by C. J. Hill
Tori sat down beside him, focusing on the slate-blue lake water in front of her. “But what if it had been a real battle and we all died, and the country fell because of it?”
Dirk shrugged. “I guess I’d be too dead to feel guilty over it.”
She tilted her chin down. “You’re not taking the question seriously.” Dirk took very few things seriously. It was part of his rakish personality.
“What’s your point?” he asked.
She picked up a rock and tossed it at the lake. Normally her rock wouldn’t have made it to the water’s edge. With her Slayer powers going, the rock sailed over the dock and disappeared with a tiny splash far in the lake. “The point is, it’s bad enough that I have to rearrange my life to train for combat, and I have to risk my life to fight dragons—I can’t even have a regular boyfriend. A normal guy won’t understand the Slayer stuff, and a Slayer won’t be my boyfriend because caring about me might taint his judgment while he’s fighting. All of this sucks.” And then despite her best intentions, she cried. Not a little bit. Not delicate tears that trickled unnoticed down her cheeks. She gulped like she couldn’t breathe and her shoulders shook.
Dirk put his arm around her and she nestled into his side. She rested her head against his chest, shut her eyes, and cried until the emotion drained out of her. Dirk didn’t say anything, just kept his arm around her and waited.
Finally, he said, “It won’t always be this way.”
“Yeah,” she agreed. “Eventually we’ll all be too dead to care about the rules.”
She felt Dirk smile. “We might not all be too dead.”
“You’re an optimist.”
Tori had always liked the reflection of the trees across the lake’s surface. Now the image just seemed smudged, upside down. She picked up another rock and hurled it into the water.
“There are two types of people in the world,” Dirk said. “Those who are loyal to principles, and those who are loyal to people. The problem with dating Jesse is that he’s in the first group and you’re in the second. You were bound to get hurt.”
Tori considered this while she picked up another rock. “I’m loyal to principles. I’m fighting dragons to protect my country.”
Dirk shook his head. “You’re fighting dragons to protect the people you love.”
She opened her mouth to protest, then realized he was right. When she first found out she was a Slayer, she hadn’t wanted to stay at camp, had almost gone home. She had told Dr. B she decided to stay because of her father. He would give his life for his country; she couldn’t do less. What had weighed more heavily on her mind, though, was Jesse—the only flyer. She couldn’t stand the thought of him fighting the dragon without all the help he could get.
“When Overdrake’s dragon attacked us,” Dirk said, “you joined in the fight even though you only had a few days of training. You weren’t thinking about your country. You were thinking about saving our lives.” Dirk looked upward. “I bet you money Jesse was thinking of saving the country. If he had to sacrifice one or all of us to do it, he would.”
Tori picked up another rock. “Who’s right?” She had the nagging feeling that people who were loyal to principles were right, and she didn’t like it. She didn’t want to be sacrificed, even if it was for the greater good.
Dirk gave her a wry smile. “You shouldn’t ask me. I’ve already admitted that I didn’t feel guilty for rescuing you. I’m loyal to people.” He took the rock from her hand and threw it far over the lake. “Especially you.”
Especially her. The words were sweet and soothing, because she could tell they were true. Dirk was her friend. She still had that.
“Thanks.” She rested her head against his shoulder.
He put his arm around her again. “You’ll get through this. You’ll be okay.”
She didn’t answer. Ever since she’d learned about the dragons and Overdrake, being “okay” seemed a fleeting goal at best.
CHAPTER 5
Brant Overdrake laid out pictures of the Slayers on his desk, covert snapshots taken by his son the first day of camp. Each photo had a fact sheet underneath it. Overdrake was hoping that having them all in one place would help him think better, that he would see something he’d missed while flipping through computer files.
Jesse’s parents were both teachers. He had two younger brothers. He was a fourth-degree black belt in tae kwon do and a top-level fencer. Overdrake’s men had looked for him in the D.C. area dojang records, but never turned up anything. The same held true for fencing tournaments. For all Overdrake knew, Jesse wasn’t even his real name.
