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  Scarlet raised an eyebrow. “Rich? What do you mean rich?”

  “Um, hello? Have you been living under a social media rock, Scarlet-in-the-conservatory?” Rebekah put her hands on her hips indignantly. “Do you know how much money you can make selling the rights to viral videos these days? I mean, two-day-old babies are scoring complete college tuitions from their parents uploading their pathetic adventures in pukeland. And this is a hundred times cooler. A thousand!” She reached down to hit play on the video again. “Is this the entire clip? Is there something else you cut out that maybe we can sell to the networks? Like, as an exclusive or something?”

  Scarlet shook her head. “This is all I’ve got. The dragon was only there for a minute. Then it flew away.”

  “Right.” Disappointment flashed across her friend’s face for a second then she quickly recovered as she watched the dragon spread its wings again. “Well, do you think we could find it again? We could get more video and then auction it off to the highest bidder.”

  Scarlet hesitated, gnawing at her lower lip. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” she said at last. After all, the dragon had saved her life. She didn’t deserve to be exploited. Exposed. “I mean, let sleeping dragons lie and all that.” She started to close the window.

  “Let sleeping dragons pay for my new car, more like!” Rebekah interjected. “Come on, Scarlet-in-the-billiard-room. We could be talking thousands of dollars here. Maybe even millions. Are you so rich that you don’t need a payday like that?”

  Scarlet’s hand froze on the mouse.

  “Millions?” she repeated hesitantly.

  Her mind flashed to the night before: her mother walking back into the trailer to face the monster. Putting her life at risk yet again because they had no place else to go. Her lousy tips could only get them a night or two in a crappy motel.

  But if they had real money…If they had millions…

  “I’m serious,” Rebekah affirmed. “My dad knows this viral video agent guy. His whole job is, like, to get people paid for their cool videos. And let’s face it, it doesn’t get much cooler than this.”

  Scarlet stared at the screen as the video looped, her stomach now swimming with nausea. She watched as the dragon spread its wings, pushing hard against the ground with all four paws then shooting up into the sky.

  Promise me, Scarlet. Promise me you’ll look after Mom.

  Ten million, six hundred thousand, six hundred and twelve views…

  I will, Mac. I promise I will.

  “Okay,” she said. “Tell your parents you want to go to the game on Friday. We’ll go find us a dragon.”

  PART 2:

  SPLINTER

  Chapter Six

  Strata-A—Year 188 Post-Scorch

  “Hey, Mom, I’m home!”

  Fifteen-year-old Connor stepped inside the limestone cave apartment, coughing to clear his lungs as the mechanical door slid shut behind him, sealing the unit off from the smog-choked tunnels outside. Even the nicest neighborhoods these days were having issues with clean air, despite the Council’s best efforts.

  He waved a hand as he kicked off his boots, trying to dissipate any lingering smoke into the apartment’s ventilation unit. His mother was constantly working to keep the place dirt free—a nearly impossible task when you lived a quarter mile underground. But she never complained. To even have an apartment at all—never mind a real two-bedroom with four walls and a true door—in this day and age was, to most, an unattainable dream.

  “Connor! You’re home!”

  He looked up to see his mother come out from the bedroom, wearing a thin floral housedress, her hair tied up in a kerchief. She looked frailer than he’d remembered. As if she’d lost weight. And her skin was so pale it was nearly translucent. When she threw her arms around him in a hug, he was half-afraid he’d break her like a china doll.

  “How was it?” she asked, her watery eyes gleaming with excitement. “Did you slay a dragon this time?”

  “Better,” he pronounced with as much bravado as he could muster, leading her over to the plastic sofa and sitting her down beside him. “We found an entire clutch of eggs, way up at the top of the mountain. We had to use these things—these bouncers—to get us up the steep parts. The other team had lured the mother away with their Hunter songs, leaving the eggs totally unprotected. We gathered them all up and blasted them with our gun-blades.” He mimicked locking and loading his weapon. “Adios, dragon spawn! Die, die, die!” he crowed.

