by C. J. Hill
Once Tori nearly got the full force of the blaze. She could see flames hitting the invisible wall of the shield. Yellow, orange, and red churned in the air inches in front of her. She leaped backward, shaking, and more thankful for Bess’s gift than she’d ever been for anything in her life.
She mourned Leo’s absence then. He could have been throwing up shields, too. How could he have walked away from his responsibility, knowing what would happen?
Someone hit the dragon and it swung away from her. She tried to get her concentration back, but it took a while until her breathing steadied. The exercise went on.
If the dragon hit someone with its tail or twirling claws, they were considered dead and had to sit out the rest of the round. The other Slayers always yelled out, “Well done!” when someone was killed.
Shang had explained that the phrase was one of Dr. B’s favorite compliments, but it also worked as an insult because it described how you were cooked once the dragon was finished with you.
Tori was the first person killed during the first round. And also the first person killed during the second round. She found the humiliation—“Well done!”—hurt worse than the beams slamming into her. But after the third round, she was just happy to be dead. It meant she could go off to the far side of the building and work on leaping without getting burned or pummeled.
The leaps came easier now. She could pick a location and jump right to it. She’d finally gotten her sea legs—or rather, leaping legs. As the air rushed by her, she felt graceful, powerful, like she was skating on the ice with the rink whizzing by. She even tried Kody’s move—running and jumping against the wall to push off. It was fun, and after a few practices, she could do it without breaking stride.
Each round took a long time. Without Jesse to fly up and pierce the dragon’s heart, the Slayers had to wait for the dragon to come low enough so that someone could manage to leap up underneath it and stab it.
Still, the Slayers were expert with their talents. Lily and Shang doused fire while they were leaping. Bess threw shields up even when she couldn’t see the front of the dragon. Kody could not only push away the fire stream with his freezing shocks, he leapt across the dragon’s tail and legs as though playing jump rope. Alyssa and Rosa hung back farther than the others, not wanting to risk getting too close. But when Bess got a burn on her arm, Rosa was at her side in seconds, healing the wound while keeping an eye on the dragon.
Then Kody misjudged one of his freezing shocks and was hit by a blast of fire. The entire front of his shirt sizzled off his chest. He fell backward onto the ground, convulsing, gasping in pain. Both Rosa and Alyssa ran to him.
Even from where Tori stood, she could see Kody’s skin was bubbled and bleeding—parts of it charred white. It didn’t resemble skin anymore. And Kody’s face had lost all color. His jaw was clenched in a silent scream.
He’s going to die, Tori thought, and wondered if Alyssa and Rosa could heal even half the damage. His wound looked too severe. They should call an ambulance—only an ambulance would take too long to get here. It had been foolish to practice with flames that big. Dr. B shouldn’t have left Theo in charge, and he never should have put a bunch of teenagers, including his own daughter, in so much danger.
The dragon still hummed, swinging over them. Lilly had put out the fire, but the dragon made a whooshing sound, as it built up fuel for more flames. This time it would hit Rosa and Alyssa, and then who would be left to heal them?
Tori glanced up at the control room. Did Theo not see what had happened to Kody? He must. He just didn’t care. Dr. B wasn’t here, and Theo was too much of an idiot to know when to stop the game.
Tori sprinted across the room to the control center. She decided against the stairs. It would take too long to climb them. Instead, she jumped up until she was even with Theo in the glass.
She grabbed hold of the edge of the window, hanging there for a moment. “Turn it off!” she yelled to Theo’s startled face. But he didn’t. As she fell back to the ground, she could still hear the hum of the dragon behind her, and then the roar of another fire stream. The jerk had tried to fry someone else while Rosa and Alyssa were busy saving Kody’s life. And maybe Theo had succeeded.
He had to be some sort of psychopath.
Tori leapt back upward with trampoline height. This time she banged on the window with her fists. It wasn’t glass, but some sort of clear plastic that buckled and shattered. Large chunks of it flew into the control room.