Shang spoke and wrote fluent Chinese. He either lived in a multigenerational home or his grandparents lived close by, because Shang talked about them as much as he did his own parents. He had several Chinese friends, which might indicate he lived in a Chinese district. D.C.’s Chinatown consisted mostly of restaurants. So Shang might live outside of the D.C. area, or perhaps he was just involved in a lot of Chinese groups.
Lilly still hadn’t gotten her license because her mom couldn’t afford the car insurance. She would live in a poor area somewhere. Unfortunately, there were too many poor areas around. His men couldn’t search them all. They were already scouring through every high school yearbook in Virginia, Maryland, and D.C.
Overdrake had the same sort of information on the other Slayers. Hints, but not enough details to find out where they lived. What he needed was access to the computer program Dr. B had for tracking the Slayers. Overdrake had been so close to having it. He’d spent years training his son to steal that sort of thing, and now the Slayers had disappeared and disabled their phones. He hadn’t heard from his son since the attack at the beginning of the summer. Nothing at all. It wasn’t a good sign.
Overdrake swiped his hand across the desk, sending several of the photos fluttering to the ground. He picked up the picture of Jesse, crumpled it, and threw it into the fireplace. The paper curled and blackened in the flames until the fire devoured it. There was something satisfying about seeing Jesse’s image destroyed that way. Something fitting.
Overdrake picked up the paper for Ryker next. It had no picture and the only information on his sheet was his parents’ names. Overdrake crushed the paper in his hand. He had been greedy. That was his problem. He put off striking the Slayers at their camp because he had been waiting for any stragglers, waiting for Ryker to show up. Overdrake had been every bit as optimistic about Ryker’s arrival as Dr. B had been. Well, that would teach him to put any stock in Dr. B’s beliefs. Ryker would never show up. Overdrake should have realized that and attacked camp long ago. It wouldn’t have been hard to wipe out the Slayers that way.
Granted, the Slayers had ultra-tuned senses that alerted them to danger. It was hard to sneak up on Slayers even when their superpowers weren’t turned on. However, the Slayers also had their own version of kryptonite, and it wasn’t hard to come by: drugs. Any drug strong enough to render a Slayer unconscious also destroyed the pathway in his brain that let him access his powers. If you put the Slayers out, they woke up without superpowers. And best of all, their memories of being Slayers were affected, too. They didn’t remember having powers, so their brains made up new memories to compensate for all of the old ones that no longer made sense.
Overdrake could neutralize the Slayers and they wouldn’t even remember that he’d done it. It should have been so easy, would have been if Dr. B hadn’t moved the Slayers to another camp. Now Overdrake had no idea where they were.
He threw Ryker’s sheet into the fire, then picked up Tori’s profile. She was the only other Slayer whose last name he knew. She would be out on the campaign trail with her father. So easily accessible. Like shooting fish in a barrel.
He would enjoy seeing Tori go down. It was her fault the Slayers had gotten away from him. At least mostly Tori’s fault. Dirk was the one who freed the other Slayers from the dragon enclosure. Still, Overdrake took his anger out on Tori’s picture. He ripped it into little p
ieces, then dropped them one by one into the fire. They trembled as they fell into flames, wavered until they were nothing but ash. Dirk cared about Tori, so it was only fitting that she suffer.
Overdrake would find a way to locate and take out all of the Slayers, but Tori would be first.
CHAPTER 6
Dirk said his good-byes to everyone as normally as he ever had. Normal was a coat he could take on and off without thinking about it. He joked around, he hugged everyone, he said he’d see them next year. When he hugged Tori, he held on to her for a couple of seconds longer than he did everyone else. She was warm, soft, and smelled like gardenias. It was some perfume she’d brought from home and insisted on wearing even though by the end of the day they all smelled of horses, smoke, and sweat.
“Thanks,” she told him. She didn’t have to say for what. He knew she meant about last night.
