by Mari Mancusi
“Caleb? Oh my God, are you okay?”
Connor looked up, his vision blurred from his fall. A somewhat familiar-looking Asian girl with blue braids was hovering over him, a concerned expression on her face. He struggled to sit up, his ankle protesting at the sudden movement. Great, he must have jarred it in the fall. It had been weak ever since he’d broken it as a child, falling off the roof the day his father was killed. Back then, the injury almost kept him out of the Academy.
Now it left him helpless, vulnerable, exposed.
Three other teens had reached him now, looking down at him with the same worry in their eyes. “Are you okay, mate?” a boy asked. “What are you doing back here anyway?”
“Did the Dracken send you?” added another girl. “Are you here to take us home?”
Connor shook his head, confused. What were they talking about? And how did they know about the Dracken? He squinted up at them, his mind racing. Then suddenly his eyes widened in recognition. “You’re the Potentials,” he realized aloud. The ones the Dracken had been training to become Dragon Guardians before he and Trinity had intervened. What were they doing out here in the middle of nowhere like this?
“That’s not Caleb, you morons. That’s the Dragon Hunter, his brother.”
Connor craned his neck to see behind the crowd. A black-haired girl stood in the second-story window, looking down on the scene, her arms crossed over her chest. Even from here he could see the glint of the knife still in her hand.
The other kids shrank back a bit, giving him space. Connor used this to his advantage, finally forcing himself to his feet, wincing a little as he put pressure on his ankle.
“Where’s my brother?” he demanded, looking up at the girl in the window. It was the one they called Rashida, he remembered. The one who had tried to kill Trinity and ordered the others to kill him. His hand reached for his weapon, ready to draw if need be, though he was admittedly rather outnumbered.
“Did the Dracken take Caleb?” he asked the rest of the kids when Rashida didn’t answer.
“They were supposed to take all of us,” piped up one of the younger children. She had purple and red hair and cheeks covered in a mixture of glitter and freckles. She couldn’t have been more than twelve years old. “That’s what Rashida said. That they would come and take us all back to the mall. And that they’d feed us and give us our old clothes back.” She sniffled. “We haven’t eaten much of anything in days.”
“Go inside, Noa,” Rashida commanded, coming through the front door, still holding the knife in her hand. She approached Connor, giving him a steely glare. “Look, your brother isn’t here, okay? So get lost.”
Connor ignored her, surveying the rest of the kids. Back at Dracken Headquarters, they had seemed like monsters, hungry for blood. They’d ruthlessly attacked him—a few had come close to killing him.
But now, standing in this suburban graveyard, in the light of the fading sun, they looked different somehow—smaller, less threatening. Lost, scared, alone.
They were supposed to take all of us, the girl—Noa—had claimed.
Had they all been left behind instead? Abandoned by the very people who had brought them together in the first place?
He wondered how they’d even survived this long without the Dracken protection they’d originally relied on. They were only kids, after all, and foreigners at that. Probably didn’t even have valid passports. They’d have no money—and no way to legally get any either. Of course they were all gifted—maybe they were using their gifts to convince people to give them what they needed. Though that, he realized, would be a brutal way to live. And they wouldn’t be able to sustain enough spark to keep it going long term—at least not without serious repercussions to their health.
He struggled with a stirring of pity. They might have been in bad straits, he reminded himself, but they were still the enemy. “So, what?” he said, turning back to Rashida. “You kidnapped my brother and handed him over to the Dracken?”
“Kidnapped?” Rashida repeated incredulously. “Please. I saved that worthless Netherhead’s life. He was out cold in an alley and about to be turned in to the police. We handed him over to the Dracken—as you put it—so they could help him deal with his…problem.” She leveled her eyes on him. “Since obviously no one else gave a damn about what happened to him.”
Connor stared at her, at first unable to speak as she effortlessly volleyed the blame back into his court. Was that really what had happened? Had Caleb been that close to being caught? He should have never let him walk out that motel door to begin with. Or he should have at least gone after him once he didn’t return right away. But no, he’d been selfish, wanting to spend time with Trinity. Essentially abandoning his own twin to make out with a girl.
Not exactly the stuff heroes were made of.
“Where did the Dracken take him?” he demanded. “And…” He regarded the lot of them suspiciously. “Why did they leave you behind?”
“They didn’t,” Rashida declared quickly. Too quickly, and Connor caught her eyes darting to the other members of the group with a nervousness that belied her words. She was putting on a strong face for the rest of them, he realized, but deep down she knew a different truth. “They just didn’t have enough…room for all of us in the truck. So they took Caleb and Scarlet and are coming back for the rest of us later.” She made a showy gesture of looking at her wrist, even though she wasn’t wearing a watch. “In fact, we expect them back at any moment now. So I suggest you take off, if you know what’s good for you.”
Connor’s heart panged, despite himself, at the fierceness flashing across her face, a desperate attempt to mask her blatant fear. She had obviously been acting as the group’s leader. The one who had somehow scraped things together to keep them all going these past few months. Most likely by promising them it would only be a temporary situation. That the Dracken would return. That they would take them back into the fold and everything would be like it once was.
