by C. J. Hill
Jesse didn’t have to look to see the shoe hurled in his direction. He felt it leave Dirk’s hands, felt the air around him shift. It was part of being a Slayer that came after years of practice—an internal eye that told you where danger was. He caught the shoe with one hand and threw it back at Dirk just as fast.
Dirk caught the shoe effortlessly. “She’d better not walk out of the competitions again. And if she can’t keep up on the run, we’re not slowing down for her.”
Jesse laced his second shoe. “Give her time to adjust.” He smiled, then tried to hide it. If he smiled too much while talking about Tori, the guys would razz him. But despite his thoughts yesterday about her appearance being a problem, it wasn’t really such a bad thing. It would just take some getting used to—that model-perfect face. He smiled again. He’d manage it somehow.
A knock sounded on the door, then from outside, Lilly said, “Jesse, I need you.”
Kody snickered and Dirk said, “Does she ever.” Which made Jesse wish he had something else to throw at him. Over the years, Lilly had rotated through the guys, crushing on them all in turn. He would be glad when she’d moved on to somebody else.
Shang glared at Dirk, and whispered, “Lay off. She’ll hear you.”
Shang, as Lilly’s counterpart, was always the shoulder she cried on when she got too upset about anything. None of the guys ever hassled him for defending her, though. It was nice that someone had a built-in, genetically appointed patience for her.
“What is it?” Jesse called back.
“Tori’s gone. When we woke up, we thought she was in the bathroom, but Alyssa checked and she’s not there. Plus one of the carts is missing.”
Jesse walked to the door and opened it. Both Lilly and Alyssa were there, already in their running clothes. Lilly had put on lip gloss. Probably for his benefit. “Did you call her?” he asked.
“She didn’t pick up.”
Jesse scanned the trees around them as though he might be able to spot her in the foliage.
Dirk walked up behind him. “Looks like she’s not adjusting so well after all.”
“Did she take her stuff?” Jesse asked.
Lilly shook her head. “Just her purse.”
Alyssa said, “Someone with that much money—maybe she didn’t care about leaving everything. If she had packed up her things, we would have heard her.”
Shang joined the group. “Maybe she was kidnapped.”
Lily tilted her head in disbelief. “Without waking up Alyssa or me? Someone picked the lock, carried her off, and then used one of our carts to get away?”
“Not really kidnapped,” Shang said. “Dr. B could have arranged it as a test of our rescue skills. At this point, she’s useless as a Slayer, so she makes a good victim. It would be hard to mess that up. She just has to sit there and wait for us to find her.”
Alyssa scrunched her nose. “But she doesn’t have a counterpart. How could we find her?”
Whenever Dr. B made them do rescue drills, it was almost always the counterparts who found each other first. Since Jesse didn’t have a counterpart, he’d never really understood how it worked, but when counterparts were close to each other, they could sense things about each other’s location.
Kody joined the group at last. “She might be up at the main camp trying to get something to eat.”
Dirk grunted. “She did a Ryker.”
They all looked at Jesse. As her team captain, he had the final say about what action to take. “I’ll let Dr. B know she’s missing. Dirk, take Lilly and Alyssa and search the main camp. Shang, take a motorcycle to the lake and see if she went that way. Kody, you try the rifle range. I’ll check the road out of camp. Report back to me in half an hour—sooner, if you find any clues.”
He didn’t need to say more. The entire group dispersed into the forest, each going in the direction Jesse had told them to go. He dove off the patio, soaring upward until he hovered below the treetops. The cool morning air washed into him, pressing through his thin T-shirt as he weaved around branches. Squirrels chittered up and down tree trunks, eyeing him suspiciously. He hardly ever flew during the day, and never close to the main camp. Usually he would have enjoyed winging through the forest while the sunshine lit up the leaves like a million emeralds. Today he felt nothing but a tight ball of worry in his chest. Let it be one of Dr. B’s games, he prayed as he headed toward the director’s cabin. But he knew that wasn’t likely. Dr. B wouldn’t have taken Tori’s purse as part of one of his exercises.
