by C. J. Hill
“The dragons now have fishing lines and hooks,” Tori called back to him. “Apparently they’ve evolved since yesterday.”
Dr. B waved away her point. “The hook was to simulate the dragon’s ability to reach out and grab you. It can do that.”
Bess pulled off her helmet. Her brown curls were matted against her head in sweaty tendrils. She didn’t look much like her father, but she had inherited his curls. “We’ve learned that we need both teams to work together.” She said the phrase like it was the obvious answer. “I had to help Dirk free Tori. She had to help us kill our dragon.”
Dr. B didn’t ever yell. The closest he got was a sharp tone of exasperation. He used that tone as he walked across the floor to them. “You already know you have to work together. That’s not what happened here.” His gaze went to Jesse. “Why were you killed?”
Jesse stiffened. He hated making mistakes. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
“You were paying attention,” Dr. B corrected. “You were just paying attention to Tori instead of your dragon.”
Dr. B’s gaze swung to Dirk. “You not only abandoned the rest of your team to rescue Tori, you used one of Team Magnus’ members to do it—thereby endangering both teams—and why? Tori was already dead.”
Dirk didn’t flinch, didn’t show any signs of regret. “Tori sounded pretty alive while she was screaming.”
Dr. B held up a hand. “The rules state that if any Slayer is hit by dragon claws they’re considered dead. We can assume the same is true for Slayers gripped in dragon claws. In a real battle, even if Tori had been alive for a few moments, she wouldn’t have been alive by the time you got to her. The dragon would have sliced her in half.”
Tori winced. It was always cheery to hear people talk about her gruesome demise.
Dr. B put his hands behind his back and divided his time between staring at Jesse and staring at Dirk. “So essentially what happened is that both teams lost their flyers. You had no way to kill the dragons and your only functioning team captain stopped functioning and turned into a one-man rescue mission.”
Dr. B let out a huff of frustration. “I want you to protect one another. That’s a good thing. But you can’t do it at the expense of the mission. Killing the dragon has to be your top priority. You need to learn to react with logic and not emotion. If you react emotionally, you’ll try to save your friends, even though logically it may be the worst mistake you can make. I know this is hard…” Dr. B’s voice dropped and his gaze swept over the group, meeting each Slayer’s eyes. “Don’t sacrifice the lives of two people—let alone your whole team—to try to save one person.” His gaze landed on Jesse again. “You’re our most experienced flyer. You can’t let anything or anyone distract you.”
Jesse nodded, somber.
Dirk was immune to guilt trips, though. He only smiled at Dr. B. “But you have to admit—shooting the target while falling was a sweet move.”
“All right—yes.” A smile tugged at the corner of Dr. B’s mouth. “That was quite well done.”
Dr. B turned to Tori and his voice softened. “You’ve come a long way from the start of camp. However, your frequent deaths lead me to believe you’re still not ready to become A-team’s captain.”
Ever since Dr. B discovered Tori could fly, he insisted that one day she would be A-team’s leader. Tori never wanted the job. It was bad enough that she occasionally got her team members killed in practice. She didn’t want to be the one responsible for their lives when it came to a real battle. She nodded. “That’s probably for the best.”
While Dr. B addressed Team Magnus and gave them specific feedback on their fight, Tori turned to Dirk. She gave him a look that said, See, you have nothing to worry about. You’re A-team’s captain and always will be.
Dirk’s extra Slayer power was the ability to see what the dragon saw. No one was quite sure how the links worked, but Dirk had a connection with one of Overdrake’s dragon eggs. A part of Dirk’s mind always saw what the unborn dragon saw—which was darkness at night and a reddish light during the day.
That particular talent didn’t do much good in a fight, and yet Dirk was such a good Slayer, Dr. B had made him A-team’s captain four years ago.
“I think you should already be captain,” Dirk said in mock seriousness. “A-team might need their captain to die a martyr’s death in order to rally them into action.”
Tori smacked him.
