by C. J. Hill
He only had time to unbuckle his seat belt before she plunged down at him. The windows shattered; talons burst through the car, piercing its frame. Dirk covered his face with his arm to keep shards from flying into his eyes.
The car jerked upward. Kihawahine had lifted it off the ground. She swung the car around, turning it so quickly that Dirk’s head slammed into his door. He grunted in annoyance. Where were the airbags when you needed them?
With powerful sweeps of her wings, Kihawahine flew upward. As soon as she got high enough, she would head to Winchester, bringing him to his father.
Dirk wouldn’t go. He wouldn’t let this happen. He had already made the decision to leave, made his clean break. Plan B: lose the dragon, hide out for the night, and hitchhike someplace safe.
Dirk crawled into the back of the car. The wind tore through the broken windows, making bits of ripped upholstery flutter around him. He was high in the sky now. The road below him was quickly becoming just a black ribbon. He flung open the back door and dived out. The night air rushed around him, welcoming him. No one at camp knew it, but all dragon lords could fly. He headed downward. The closer he got to the ground the better off he’d be. It was harder for dragons to maneuver near the land.
Kihawahine caught sight of him and hurled the car in his direction. He looked up and saw well over three thousand pounds of metal slamming his way. Was she trying to kill him? Dirk zoomed sideways to avoid being hit. Which was when Kihawahine swooped down on him, her talons closing around his middle.
Dirk struggled, pulled at Kihawahine’s talons. It only made them tighten around his middle painfully. Even if he had some kind of weapon, he wouldn’t have managed to get away. And he had nothing. He was caught.
The Beemer hit the ground with a thud of metal crumpling, followed by the scream of more glass shattering. It was the sound of his freedom being torn from him.
Tori was right, he thought. There was no such thing as a clean break.
* * *
Dirk wasn’t sure how long it took for the dragon to fly back to his house in Winchester. The pain of having his middle squeezed by swordlike talons made it hard to judge time. It felt like forever. It didn’t feel like long enough.
Finally Kihawahine flew onto his property. She passed over the house, then winged into the open enclosure. The structure was mostly underground and as large as a stadium. The smell of the enclosure was familiar, dank with the scent of death—the remaining bits and pieces of animals that the dragon ate lingered in the air. It didn’t matter how many times the maintenance crew washed down those spots, the smell never really went away.
Above Dirk, the roof rumbled as it slid shut, erasing the stars. Kihawahine glided to where Dirk’s father sat, stone still and expressionless, waiting. The calm before the storm. This was not going to go well.
With one quick motion, Kihawahine released her grip on Dirk, then sailed over to a perch of rocks. She landed there as gracefully as a duck on water, folding her wings to her side with a flourish. If dragons could purr, she would have done it.
Dirk used his power of flight to pull himself up to face his father. He couldn’t walk. His ribs hurt too much. His jacket was ripped to shreds. So was his shirt. Even with the extra strength dragon-lord skin had, his middle was bruised, scraped, and cuts crisscrossed his stomach. If Kihawahine meant to hurt him, her talons would have gutted him.
Dirk’s father stared at him, letting his gaze simmer. He was as large as Dirk and as strong, too. Beyond that, they didn’t look much like father and son. His father had brown hair, gray at the temples now, and sharp features, as though they’d been carved with a knife.
He sat on a folding chair, the kind he used when he watched Bridget’s soccer games. It looked odd sitting among the gray boulders, cement outcroppings, and bushes in the dragon enclosure. His father didn’t normally allow any chairs in here. He thought chairs would lead to complacency. He was always emphasizing to Dirk that no one, dragon lord or not, could be complacent around dragons. Dragons weren’t pets. They were predators, as wild as the fire they breathed out. If you slipped up with a dragon, if you lost control of its mind for even a few moments, you would be considering that mistake from the inside of the dragon’s belly.
Dirk’s father didn’t leave his chair. Apparently this was a night for exceptions.
