“And my dad was a part of it?” Jasper asked.
“He was.”
Context. “So he when he was away … he wasn’t selling medical supplies.”
“Not exactly.”
“What was he doing, then?”
“That is the question.” Cyrus let his statement hang for a moment. “You must first understand that the True Sons of Liberty follow a strict honor code that prohibits naked aggression. Your father’s murder and your abduction are unusual.”
“A code?”
“The Code. Under it, violence is strictly limited to duels. The Oligarchs—the True Son’s ruling elites—consider it Scripture.”
Things were sliding back toward the ridiculous. “As in ‘I challenge you to a duel.’ Glove-whipping. Swords.”
“Pistols are preferred.” Cyrus said it casually, which freaked Jasper out. Like it was totally normal to face someone and blow them/get blown away. “Breaking the Code is dishonorable, and the True Sons of Liberty value honor above all else. Thus, I suspect that whatever your father was looking for, that thing threatens their organization uniquely.”
Don’t ask. Just walk out. These people are delusional.
But Elsbeth Reed—she wasn’t nothing. She’d attacked him. That had happened.
And the will, the safe—they were right here. Okay, so the explanation for this whole thing was completely insane, but it was evidence of something.
This wasn’t the mafia.
“What was my dad working on?” Jasper asked.
“I have no earthly idea.”
“If you had to guess?”
Cyrus let the silence stretch out for a moment. “A way out. If I had to guess.”
“Out? Of what?”
“Out of your duel.”
Jasper had that floating feeling again—blood diving from his head to his toes. His lungs were working really hard, but also seemed to not be working. “No … I’m not … into guns. I’m good.”
“Jasper, your ancestor is the most hated man in American history. When you turn eighteen, this office will receive hundreds of official requests challenging you to a duel. You will only have to accept one, but the Code demands that you accept.”
“I’ll run away, then. I don’t care.” The office felt weirdly small. Was that wall moving toward him? “This is insane.”
“You can choose to hide, like your father—many do—and the League will help you. But you will be in violation of the Code, and the True Sons of Liberty will hunt you down, take your property, harass you, make your life impossible—barely a life at all. However, if you choose to duel, and if you survive, you are free to live in peace—no one will bother you again. That is the Code.”
Jasper swallowed some bile. “So I can run—and maybe die—or stay, and definitely die. Or become a murderer.”
“Perhaps you should sit.”
“I’m good.”
Jasper swayed and grabbed the edge of the safe.
Then he puked.
CHAPTER SIX
Sorry,” Jasper said to the janitor.
The man grunted as he rinsed out his mop.
“Would you like anything else to eat?” Sybil asked.
“No. Thanks.”
“I ask because most of your lunch is on the floor.”
“Yeah. No, I’m fine.”
She pointed to a spot the janitor had missed. Jasper’s blast radius had been impressive.
Byron came in with a clean shirt. He also had a thick, black coat that would reach Jasper’s knees.
“Join me on the roof,” Cyrus said. It wasn’t a request.
Gray clouds hung low over the city. The wind cut like glass at this height. Jasper watched people jaywalk around City Hall and wondered how they’d react if he told them the descendants of the Founding Fathers wanted him dead because he was related to Benedict Arnold. Would they care? Would they even believe him?
Insane. All of this is insane.
“You are not the first to react so dramatically,” Cyrus said. “Learning of one’s lineage can be difficult.”
“Lots of people have puked in your office?”
“Most cry. Your father did.”
Something shifted in Jasper’s chest. “My dad cried?”
“Your father learned of his past as you did, through his father’s will. He took it very hard. According to the notes of my predecessor, he wept.”
“When was this?”
“Just before your first birthday.”
Jasper leaned on the cement wall. A pigeon landed nearby and eyeballed him. Context. “Why didn’t he tell me?”
“I can’t answer that. And it doesn’t matter.”
“His whole life being one epic lie kind of matters to me.”
“Why?”
“You’re serious?”
“Would you feel better if he was an honest man?”
“For starters. Or if he’d just been present. I would have settled for that.”
“The best guard dogs do not stay inside the fold while wolves gather,” Cyrus said. “They prowl outside, searching out danger.”
So his dad was trying to help him? But hold on.
“Do the guard dogs also come to your birthday parties drunk? Or bolt from their wives’ funerals, leaving their sons to navigate sheriff sales of their houses alone? Is that normal guard-dog behavior? If you’re about to tell me that I shouldn’t care about any of that because he did all of this for me, I’ll probably puke. Again.”
Cyrus stared the pigeon down, and it flew away. “I did not promise you a better father, Jasper. Only a fuller picture of the one you had. You are free to hate him, but do not let that hatred cloud your judgment.”
Jasper’s mom had said that in her birthday message. “Did she know, my mom?”
“I imagine so.”
Maybe that’s what her letter had meant—she’d been trying to tell him the truth.
A wave of nausea washed over him. “Her car accident …”
“A tragedy, but unrelated. I investigated it myself.”
Jasper’s stomach felt calmer. There was no way he could handle her dying because of this mess. “It feels like I’m in that movie, The Matrix,” he said. “Blue pill, red pill situation.”