Tori was gone.
CHAPTER 16
“Tori left?” Dr. B asked. His reaction told Jesse what he’d already suspected. This wasn’t an exercise. “I thought she understood what was at stake.”
“She does.” Jesse stood in Dr. B’s front room—a sort of combination living room and kitchen. “Maybe she doesn’t think saving lives is that important.”
Shirley, wearing an oversize white robe, stood at the stove cracking eggs into a frying pan. “Jesse, do you want some breakfast?”
“No, thanks,” he said.
Dr. B let out a deep sigh. “Have a seat and I’ll see where Miss Hampton has gone off to.”
“How can you tell where she is?”
Dr. B didn’t answer. He went to his bedroom and shut the door behind him.
Jesse didn’t sit down. He paced around the room, listening to Shirley go on about how important a nutritious breakfast was. “Just because Tori has gone off somewhere, doesn’t mean you should starve yourself,” she said. “You need to take better care of yourself than that, hon.”
Bess had told Jesse once that her mother had put him on the short list of people Bess was allowed to marry. Bess had thought it was funny, but Jesse wished she hadn’t told him. He still wasn’t sure whether to feel flattered or awkward when he was around Shirley now. He always wondered if she was moving him up or down on her list rankings.
“I’ll eat breakfast if we have time,” he said, then kept pacing around.
The cabin was a mixture of mismatched furniture, piles of clutter, and a few of Shirley’s homey touches—floral pillows, family pictures, and a gun rack. A large map of the United States hung on the wall. Dr. B had written notations around the edges of the map that none of them could decipher. He’d also placed different colored pins on cities where he’d searched for Ryker Davis. Hawaii looked like it had caught a multicolored rash.
Jesse wondered if there would be a new set of pins for Tori now.
He’d been wrong about her—thinking she belonged here. She was a coward who had run away and left the danger to the rest of them.
Jesse turned away from the map, refusing to stare at its many colored pins of loss and longing.
Dr. B came back to the room, carrying a small laptop and a jacket. He put the jacket on as he walked toward the front door. “I’ve located her. She’s in Hollings. Cypress Street, to be exact.”
“What’s she doing there?”
“I have no idea, but let’s find out. As far as I can tell, she’s staying put.” Dr. B tucked his laptop under his arm, and he and Jesse walked toward the door.
Shirley came at them with a plate of toast. “You can at least eat something on the way.”
Jesse and Dr. B each obediently took a piece of toast and went outside.
Dr. B munched unhappily as he walked toward the ATV he used to get between the two camps. “My wife has gone on a multigrain kick. Now there are seeds and oats in my toast. It’s like eating compressed bird food.”
Dr. B was right about that, and Jesse wished Shirley had given them something to wash the toast down with. While he was still chewing, Dr. B called Dirk and told him to lead the teams in their normal schedule until he and Jesse got back.
It was too noisy to talk on the ATV, but once they reached Dr. B’s car in the camp parking lot, Jesse again asked the question that had been on his mind. “How do you know where Tori is?”
Dr. B unlocked his car door and slid behind the steering wheel.
He pursed his lips as though debating whether to answer Jesse’s question. It wasn’t until Jesse was buckling his seat belt that Dr. B spoke again. “Each of your phones has built-in GPS. I can track them using a program on my laptop.”
Jesse’s gaze swung around to Dr. B’s face. “Why didn’t you tell us?”
“That information in the wrong hands could pose a danger to you. What if Overdrake learned you could be traced?” Dr. B cast a glance at his laptop, which lay on the seat between them. “What would he do to get hold of this computer and my passwords?”
Which was the point. Jesse had carried around a tracking device for years without knowing it.
Dr. B turned on the ignition and drove the car toward the street. Even though he wasn’t going fast, the car bumped along the uneven surface.
“I understand why you didn’t let the staff know,” Jesse said. “But you should have told us. We wouldn’t endanger ourselves.”
