by C. J. Hill
Willow turned, saw Jesse, and was startled. “How are you doing that?”
“I’m a Slayer, like you. My friends might have already gotten the thug.” Into his neck mike, Jesse said, “Kody?”
“The guy saw us,” Kody said. “He’s running in your direction.”
“He’s coming your way,” Jesse told Willow. Then added, “Do you know how to use that gun? I don’t want you accidentally shooting my friends.” He glided through the window toward her. “Maybe you’d better let me take care of this.”
“Gun?” Mrs. Davis called from the floor.
Willow turned and pointed the rifle at the door. “Stay down, Aunt Harriet. I’ll handle this.”
The next moment the man came through the door. Not of his own volition. He’d been hit by something in the back—probably one of Kody’s freezing shocks. As he stumbled forward, Willow clubbed him on the back of the neck. Probably not the safest way to use a rifle, still, it did the job. The man hit the floor, moaned, then went unconscious. This caused the girl on the floor to let out a yelp. Mrs. Davis had moved so that most of her body covered the girl, shielding her from possible gunfire.
Into his mike, Jesse said, “Don’t come in yet.”
He walked over to Willow and held out his hand for the gun. “I’d feel a lot better if you gave that to me.”
She didn’t. “I’d feel a lot better if I knew who you were, and why you’re in my house.”
He kept holding out his hand for the gun. “My name is Jesse. I’m here to help you. Right now, I’d like to help you by making sure you don’t accidentally shoot any of your family. I doubt the gun’s safety is on.”
She pointed the gun down at the floor. “There. I won’t shoot anyone. At least not yet.”
Instead of arguing the point, Jesse checked his infrared scanner for heat signatures. Two stood outside the doorway. Bess and Kody. He didn’t see any others. “Are you picking up any heat signatures outside this room?” Jesse asked into his mike.
“Just a small barking one,” Bess said.
“Two more Slayers are in the hallway,” Jesse told Willow. “I’m going to tell them it’s all right to come in. Don’t attack.”
Willow strode over to the wall and flipped on the lights. She looked more frustrated than grateful. “You came to help us?” She eyed Jesse, lingering on his helmet. He knew the helmet made him look ominous. It was hard to see his features through the tinted glass. But the Slayers couldn’t take off their helmets until everyone was safe.
Willow took a step toward Jesse. “Where were you when four armed gunmen forced their way into our house, pistol-whipped my uncle, and threatened to shoot us?”
Bess and Kody walked into the living room. “We were outside in your yard,” Kody said, “taking care of the six armed gunmen there.”
“I gave you a warning,” Jesse added, making his way over to where Mr. Davis lay. “I shot a round into your roof. Didn’t you hear it?”
Willow planted her hand on her hip. “That was your idea of a warning? It’s Halloween. We thought some kids were playing with firecrackers.”
Mrs. Davis sat up, took the cloth away from Mr. Davis’ head, and checked his wound. A small stream of blood dripped down the side of his face. “I need the first-aid kit,” she called out. Her voice was high-pitched. Her hand shook. “It’s underneath my bathroom sink. Somebody go get it. Willow, call the police. Call Ryker.”
Bess turned and headed down the hallway. “I’ll get the first-aid kit.”
The young girl was rocking back and forth and crying. Her dark hair was pulled back in a bun, and she wore a long white dress with wings. An angel costume. It made her look all the more young and fragile. She already held a cell phone in her hand. “I called nine-one-one. It didn’t work. Is Dad going to be okay? Should I get your phone?”
“You’ll need a landline,” Kody said. “Unless Overdrake’s men took care of that, too.” He pulled a pair of handcuffs from his pockets, then knelt by one of the unconscious gunmen. He flipped him over and cuffed his hands behind his back.
Willow was walking out of the room. “I’ll check the phone in the kitchen.”
Mrs. Davis pressed the cloth back against her husband’s wound. “Willow, how long have you known you’re a Slayer? Who else knows?”
Willow’s voice came from the next room. “I found out when Ryker did. His simulator worked on me, too. I’ve been meaning to ask you, did my mom visit you in D.C. when you were both pregnant?”
Mrs. Davis let out a small gasp, which probably meant yes.
