The Dragon Lords

by C. J. Hill

  No. Tori was not about to go to a counselor. What would she be able to say that wouldn’t make her sound delusional? She’d have to make up issues just so the counselor wouldn’t think she was holding out.

  Not for the first time, Tori considered tracking down the blueprints Ryker had used to build his simulator and showing her parents that she had powers. It would be proof that Slayers were real and she was one of them. As soon as the idea passed through Tori’s mind, she dismissed it. If her parents knew the truth, they wouldn’t let her be a Slayer. They wouldn’t let her fight dragons or Overdrake. They would pull her out of the team the same way Bess’s grandfather had. “I’m not crazy, Mom.”

  “I know you’re not, sweetheart.”

  Her father leaned across the aisle, his voice filled with concern. “Going to a counselor doesn’t make you crazy any more than going to a doctor makes you a hypochondriac.”

  “I’m fine, really.” And then because she didn’t think her parents would drop the subject, she added, “I guess I’ve been watching too many shows with plane crashes. They’ve made me a little tense. That’s different than anxiety. A lot of people worry about flying.”

  Her mother and father exchanged another look, but they didn’t say more.

  Tori forced herself to work on a math assignment after that, or at least pretended that she was. This was one more thing she had to thank Overdrake for, one more way he’d made her life hard. She wouldn’t feel badly about paying him back on Saturday at all.

  Chapter 17

  On Friday morning, Jesse texted Tori that he wanted to talk to her, then went to her locker and waited for her to show up. He needed to convince her not to do anything rash tomorrow. She’d always told him the Slayers were much too willing to fight dragons, that it would be their downfall. Maybe she was right about that. But Tori’s downfall would be fighting Overdrake by herself.

  She may have decided that she didn’t need Jesse, but that didn’t mean she didn’t need the rest of the Slayers. And they certainly needed her.

  Finding a way to talk to Tori privately would be difficult because girls had a way of migrating toward her and forming little clumps of chatter around her. And then there was Roland, her ex from last year. Whenever he spotted Tori walking in the hallway, he barnacled himself to her side. Jesse had developed a profound dislike of the guy.

  Still no sign of Tori among the stream of students drifting by in a sea of plaid and red polos. He kept watching. He knew the exact shade of her brown hair—golden brown with caramel highlights—and could have picked her out of crowd with only a glimpse of it.

  After a couple of minutes, Tori appeared through the crowd, strolling down the hall, phone in hand. Alone for once. Her long hair swung around her shoulders and her mint green eyes were trained on her screen. Perhaps reading his text.

  Even though she wore the same uniform as every other girl in school, she somehow still managed to make it look better. He wasn’t sure whether he should feel happy or just tormented about seeing her every day. The emotions went hand in hand lately.

  She slid her phone into her pocket, glanced up, and noticed him. “Hi.” It wasn’t an overly-friendly “Hi.” Not like the ones she used to give him, full of personal subtext. She was professional, aloof. One more thing he had to live with now.

  As she spun her combination, he began his speech. “I appreciate that you want to destroy the eggs. So do I. But we have to weigh the benefits of any mission against the danger. Even if you link to an egg inside the building, you’ll still have no guarantee that Overdrake hasn’t put an egg nearby to lay a trap for us. If the information is legitimate, then waiting a few more days or even weeks while we investigate won’t matter. We don’t need to rush into anything.”

  “I’ve already heard all of the objections.” She opened her locker and slid her backpack from her shoulders.

  “Good. Then you’ve had time to think about the merits of caution. Or the merits of teamwork, whichever seems most persuasive.”

  She took off her coat and hung it in her locker, hardly listening to him. “Do you think I act like I’m crazy?”

  “I don’t know,” he said slowly. “Are you going to agree with me about Saturday or not?”

