“Mateo is already on his way to retrieve the device to see what he can find.”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“I want you to find this woman and bring her and the egg safely to me. I have sent you all the information we have, including the last known location of her cell phone as well as the video of her and the egg.”
Just as he said it, my phone pinged with the package.
Curious, I clicked on the video right away.
A woman with honey-brown eyes and a mess of wavy brown hair sat with a green and bronze egg on her lap. Somewhere in mymind, I knew that the focus should be on the egg, but I could not look away from the woman. She was breathtakingly beautiful, from the curve of her jaw to the soft pink of her lips. I didn’t even realize she was speaking until the video looped and played again.
“—I think I hear its heartbeat when I put my ear to it. But I’m not sure if it’s in my head. And it almost feels like it is responding to me. Like it could hear me.”
She looked around the room, and for the first time, I noticed that she was inside a gas station bathroom. She was hiding in the dirty room to film this, and from the look in her eyes, you’d think she believed someone would break down the door to get to her at any moment now.
“I hope this is enough to convince you. I am pretty sure they’re after me already. Please help. I don’t even know the first thing about taking care of a dragon egg. I’ve been keeping it upright because I read that reptiles could drown in their own eggs, and—”
She inhaled sharply, and the video ended suddenly before looping again.
“Someone is after her.” I could feel her desperation through the screen.
“After the egg,” Desmon clarified. “I think she stole it. I have Prax working on scouring the internet for possible failed ‘transactions.’”
Prax was an incubus and had made a name for himself as a collector of historical and magical artifacts. He’d know peoplethe average person wouldn’t. But even so, I doubted he’d be able to find anything in legitimate channels. This was a dragon’s egg we were talking about.
“I hope whatever we find on her device will give us a clue.” I scrolled through my phone to find Mateo’s number. “She probably ditched it because whoever is following her is using it to locate her. I’ll get Mateo to lead them around a bit and give me some time to find her.”
“Remember,” Desmon said as I stepped out into the hallway in my search for Seth, “no portal travel for the egg. You’ll scramble it. And keep it upright.”
“Got it, Boss.”
Chapter 3
Meera
NewJerseyfadedbehindme as I pushed ever westward on the I-80. I hadn’t driven in a very long time, basically since I’d gotten my license, because it was so easy to just call a ride everywhere I went in New York. But the highway was pretty straight, and now that I’d gotten out of the city, it wasn’t too bad.
The egg sat inside my backpack in the passenger seat. I’d put the seatbelt around it, hoping it was enough to stop it from becoming a very expensive omelet.
I was one hundred and ten percent sure that whoever I’d spoken to on that useless phone call to Darlington Museum had not been Desmon; I doubted the Dragon of Darlington would tell me to take a hike. I’d sent the video the moment I had the chance. Too bad I didn’t get to keep my phone for long after and see if I’d gotten a call back.
I wasn’t sure I would though, considering the man on the other line sounded like he thought I was batshit crazy. I wondered how often the museum got calls like that. Was it common for people to call in claiming they had a dragon egg? Or maybe a phoenix feather? A kraken’s dong? Who knew what types of loons they’d had to deal with.
In hindsight, stopping at the truck rest area back in Wharton had probably been a bad idea. I’d been too close to New York, and the stop had slowed me down.
Karim had tried to call a few more times, and the last two messages he sent were, “Answer your fucking phone, or else!” and “This isn’t a joke, Meera.”
He hadn’t written anything that gave away the fact that he knew I had the egg. A part of my brain kept telling me I was overreacting, that he was just angry that I wasn’t picking up like all the other times we had a fight. This was normal Karim behavior. He was just pissed off that I wasn’t kowtowing to him.
But then I remembered the dead body on the floor, freaked out a little, and kept driving.
I dumped my phone shortly after I turned onto the highway. I didn’t trust him not to have put some sort of tracking on it, so I pulled over on the shoulder and left it right there on the ground.
I hadn’t gotten too far from the city, considering how long I’d been driving. But that was mostly because traffic had been so bad. I should have kept going, but I was cursed with a bladder the size of a peanut, and it was starting to complain. Again. I knew I had to make another stop soon.
I squinted through the setting sun that threatened to blind me through my windshield before looking up at the rearview mirror. The black SUV was still there.
It could be nothing, or it could be someone looking for the egg. And I wouldn’t know as long as I continued driving straight ahead. And Ihadto know because I had to stop eventually. First of all, I’d made the crucial mistake of nervously drinking way too much water, and now I needed to pee. Badly. Not to mention, I was getting tired and hungry, and the last thing I wanted was to get distracted by bodily functions and end up in a multi-vehicle crash with the egg in my possession.
