Shattered by Mari Mancusi Page A

left to do but to gather her things and head back to Vista Memorial High, where her mother was supposed to pick her up after the football game. If she hurried, maybe she could even catch the end of the game, she told herself, desperate to cling to a shred of normalcy in a night gone wild. The Vultures were playing their biggest rivals, the Mighty Oaks, and it was bound to be an exciting game.
    It wasn’t until she got closer to the stadium and found it strangled by police cars, fire trucks, and ambulances that she realized just how exciting it must have been.
    “What the…?” she whispered, picking up her pace, the flashing lights of the emergency vehicles lighting her way as the sirens wailed in her ears. Had something happened? Had there been a school shooting or some kind of bomb threat? She’d seen plenty of those on the news in the last couple of years—but nothing like that had ever happened in Vista.
    As she drew closer, she started to recognize people she knew. It was a small town and everyone would have come out to support the home team. But no one was tailgating now. Instead, fellow students huddled in close circles, girls sobbing, boys curling their hands into fists, while full-grown men and women staggered past, looking dazed and shell-shocked under the parking lot lights. Reporters were arriving too, leaping from their news vans to lay siege on the emergency teams, waving their microphone flags and demanding answers. What could have happened? Scarlet’s pulse kicked up in growing alarm.
    She stopped a girl heading in the opposite direction. Her hair was mussed and black mascara ran down her cheeks. “What’s going on?” she asked. “Why’s everyone freaking out?”
    “Didn’t you see?” the girl cried in an incredulous voice, wobbling on pencil-thin legs that didn’t seem strong enough to support her thin frame.
    Scarlet shook her head. “See what?”
    But the girl just shrugged helplessly, as if the what in question were too scary to even speak aloud. She muttered a few half-intelligible excuses then bolted in the other direction. Scarlet watched her go, terror rising inside of her. This had to be a coincidence, right? It couldn’t be related to the dragon. Emmy was such a tiny thing—no bigger than a large dog. Surely she couldn’t have caused this amount of chaos in the short time she’d been free.
    Could she?
    You put her in danger. Not only her but the rest of the world.
    “Scarlet! Is that you?”
    She whirled around in time to see Rebekah running toward her. Her friend’s face was stark white and stained with tears. She threw her arms around Scarlet, almost knocking her backward with the force of the hug, and squeezed her so tight Scarlet was half-convinced she’d pass out from asphyxiation before her friend released her.
    “You’re okay!” Rebekah was babbling into her ear. “I thought…Oh God, I thought…”
    Scarlet struggled to free herself from her friend’s death grip. “You thought what?” she demanded. “What the heck is going on here, Bek?”
    Rebekah stared at her, an incredulous look on her face. “The dragon, of course!” she cried, her voice choked with tears. “The one from the barn. It swooped down out of nowhere and started attacking people for no reason!”
    “What?” Scarlet whispered hoarsely. “But that’s impossible.” She thought back to Emmy. Sweet, gentle Emmy. Why would she do something like that? It made no sense.
    “Don’t you see?” Rebekah wailed. “This is all my fault! I opened the barn. I set it free. All these people—all of…this…It’s because of me!”
    No, Scarlet wanted to say. I did. In fact, I all but talked the dragon into it. But she found she couldn’t speak the words out loud. It would only make things worse.
    “It was a nightmare,” Rebekah continued in a hollow voice. “Everyone screaming and running—trying to get away. Mrs. Hutchinson from the post office fell and got trampled. They had to take her away in