Slayers: Friends and Traitors

by C. J. Hill

  And in less than a year the dragons would be full grown.

  Dr. B pulled the van back onto the street. He gazed briefly at the Slayers through the rearview window. “I’ve initiated identity breach protocol. It’s not something I ever wanted to do, but we’ve no choice. With the exception of Tori’s home, men posing as FBI agents will go to your houses. They’ll tell your parents you witnessed a drug-cartel-related shootout. In order for you to testify against the drug dealers involved, you and your family need to be immediately relocated in the witness protection plan. They’ll take your families somewhere safe tonight. Your possessions will be boxed up and put into storage for the time being. Sam will work with his contacts to get your parents new identities and jobs.”

  “Permanently?” Kody asked.

  Dr. B sighed. “Permanently until Overdrake is caught or stopped.”

  “Just like that we have to leave?” Lilly asked. It wasn’t really a question. “Our homes, our schools, our friends—everything.”

  “It’s better than the alternative,” Bess pointed out.

  “What about Tori?” Jesse asked. “Why isn’t anyone being sent to her home?”

  Tori hadn’t asked because she already knew. “My father works for the government. It would be too easy for him to check on the men’s story. Besides, my father isn’t going to change his identity.”

  “Tori’s family already has security measures in place,” Dr. B said. “For the time being, we’ll have to hope that those are enough to keep Overdrake away.” Dr. B punched in some numbers into his regular cell phone. “I’m calling Shang’s home number. I sent him a message earlier to disable his watch, but I never heard back from him.” He handed his phone to Kody. “Ask him if he’s done it, and tell him about the FBI agents.”

  Dr. B picked up his silver phone again, about to make another call to Sam.

  Rosa leaned forward in her seat. “Men posing as FBI agents? Why couldn’t they have helped us when Alyssa was kidnapped?”

  Dr. B’s lips twitched as though he didn’t like telling them the answer. “They’re actually members of George Mason’s drama department who agreed to help me should I ever need it. I couldn’t send them to a place where Overdrake’s men might shoot at them.”

  “What?” Jesse asked. “Overdrake is threatening our families and you’re sending in drama teachers?”

  Dr. B held up his hand to stop Jesse’s protest. “Booker and a few of the other camp staff will be armed and doing surveillance. The drama teachers are just our front men, friends of mine.” He cleared his throat, still explaining. “Throughout history, very few people have ever been double-crossed by drama teachers. They’re obviously not the sort of people who do things for the money.”

  Jesse rubbed his forehead tiredly.

  “Perfect,” Lilly mumbled. “That’s who we want watching our backs. Thespians.”

  In the front seat, Kody was nearly yelling into the phone. “I need to speak to Shang … Is Shang … is there somebody around who speaks English?”

  “Tori,” Dr. B said, finding her in the rearview mirror. “I’ll take you home before I take the others to the safe house. I’ll have Bess call your home phone tomorrow and give you any updates.”

  “Okay,” Tori said.

  Kody kept trying to communicate with whoever was on the phone. “Do you know if Shang’s watch still works … The thing on his wrist that tells time … Um, just have him call this number as soon as he comes back. It’s an emergency.”

  It seemed surreal that the others had to go to a safe house, that so much had changed in the space of a few hours, that Dirk was a traitor. I know everything that you know, Overdrake had said.

  And then Tori remembered what else she told Dirk. She let out a moan.

  All eyes turned to her. They must have thought that Overdrake was speaking again.

  “Ryker,” she breathed out. “I told Dirk that Ryker lived in Rutland. He’s in danger now.”

  CHAPTER 28

  Tori’s comment brought an immediate response from everyone in the van. None of it happy. Most of it confused. Tori didn’t answer their questions right away. She was too busy chastising herself, too busy wallowing through pointed self-recriminations. How could she have trusted Dirk with Ryker’s location? How could she have been so taken in?

  Dr. B consulted with Sam, changed his course, and headed toward the airport. They had no way to call and warn Ryker that Overdrake’s men would come after him. They had to go in person. Fortunately Sam had a private plane they could use.