Dirk laughed and put his gun on a peg in his locker. “You always fly too close to the dragon and stay there too long. Are you purposely getting yourself killed so you don’t have to be captain or do you have a risk-taking side I don’t know about?”
Tori placed her wooden sword on the floor of her locker and shut the door. “I figure it’s better to see how well I can maneuver in here than in a real attack. This is the place to push my limits, to make mistakes.”
Dirk shook his head. “When it comes to dragons, there isn’t a place to make mistakes.”
He was right about that—at least while Theo and Dr. B ran the controls. “You’re so wise,” she purred at him. “Which is why you’ll always be A-team’s captain. Well, that and the fact that I don’t want to deal with Lilly any more than I have to.”
“Coward,” Dirk whispered.
Neither of them said more after that because Dr. B had finished with his assessment of Team Magnus and turned to give A-team its critique. Most of his comments were directed at Tori. She needed to utilize the other Slayers’ abilities to optimize her strategy. She needed to make sure she was always covered. And she needed to rely less on her sight and more on her instincts. Her Slayer senses picked up things her conscious mind didn’t.
Dr. B must have seen her discouragement because he ended his assessment with, “Overall, you’re doing very well. Better than I expected. It just takes time.”
That was the problem, though. None of them knew how much time they had before Overdrake began attacking cities with his dragons and his mercenary fighters. Overdrake wanted to take over the government and would lay waste to as many cities as he needed until the nation agreed to his terms. Dr. B thought the only reason Overdrake hadn’t launched an assault already was that he was waiting for his dragon eggs to hatch. Once they did, they would mature within a year and be ready for Overdrake to use.
Dr. B walked back in front of the room and raised his voice, addressing the group again. “Before camp ends, I wanted to say a few words about safety.”
Safety. An ironic topic after he’d trapped Tori with a flame-throwing dragon and nearly roasted her.
“I know you’ve all been concerned about an informant or some sort of leak at camp.” Concerned was an understatement. At the beginning of the summer, the Slayers figured out where Overdrake kept the dragon eggs and launched a surprise attack to destroy them. Not only had Overdrake been waiting for them, he knew their names. The Slayers barely managed to escape from the dragon enclosure.
They had never figured out who tipped off Overdrake or how he knew their names. After the attack, Dr. B moved the Slayers to a hidden backup camp an hour away from their original one. Theo checked all their belongings for bugs and took their phones to search for anything suspicious. The Slayers all had special satellite phones with EMP and tracking protection—or at least they did until Theo confiscated them. The regular kind didn’t work well in the forest and wouldn’t work at all after a dragon strike. Dr. B needed to make sure he always had a way to contact the group.
In the name of security, Dr. B had added more cameras and sensors along the camp’s boundaries and had given the Slayers a few new rules.
Camp already had dozens of rules. The Slayers couldn’t give one another any personal information about their outside lives. Not where they lived, what they did, especially not their last names. They couldn’t take pictures of camp or each other. They had a complicated system for going home after the summer to make sure no one followed them. At home, they couldn’t talk about camp to their family or fri
ends. They couldn’t use any of their Slayer powers in a way that would draw attention to themselves. They couldn’t contact one another, except in an emergency.
“The bad news,” Dr. B went on, “is that I can’t tell you where Overdrake got his information. The analysis of your old phones and your old cabins didn’t turn up anything. You’ll still have to be more careful, more diligent than you’ve ever been.”
A fair amount of murmuring went through the group at this news. If it wasn’t some sort of bug, what was it? How did they know Overdrake didn’t still have a way to spy on them?
“The good news,” Dr. B said a little louder, “is that Theo has designed a new, more secure communication device.”
Theo held up a large black plastic watch for everyone to see. It didn’t just scream tacky, it shrieked it while flashing out the time. “This is the prototype of our new emergency phones,” Dr. B said. “You’ll get yours tomorrow as you leave camp. Always keep it with you.”
Tori hadn’t realized she’d groaned until Dirk leaned toward her and whispered, “What’s wrong? Will it clash with your Dior outfits?”