She went down, then came back up again, this time at an angle. She sprung through the window and landed on a desk inside the control room. Several of the knobs and levers crunched beneath her feet.
Theo stood at an adjoining desk swearing loudly as he brushed pieces of plastic off the equipment. Feeling more like a cat than a human, Tori leapt to the floor in front of Theo. In two seconds she’d grabbed hold of his shirt and pushed him up against a wall.
Tori had never gotten into a fight in her life, never threatened anyone, yet she didn’t hesitate to lift him off the ground. “I told you to stop,” she said annunciating every word. “Did you not see what happened to Kody?”
“What’s wrong with you?” Theo choked out. He sounded breathless, compressed, so she let go of him. He slid back to the floor.
“What’s wrong with you?” she yelled. “Kody is hurt!”
Theo smoothed out his shirt from where she’d grabbed him. It was ruined, stretched apart and mangled. “Kody is fine!” he yelled back at her. “Man, look what you did to my shirt—and the window! And I bet you broke something when you landed on the controls.”
Tori couldn’t muster much concern over his shirt or workspace. She had stopped him from doing more damage. That was the important thing. She turned back to check on Kody and the others.
The dragon had been killed. Its lights were off and it lay limply from its cables. This wasn’t a surprise. As soon as she’d distracted Theo from the controls, the others had been able to shut off the dragon.
She expected to see her teammates huddled around Kody. She was afraid Rosa and Alyssa might be on the floor, too, burned and writhing.
But Kody stood up. The color had returned to his face, and he took off what was left of his shirt, revealing perfect, new skin. He high-fived Rosa and Alyssa, then put one burly arm around each of them and pulled them into a hug.
The other campers weren’t paying attention to him, though. They were making their way over to the control room, looking up at the window in amazement. And what’s more, Jesse, Dirk, and Dr. B were back.
Dr. B peered up at her. “What’s going on up there?”
Theo leaned out the window, pointing to Tori. “She tried to kill me!”
Shang called over, “She thought Kody’s burn was serious.”
Lilly cocked her head and stared up at the control room. “Didn’t she see Rosa and Alyssa taking care of him?”
Tori blushed brightly. Apparently it wasn’t Theo who had been acting like a psychopath—that part had been Tori’s. Yep. Her. The new psycho dragon chick.
She looked at the broken window and sighed heavily. She was never going to figure out this whole Slayer business.
CHAPTER 28
Tori stood outside the building while Dr. B regarded her, pressing his lips together in a tight, unhappy line. He folded his hands neatly in front of his camp polo shirt. “Perhaps no one thoroughly explained the rules of the drill to you, but while fighting the dragon, you’re not allowed to break into the control room or threaten the tech support.”
“I thought Kody was really hurt.” She had already explained this, but perhaps Theo’s wailing in the background had distracted Dr. B from hearing it. Or perhaps he’d forgotten it while settling Lilly and Bess’s argument over who had won the last round. Lilly maintained the points should go to the A-team since she had been the one to stab the dragon—or rather, push the button that represented the dragon’s heart with her sword. Bess said Tori had stopped the dragon when she’d taken o
ut Theo, so the points should go to Team Magnus. And then Lilly said that anything Tori had done didn’t count since she’d technically been dead at the time. People weren’t allowed to come back from the grave to help out team members.
In the end, the A-team had gotten the points.
Now Dr. B stared at Tori patiently. “I’m glad you were worried over Kody’s well-being. That shows loyalty and compassion. However, you must learn to destroy the dragon even if one of your team members falls. When the dragon attacks, we won’t be able to stop it from charging every time we need to help one of our own. You have to learn how to deal with these kinds of situations in practice drills so you’ll be able to deal with them when they happen in real life.”
Tori nodded, even though she didn’t imagine she would be much use in a real battle. Being able to hear what the dragon heard wasn’t going to help her fight it. She’d probably get killed quickly, like in practice.
And worse still, her parents would never understand why their daughter had died fighting a dragon.
