone in this. At least she had someone on her team.

  “I’m fine,” she replied quickly, trying to downplay her fear. Still, she couldn’t help a nervous glance around her, half expecting to come face-to-face with the machine-gun wielding soldier from the museum. Or maybe the two men in black, escaped from their bindings and ready for revenge. But the highway was empty. Silent as the grave. “I’ll feel better when we’re not so exposed.”

  “So will I,” Connor agreed. “Being aboveground like this, with all this open sky—well, it winds me up.” He glanced uneasily at the starscape spread above them like a glittery portrait. “I keep expecting…well, you know.” He shuffled his pack to one shoulder.

  “Are you saying you live underground in the future?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Only a few of the elite Dracken live on the Surface Lands in specially made sky houses. The rest of us are simply moles, scrounging in the dirt.” He snorted bitterly. “Though I suppose it’s better than the alternative.”

  “Which is…?”

  He gave her a steely look. “Being eaten by a dragon.”

  Oh. Right. She paused, not sure what to say. It still seemed so unreal, like something out of a movie. Her eyes traveled to the pack on his back, containing the egg. Could something so small and fragile-looking really spark a worldwide apocalypse?

  “It was called the Scorch,” Connor told her, as if overhearing her thoughts. “The year the dragons decimated the surface of our world. They burned through every forest and every field. From the smallest town to the largest city. Homes, businesses, theme parks—it didn’t matter. Nothing could withstand the dragons’ fire.”

  Trinity shivered, trying to imagine a world like that—where monsters ruled the skies and flames fell like rain. Where there were no football stadiums, no movie theaters, no Disney World even. What would it be like to live in such a place? To be forced underground, never seeing the sun. No wonder Connor was so pale. “When does this happen?” she asked curiously, though she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to know. “This…Scorch?”

  “About ten years from now.”

  She stopped in her tracks. “Wait, what?” she cried. “But that’s so soon!” For some reason, she’d had it in her mind that this terrible holocaust was a far off event—two hundred years in the future, like her new friend. But ten years? Could this nightmare really be right around the corner? She found herself looking fearfully at the trees dancing in the breeze. The twinkling lights of Old Oak Grove shining in the distance. Could her entire world really be taken down by dragons within the next decade?

  “It didn’t take long,” Connor replied. “Once your government managed to hatch this one egg and realized what they’d stumbled upon, it was only a matter of time before they figured out how to extract its DNA and start the cloning process.” He grimaced. “They probably thought they were doing great work, bringing extinct creatures back to life.” His voice betrayed his disapproval. “Little did they know. It wasn’t long before the creatures had broken free and started flying wild.”

  She shuddered. “Couldn’t anyone stop them?”

  “No one knew how. Dragons are pretty much immune to traditional weaponry. Guns, missiles—everything your government tried to throw at them. And by the time people did start figuring out other methods to bring them down, the world was overrun.”

  “That’s awful,” she murmured, trying to grasp the implications of his words. Suddenly her earlier money concerns seemed pretty weak. She had been so worried about them losing their house. Yet in ten years, there would be no houses left to lose. Kind of put things in perspective. “I can’t even imagine…” A chill wound through her and she found herself unable to continue.

  Connor stopped short, taking her
other hand and pulling her around to face him. Even in the darkness, his eyes seemed to glow as they found hers, locking on and refusing to let go. As he clung to her, she could feel the passion and strength streaming from his fingertips, electrifying her entire being as his emotions tangled with her own. The sensation was both exhilarating…and terrifying.

  “That’s not going to happen this time around,” he told her in a thick voice, squeezing her hands so tightly she was half afraid he’d break her bones. “I may have gotten off to a rough start. I may have arrived late. But I have the egg. And I have you. And I promise you, Trinity, I will stop the dragon apocalypse. I will stop the Dracken.” He paused, then added, “No matter what I have to do.”

  Chapter Eleven

  “Here we are. Home sweet home,” Trinity announced as she pulled the torn screen door open. The bank had changed the locks when they’d foreclosed on her former home, but they evidently hadn’t bothered to check all the windows. She wasn’t surprised, not really. After all, there was nothing inside worth stealing. Just dusty furniture and even dustier memories.

  She drew in a breath. The last time she’d stepped inside this house, she’d stumbled upon a nightmare, her worst fears coming true. This time things were decidedly less dramatic. The house felt more like an ancient crypt than a fresh grave. Caked with dust and draped with intricate spider webs, it was an empty husk of what had once been a home.

  She could feel its emptiness hammering at her bones. But Connor said he wanted to make sure. He cased the house, first and second floor, gun raised and ready, as she waited by the back door for his okay. After determining that it was, indeed, as abandoned and vacant as she promised, he set down his gun and allowed his shoulders to relax. Trinity rummaged about to find a few candles and matches, and even scored an industrial-strength flashlight from the garage that amazingly still held some battery power. She spread the candles around the living room and removed the plastic covering from the faded flowery couch.