“It’ll clash with any outfit.” Tori allowed herself another groan. “Maybe I could wear it around my ankle so no one will see it.”
“Hmm,” Dirk said, while Dr. B demonstrated how to send and receive calls. “It sounds to me like you’re not taking your safety seriously.”
She did take it seriously. During their failed raid, Overdrake had captured Tori and pulled off her helmet. He’d seen her face. If he came after any of them, it was going to be her. “Of course, wearing that watch around my ankle won’t work with shorts or skirts. Do you suppose the band would stretch around my thigh?”
“I’d like to see you answer a call if it did.” Dirk let out a low chuckle. “I’ll have to phone you frequently and see how that goes.”
“You’re only allowed to call in emergencies,” she reminded him.
“And I consider making your thigh ring at inappropriate times an emergency.”
“I’m relatively certain,” Dr. B went on, sending Tori and Dirk a reproving look for talking while he was, “that Overdrake doesn’t know the locations of your homes. I don’t keep that information written down anywhere, you have nothing with ID in your belongings, and none of you would have spoken your addresses out loud anywhere at camp. Still, be careful.” He emphasized each word. “Your Slayer senses will only keep you safe if you listen to them. Don’t become so distracted by your iPod, your friends, your studies—that you ignore your instincts. And if anything suspicious happens, call me at once.”
Tori nodded. Dr. B was really speaking to her. Overdrake hadn’t only seen her, he’d recognized her. She was the daughter of Senator Hampton, one of the front-runners for the next presidential election.
Tori pushed away the worry. No point in dwelling on it. Having a father who was a powerful senator had benefits. Her home, her neighborhood, her school—they had gates, security staff, and safeguards that protected her not just from stalkers and disgruntled constituants, but would also work to keep megalomaniacal dragon lords away.
At least she hoped they would.
CHAPTER 3
Tori flew out of the Dragon Hall, literally, and waited at the top of a nearby tree for Jesse to catch up with her. He spent the last part of most afternoons giving her flying lessons.
She had already improved enough over the summer that they could have discontinued the sessions a week or two ago, but neither suggested it. The lessons always seemed to end with the two of them hidden in some sunlit section of the forest, their arms draped around each other, while Jesse dropped kisses onto her lips.
It was all wrapped together in Tori’s mind: the magic of skimming through the trees, the enchantment of the wild growing forest around them, and the euphoria of being with him. She didn’t want it to end. And here it was already—the last day of camp. As she waited for Jesse, she felt a desperate ache twining around her insides. The two of them would have to find a way to see each other over the school year. Even if they weren’t supposed to.
One of Dr. B’s many rules was that Slayers couldn’t have contact with each other outside of camp. Tori understood the reasoning. If Overdrake caught one of them, he wouldn’t be able to extract information about the other Slayers.
She didn’t need Jesse’s last name, though. She just needed to persuade him to meet her someplace. Regularly.
Jesse soared up to her tree branch, six foot two of muscles and good looks. Even when his dark hair was mussed from working out and he was covered with singe marks, he looked kissable. He looked perfect.
Jesse hovered in the air in front of her and gave her a smile. He didn’t smile enough during the day. He was always too focused on training, on strategy—on keeping alert for possible attack. It made his smiles to her all the more meaningful. She felt as if she’d won a prize when he looked at her like this. “You officially made it through the last dragon-slaying practice,” he said.
“Just barely.” She stepped from her branch and joined him in the air. “I’m covered with bruises, I’ve ruined my last shirt, and it’s a miracle I still have eyebrows left.”
Jesse laughed—another prize—and glided slowly through the trees away from the main camp.
Tori followed after him, so seamless in her flight that she didn’t have to concentrate on how to move her body when they sped up or turned. She shadowed him, enjoying the lifting sensation of soaring through an ocean of sunshine and leaves. Everything around her was fresh, green, laden with the scent of life. This feeling, this freedom flowing through her fingertips, made the risk of being a flyer worthwhile.