Dr. B must have seen her discouragement. He added, “You managed to leap all the way to the control booth. That was quite well done. None of the others could have managed that height after only a couple days of practice. I dare say you’re the only girl who could make that height now.”
“It’s the ice skating,” Tori said. “I’ve got strong legs.”
“And the other girls have practiced jumping for years.” He smiled, not letting her brush off the compliment. Then his gaze traveled back to the door. “Well, seeing as Theo needs to fix the control board before you can practice again, and judging by the way he was weeping over it, I imagine it won’t be ready today. So I think it’s time for an early dinner. I’ll ask the cafeteria to bring things down.”
He left, taking his cell phone out of his pocket while he walked away. Tori didn’t want to go back inside and face the others. She’d messed up again, and this time had ended up breaking the mechanical dragon.
But she couldn’t stay out here forever. She trudged back into the Dragon Hall. The Slayers were below the control room, leaping up like supersonic jumping beans. Dr. B was right; none of the girls could get the height she had. Jesse could do it—although Bess kept yelling that he was cheating and flying. Dirk could do it, and Kody and Shang could jump high enough to see in the window, but not high enough to land inside. And Tori had done it three times in row.
“Would you cut it out!” Theo yelled at Dirk as he popped up even with him. “That’s getting on my nerves!” When neither Dirk nor Jesse stopped, Theo picked up chunks from the plastic window and pelted the Slayers with them. Kody turned the thing into field goal practice. He jumped up, caught a chunk, then landed and drop-kicked the plastic piece back through the window. After a couple times doing this, Dirk ran interference. He sprang up and caught a football-size plastic chunk before it could go back in the window.
“Interception!” Dirk yelled.
This seemed to be an invitation for every other Slayer to run after him. They tore around the building, laughing while they bounded into and off the walls. Dirk finally passed the plastic chunk to Kody, and instantly the teams formed. The A-team against Team Magnus.
When Shang and Jesse were about to tackle Kody, he tossed the chunk toward Lilly. Before it reached her, Bess threw up a shield in front of her, and the chunk bounced off the forcefield and flew toward Bess. She caught it, then dodged around Alyssa, hurdled over Lilly’s head, and sprinted back the way she’d come. Kody sent a shock that flung the plastic out of her hands. Jesse lunged into the air, caught it, and the race was on again.
Tori stood back and watched. It was nice seeing them laughing this way, like they were high school kids instead of commandos preparing for a life-and-death battle. For the first time, she felt the urge to be a part of them and was sad she’d missed all those years when the rest of them had bonded.
Jesse tossed the chunk to Shang, who leapt up and flung it back into the control room.
Theo let out a stream of curses.
“We should stop,” Rosa said, slowing to a walk. “We’re going to make him cry again.”
The group sauntered away from the control room area. Some of them went to the drinking fountains. Dirk looked at Tori, letting his eyes run over her in an appraising manner. She stood there, caught in his gaze, suddenly feeling awkward and expectant.
She hadn’t spoken to Dirk since he’d left her cabin the night before, and she had no idea how the whole counterpart thing worked. She ought to ask him for advice on fighting the dragon without much of a usable talent. He obviously didn’t get killed first in every battle, or he wouldn’t be a team captain.
For a moment, she thought Dirk would come over, but Jesse and Kody walked up beside her and Dirk strolled over to the drinking fountain instead. Kody held up his hand and gave her a high-five. “Hey, thanks for beating up Theo on my behalf. Someday I hope I can return the favor.”
“Don’t encourage her,” Jesse said. “As her team captain, I’m supposed to impress upon her the seriousness of her actions.” He turned to Tori and nearly suppressed the smile from his lips. “If you ever do that again, I’m going to make you write ‘I will not terrify the tech support guy’ a hundred times.”
“Sorry,” she said.
Jesse nudged one of the broken window chunks with his foot, then looked up at the jagged hole. “How did you manage to jump that high?”
“Adrenaline, I guess. I thought Theo would burn everyone.”