Dirk faced him, waited, kept his chin raised. He wasn’t going to cower. He wasn’t going to apologize. He would just take whatever punishment his father gave him and deal with it.
“So,” his father said evenly. “Where were you planning on going after camp?”
“California.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s as far away from here as I can get without swimming.”
His father’s eyes darkened. His temper spiked. He stood up so fast, the chair tumbled over behind him. “You ingrate!” The words seemed to fill the entire enclosure and echo back in accusation. “I gave you everything you ever wanted. Money, a car, electronics, vacations all over the world.” He snapped each word out as if it were proof he was laying on the table. “Any father could have given his son those things, but I gave you more. I gave you a chance to rule the future.” He raised a finger, pointing. “And what did you do in return? You betrayed me to the Slayers—to people who were trying to kill me.”
With a slash as sharp as a blade, Dirk felt guilt cut into him. When he had gone with his friends to raid the first dragon enclosure, he’d thought he couldn’t possibly feel worse. It ate him up inside to pretend he was a Slayer, to pretend he was one of them, while he led them into a trap. He heard the panic in their voices when they realized they were caught in the enclosure. He heard their fear. And then when he heard his father’s men shooting at Tori, it yanked something apart inside of Dirk. He switched sides and freed his friends. He not only knew the lock code for the roof door, he was one of the few people who could open its voice recognition software.
Dirk had been sure he’d done the right thing then—trading his future, his father’s approval, for his friends’ freedom.
Now, looking at his father’s pained and angry face, none of it felt right. He’d only traded one betrayal for another. “No one tried to kill you,” Dirk said. “They just wanted to destroy the dragon eggs.” It was true. Before the raid the Slayers agreed they would do everything they could to avoid taking anyone’s life.
“Destroying the eggs is trying to kill me,” his father yelled back, “because the only way anyone will break those eggs is if they push my lifeless corpse out of the way first.”
That wasn’t the point. Dirk stood straighter, raised a finger of accusation of his own. “You promised not to hurt any of the Slayers and then you tried to kill Tori.”
His father shrugged off the complaint with a wave of his hand. “My men shot at intruders. That’s not even mildly wrong. It’s allowed by the law.”
“You promised,” Dirk emphasized. “You knew I cared about Tori and you captured her, held her at gunpoint, and threatened to kill her.”
Dirk’s father narrowed his eyes. His voice was no longer raised in anger, just thick with contempt. “That’s what this all boils down to, isn’t it? Your feelings for Tori. You sacrificed the mission—our future—for a girl you just met.” He paused, then gestured toward Dirk as though this were a casual conversation. “How did that turn out, by the way?”
Dirk didn’t answer. He looked at the enclosure wall to his side with grim focus. Dark stains dotted the wall. Probably blood splatters the maintenance crew hadn’t gotten around to cleaning yet. They could only come inside when either Dirk or his father were around to control the dragon’s mind. Otherwise they’d be killed.
“I’m assuming you’re a couple now,” his father went on, “so close in fact that I ought to be considering her my future daughter-in-law. That will be awkward, I admit, bringing her over to meet your family after we’ve already shot at each other.”
Dirk still didn’t answer. He noticed that ripped
pieces of his shirt had fallen to the ground and lay motionless around his feet.
His father didn’t let the subject go. “Well?” he insisted.
Dirk knew his father hated Tori now. Hated her because she’d veered Dirk’s feelings away from his duty. Maybe the truth would be enough to appease his anger.
“Tori and Jesse became a couple at camp. I didn’t see much of her because in her free time Jesse was always teaching her the ins and outs of flying.”
Dirk’s father laughed, a deep sound that rolled through the enclosure. “What—you didn’t volunteer to do that? You’re still keeping your flying abilities from the other Slayers?”
“Yeah, I also didn’t tell them I was the dragon lord’s son sent to spy on them. Go figure. The time just never seemed right.”
His father cocked an eyebrow. “I’m surprised they didn’t figure it out themselves. They know Tori is your counterpart and she can fly, but they don’t find it odd that you can’t fly?”