  As Dr. B drove, he told the other Slayers about Ryker’s phone call. Then Tori told them how she’d had her father track down Ryker’s address and what she’d told Dirk.

  “So pretty much,” Lilly said when Tori finished, “everything that’s gone wrong tonight—Alyssa’s capture, all of us being forced out of our homes, and Ryker being in danger—that all happened because Jesse and Tori can’t keep a secret. They told Dirk things that Dr. B specifically warned them not to tell anyone.”

  Tori didn’t answer, couldn’t defend herself. She felt sick.

  Bess let out a grunt. “You’re one to talk. You and Alyssa exchanged phone numbers. The only reason all of this isn’t your fault is that Alyssa wasn’t the traitor.”

  “I didn’t endanger everybody—” Lilly started.

  Dr. B cut her off. “That’s enough. It’s time we all rededicate ourselves to keeping the rules.”

  “I think we need new team captains,” Lilly said, still sounding wounded. “I don’t care if the two of them can fly. The way things are going, they’ll get us killed before Overdrake even attacks.”

  Dr. B kept his gaze on the traffic around him. “I’ve already called team leaders and you sustained them.”

  One of Dr. B’s rules was that if a time came when more team members opposed the captain’s leadership position than supported it, the captain would be asked to step down. There had been some moments at camp—usually when Dirk or Jesse had woken up everyone in the middle of the night for a surprise drill—that the Slayers would have cheerfully unsustained either of their captains. But the vote was only taken once: at the beginning of the summer. After that, if any of the Slayers complained, Dr. B reminded them that they had voted already and now it was their job to follow their leader’s orders.

  “I sustained Dirk,” Lilly said, “Not Tori. You can’t put her in as a captain now. I know more about leading a team than she does.”

  Tori nearly argued the point. She had worked harder than anyone last summer. During free time, while everybody else had been goofing off in the lake or relaxing in the cabins, Tori had been holed up memorizing strategies, hand signals, and procedures.

  Tori didn’t argue, though. She hadn’t wanted to be a captain before tonight, and now that the weight of Ryker’s fate hung on her—she knew she couldn’t do it. She didn’t want to be responsible for a team’s safety. She didn’t want to make decisions that could cost people their lives. Besides, with Dirk and Alyssa both gone, A-team consisted of only Tori, Lilly, and Kody. Lilly wouldn’t sustain her, which meant Tori would never have a majority vote. “We should combine the teams,” Tori said. “Jesse should be the captain of both.”

  Dr. B sighed, clearly not pleased with this answer. “Let’s define the mission parameters before we decide that issue. Bess, there’s a pen and paper next to my seat. I’d like you to keep the mission notes.”

  It was procedure before a mission to make one list of needed supplies and another detailing everyone’s responsibilities. Since last summer, whoever kept the lists had to write them in code.

  “What is our goal?” Dr. B asked, slipping into his role of teacher. Although, strictly speaking he was never a real teacher. Real teachers told you how to solve the problems they assigned you. Dr. B always wanted the Slayers to find the solution themselves.

  Back at camp Tori hadn’t minded this so much, even when it was clear that Dr. B knew the answer and was just waiting it out, prodding the
m in the right direction until they figured it out. Now Tori found it irritating. “Our goal is to warn Ryker,” she said curtly. “His family will have to move.”

  “Do you know any drama teachers in Vermont?” Bess asked her father.

  Lilly folded her arms, still sullen. “We should talk to Ryker before we talk to his parents. That way we won’t have to admit that we illegally found his address and then screwed up and leaked it to Overdrake.”

  Not we. Tori had done that. She didn’t look forward to telling Ryker about it.

  Jesse stared at the floor in thought. “Our goal isn’t just to warn Ryker. It’s to convince him to come with us. More dragons have hatched. We can’t wait until next summer. We have to train with him now.”

  “Yes,” Dr. B agreed, “that is our goal. Suggestions?”

  Kody cocked his head. “You’re not saying we should kidnap him, are you?”

  “That’s one suggestion,” Dr. B said. He gestured to Bess. “Write it down.”

  As Bess moved her pen across the paper, she muttered, “Commit a felony … risk jail time…”

  “Other suggestions?” Dr. B called.