  And then they had screamed. Horrible, blood-curdling screams as the babies boiled alive in their eggs.

  But no one wanted to hear that part.

  His mother laughed, as he knew she would, rubbing his head with her hand, like she used to when he was little. “My son the Dragon Hunter,” she pronounced, looking at him with affection. “If only your dad could see you now.”

  Connor winced at the mention of his father. His death had been the reason he had enrolled in the Academy and become a Dragon Hunter in the first place. It was his opportunity to avenge his father’s death and destroy the creatures that had destroyed his world.

  Turned out he was good at it too, having inherited his father’s gift to sing the dragons close before gutting them with his gun-blade. They called him a natural, and he had risen high and fast. They called him a hero. He even had fan pages on the transweb, designed by giggly girls from the very best stratas.

  He grimaced. If only they knew what a dirty, nasty job it really was. Not half as glamorous as people made it out to be. They saw him as a celebrity. When in reality he was nothing more than a glorified exterminator.

  But he was doing what he had to, to keep his father’s memory alive and, more importantly, to keep bread on the table. And the last thing he wanted was for his mother to know how much the job weighed on him. She would try to get him to quit, insisting she didn’t need the fancy apartment or refrigerator full of food. But even she couldn’t argue the necessity of her meds. Dragon Hunter families got first dibs on supply—a reason in and of itself to stay in service.

  “How are you feeling?” he asked, peering at her with concerned eyes. It was hard to believe it had been only six months since she’d been diagnosed with bone cancer, due to a vitamin D deficiency developed from a sunless existence below ground. Even with the medicine, she’d fallen so far so fast.

  Just one more reason to hate the dragons.

  She gave him a wan smile. “Oh, I’m getting along fine,” she insisted, but her eyes betrayed her words.

  “Sit,” he told her, rising from his own seat. “I’ll make you some tea.”

  “That’s okay, sweetheart. I think we’re out.”

  Connor frowned, walking over to the small kitchenette and pulling open the refrigerator door. “There’s nothing in here!” he cried, turning back to his mother. She stared down at her lap. “I send you money for groceries every week. Why is your refrigerator empty?”

  His mother sighed. “I was going to go shopping yesterday, but I felt a little nauseated,” she confessed. “And then this morning…” She trailed off, looking guilty.

  Connor was at her side in an instant, dropping to his knees. “What, Mother? What happened this morning?” he demanded, pretty much guessing her answer well before she voiced it.

  “I got a call from the judge,” she replied. “Caleb got himself arrested again last night. Some kind of breaking and entering.” She shrugged her bony shoulders. “I used the money to bail him out.”

  Connor stared at her in fury. “That money was for you, Mom. Not him.”

  “Oh, sweetie, I’m fine,” she protested, waving a hand at him. “Remember when I used to cook for you guys on the Surface Lands—back when you were kids? Your father always said I made the best stone soup known to man.”

  Connor jerked to his feet, squeezing his hands into fists, trying to keep his temper in c
heck in front of her. “I’ll be back,” he told her as he stuffed his feet back into his boots. “Just stay here. I’ll be back soon.”

  “Where are you going?” his mother asked, her voice anxious.

  “I’m going to have a little talk with my brother.”

  Chapter Seven

  When Caleb failed to show up to breakfast the next morning, Trinity barely gave his absence a second thought. It wasn’t unusual for him to sleep until noon. And now that she was aware of his nightly adventures in dragon flying, she finally understood why he’d been so exhausted all this time.

  She was exhausted too; once Connor had let her out of the barn, she’d gone upstairs to her bedroom to try to get some sleep. Instead, she’d lain awake, rehashing the conversation with Emmy over and over again until she wanted to throw up. A few times she tried to open the connection between them—to apologize for the fight—but Emmy had either fallen asleep or intentionally shut her down. It wasn’t until the sun started peeking over the horizon that she finally fell into a restless slumber, only to be woken up an hour later by Grandpa calling her to breakfast.