Jesse checked his scanner. Even though it wasn’t picking up any new readings, he wanted to get everyone out of the house as quickly as possible. Overdrake could have backup coming. “Kody,” he said, “stand watch outside the front door until we can evacuate.”
Jesse turned to Mrs. Davis. “We need to leave. Overdrake might send more men.” Without waiting for her response, Jesse bent down beside Mr. Davis. “I’ll carry him to your car. We’ll go to the hospital.”
As soon as Jesse slid his hand underneath Mr. Davis, the man groaned and opened his eyes. He squinted at Jesse and then, with a jolt of clarity, pushed at his arms.
“It’s okay,” Jesse told him, raising his hands to show they were empty. “I’m here to help you. I’m going to carry you to your car so we can take you to the hospital.”
Mr. Davis squinted at Jesse eyeing his helmet suspiciously. He sat up, wobbling. “Where’s Ryker?”
Jesse took hold of Mr. Davis’ shoulder to steady him. “We have four people on the ridge looking for Ryker right now.”
Mrs. Davis held the cloth against her husband’s wound again. Her hands were still shaking. “The ridge? Ryker’s at a party.”
“No, he’s not.” Bess came back into the room carrying a large plastic box with a first-aid sticker on the top. “He went up to the ridge.” She opened the box and handed it to Mrs. Davis.
Jesse itched to leave, wanted to hurry everyone along. “We need to go,” he told Mrs. Davis again.
Mrs. Davis rummaged through the first-aid kit and ripped open an antiseptic wipe. “Not until we get hold of Ryker. We’ve got to warn him.”
She wasn’t being rational, but he didn’t want to pick her up and haul her out of here. At least not yet. He went to the window and checked the men lying on the lawn. How long would it be until Overdrake tried to communicate with them?
Willow came into the room holding a cordless phone. “This doesn’t work either. Do you want me to go next door?”
Mrs. Davis taped a piece of gauze against her husband’s wound. “Who are these men?” she demanded. “Why are they looking for Ryker?”
“They’re Overdrake’s men,” Bess said, helping Mr. Davis to his feet. “The dragon lord isn’t fond of Slayers. By the looks of it, you have two of those in your family.”
Willow squinted at Bess helmet visor, trying to see beyond the tint. “You’re one of the girls who came here asking for Ryker, aren’t you? I felt my energy kick in and thought Ryker had come back to town. But it was yours, wasn’t it?”
Jesse took Mr. Davis’ elbow to help him as he walked. It would have been easier to pick him up, faster, but he could tell that Mr. Davis was the type that wouldn’t appreciate being treated like a child. “Overdrake found out where you lived, so we came to warn Ryker. We need to talk to him, and…” Jesse sized up Willow again. “We need to talk to you, too.”
“No.” Mrs. Davis put her arm around her husband’s waist, helping him across the room. Their daughter shadowed them, still clutching her cell phone.
“You want to take Ryker and Willow away,” Mrs. Davis said. “You want to turn them into Slayers.” She gestured back at the broken table and unconscious men lying on the floor. “Into this.”
“Do you think this is over?” Jesse’s voice rose despite telling himself to stay calm. The last five years of wondering about Ryker, of looking for him, were boiling up inside of Jesse. “Overdrake doesn’t care that you
don’t want to fight him. He isn’t going to leave you alone. You can’t be neutral about this. Ryker and Willow both need to train with us. An attack is coming and the country needs them.”
Mrs. Davis shook her head and kept shaking it. “If Ryker and Willow go with you, they’ll be killed. Do you think it makes a difference to me whether they’re killed defending the country?”
Jesse sensed someone was coming up behind him. He whirled around. A dark-haired teenage boy stood not far away. He was tall, muscular, and floating outside the window.
Another flyer. All the better.
“It makes a difference to me,” Ryker said. Everyone in the room turned to look at him.
“Ryker!” his sister yelled and ran to him.
Ryker flew inside and caught his sister up in a hug, bending her wire wings. He carried her, one-handed on his side, as though she were a toddler and weighed nothing at all.
Mrs. Davis turned, let out a sob, and held out her arms to her son. Ryker came to her and embraced her with his other arm. Then he noticed his father’s bandage and the blood that had leaked onto his neck and shirt. “Are you okay?” he asked.