At one point, she may have even believed that herself. But she didn’t anymore. That was clear.
Which meant maybe she’d finally be open to hearing another side to their story.
“Can I talk to you?” he asked Rashida in as gentle a voice as he could muster. “Alone?”
Rashida looked startled. Then worried. Then, at last, resigned. “Sure, I guess,” she replied before turning to the others. “Why don’t you guys go inside and start packing up?” she suggested. “So you’ll be ready when the Dracken come back.”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” hedged the blond boy. He glared warily at Connor.
“Please,” Rashida scoffed. “I can take care of myself.” She held up her knife.
The boy still looked suspicious. Connor sighed and reached to his side to pull out his gun. He handed it, hilt side forward, to Rashida, praying his instincts were right about her. She accepted it wordlessly then turned to the boy and raised an eyebrow.
The boy shrugged, as if to say, “Your funeral,” then started ushering the other kids inside. Rashida watched them go, waiting for the last one to enter the house and close the door behind him. Then she turned to Connor. She gestured for him to follow her and they fell into step, walking side by side, until they reached the empty swimming pool. Rashida plopped herself down, hanging her legs off the side. Connor joined her.
“You know I could just kill you, right?” she asked, not looking at him. “I mean, if I wanted to.”
“If you wanted to, sure,” he said mildly. “But I don’t think you do.”
“And why wouldn’t I?”
He turned to give her a steely look. “Because I’m the only one who can help you now and you know it.”
She squirmed, obviously uncomfortable. “As I said before, the Dracken are on their way and once they get here—”
“The Dracken aren’t coming,” Connor interru
pted. “I know it and I think you know it too. They got what they wanted from you. And they’re not coming back.” He paused then added, “Ever.”
She didn’t answer, staring down into the bottom of the pool. Someone had written “Hope Floats” in scrawling red paint and it seemed to stare up at them mockingly.
“It’s funny,” she said after a long pause, in a voice scarcely above a whisper, “growing up I used to see places like these in books and magazines. I mean, real ones. Finished ones with sparkling pools and laughing children. I used to think they must be from another planet. Surely there was no way something this beautiful could exist in the same world I lived in each and every day.”
“You grew up in India, right?” he asked, wanting to keep her talking.
She nodded. “I was orphaned when I was young and there was no one to take me in. I used to wander the streets by day, begging strangers for money, then sleep under piles of garbage at night. It was safer, you know, under the garbage, than being out in the open. Less chance of getting robbed or attacked. But it came with its own hazards. I was always petrified the pile of garbage would shift in the night and bury me alive.” She stared down into the pool and shuddered.
Connor thought back to his own childhood, the days before his father had been killed. They’d roamed the Surface Lands, sleeping in burnt-out corpses of buildings, always searching for the next dragon. Never enough food, never enough uncontaminated water. And always living in fear of the next dragon attack.
But in the end, they had each other. He had his brother. This girl before him, this strong, willful girl, had had no one.
“You got to understand,” Rashida added. “Where I come from, there is no American dream. You can’t hope to escape the life you were born into.” She paused then added, “Except somehow I actually did.”
“The Dracken,” Connor concluded.
She nodded. “It was a Monday. I was hanging out in this Internet café. My boyfriend was a gold farmer for that Fields of Fantasy video game, and his boss had promised him a bonus if he and his guild could score this particular epic sword from one of the big dungeons. It was enough money to get an apartment for at least a month so he was really trying hard. Since they couldn’t stop for breaks, I’d bring him curry from time to time to help keep him going.
“Anyway, it wasn’t going well. He hadn’t found the sword, and we were completely out of cash. Then this white guy came into the café. He was obviously rich, wearing a three-piece suit. And he asked if I would join him for dinner.” She snorted. “I thought he wanted something else, you know? What they usually want. But I said yes anyway. At that point, I pretty much would have sold my soul for a bowl of rice.” She grimaced.
“Instead he brought you back here,” Connor concluded. “And asked you to help him save the world.”
She glanced over at him, a regretful look on her face. “You gotta understand, Connor. For the first time in my life, I had clean clothes, real food, safe shelter. We even got to go to school—something I never thought I’d get to do.” She stared down into the pool, a bitter smile playing at the corners of her lips. “It may sound cliché, but it really was a dream come true. I should have known that eventually I’d have to wake up.”
Connor’s heart wrenched at the pain he recognized on her face. He reached over, putting a hand on her shoulder in a vain attempt to comfort her.
“It’s funny,” Rashida continued, her voice now taking on an acid tone. “When I was finally able to contact Mara and she said she was coming today, I was as excited as the rest of them. I thought this was it. We were going to be rescued. I knew things probably wouldn’t be as good as they’d been at the mall—at least for a while. But we’d all be together again. The Dracken would have a plan. The kids could go back to relying on them instead of me.” She sighed deeply, kicking her legs against the cement. “Boy, was I an idiot.”
“What happened?” Connor asked gently, though he thought he had a pretty good idea. “Why didn’t they take you?”