  She put her backpack inside her locker with an unhappy shove. “I used to think the worst part of being a Slayer was fighting dragons—and okay, it still is, but having to keep a secret identity sucks too.” She pulled her journalism book from her shelf and tucked it under her arm with the air of a martyr. “This is why Batman and Superman don’t live with their parents.”

  “What?” Jesse cocked his head. “What’s going on with your parents?”

  “They think I have anxiety issues because of the Slayer stuff.”

  “Why? Did you tell them you hear voices?”

  “No. I don’t explain any of it. That’s the problem.” She took a pen from her backpack and gave her bag a push further into her locker. “If Batman was real, trust me, people would wonder why Bruce Wayne was always talking into his bat-watch and disappearing at odd times.”

  “I don’t think he had a bat-watch.”

  She shut her locker door with a clang. “Of course he did. He had bat-everything. The point is, the movies never show us the aftermath when Bruce Wayne is giving out lame excuses for his bizarre behavior and everyone is looking at him like he’s had a nervous breakdown.”

  Jesse surveyed her silently for a moment. “So you’re going to stay home on Saturday, right?”

  Instead of moving down the hallway, Tori leaned against her locker. “My parents will be out of town on Saturday, and Aprilynne won’t care if I’m gone. Those are rare events for me. I have to take advantage of them.”

  She wasn’t taking this mission seriously enough. She hadn’t foreseen all of the things that could go wrong, like gunmen shooting her or Overdrake capturing her. “An excuse to be gone isn’t a valid reason for putting your life in jeopardy.”

  Tori folded her arms, still clutching her journalism notebook. “This morning at breakfast, my mother told me that there are lots of perfectly safe medications for anxiety.”

  Still no reason to act rashly. “We can come up with an excuse for you to make the trip later.”

  Tori sighed. “And later the rest of you will change your mind about intel from dragon lords? Why risk the possibility of Overdrake moving the eggs somewhere else when we know where they are right now?” Her green eyes found his. Those eyes, the same color as sunlight on sea glass, were asking for his support. It would have been easy to fall under their spell the way he’d done so many times—give her whatever she wanted just to make her happy. But he couldn’t this time, not when her safety was in question.

  “Waiting won’t hurt,” he said. “Not waiting could definitely hurt.”

  She arched a meaningful eyebrow at him. “Since when are you so concerned with whether I get hurt or not?”

  She wasn’t talking about the mission anymore, but he met the accusation and raised eyebrow without flinching. “Since always.”

  She leaned away from the locker, dismissing his words. “Taking no action isn’t always the right decision.” She seemed to be talking about more than Saturday, but before he could be sure of her meaning, the warning bell rang, announcing they had five minutes until class started. As they started toward their class, Tacy and another girl ambled up, putting a quick end to mission talk.

  “Are you ready for the game?” Tacy asked Jesse, all smiles.

  For a moment, he stared at her, not sure what she meant.

  “The game against Maret,” she clarified.

  And then he remembered: basketball. The team was playing tonight.

  When he first enrolled in Veritas, he hadn’t wanted to join. He hadn’t planned to play any sports this year because he knew after school practice would end up conflicting with Slayer training. But Jesse’s parents had insisted. His father talked to the coach and told the man that Jesse had started for the varsity team at his last
school. His mother went on and on about how colleges were bound to offer scholarship money if they saw him play. His father was already in contact with people from some universities.

  Jesse could use scholarship money, although he couldn’t help but think part of his mother’s insistence he play was due to the fact that she wanted to keep him busy with sports so he didn’t have time to hang out with Tori. Ironic. Turned out his mom hadn’t needed to keep them apart after all.

  “Yeah,” Jesse told Tacy. “Should be a good game.”

  Technically he shouldn’t have been playing in today’s game since he missed a practice yesterday. He’d faked an illness so he could meet with the other Slayers. But the coach had seen his three-pointer enough times that he was playing him anyway.

  That was the thing about being a Slayer. You had better aim, accuracy, and reaction time even when your powers weren’t turned on.