Dirk shrugged. “They think she’s Jesse’s counterpart, too.”
His father laughed again, so incredulous that some of the anger drained away from him. “And Tori and Jesse—they haven’t noticed that they don’t have the ability to sense things about each other?”
“They’re in love. They think they do sense things about each other.”
“Love,” his father said the word as though it amused him. “A counterpart substitute. That’s absolutely laden with irony.”
“Yeah, ironic.” That’s all Dirk’s life had become, an impenetrable maze of irony.
On her perch, Kihawahine laid her head on her front legs and curled her tail around herself, resting in a catlike pose. The lights of the enclosure made her blue and purple scales gleam. She always looked majestic in the light, like a living jewel.
Dirk’s father eyed him silently. Dirk knew he looked pitiful, hardly able to stand, his clothes shredded, his torso bruised and bloody. He was beginning to feel that way, too, pitiful. He’d traded his future away, and what did he have to show for it? His father was furious with him; the Slayers had killed one of his dragons, Tori had fallen in love with his friend, and Dr. B wanted to replace him as A-team’s captain.
“I assume,” his father drawled, “that during the last two months you’ve had time to get Tori out of your system. Time to reflect on the value of her affections.”
You would think so.
“Time to consider where your loyalties lie,” his father went on. “I assume you withdrew a large sum from the bank and were heading across the country because you were overcome with shame for betraying me, your own father.” He walked around Dirk, looking him up and down as though Dirk were a piece of merchandise that was defective, but perhaps salvageable. “I assume your guilt was driving that car. You couldn’t face me because you didn’t think you deserved my forgiveness. You don’t, by the way. Your decision cost me a dragon. But it could have been much worse. I could have been killed. Everything we’ve worked for could have been destroyed—all because you had feelings for some girl.”
Dirk felt another stab of guilt then. Could his father have been killed during the dragon fight? If Jesse had the chance, would he have done it? Dirk probably knew the answer to that question. If the Slayers could have, perhaps any of them would have killed his father. They were, after all, Slayers. It was bred into them to destroy dragons. Dragon lords just got in the way of their job.
Dirk’s father’s voice turned gentle, understanding almost. “You can’t switch sides now. Your friends—would they ever trust you again if they knew you’d already led them into a trap once? Dr. B—who you admire so much—what would he do if he knew you nearly cost him his daughter’s life?”
Dirk felt his throat tighten. His father was right. Dirk had known this all along, even if he didn’t want to admit it to himself. He could have told Dr. B the truth anytime over the summer. Dirk hadn’t, though. He hadn’t wanted to see Dr. B’s estimation of him crumble to dust. Dirk hadn’t wanted to see his friends turn away from him.
“You might not like it right now,” Dirk’s father said, “but you’re my son. A dragon lord. I love you and I’m going to forgive you. I’m going to pretend your betrayal never happened. And so are you.” He put his hand on Dirk’s shoulder, resting it there with a sense of reassurance. “Are we agreed about that?”
Dirk lifted his gaze to his father’s eyes. His father did love him, was the only person who did, really. Everyone else loved the person Dirk was pretending to be.
Dirk felt tired then, resigned. His father wanted a better nation, and when his father grew too old to rule, it would be Dirk’s nation. That wasn’t such a bad thing.
Revolutions happened all of the time. The founding fathers’ children hadn’t refused to take part in their new country just because blood was shed in the process. The men who faced each other across the battlefield during that war—they might have been friends once, too.
“Yes,” Dirk said. “We’re agreed.”
“Good.” His father looked into his eyes for another moment, seemed reassured by what he saw, and finally relaxed. “Were you able to copy the encryption algorithms and key for Dr. B’s tracking program?”
Dirk nodded, felt numb. He had done that right before the raid.
His father smiled. “You have remarkable talent. You’ll be an excellent ruler someday.”