Dr. B spoke evenly, as if he was delivering one of his lectures. “Are you sure about that? Two Slayers didn’t come back this year, and we don’t know why. It’s better if you don’t let the others know about this.”
Jesse nodded, but he wasn’t sure he agreed. The Slayers always carried the phones with them. It only seemed fair they should know the phones could be a liability. After all, Overdrake knew the Slayers existed. He had come looking for them once already.
It had been the first year of camp, back when they were elevenyears-old. Only four of the Slayers had found camp at that point: Bess, Rosa, Shang, and Jesse. They’d been discovering their talents and finding ways to use them. Rosa had healed a dozen minor burns on Dr. B, and he wanted to see if she could heal larger ones. He loaded the simulator in a U-Haul and took the group to a burn unit in a D.C. hospital.
Dr. B had dressed up as a priest and told the hospital staff they were delivering care packages from his congregation. He asked if the kids could spend a few minutes chatting with the patients. No one would have suspected Rosa of doing anything out of the ordinary, especially back then when her petite size had made her look closer to nine than eleven. She’d worn her long black hair in pigtails, blinked her big brown eyes, and adults had had no choice but to trust her.
They’d gone into each room, delivered the gifts, then Dr. B asked the patients if he could say a prayer with them. They all agreed, even though some looked uncomfortable with the idea. Dr. B had stood by their heads, blocking their view of Rosa as much as he could, then he’d instructed the patients to shut their eyes. While Dr. B prayed, Rosa held her hands over the patient, turning the seeping wounds underneath their bandages into new skin.
Before Dr. B had quit speaking, each patient gasped and opened their eyes, reaching for wherever their wound had been. “It feels tingly now. What happened?”
“Hallelujah,” Dr. B always said, managing to make the word sound stilted and suspicious. “Give praise to God, but don’t take off your bandages until the nurses give you permission.”
The last patient they visited was a six-year-old with burns over her entire face. Bandages covered her head, so that only her eyes, nose, and blistered mouth poked out from the gauze. And worse yet, the way the bandages lay against her head made it clear that one ear was damaged, perhaps missing.
Rosa gasped when she walked into the room. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispered. “Her ear …”
Dr. B patted her on the shoulder. “Anything you can do to help is fine.”
The girl’s mother sat in a chair by the hospital bed and regarded them wearily. She didn’t look like the type who liked visitors or pity.
“We’re from St. Teresa’s down the road,” Dr. B said. There was a church by that name, and no one ever asked Dr. B for any sort of proof that he was actually a priest. “We’ve brought some things for your daughter.” Dr. B motioned to Rosa, and she handed the mother a decorated box full of books and stuffed animals.
Dr. B smiled graciously. “Might we say a prayer for your daughter?”
The mother gripped the box awkwardly. “We don’t go to church.”
“That’s all right,” Dr. B said. “We pray for all in need.”
The mother’s lips twitched uncertainly. Jesse knew she didn’t like the idea. That’s why they brought the gifts. It was hard to be rude to someone who’d given you presents. “Okay, then …” the mother said, dragging out the words as though somewhere in the sentence she might change her mind.
“Let’s close our eyes and pray.” Dr. B stood directly between the mother and the bed so she couldn’t see Rosa’s hand motions. “Our Father in heaven,” Dr. B began, but Jesse didn’t pay attention to the prayers. He let his eyes squint open to watch Rosa. She held both hands over the girl’s face; pulling her fingers together, moving them to some unheard rhythm, caressing the air. Her gestures were quicker than usual, more frantic. She didn’t even slow down or lessen the motions when the girl opened her eyes and looked like she would speak. Rosa just held one finger to her mouth to indicate she needed silence.
It had to be working; the girl touched her face like she could feel a difference. Rosa didn’t stop, though. Her forehead grew moist with perspiration.
Dr. B came to his usual stopping place in the prayer—the part where he said, “And let us remember that all good things in life come from heaven,” but he peeked at Rosa and continued, “And let us remember everything else we need to remember. And let us remember to do good works quickly. Very quickly …”
He was stalling, but Rosa didn’t notice.