  “We’ll be there rooting for you,” Tacy purred, and then seemed to remember that Tori was walking down the hallway too. “Are you going tonight?” she asked.

  Tori forced a smile. “I wouldn’t miss it.”

  Jesse wondered what sort of meaning was behind that smile long after journalism class started.

  Chapter 18

  “Why exactly did we come to the game?” Melinda asked. She was one of Tori’s Veritas friends. She sat beside Tori in the bleachers, mostly checking her phone and taking selfies.

  The crowd around them had erupted in a cheer—Jesse had made another basket—and the guy next to Melinda jostled her, making her spill popcorn on her lap.

  “School spirit,” Tori said.

  “Uh huh.” Melinda wasn’t a sports fan, which had always seemed like a good thing. For the most part, Tori avoided sports events. The yells from the crowd, the clapping, the sound of players thumping across the floor—and worst of all, the shrill referee whistles—it was a constant assault of sound.

  But after Jesse had joined the basketball team, Tori had undergone a sharp increase of interest in the game. Tonight she’d told her parents she was going to Melinda’s house and then dragged her to the game. That way, she didn’t have to bring her bodyguard with her.

  Melinda cast a glance at Jesse. “I thought you were over Jonathan.”

  “I am. Sort of. It’s complicated.”

  Melinda rolled her eyes. “He’s hot and acts all unattainable. That’s not a complication, that’s a challenge. And you’ve fallen for it just like every other girl in the school.”

  At first, Jesse had acted unattainable to the other girls because he’d been seeing her. But even after their split, he wasn’t seeing anyone. Was that because he still had feelings for her or because he didn’t want any entanglements that would keep him from his Slayer duties?

  The crowd erupted into another cheer, drawing Tori’s attention back to the game. Well, not really to the game—she was only paying attention to Jesse. He ran down the court with a stride that had a grace and flow that made everything he did look effortless.

  He’d stolen the ball from the other team and was winding his way around their players to the school’s basket. He pivoted around the guard and went up for a layup. Two points. The crowd whooped its approval.

  He didn’t even pause before he headed down to the other basket to play defense. For a moment his gaze flickered to the crowd and Tori wondered if he saw her sitting on the bleachers.

  Probably not. Jesse had a way of concentrating on what needed to be done and forgetting about the unimportant details. In this case: her, staring at him like some groupie.

  The guy who sat on the other side of Tori was talking to a friend beside him. “We’re going to bury Maret. That new kid is on fire.”

  He was. Tori hoped some of the scouts from local colleges would want him. It would be a pity if he had to turn down out-of-state offers because Dr. B had instructed the Slayers to stay in the area. She let herself wonder what Jesse’s life would be like if he weren’t a Slayer. He not only had athletic potential, the guy was smart and had a good head on his shoulders. He could go anywhere. He was the sort of person whose future should be wide open and limitless.

  A familiar sensation bloomed inside of Tori, made her catch her breath. It was the feeling that a counterpart was close. Dirk. Her eyes searched the gymnasium. He was somewhere nearby.

  Even as the thought occurred to her, she dismissed it. Why would he be at this basketball game? And yet that feeling of familiarity—of him—was there.

  People were coming and going through the door. When her gaze turned in that direction, he wasn’t hard to spot. He was tall, broad-shouldered, blond, and handsome. Those sorts of guys always stood out.

  He wandered toward the bleachers, scanning the crowd, and the next moment his eyes connected with hers. He smiled but there was a tinge of worry, a hesitation in his expression. He crossed the floor, still holding her gaze.

  Was this coincidence or had he come to see her on purpose? If it were on purpose, it could be good news—or very bad news. She peered at the area behind Dirk to see if anyone was with him. Overdrake maybe or an assortment of henchmen.

  He seemed to be alone. No one who was burly, armed, or sinister trailed him. Eyes still on her, he made his way to her section of the bleachers.

