Free Scorched by Mari Mancusi

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