“I’m not familiar with that film.”
Big surprise there. “There’s no going back, is there?”
“If there were, would you want to?”
Jasper saw himself in the car with court-assigned guardian Janine Tallison, driving to a foster home. Or shivering in the parking lot of a McDonald’s, counting how much money he had left. “I guess not. But I don’t really want to go forward, either. Dying wasn’t really in my immediate plans.”
“We all die, Jasper. The question is, what will we die pursuing, and is that cause worthy of our lives?”
A beam pierced the gray canopy, and then another. Jasper watched a hole open up as two clouds drifted apart. Sunlight poured onto City Hall. “His research—this way out. You want me to pick up where he left off? Try and figure it out?”
“Fight or hide—those are the only choices League members have. But you have been offered a middle path, and ten months to plot a course through it.”
“Are you gonna help me?”
“I have already enlisted several students at our academic institution to do just that.”
“You guys have a school? In Philly?”
“Northern Vermont. It’s remote and well-guarded.”
So … Hogwarts. And plenty of bad stuff happened to Harry there. “And what happens if I can’t find anything? My dad was working on this most of my life and I’ve got less than a year to figure it all out or die.”
“Like all League members, you will learn to use a gun in the event you choose to duel. I leave the choice of whether you’ll accept your challenge to you and your instructor.”
The clouds drifted back together, sealing out the light again. Jasper could smell rain coming.
Run.
Di
e.
Kill.
These weren’t choices. They were sentences.
Insane. All of it.
But did that make it any less real? People wanted him dead—that was one hundred percent true. Jasper had no money, no home, or a foster home future, all of which utterly depressed him. Also true.
“You should really watch The Matrix,” he finally said. “People will get the analogy. It would help with the transition.”
“Have you decided, then?”
“I wouldn’t call it a decision. I have nowhere else to go.”
Cyrus turned to face Jasper. “Nil desperandum. Do you know the translation?”
Jasper shook his head.
“Never despair. It has been the Arnold family motto for three centuries—your father had it tattooed on his arm, inscribed it on his flesh. Now you must carry the mantra. There is no one else.”
A raindrop hit Jasper’s face. The storm was here.
“All right,” he said. “I’m in.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Byron and Larkin didn’t care that 30th Street Station was a ghost town. The gunmen stood so close to Jasper they were basically on top of him. Cyrus bought two tickets and the four descended to the tracks below to wait for the 5:07 AM train to Springfield, Massachusetts.
“Byron will deliver you to an escort in Springfield,” Cyrus said. “The escort will drive you north to Juniper Hill Academy, our school in northern Vermont. You’ll arrive by early afternoon if there are no incidents.”
Jasper tugged on the handle of his suitcase. Byron had packed it at some point while Jasper had tossed and turned on the couch in Cyrus’s office. Other than the safe and a prepaid phone, the case was the only thing Jasper had left in the world. “Incidents. Like another ambush?”
“Our escorts can handle themselves. Don’t worry,” Cyrus said. “Your safe will be delivered to you in a few days. By then, you’ll have met your research team and settled in. I’ll visit periodically to evaluate your progress and offer whatever support is needed. Do you have any questions?”
“So there’re other kids at this school whose ancestors did other bad stuff in American history.”
“Correct.”
“Saying it out loud makes it sound even more insane, you know.”
“That’s to be expected.”
“I still don’t get why I even have to go to school,” Jasper said. “I mean, I have ten months to live.”
“The headmistress is not in the habit of bending rules, in spite of your circumstances.” Cyrus waited a beat. “But I’d have you attend classes anyway to maintain appearances.”
Jasper heard the train whooshing into the station. “Appearances?”
“I cannot prove it,” Cyrus said, lowering his voice, “but I believe the True Sons have somehow wormed their way into our organization. That would explain how they knew where to find your father. And you.”
“So, you think people from their secret organization are spying on your secret organization.”
“I do.”
“Sounds a little paranoid,” Jasper said. Actually it sounded completely paranoid and totally ridiculous.
Sort of a theme lately.
“Maybe,” Cyrus said, “but we must protect against the possibility that they have informants within the League. That is why you must carry on as a normal senior, and that means attending classes. The safe—the entire project—must be kept secret.”
The train came to a stop. A few people spilled out looking like they wished they had jobs that didn’t require a 5:07 AM train. Byron walked into the car and scoped things out.
“Thanks … for watching out for me,” Jasper said.
Cyrus shook Jasper’s hand, hard—a man’s handshake. Probably the first Jasper had ever had.
****
Jasper fell asleep before the train pulled away, one of those deep, black canvas of nothing, too deep for dreams, sleeps. It was probably the first real rest he’d had since his mom died.
He woke at ten and followed Byron to the dining car. The bodyguard bought them each two sausage biscuits and a bottle of orange juice, which Jasper drained on the walk back to their seats.
“So,” Jasper said after inhaling a biscuit. “You’re in the League, too?”
Byron just kept staring straight ahead down the aisle.
“Right. Stupid question.” It was gonna be a long ride. “Thanks, by the way. For yesterday.”
“You’re welcome.”
That was an improvement.