“Mara’s working with the government now,” she replied bitterly. “Maybe it was part of a deal to get her out of a prison sentence—I don’t know. Doesn’t matter, I guess. Point is, their plans have obviously changed and they don’t need us anymore. They don’t need any of us.”
She paused and Connor saw her swallow hard. “The kids all think they’re coming back. But I know the truth. The dream is over. They’re done with us. And from now on, we’re truly on our own.”
“I’m sorry,” Connor said.
Rashida squeezed her hands into fists, fury radiating from her lean frame. “How could they do this?” she blurted out. “Take us from our countries, give us hope for the future, then just dump us as if we were nothing more than the piles of garbage I used to sleep under?” She pounded her fists against the side of the pool. “It’s like…if I never knew how good things could be…If I never had any hope to begin with…”
She trailed off, as if too devastated to continue. Connor said nothing. He knew all too well how hard it was to face the truth sometimes—even if it was staring you straight in the face. But in the end, everyone had to come to their own conclusions. Rashida had to want to help him. On her own terms. Or it wouldn’t work.
“When Scarlet was leaving,” she said slowly, staring down at her trembling hands, “she pushed me these pictures. I don’t know where or how she got them, but I could tell they were real. They were of these dragons….”
Connor met her eyes. “Let me guess: deformed baby dragons? Locked in cages?”
She stared at him. “How did you…?” Then she shook her head. “Yeah, of course you’d know. You guys knew all along. Trinity tried to tell us. But we refused to listen…” She broke off, closing her eyes for a moment before continuing. “We’ve all been such fools. So blinded by all the stuff they did for us, we never thought to question what they were planning to do to the rest of the world.”
“Well, maybe it’s time to start,” Connor said gently. “It’s not too late, you know.”
She gave him a sharp look. “What do you mean?” she asked.
“You came here to save the world, right?” he said, piercing her with his gaze. “Well, how about we start by saving my brother?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Come on, Caleb, wake up!” Scarlet begged, poking him for what felt like the thousandth time. The back of the truck was hot, and the air tasted stale with the pungent odor of rotten bananas assaulting her nose. They’d been driving for at least an hour, and the motion of the vehicle combined with roads that had seen better days had her this close to puking her guts out.
“Please!” she tried again, attempting to pry his eyes open with her fingers. “You have to wake up.”
Of course, even if he did, she wasn’t sure how much good it would do, at least in terms of making an escape. The truck’s back door was locked from the outside, and even if it weren’t, jumping from a fast-moving vehicle would only get them hurt or killed. Maybe Caleb would have some kind of miraculous plan on how to break free, though what it could be, she had no idea.
Still, at least if he were conscious, she wouldn’t feel so alone. She’d have a fellow prisoner. A partner in crime. Someone who could give her more information about what the hell was going on and, more importantly, whether there was anything they could do about it.
Part of her wanted to shake him. To slap him across the face and scream at him for giving up on her like he had. For retreating to the Nether and leaving her to face the monsters alone. Just like her brother had done to her two years before.
But no. It wasn’t totally his fault. Not really. She didn’t know exactly how this whole Nether thing worked, but she knew enough to recognize the look in his eyes when he saw that gem flash from Mara’s hand. He was sick, just like Mac had been sick. And it was his sickness that had made him make that selfish choice to take the easy way out. To leav
e her behind.
She looked down at him, her heart aching. If only she could reach him. To let him know it didn’t have to be like this. That it wasn’t too late. But once again she was stuck, utterly helpless, while faced with the suffering of those she cared about.
Caleb shuddered violently and she grabbed him to keep him from falling over. Wrapping her arms around him, she hugged his shivering frame close to hers.
“Come on, Bad Seed, stay with me,” she whispered. “It’s going to be okay.” Though of course she had no assurance that this was true—that anything would be okay ever again. For all she knew, this journey could be their last. Still, she reached out, putting her hand around his and squeezing it tightly, hoping she could offer some small comfort at least.
Instead, she found herself falling into blackness.
• • •
A moment later Scarlet opened her eyes, her jaw dropping in disbelief. Gone was the truck. The stench of rotten bananas, the stale air.
Gone was, well, everything, in fact.
In its place was a white void, stretching out as far as the eye could see. Like a blank canvas or the training room that Morpheus had taken Neo to in the beginning of the first Matrix film.
She gasped. “What the…?”
At first she thought she must be dreaming. That the truck had lurched. That she’d hit her head. Passed out cold. But all she remembered was comforting Caleb, wrapping her hand around his.
The hand that had been holding the Nether gem.
She started, her heart pounding in her chest as the implications hit her hard and fast. Had she somehow managed to hijack his ride? Arrived at the dragon dream world Rashida and Trevor had spoken of back at the house? It seemed impossible. But what other explanation could there be? She bit her lower lip, panic rising at an alarming rate.
Was she actually in the Nether now? And if so, would she be able to find Caleb?
She looked around, hoping to catch sight of him, but came up empty. He wasn’t anywhere nearby. Actually, there didn’t appear to be anything nearby. Just blankness—total blankness. Worry clawed at her gut as she wondered what she was supposed to do now.