“No problem.”
Letting go of her felt like ripping something off his skin. But then, saying good-bye to his friends each summer always felt that way. He was used to it.
Dr. B had elaborate systems for making sure no one trailed or put any tracking devices on the Slayers’ cars. Before camp, he texted the Slayers the code name of a meeting place in D.C. The Slayers either had their parents drop them off there or they drove their cars to a long-term parking lot and took a bus, train, or cab to the meeting place. A camp van picked up the group. At the end of camp, the reverse happened.
When new Slayers showed up, Dr. B called their parents before camp ended and offered the camp van service for the trip home. Parents always agreed. It saved them hours of driving time.
This time, Dr. B had driven the Slayers to a street near the National Mall.
Tori turned away from Dirk, pulling her luggage toward a waiting blue BMW. It was probably a good thing she was still so wrapped up in her thoughts about Jesse that she wasn’t paying attention to him. Otherwise, she might have sensed something was wrong. She would have worried, tried to pry into it.
Jesse watched Tori go. He looked like he wanted to go after her, but he turned his attention to Dirk instead. “Hey, take care.”
“Always do.”
Jesse gave him a quick hug, a sort of half pat on the back. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”
“Now you’re asking too much.”
“Well then, at least don’t get caught doing it.”
Good advice. Dirk didn’t plan on getting caught.
Jesse picked up his duffle bag and moved off to say more good-byes. Dirk said a few more himself. It was a blur. Everyone else was going home. He was running away. Well, maybe it wasn’t technically running away. Dirk’s father probably didn’t want him to come home. Not after the way Dirk had betrayed him in June.
Before Dirk headed down the street, he looked back at Dr. B and hesitated. What would Dr. B do if Dirk told him that he had nowhere to go?
“Dirk?” Dr. B asked, catching his stare. “Is something wrong?”
Dirk smiled and shook his head. “No.” He knew what Dr. B would do if he confessed his situation. Dr. B would be concerned, sympathetic—as caring as if Dirk were his own son. Dr. B loved the person he thought Dirk was, and somehow Dirk couldn’t destroy that image. He couldn’t answer the questions Dr. B would ask. It was better to do this on his own. He could find someplace to live. He could take care of himself.
Dirk turned and walked away, duffle bag thudding against his back. It was late afternoon and he had things to do.
He took a cab to his bank. Had to. He needed more money than an ATM would deliver. Luckily he had enough in his bank account to cover rent and food for a few months. Dirk went through the motions of emptying his account with calm proficiency. Funny how he could do that when he felt a wild desperation growing inside of him.
Last night while Tori cried on his shoulder, she said there was no such thing as a clean break. She was probably right. How would Dirk make a break with his family and not have it leave a gaping hole inside of him? His sister, Bridget, was only seven years old. Would she even remember him when she was old enough to leave home herself? What would their father tell her about him? Had he already ripped Dirk out of all the family pictures?
Dirk didn’t let himself think about it. He’d already made his decision at camp. Now he just had to carry through.
From the bank, he went to a store and bought a few things he’d need for a road trip. Then he dropped off a letter to Tori at a post office. He didn’t know her address, but her father’s senate office address was easy enough to find. She’d get the letter. Picking up his car was trickier. Dirk was half afraid his BMW either wouldn’t be where he’d left it or that his father would be sitting in the front seat, waiting for him. Dirk hadn’t told his father where he parked, but there were only so many long-term parking places in the D.C. area. It wouldn’t have been hard for his father to check them.
It might have been better for Dirk to walk away from the car. He didn’t want to do that, though. Driving was the easiest way to get to California unnoticed, and he could sell the Beemer once he got there. The money would see him through until next summer.
Dr. B had taught all the Slayers how to do surveillance work. Dirk never thought he would use it to stake out his own car. His first task was to look around the perimeter of the building at possible places other people might be doing surveillance: the roofs of nearby buildings or suspicious maintenance vans on the street. Homeless people who sat near the building’s entrance were also suspect. When Dirk didn’t find anything suspicious, he walked a few streets over, found a homeless guy who looked moderately sober, and paid him twenty dollars to walk inside the parking garage and see if any of the cars near his had people waiting in them.