  When lunch came and went and Caleb still hadn’t emerged from his bedroom, she decided to go check on him. She was dying to talk to him—not only to apologize for the night before, but also to get his advice on Emmy. Since Caleb was the only other person in their group who had ever worked with dragons, he usually served as expert when Emmy got into one of her moods.

  “Caleb? Are you there?” She quietly pushed open his bedroom door, not wanting to startle him. She needn’t have worried; he was still thoroughly passed out on the bed, his eyes rolled to the back of his head. To the casual observer, he might have looked dead, or at least locked in a deep coma. But Trinity knew better.

  He was back in the Nether. Again.

  She sighed, mixed emotions swirling through her as she looked down at him. Part of her wanted to shake him into consciousness—all the while screaming at him for being so irresponsible. For checking out on her when she needed him once again. Lately these trips were getting all too frequent and each one was lasting far too long.

  Of course, anytime she asked him about it, he got all defensive. She got to see Emmy every day. This was the only way he could spend time with his beloved dragon Fred.

  Trinity got that, she did. But at the same time, she knew all too well the consequences of spending too much time in the Nether. Not only could it rot you and your brain from the inside out like it had her mom, but, according to Connor, it could also have an addictive quality. The more you went, the more you wanted to go. The reality of the Nether fusing to your brain cells, making the fantasy world seem more solid—and more desirable—than real life. There were people in his time, Connor told her—Netherheads they called them—who would sell everything they owned—and maybe some things they didn’t—just for one more trip.

  She glanced over at Caleb’s nightstand. She wanted to respect his privacy, give him his space, but she needed to know how bad this was getting. So she pulled open the drawer and started counting the Nether gems he had stashed inside. Last week he’d had thirteen. Now…

  Only two.

  Ugh. Heart racing, she leaned over the bed, prying open Caleb’s fingers and plucking the sapphire he’d grasped in his hand. Sometimes she could jerk him back from the Nether by simply disrupting the energy flow between him and the gem. But this time Caleb only grunted, shifting positions but refusing to regain consciousness.

  She’d have to go in after him.

  Dropping the gem back into his hands, she closed her own hand around his, trying not to wince at the clammy coldness of his skin as she attempted to prepare herself for entry. She didn’t like going to the Nether. Sure, it was kind of cool at first—a place beyond time and space, existing in the collective unconsciousness of dragons. The Nether could be anything you wanted it to be. You could do anything you wanted to do while in its embrace. It could be a true paradise.

  It could also be a true prison, digging its claws into your consciousness, ripping away your sense of reality—your desire to live a real life. Visit too often and the Nether would rob you of your health and send your brain into atrophy. And while it became easier and easier to enter, it became harder and harder to leave.

  She closed her eyes and gripped Caleb’s hand and thought of her mother…who never did.

  • • •

  A gust of wind whipped at Trinity’s face, prompting her to open her eyes. She looked around. The bed was gone. The farmhouse was gone. In fact, the whole state of Texas was gone.

  In its place was a broken world, an arid desert stretching out as far as the eye could see. The soil below was parched and cracked, with dead trees raising their gnarled claws toward the sky. In the distance, a blood-red sun bruised the horizon in a motley of purples and pinks.

  She cringed. Caleb was evidently not in a good state of mind.

  She scanned the emptiness, a feeling of dread encroaching as she searched for a sign of her friend. At first she came up empty. No sign of life in this nightmare world. Then, shielding her eyes with her hand, she looked up to the sky, finally locking onto a small black shadow far in the distance.

  There you are.

  She waved her arms wildly in the direction of the shadow, jumping up and down in an effort to get either dragon or rider’s attention. At first neither seemed to acknowledge her efforts, and she wondered if they really couldn’t see her or were ignoring her on purpose.