His father nodded. Jesse wasn’t so sure Mr. Davis was okay. He was pale and silent. He was either suffering from a concussion, or shock, or both.
The sister slid down from Ryker’s side. “Dad wouldn’t say where you were so one of the gunmen hit him with his rifle.”
Ryker’s expression tightened, went hard with anger. Whatever Ryker’s reasoning for not joining the Slayers, Jesse could tell he wasn’t a coward.
The sister gestured behind her at the spray of broken glass on the floor. “Willow picked up the coffee table and threw it at them. She knocked them out the window.”
“Good,” Ryker said and then turned to Jesse. “Those unconscious men in my backyard—they’re Overdrake’s men?”
Jesse nodded. “Kody is keeping watch in the front. We need to leave. More could come.”
Jesse hadn’t noticed that Ryker wore a neck mike—one of the Slayer’s neck mikes—until he spoke into it. “The Slayers are inside with my family and a couple more unconscious gunmen. My father is hurt. Is the front clear?”
Jesse didn’t hear the other group of Slayers on his earpiece. He knew what had happened. Dr. B tried to call Jesse, couldn’t get through, and was afraid his team had been attacked. He drove back with the other team, using a different channel to coordinate with them in case Jesse’s earpiece was in the wrong hands.
Ryker took his father’s elbow and headed toward the front door. “The other Slayers are still making a surveillance sweep of the area around our house. As far as we can tell, everything is clear.”
Dr. B tuned into Jesse’s frequency. “Bess, do you copy? Are you okay?”
Technically, Dr. B should have been checking in with Jesse since he was the team captain.
“We were attacked,” Bess said. “We’re all okay, though.”
It was probably a good thing that she didn’t mention how close they’d come to being captured.
“Get Ryker’s family to come out front,” Dr. B said. “I’m pulling up to their house.”
CHAPTER 33
The entire time Tori had scouted the forest around Ryker’s house, her stomach was twisted into a ball of dread. One look at the Davises’ backyard told her that Overdrake’s men had attacked, and that Jesse, Bess, and Kody put up a fight. Dark scorch marks dotted the grass, remnants from Kody’s fireballs. Nets sprawled here and there. Men lay unconscious. Shards of glass stuck out of the grass. A splintered coffee table lay on its back like an animal in rigor mortis.
It was only a couple minutes until Ryker found the Slayers inside and called in the all clear, but those had been frighteningly long minutes.
Tori considered Bess one of her best friends and loved Kody like a big, muscley brother. It was the thought of losing Jesse, though, that filled her with panic. All she could think was, he was mad at me and we didn’t have time to talk about it. She never told him that she and Dirk hadn’t gotten together the last night of camp. Tori hadn’t moved on that fast. She wanted Jesse to know that she still wasn’t completely over him.
After Ryker reported that the Slayers were okay, she sunk several feet in the air, limp with relief.
The Slayers then congregated in front of Ryker’s house. Ryker took his parents and little sister in his truck. He wasn’t about to leave his simulator sitting in the driveway. The Slayers, Willow, and the neurotically barking dog got into Dr. B’s van.
Too many people were around for Tori to talk to Jesse. They drove a little ways down the street to a neighbor’s house, Mrs. Davis called 911 to report the home invasion, then both vehicles headed to the doctor’s office where Ryker’s parents worked. His dad was the office manager so he had the keys, and his mom was a nurse. She would not only be able to sew up his wound properly there, they would avoid the lines at the emergency room, questions they couldn’t answer, and they would be able to talk without people overhearing them.
While the Slayers rode in the van, they took off their helmets and introduced themselves to Willow. They had to do this loudly, because the dog barked so fervently he kept jolting himself off Willow’s lap. She repeatedly petted his shaggy brown fur and murmured, “It’s all right, Griffin. The police will take care of those nasty men.”
Finally the dog’s barks subdued into suspicious growling.
When Tori introduced herself, Willow raised an eyebrow. “Tori, not Britney? I guess this means you’re not Ryker’s soul mate after all?”
“Who knows?” Jesse said, answering for her. “The night is still young.”