When that checked out clear, too, Dirk finally went in. His BMW was just where he left it. Still locked, nothing moved. He was almost disappointed. Maybe his father didn’t want to find him. Maybe his father didn’t care that Dirk wasn’t coming back.
No, that wasn’t it. His father was so positive that Dirk would return home, apologetic and contrite, that he hadn’t bothered to track down his BMW.
Dirk was tempted to turn on his phone and check his messages, but he didn’t. He knew he would have to listen to message after message of his father screaming at him, and besides, cell phones could be tracked. Better to leave it turned off until he decided what to do with it.
With one last measure of precaution, Dirk took out a flashlight and checked the underside of the car for a tracking device. He didn’t see any. He got in the car and drove away.
By the time Dirk made it onto the beltway, it was six o’clock. The highway was jammed with commuters going home. He’d heard the only place where the traffic was worse than D.C. was L.A. He made a note to avoid that part of California. He would go to a university town somewhere. He’d fit in there. No one would notice one more teenage boy around. No one would question why he was there. No one would care.
An image of Bridget flashed through Dirk’s mind. She would care that he wasn’t coming home. Every year when he returned from camp, she had a stack of pictures she’d drawn for him. Usually pictures of him at camp. She thought he stood around playing a lot of volleyball in flowery fields. Bunnies often hung around watching him.
Leaving like this was so painful, and yet he didn’t see another way. A clean break, that’s what he needed. A new life.
By nine o’clock he’d made it to Staunton. Even though it was dark and he was tired, he had no plans to stop. He needed to put as much space between him and Virginia as he could.
Dirk’s first hint that something was wrong came in a flash of dragon vision. He was so good at minimizing his dragon sight, at pushing it away so it didn’t distract him, he didn’t sense the dragon until she was nearly on top of him. Kihawahine was gliding high above the road, coming toward his car. Through her vision, he could see her purple-tipped wings stretching through the air. She was searching for him.
In an awful moment of clarity, Dirk re
alized he had never checked the interior of his car for a tracking device. That’s where his father put it. He might have even placed it in the car before Dirk went to camp. Maybe Dirk should have expected that, but sending a dragon after him—well even now, Dirk was surprised. It wasn’t often his father let the dragons out to fly around, and this was undoubtedly the longest flight one had taken since they’d come to America.
Dirk swore and sped up. It was no use. He couldn’t outrun the dragon and there was no place on this stretch of road to hide. Not enough trees. He needed more time to think, to come up with a plan.
The headlights in either direction were far and few between. Would any cars notice what was happening? Would the tabloids report tomorrow that a dragon had dived out of the sky and attacked a Beemer?
Dirk tried to connect to Kihawahine. He slipped into her mind easily enough. It was familiar terrain. But he couldn’t wrest his father’s control away from the dragon. Dirk’s thoughts knocked against her consciousness, unheeded. It was like trying to climb up a waterfall. He had nothing to hold on to. His father’s will was too firmly affixed there.
Kihawahine gave a short yip of a screech, just enough EMP to wipe out the electronics of anything in the area. Dirk’s car lights blinked out. The power steering was gone. The car slowed, worthless now.
The dragon was close enough that Dirk’s powers kicked in. With his night vision he could make out shapes in the night. The slope of the shoulder. The scattered trees. A few cars in the distance. If their occupants chanced to look up at the sky, they wouldn’t be able to see what was happening in the darkness. And even if they could see, the cameras on their cell phones were ruined now.
Through the rearview window, Dirk saw the dragon soaring toward him, almost to him. Her batlike wings spanned the sky, lazily flapping up and down. Each move of her neck and tail was graceful and precise. She enjoyed her elegance, enjoyed the chase.