  She kept jumping and waving anyway. She’d come all this way—to this ugly, dead place—she wasn’t about to leave until she’d had her say.

  At last her efforts were rewarded, with a great, teal dragon as large as a one-story house coming in for a graceful landing a few yards away, the ground groaning under her weight. Caleb was straddled across the creature’s massive back, wearing black leather riding pants and a loose white T-shirt, his eyes shielded by dark sunglasses and his mouth twisted in a frown.

  “Fred!” Trinity greeted the dragon, keeping her tone light and breezy. At least one of them would be happy to see her. “Good to see you again, girl! And may I say you’re looking extremely shine-a-licious today,” she added with a grin. “Are you using a new shampoo to get those scales so sparkly? You simply must tell me your secret!”

  Fred bounded over to her with typical Fred-like exuberance, inadvertently taking her rider along for the ride, as Trinity knew she would. After greeting Trin with a huge slurp on her face, the dragon started sniffing her pockets with a determined air. Trin couldn’t help but laugh as she attempted to shove the enormous snout away. Emmy might be a TV addict, but Fred was addicted only to TV dinners.

  “Hang on, girl, I’ve got you covered.”

  She closed her eyes, conjuring up a large leg of lamb in her mind—extra bloody, just as she knew Fred preferred. A moment later, the leg manifested in midair—yet another neat trick of the Nether—then dropped before the dragon with a loud plop. Fred proceeded to attack it with gusto, slurping and chomping happily, the bones crunching under her rock-hard molars. Trinity watched, amused and only a little nauseated. She only wished it were this easy to feed Emmy in real life.

  “Oh, Sparknado,” Caleb lamented with an exaggerated sigh, sliding down the dragon’s wing and landing on the ground with a thump. “After all I do for you. And still you’d sell me out for nothing more than a stinky soup bone.” He slapped the dragon’s neck affectionately, shaking his head.

  As he approached Trinity, she couldn’t help but notice how pale and worn he looked—even here in the Nether, where you were supposed to be able to look any way you wanted to with a simple manifest. She frowned. He was using too much spark, coming here day after day, and it was clearly draining him.

  “Nice place,” she remarked wryly. “Come here often?”

  He looked around, as if noticing the dreary backdrop for the first time, then shrugged. “Sorry
, Princess. If I’d known you were stopping by for tea, I would have conjured up Buckingham Palace in your honor.”

  Trinity rolled her eyes. “Can we talk?” she asked, her voice sounding more plaintive then she’d meant it to.

  “It’s a free Nether.”

  She sighed. Of course he wasn’t going to make things easy for her. And maybe she deserved for it to be hard. She shuffled from foot to foot. “Look,” she attempted, “I’m sorry about last night, okay? I probably overreacted. It’s just…when I went out to the barn and I couldn’t find Emmy…”

  Guilt flashed across his face before he could hide it. “You thought the worst.”

  “You could have told me you were taking her—”

  “If I had, would you have let me go?”

  She grimaced. “Honestly?” she admitted. “Probably not.”

  “Definitely not,” he corrected. “And believe me, I get it. I do. You’re trying to keep her safe. Out of sight, out of harm. I totally understand.” He paused then muttered, more to himself than her, “I understand more than you can ever know.”

  Trinity caught his eyes involuntarily flickering to his dragon, and her heart panged at the anguish she saw ghosting his face. In her self-righteous indignation, she’d conveniently forgotten what had happened to Caleb’s own beloved Fred in real life. The reason he had to come here to spend time with her now.

  “Caleb…” she tried.

  He waved her off. “It doesn’t matter. The point is, dangerous or not, it has to be done. Keeping dragons locked up long term is asking for trouble. Sweet as Emmy is, if she doesn’t get to fly around once in a while, she’s going to start getting restless. And then she’ll start growing wild. Dangerous.”