“So, did you ever duel?” Jasper asked.
Byron might’ve growled.
“Is that rude to ask? Sorry. It’s my second day.”
He drummed his fingers and watched the countryside whizz by. Woods. Fields. Towns. Highways. Most of the Northeast really looked the same.
“What about asking people about their past? Is that rude?”
“Depends on the person.”
Jasper couldn’t help himself. “What did your ancestor do?”
Byron made a sucking sound with his teeth.
“Sorry. Never mind.”
“He fought in the king’s army during the Revolution,” Byron said.
“Like my ancestor.”
“No.” It was hard to tell if Byron was angry because he always wore that stone-cold killer mask. “Mine left his patriot master because the king promised land in Canada to all runaways.”
It took Jasper four seconds to get it.
Master.
Runaways.
Slavery.
“That sucks,” Jasper said. His face burned hot. That sucks? Obviously it sucked. Understatement of the era. “Sorry—”
“There was no land.” Byron’s jaw muscles rippled.
Jasper raised the orange juice bottle. “To getting screwed by the past.”
Instead of returning the toast, Byron took out a hardcover book and shoved it into Jasper’s hands. “Biography of Arnold. Counselor said you’ll want to get a head start.”
“Okay.” It beat trying to make conversation.
An hour later, the train pulled into Springfield. Jasper trailed Byron through the small station to a massive, dual-cab black pickup truck jacked up high over mud tires. A lanky man around fifty climbed down and shook Byron’s hand. He had tanned skin and salt-and-pepper hair that brushed his shirt collar. His jeans and work boots gave off a mountain vibe. A kid dressed pretty much the same way tossed Jasper’s black suitcase in the rear cab.
“Colton Donelson.” He had long hair like the man, but a wider grin. He was probably a little older than Jasper. “That’s my daddy, Rufus. Nice to meet you.”
“Jasper.”
“I know who you are.” The last two words slurred together. Yar. “Back seat’s yours.”
Jasper figured Byron wasn’t the type to go in for a hug, so Jasper thanked him with a nod. Byron returned the gesture.
“Welcome to New England,” Rufus said. The truck rumbled to life and pulled onto the highway heading north. “First time?”
“Yeah.”
“We ain’t natives neither—from Tennessee, originally.” Rufus drove with one hand on the wheel, like he was joyriding.
Jasper didn’t see any guns. Was this really a security detail? He wished Byron had come along.
A walkie-talkie crackled next to Rufus. He grabbed it and said, “I see ya.”
Jasper turned and spotted another truck rolling up behind them. He let out a breath.
“Chilly rolled out the red carpet for you,” Colton said.
“Manners,” Rufus told his son.
“Who?” Jasper asked.
“Headmistress Chillingsworth,” Colton replied.
Rufus took an exit and wound along a back road to an industrial yard. Twenty guys with pump-action shotguns stood around a third pickup. They broke into three groups and hopped into the truck beds. One of them banged on the cab and Rufus took off toward a shadowy set of hills way off in the distance.
Now we’re talking.
Colton pulled a sawed-off shotgun from under his seat. Jasper couldn’t not stare.
“Pretty good looking, ain’t she?”
“Yeah.”
Colton half-turned and slung a big arm over the back seat. “Lacy.”
“What?”
“That’s her name.”
“You named your gun Lacy.”
“Kind of a tradition where we come from to name a weapon after the women who broke our hearts. Metaphorical, and all. Couple of my brothers and cousins—them boys in the back—some of them use their mamas’ names, but that’s always risky on account of them finding out. Point is, I’d start thinking of one before Kingsley gets ahold of you.”
“Who’s Kingsley?”
“He’s the weapons instructor at Juniper Hill. You’ll meet him soon enough, and then wish you hadn’t. But he’s the best shot this side of the Mississippi, my daddy notwithstanding. He’ll be the one to train you. You ever held a gun before?”
“No.”
“Keep that to yourself or Kingsley’ll blow a gasket. He’s Irish, and all, so when he cusses it’s hard for me to tell exactly what he’s saying, but I’d just as assume it was all profanity, being that it usually is.”
Jasper’s gut was knotting harder by the second. “Okay.”
“Real sorry to hear about your parents.”
“Yeah.” Jasper liked the way Colton said it—straight-faced. No pity. “Thanks.”
“Now Old Hickory—he being our ancestor—was fourteen when he was orphaned. Already fought in a war, too. Hard times makes you harder is what I’m saying.”
Another AP flashback. Old Hickory. “You’re related to Andrew Jackson?”
“Not by blood, on account of him not having any kids. But yeah, we trickled down from his adopted kin.”
“But—” Better just state the obvious and see where it went. “Jackson wasn’t on the wrong side of American history. He was a pretty popular president. He’s on the twenty-dollar bill.”
Colton flashed white teeth. “We ain’t in the League officially. More like hired help. See, them Libertines never did like us on account of Jackson’s low class and all—”
“What’re Libertines?”
“True Sons of Liberty, same difference. Got your Washingtons, your Jeffersons, your Reeds—them three Oligarch families run the whole thing—and some other names you’d probably know.”
League of American Traitors Page 3