For her lesson, Jesse went through all of the advanced moves, spinning, diving, flying straight at the ground and then pulling up inches before impact. Tori practiced, savoring the feeling of flight and wishing she had a way to keep it. Tomorrow afternoon she would be back home in McLean, back living her normal life. Or pretending to. Things would never quite be normal again.
When Tori was done going through the advanced moves, she and Jesse practiced speed flying. This was Tori’s biggest weakness. She couldn’t fly as fast as Jesse and wasn’t nearly as accurate with her turns when she tried.
She didn’t mind rocketing along at seventy miles an hour when she had a helmet or goggles on, but Jesse liked to remind her she might be caught in an attack without either of those things, so she had to practice without them. At high speeds, the wind tore at her face and made her eyes water. It was hard to see or hear anything.
Luckily the two of them couldn’t fly fast for long. The simulator had a range of about five miles, which meant it only took a few minutes to get out of its range. After that, they had half an hour to get back in range or their powers would disappear and they would fall from the sky—or in the very least have a long walk back to camp.
Jesse had some sort of internal clock that let him know how much time had gone by. He said all Slayers did, but if that was true, the feature had never kicked in for Tori. She was supposed to signal Jesse when they’d flown for ten minutes, so they could turn around and fly back with plenty of time to spare. She was usually off by a few minutes in either direction.
Today she signaled early on purpose. She wanted to spend time lazily floating through the treetops with Jesse. She wanted to ask him to break another rule.
When they got back in range, Tori took hold of Jesse’s hand, and they glided around a few trees until they found one with enough space for both of them to stand in. The tree had an empty spot where a few of the upper branches had been knocked off; probably victims of Tori’s maneuvering attempts earlier in the summer.
Jesse leaned against the trunk, still holding Tori’s hand. It was also against camp policy for the Slayers to get romantically involved with each other. Dr. B didn’t want those sorts of distractions while the Slayers trained. So while she and Jesse were with the others, they pretended none of this was happening. Jesse was better at that than she was. D
uring practices, Jesse always concentrated on being Team Magnus’ captain so intently, Tori doubted he thought about her at all. She, on the other hand, needed frequent doses of stolen glances. She was an addict.
Now Jesse surveyed her with his warm brown eyes, eyes that had depths she could fall into. Tori leaned into Jesse and kissed him lightly. She didn’t feel bad about breaking the camp’s dating rule. If she had to risk her life fighting dragons, she was entitled to one perk. Jesse.
Jesse didn’t kiss her back. Instead he wound his arms around her waist and held her in a loose embrace. She could feel the tension of the muscles in his chest, a rigidness that ran through him. He was thinking about tomorrow, too, about all of this ending.
She rested her head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat and wishing she could sever the connection she had to the dragon eggs so she didn’t have to hear that noise, too.
Part of her Slayer powers was the ability to hear what a dragon heard. Like Dirk’s eyesight link, she seemed to connect to whichever dragon was closest. Since her Slayer powers had kicked in at camp, she’d had a constant pipeline to a dragon egg.
At first, Tori thought this new Slayer ability was pointless and would most likely send her into bouts of insanity. Curled up in its shell, the loudest thing the unborn dragon heard was its own heartbeat. And worse still, the noise didn’t fade away every night after Dr. B turned off the simulator. Her strength, night vision, and power of flight all disappeared at bedtime, but the sound of the dragon’s heartbeat remained: a creepy thump-thumping in a corner of her mind, a relentless reminder that dragons were out there, somewhere, waiting to hatch.
Then Tori had overheard some of Overdrake’s men talking nearby the eggs. They inadvertently gave away their location. That’s what led to the failed raid earlier in the summer. Now to keep Tori from overhearing anything else that might be useful to the Slayers, Overdrake played a constant stream of music next to the eggs. And he wasn’t nice about it, either. The first week, he’d played nothing but the Bee Gees greatest hits. Apparently one week was as long as his vets could listen to nonstop Bee Gees because after that the music changed. Now it was a mixture of music from the eighties and nineties. Tori could turn it way down, but not completely off.