  Rosa shifted in her seat. “We could talk to Ryker’s parents and explain that the nation needs him.”

  Bess scribbled down another sentence. “Already tried that … failed miserably … Ryker’s parents are unpatriotic slugs…”

  Dr. B took his gaze from the road long enough to send his daughter a stern look. “There are no wrong answers in the brainstorming phase.”

  “Fine,” she said. She tapped her pen against her paper, then wrote out a sentence. “Seduce Ryker … Get married. Have the state of Vermont declare him legally an adult.”

  Dr. B glared at Bess again. She ignored him and kept tapping her pen, waiting for more suggestions.

  No one said anything for a minute. Jesse was still staring at the same spot on the floor, his brows pulled together in thought. Everyone else looked alternately at their hands, at each other, and at the ceiling.

  Dr. B sped by cars, weaving in between them as he passed. It was one more example of his optimism when it came to human nature. He just assumed that people would make room for a speeding van that was hauling a trailer.

  “We could tell Ryker’s parents they won a cruise,” Rosa suggested. “We’ll tell them they have to leave immediately. Then while they’re gone … we burn down their house, and move them to a secret location.”

  Everyone in the van stared at Rosa. Bess didn’t write the suggestion down. Instead, she picked up the paper, surveying what she’d already written. “If Ryker’s not bad looking, I’ll volunteer to marry him.”

  “We have to talk some sense into his parents,” Kody said. “We don’t have another choice.” He held up a hand to emphasize the point. “That means we gotta admit we put them in danger. There’s no getting around it.”

  We put them in danger. Again, Tori.

  Lilly shook her head. “They’ll never let Ryker join us if we tell them the truth. We’ll have to come up with a really compelling lie…”

  “A compelling lie…,” Rosa repeated. Her face was blank. “I’m not good with lies.”

  Bess twirled the pen between her fingers. “We totally studied the wrong stuff at camp. Not once did we have a class on lying in order to lure people away from their homes.”

  Dr. B didn’t say anything about the new direction the conversion had taken. He kept driving, waiting for them to come to a conclusion. And then—Tori knew from experience—after they came up with the wrong thing, he would gently point out to them why their plan was doomed to failure and make them start the process all over again.

  Maybe it had been too long of a day, too emotional. Maybe it was because a dragon hatchling was awake now, screeching in the corner of Tori’s mind. It sounded like metal being ripped from a car. It made it impossible to think. She had no patience left.

  “Dr. B, just tell us the right answer,” she said. “What are we supposed to do?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment. When he did, his voice was sympathetic. “Sometimes there isn’t a right answer, only a better answer. I can’t tell you what to do. The consequences will be yours, the choice should be, too.”

  Jesse lifted his head, finally rejoining the conversation. “Dr. B is right. This is a Slayer decision and the Slayer most qualified to make it is Ryker. We’ll talk to him first. He’ll know how to handle his parents.”

  “News flash,” Bess said. “Not all of us know how to handle our parents.” She motioned to her father. “If I did, I would get away with a lot more stuff.”

  Jesse reached over and took the pen and paper from Bess’ hand. He flipped to a clean page and wrote the word “supplies” on the top. “If Ryker wants to join us, we’ll find a way. He can run away and Dr. B’s drama teacher friends will tell my parents the FBI assigned Ryker to be my live-in bodyguard. Ryker’s parents won’t find him at my house.” Underneath “supplies,” Jesse wrote the word “simulator.” “And if Ryker doesn’t want to join us, there’s nothing we can do to force him into it.”

  * * *

  It was 7:20 when they reached the Dulles airport. Dr. B drove onto the tarmac where Sam’s plane was waiting for them, already fueled up. It was a sleek white Gulfstream, just big enough to fit the group and their gear.

  The Slayers piled out of the van and began loading their weapons, the simulator, and everything Dr. B had brought for Alyssa’s rescue mission. They didn’t know what they would need when they tracked down Ryker. Overdrake’s men might have beaten them to his house—or they might not show up for days. It all depended on how well Charles Davis had managed to hide his personal information.