  How had he found her? Well, she shouldn’t really wonder. He’d known she’d gone to this school before she moved. It wasn’t surprising he would check here—but why had he come? Was he about to deliver some sort of ultimatum to the Slayers? That’s what the bad guys in movies always did when they showed up unexpectedly.

  Her breaths came faster, her heart pounded, and she wasn’t exactly sure whether it was from worry or happiness—because, frustratingly, even though she was worried, another part of her was just happy to see him.

  He climbed the steps, and people scooted over, letting him edge through her row. When he was still a couple feet away, she asked, “What are you doing here?”

  He stopped on the bleacher beneath her, waiting for people to shift away from her to make room. “I came to talk to you, to make sure you were okay.”

  The guys on Tori’s side didn’t move. They were too engrossed in the game to notice Dirk standing there. Melinda didn’t move either, but that was because she was staring, starstruck, at Dirk.

  He spoke without sitting down. “Why didn’t you answer any of my messages?”

  She blinked at him, confused. “Your last message said not to contact you.”

  It was his turn to look surprised. “You haven’t heard anything from me since then? You didn’t hear my new contact information?”

  She shook her head. Should she admit that she was connected to Khan now and not Vesta? If Dirk ever had another warning for her, she wanted to make sure she heard it. But at the same time, Overdrake hadn’t let Aaron be alone with Vesta. If Dirk knew Tori could hear what Khan heard, would Aaron be kept from that dragon? Perhaps Overdrake’s restrictions on the fledglings weren’t only due to their unpredictable nature. Maybe he was making sure Aaron didn’t leak anything to her.

  Before she could decide what to say next, her attention shifted. The crowd had momentarily grown quiet, seemed to be suspended in a collective gasp. The ref’s whistle chided a shrill complaint. Something was wrong.

  She didn’t see the basketball hurtling toward the back of Dirk’s head. She couldn’t see it because he was blocking her view of the court. But he turned—split-second fast—reached into the air and caught the ball before it hit his head.

  Several people in the stands let out exclamations, some of relief that no one had been hurt, others in pure appreciation of the sort of skill it took to catch a ball going fast and hard when your back was turned.

  But most of the crowd just gaped in disbelief, some at Dirk, some at Jesse.

  Tori knew Jesse was the one who’d hurled the ball into the stands even before she tilted her head to see him standing in the middle of the floor glaring up at Dirk.

  Jesse had apparently seen Dirk in the sta
nds and his first reaction had been to stop the game and fling the only hard object he had at Dirk’s head.

  Jesse should have known it wouldn’t work. The Slayers had done this sort of thing often enough at camp—pitched things at each other to test one another’s reaction times. Dirk was hard to catch off guard.

  “Well,” Dirk said wryly, “look who’s playing on your team.”

  Jesse stormed toward the stands, saying something that was drowned out by the ref’s scolding whistle. Perhaps Jesse’s teammates were close enough to hear him, or perhaps his look of determination was enough to announce his intentions because a couple guys grabbed Jesse’s arms to hold him back.

  Dirk smiled at Jesse, took aim at the opponent’s basket, and threw the ball in that direction.

  The ball swooshed through the net and the crowd let at an assortment of hoots and cheers. The guy sitting next to Tori raised his hand to give Dirk a fist bump. “Dude, that was so awesome!”

  What it was, was proof that Dirk’s powers were turned on. None of them could have so effortlessly landed that shot without their extra abilities, but it was the sort of thing all of them did at camp. Dirk had done it to make a point: He had extra strength and Jesse didn’t.

  Jesse stopped struggling against his teammates. His gaze went to Tori and the apprehension in his eyes made his thoughts clear. She didn’t have extra strength right now. If she needed to fight off Dirk, she wouldn’t be able to do it.

  While the guy sitting next to Tori asked Dirk where he played, Tori held up a hand to Jesse, making the Slayer sign that everything was fine. Dirk wouldn’t hurt her. She didn’t sense any aggression or hostility from him. He’d come to make sure she was okay.