“No, I’m not Ryker’s soul mate,” Tori said, ignoring Jesse. “Although Ryker could be my counterpart since we both fly.” The words felt like a lie. She was Dirk’s counterpart and he was a dragon lord. She explained counterparts to Willow, then added, “Ryker could also be Jesse’s counterpart. He flies, too.”
“What about me?” Willow asked, letting her gaze sweep around the van. “How do I know who my counterpart is?”
“You’re a flyer, too, right?” Rosa asked.
“No,” Willow said, with a shrug of embarrassment. “I don’t know what my extra talent is.”
“It’s got to be flying,” Lilly said. “Being a Slayer is inherited and you’re related to a flyer.”
“Yeah, that’s what Ryker and I thought, too.” Willow kept stroking Griffin’s head. “I can’t tell you how many times Ryker dragged me around the sky telling me that I just needed to concentrate. It never worked.”
Flying, Tori knew, had very little to do with concentrating and much more to do with feeling, with wanting to lift yourself through the air. When Tori’s power of flight had kicked in, she had found herself soaring upward without any idea how she was doing it.
“She doesn’t have to be a flyer,” Bess pointed out. “Ryker’s and Willow’s Slayer ancestors could be through their unrelated parents.”
Rosa considered this. “Maybe your power just hasn’t manifested itself yet. Extra talents usually show up when you’re in danger.”
Willow let out a grunt. “Then I ought to have extra talent oozing out of my pores by now. If not from the armed gunmen who broke into my house tonight, then from all of the times Ryker dropped me while we were a few hundred feet up in the air.”
“He dropped you?” Rosa asked, wide-eyed. “On purpose?”
“Yeah, on purpose. He claims he was helping me fly but sometimes Ryker is just a jerk.” She fluttered her hand in Tori’s direction. “That’s another thing you ought to know about him before you become his soul mate.”
“Counterpart,” Tori said.
“Tori can’t be Ryker’s counterpart, too,” Rosa said, leaning forward in exasperation. “That wouldn’t be fair.”
Bess nodded in agreement. She was twisted in her seat so she could see Willow. “Tori has been hogging the counterparts lately.”
Bess meant Dirk and Jesse—technically not e
ven close to all the counterparts. “It’s not something anyone has a choice about,” Tori reminded everyone.
Bess looked upward and sighed. “Tori will probably spend all next summer sequestered with Ryker training him.”
Jesse straightened. “We can do a counterpart test right now.” There was a challenge in his voice, as if he thought Tori was campaigning for the position. “We close our eyes, and Dr. B passes Ryker’s truck—or not. When he says, ‘now’ we both point to where we think Ryker is.”
Tori leaned back in her seat. “I doubt I’m Ryker’s counterpart. I don’t mind waiting to find out.”
“Right,” Jesse said. “I remember how you and Dirk figured out you were counterparts. This way is better.”
Tori flushed. She never should have told Jesse about Dirk and her kissing that time.
Bess’ gaze bounced between Jesse and Tori. “Wait, how did Tori and Dirk figure out they were counterparts?”
Tori glared at Jesse and didn’t answer.
“You’re blushing,” Bess said. “So it’s got to be a good story.” She waved a disapproving hand in Tori’s direction. “I can’t believe you never told me.” With an injured air, she turned to Rosa. “Did Tori ever tell you?”
Rosa shook her head. “Nope.”
“Who’s Dirk?” Willow asked.
“Fine,” Tori said, “I’ll do the counterpart test now. Dr. B, you can pass Ryker’s truck whenever you want.” She shut her eyes and hoped this would end the discussion about Dirk. It didn’t. Lilly immediately began telling Willow all about Dirk.
“I’ll do better than pass Ryker,” Dr. B called back to Tori. “We’re pulling into the parking lot now. I’ll drive around and once I stop the van, tell me which direction Ryker is parked.”
Tori kept her eyes shut tight and concentrated, trying to feel Ryker’s presence. Mostly she felt Jesse’s, though. She knew he was sitting across the van, ticked at her because he thought she was hogging counterparts. Okay, it was actually Bess who had said that. Jesse was just ticked at the idea of her being sequestered all summer with Ryker.