  While the Slayers were loading things, Dr. B came up beside Tori. “If you need to go home instead of coming with us, I’ll understand.”

  All the other Slayers had a built-in excuse for being out late. They were meeting with FBI agents. But as far as Tori’s parents knew, she had ditched them at the hospital, hadn’t told anyone where she was going, and had refused to answer her phone. She was going to be in massive trouble when she got home, and taking an hour-and-fifteen-minute plane trip to Vermont was only going to make things worse for her.

  “I’ll go with you,” Tori said. How could she not? It was her fault Ryker and his family were in danger. “I’ll need to turn my phone back on long enough to text my mom that I’ll be out late with friends.”

  Which was, technically speaking, the truth. No need to worry her parents with details about her possibly running into gun-toting men. Tori also reminded them to turn on the house alarm. Her hands shook a little as she did that. If it sounded cryptic, well, at least they would be careful.

  They needed to be extra careful now.

  Tori had expected a pilot to join them in the plane. Instead, Dr. B sat down in the cockpit. The others weren’t surprised at all. As they settled into their seats, Rosa told her, “For a couple of years, Dr. B was hoping Sam’s contacts would come up with a design for planes that could take off out of the range of the EMP and then rely on manual technology to maneuver in the air. He thought we might be able to fight the dragons that way. One summer we had to practice fighting while parachuting to the ground.”

  “They couldn’t get a design that worked?” Tori guessed.

  “Not one that could maneuver well enough,” Kody said. “And the parachutes—yeah, we were pretty much just hanging in the sky like dragon hors d’oeuvres.”

  While the group flew to Rutland, they went over the remaining details of their plan. They would land at Southern Vermont Regional Airport, rent a van, and drive the five miles to Rutland. When they got to Ryker’s house, Tori and Bess, dressed in their Halloween costumes, would ring the bell. If someone from Ryker’s family answered, they would pretend to be from Ryker’s school and ask to see him. When Ryker came to the door, they would clarify that they were new students moving into the area and ask to talk to him about the school.

  Kody was flipping thro
ugh pictures of girls on the Internet who listed Rutland High School on their profile pages. “Tell him that Paige Child told you Ryker was the guy to ask about the school. She looks nice. You know, the friendly sort.”

  Tori nibbled on some trail mix. None of them had eaten dinner, so they all went through the stash of snacks on the plane. “And you think Ryker will believe that? Out of the blue, two girls show up on his doorstep and want to talk to him?”

  “If he’s cute, he will.” Bess reached over and stole some M&M’s from Tori’s trail mix. “Hot guys are used to girls throwing themselves at them.”

  “We don’t know if he’s cute,” Tori pointed out.

  Bess gazed upward. “If God is merciful, he is.” She shut her eyes as though praying. “Ryker will be cute, single, and like girls with curly hair and a sense of humor.”

  Kody was still reading the Internet page. “Do ya suppose Ryker really knows Paige Child? I wonder if she’s the type who’d go for a long-distance romance…”

  “Back to the plan,” Tori said. “I’m worried about just showing up on Ryker’s doorstep. I mean, what if he doesn’t want to go off somewhere private to talk to us?”

  Jesse’s gaze traveled over Tori. “With you dressed like that?” His voice was tinged with accusation. “Don’t worry. He’ll go with you.”

  Bess eyed Tori and let out an exasperated huff. “Jesse’s right. This is totally unfair. I’m dressed as a cowgirl and you’re dressed like a hooker with a superhero complex. Ryker isn’t even going to look at me.”

  Tori blinked, offended. “Hey, I didn’t design the outfit—DC Comics did. And it doesn’t even show that much of my midriff.”

  Bess stole more of Tori’s M&M’s. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. If Ryker is the type of guy who’s only interested in girls in miniskirts and halter tops, then I don’t want him.”

  “This isn’t a halter top,” Tori insisted, tugging it down. “And I don’t care what Ryker looks like. I’m not interested.”

  “Good,” Jesse said. “Can everybody stop acting like this is speed dating, so we can finish planning the mission?” He put his pen to the paper. “Do we need to buy any supplies in Rutland?”