She made one last flourish over the girl’s ear, then reached for the bandages. Rosa had never touched any of the patients’ dressings before. She carefully unwrapped the bandages, but the rustling from the bed made the mother open her eyes. She stood up. Dr. B stepped in her way. “We’re still praying over here.”
The mother barely looked at him. “What are you doing?” Then she saw the bandages on the bed. “Are you crazy!” she yelled, and pushed Dr. B out of the way with more strength than Jesse expected.
The woman stopped and stared mutely when she saw her daughter. Rosa had taken off the last of the bandages, revealing the girl’s pale, new skin. Rosa turned the girl’s head, and sighed with relief. The ear was there—a crisp C of skin resting against the side of her face.
“We should go now.” Dr. B took hold of Rosa’s arm and led her toward the door. Bess and Kody followed. Jesse glanced back before he left. The mother sat on the bed holding her daughter’s hand, crying. She was also pushing the nurse-call button.
“Hurry,” Dr. B said, and he didn’t have to say more. It wouldn’t take long before the hospital staff decided to detain them. They walked quickly down the halls and out the lobby doors.
Once they were back in the truck and pulling out of the parking lot, Dr. B nodded philosophically. “Well, I think St. Teresa’s will be a bit more crowded next Sunday.”
A doctor dressed in scrubs came out of the building, blinking against the sun as he scanned the parking lot. He didn’t see them. He probably didn’t expect a priest to be driving a truck and towing a U-Haul.
Rosa saw the doctor and shrunk down in her seat. “I’m sorry I messed that up. But I had to know whether I’d gotten the ear right. I wasn’t sure it worked.”
“You did marvelously,” Dr. B said.
“I want to go to another hospital,” she said. “I should heal all the burn patients. Maybe we could even work something out with the doctors. Maybe we could explain a little to them about why I have this ability.”
Dr. B didn’t answer for a moment. “We’ll think about it and discuss it later.”
They did discuss it later, after the miracle healings made the news, after the patients gave complete descriptions of their angelic visitors to reporters.
Dr. B’s voice had turned uncharacteristically grave then. “Overdrake will know what the healings mean,” he said. “He’ll know someone is teaching at least four children to be Slayers and that one of them has the power to
heal burns. I should have made you wear disguises. I should have only taken Rosa with me.”
But Jesse knew without asking why Dr. B had taken all of them. When Rosa had healed the people, when she’d unwrapped the girl’s bandages and they’d seen her unscarred face, something had cracked open inside him. He couldn’t describe it. He only knew he’d never felt anything quite so powerful before. He wanted to help people the same way. He had to.
After that, whenever he trained he thought about empty hospital beds. In his mind’s eye, he saw rows of beds that wouldn’t be filled if only he could destroy the dragons.
The day after the national news ran the story about the miracle healings, the hospital’s surveillance tapes were stolen. The footage hadn’t been shared with the media and Dr. B and the Slayers waited for it to show up on some tabloid program. When it didn’t, they knew Overdrake had the tapes.
Now as Jesse and Dr. B drove toward Hollings, Jesse fingered the satellite phone in his pocket. For the first time, it didn’t make him feel more secure to have it.
Twenty minutes later, they reached the town. Dr. B parked at a McDonald’s and turned on his laptop. He had to wait an annoyingly long time for the GPS function to boot up before he typed his passwords. Then he held the laptop at an angle so Jesse couldn’t see what he typed, which irked Jesse. Shouldn’t the team captains know the passwords? What if something happened to Dr. B? He and Dirk might need that information.
“She’s still in the same place,” Dr. B said.
“Or at least her phone is.” Jesse was suddenly certain she’d ditched her phone in a trash bin. Why would she keep it if she ran away?
“You may be right,” Dr. B said. “In which case, we’ll need to retrieve the phone anyway. But not to worry. Tori’s father isn’t likely to disappear the way Ryker’s parents did. We’ll be able to help her overcome her fears.”
Jesse didn’t want to help her overcome her fears. He wanted to tell her off.