Jesse considered the window. “Hmm,” he said, as though piecing something together in his mind. “Try it now.”
She, Jesse, and Kody walked back over to the corner of the floor underneath the control room. The room grew quiet and she knew the others had stopped chatting and were watching her, too. Tori took a running step and leapt up. It felt like she’d taken a giant jump on a trampoline, all inertia and air. Her head bobbed even with Theo. He was bent over the desk full of knobs and levers, but he glanced up and glared at her when she came into view.
Gravity took effect, and she landed again, but without any of the jarring thunks she’d had two days ago. It was controlled now, as graceful as one of her skating routines.
Jesse didn’t speak, just kept watching her.
Theo leaned out of the window. “Tori is not allowed in the control room again. She is hereby banned from even jumping up to look inside. Banned!” He gave her another glare before spinning around and disappearing from view.
Tori stared back at the window. “He’s sort of touchy, isn’t he?”
Jesse laughed. Maybe that line sounded funny coming from someone who’d made such a big deal about her hair getting charred off.
But Kody nodded in agreement. “Computer nerds. They’re nothing but a bunch of prima donnas.”
Jesse hadn’t taken his eyes from her. She liked being the center of his attention in a good way. He might have said something about her jump, and it might have even been a compliment, but then the door to the Dragon Hall opened, and Dr. B called out, “Dinner!”
The Slayers sat down at the table, Team Magnus on one side, the A-team on the other. Jesse and Dirk sat at the seats closest to Dr. B, at the head of the table. While everyone ate chicken casserole, Dr. B hooked up a projector to his laptop and focused the image from his screen on a nearby whiteboard.
Finally, he stood in front of them, gathering their gazes. “As you know, this morning I went to investigate places Overdrake might be hiding the eggs. Now we need to discuss the results.”
He clicked a remote, and an image came up on the whiteboard—a large, gray building and two smaller buildings surrounded by cow pasture. Several cows grazed in the foreground. “The residence is listed to ‘John Smith.’”
The Slayers snickered. “Lame alias,” Kody said.
Dr. B advanced the screen to show a closer picture of the property. The building had a huge door on one end. “I’m sure John Smith is an alias,” Dr. B agreed. “I’m also sure it’s
the right place. Armed guards patrol the grounds, and Dirk got a strong connection to the dragons.”
Now the group leaned toward the image, their dinner forgotten, several people speaking at once.
“You know where it is?”
“When are we going?”
“Why are we sitting here, then?”
Dr. B held up a hand. “This is an unexpected turn of events—locating the eggs before they’ve hatched. They’ll be easy to destroy if we can get through Overdrake’s protections. However, you haven’t been trained to get around alarm systems or break into buildings. To be successful, I feel I’m going to have to study this for a while; perhaps bring in professionals—”
The group didn’t let him finish. Kody said, “We are the professionals. Who are you gonna get who can throw up forcefields or fly?”
Lilly said, “If we wait, Overdrake could move.”
“We’ll have surprise on our side,” Bess added.
Shang said, “We could stop the attack on D.C. before it ever happens. Think of the lives we’d save.”
Dr. B raised his hand again. “We’ve planned on killing the dragons after they attack, but this—” He gestured toward the picture on the wall. “This isn’t stopping a twenty-ton carnivore from ripping people apart. This would be breaking, entering, and destroying private property. If we aren’t careful, Overdrake could kill you, and the law would count it as self-defense. You would die as criminals. And even if we succeed in our mission, we might be caught, arrested, and sent to jail where we’ll spend the remainder of our days reading hate mail from Eragon fans.”
The group fell silent. Tori pushed some casserole around her plate and wondered how her parents would react to her being hauled off to jail. Probably not very well. Especially since her dad would be campaigning soon. And how would she explain jailtime to her friends?
She tried to read Jesse’s expression, to see whether he was for or against the idea, but he stared grim-faced at the projection on the wall. Dirk looked down at his plate, his jaw clenched.