CHAPTER 7
THE SECOND SATURDAY IN AUGUST
Jesse hadn’t planned on going to the Natural History Museum. He’d already shot down Tori’s idea of meeting together, so there was no point in going. But he went anyway. If Tori made an appearance, he wanted to talk to her, to explain things better than he had at camp.
He showed up at eleven forty-five instead of twelve. The elephant display was in the middle of the atrium right in front of the museum entrance. The curators had posed the elephant in action, so it had a startled look to it—like it had just woken up, found itself surrounded by tourists, and was about to charge out of the room in a rampaging panic. Jesse didn’t want to stand by it for the next fifteen minutes. He went up to the second story, he wasn’t quite sure why, but he was used to following his instincts.
The second- and third-floor balconies wrapped around the atrium. Jesse wandered around near the railing, keeping an eye on the main floor without looking like he really was. As usual, the museum was packed with tourists, families, and kids on field trips. Constant noise, constant commotion. If there was something wrong on the first floor that his Slayer senses had picked up, Jesse didn’t know how to figure out what it was. Too many people were coming and going.
Besides, Jesse didn’t expect Tori to show up. She hadn’t even wanted to talk to him at camp after he told her not to put her life on hold for him. She flew away, ditched dinner, and went off with Dirk somewhere. They didn’t come back until late. Jesse knew how late because when Dirk came into the cabin, he shook his head at Jesse and said, “You are an awesome boyfriend. Wherever you learned your boyfriend skills—great job.” Then Dirk had slow clapped.
That was the problem with counterparts. They were all fiercely loyal to each other. Even Alyssa and Rosa, who ignored each other most of the time at camp, would come to the other’s defense the moment they thought another Slayer was too critical. And you didn’t want to get them mad or they would both be slower than needed to heal your burn wounds.
Jesse and Tori were supposed to be counterparts, too, and there were times that he’d felt so sure of her, he was positive they were. But they didn’t have the same abilities the other counterparts did. Maybe you couldn’t be that with two people, and Tori was Dirk’s counterpart before she learned to fly.
Twelve o’clock came. Tori didn’t. Jesse wandered around looking at the signs for the butterfly exhibit and the gem and mineral section. The words he wanted to say to Tori ran in a loop through his mind.
I never said I didn’t care about you anymore. I only said we needed to make sure our feelings didn’t get in the way o
f our training. I said I didn’t want you to sit home for nine months waiting to see me again. Most girls would appreciate a guy being unselfish about it. I never even said I was going to date other girls. And you didn’t bother to ask.
Tori had assumed the worst; they were over and he’d never really cared about her to begin with. Jesse had meant it, though, when he told her he only wanted the separation to last until next summer. He had meant every kiss. It hadn’t been just a pastime or an ego kick.
Jesse wandered back over to the railing and glanced down at the elephant again. Tori stood in front of the sign. She was here. She had come.
Tori stood out from the rest of the crowd. She couldn’t help it. She was tall, graceful, and looked like a model. For a moment, he could only stare at her. He’d gotten used to seeing her in shorts and T-shirts, her hair always pulled back in a ponytail or braid. Now she wore a white skirt and a red-and-white top. Her long golden-brown hair fell around her shoulders in loose curls. She had not only come, she’d dressed up to see him. He smiled and turned toward the elevator, ready to push through the crowds.
Then he stopped. He knew why he had come up to the second floor instead of waiting on the main one. It didn’t have anything to do with his Slayer senses or problems on the first floor. If Jesse went and saw Tori right now, they would go somewhere private. He would apologize, explain, and basically bend over backward to show how much he cared about her. They would end up kissing and he would promise to meet her wherever and whenever she wanted.
Jesse was Team Magnus’ captain, and Tori was supposed to become A-team’s captain. She was new to all of this, but he was supposed to have some self-control. He’d been taught, trained for years to keep his feelings for the other Slayers in check. During a dragon fight, he couldn’t favor one Slayer over the other. He was only supposed to think about one thing—killing the dragon.
How could he be objective about Tori in a battle if he couldn’t even keep his feelings in check long enough to stay away from her a few days after camp ended?