League of American Traitors

by Matthew Landis

  “Right,” Jasper said. “I haven’t gone through it yet, but Cyrus thinks my dad was really upset about me having to make this decision about hiding or dueling—”

  Tucker pulled on a pair of giant headphones.

  “Okay. Yeah, so Cyrus thinks my dad … Is he okay?” Jasper asked, nodding to Tucker.

  Lacy looked up from her notes. “Tucker doesn’t really like talking about dueling….”

  “He thinks it’s beneath him,” Sheldon said. “Like, his brain is too important to the world to risk taking a bullet. Kind of a snob about it. Now, keep going.”

  Jasper nodded. “So, apparently my dad was working on a way out for me, so I wouldn’t have to live in hiding or fight.”

  Sheldon and Lacy traded a this-is-what-we’ve-been-waiting-for look.

  “Okay—that.” Jasper pointed between them. “What’s that about—the fanboy routine. Why are you guys so invested in helping me get out of this duel? You don’t even know me.”

  “We’ll all be challenged,” Lacy said. “Me, this summer. Sheldon and Tucker, next year. But you could escape. And that’s a win for us all.”

  “Not if you’re dead,” Jasper said. “Or in some witness protection thing. I don’t get it.”

  “Think about it, dude,” Sheldon said. “Arnold’s descendant strutting around in the world, nothing the Libertines can do about it. Big giant middle finger to their whole jacked-up Code.”

  “Or they might just send Elsbeth after me again.”

  Lacy pulled a leg underneath her. Shook her head. “The Directors would never let that happen.”

  “Donelsons would go SEAL Team Six on her,” Sheldon said. He held his arms up like a machine gun. “Pop-pop-pop. You get me?”

  “Yeah.” Jasper looked over at Tucker. Headphones on. “Are you guys … you know. Gonna duel?”

  “Burrs don’t hide.” Sheldon said it hard and slow, like a creed.

  “So, you’d be okay … killing someone?”

  “Self-defense, yo.”

  “But you could just avoid it by not fighting.”

  “Burrs. Don’t. Hide.”

  “Right, but—”

  Lacy put a hand up. Her meaning was clear: STOP TALKING!

  Jasper pressed his lips together.

  “Dueling is complicated,” she said. “Most of us go into hiding because we don’t want to die, obviously. Libertine kids train longer and harder. But some kids duel because winning means a normal life. Or”—Lacy tilted her chin at Sheldon—“because it’s just what their families have always done.”

  “Seven generations,” Sheldon said.

  Jasper caught Tucker looking at Sheldon, almost like he’d heard him. Then Tucker got up and threw himself in a beanbag chair, back to them.

  Lacy pulled one of her brown curls taut. Jasper couldn’t help thinking it looked like it hurt. “Killing someone, even in self-defense … it changes you,” she said. “We’ve all seen it. The question isn’t really should you run or fight—it’s can you live with yourselves if you win.”

  Run.

  Die.

  Kill.

  Jasper would have to make that choice, too, if he couldn’t find his dad’s way out.

  And he had no idea what he would do.

  “I move we adjourn this meeting so Jasper doesn’t have to climb in the dark and maybe break his neck,” Sheldon said. He threw a pillow at Tucker to get his attention, and the boy took off his headphones. “Initiation time.”

  Tucker pulled something out of his pocket and did a quick, rehearsed flicking motion with his wrist. Light glinted off the metal, but it still took Jasper a couple seconds to figure out that Tucker was wielding a six-inch butterfly knife.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Behind the manor house, they crossed a field where the grass came up to Jasper’s knees. Rusted goal posts were collapsing in on themselves at either end.

  Jasper kept an eye on Tucker’s knife.

  They passed a cinderblock gymnasium with a sign that read GUN RANGE, and followed a dirt path into the woods. Jasper spotted a decaying brick building that Tucker explained was the old headmaster’s house. They reached a clearing and walked to the base of a giant tree where nooses hung from the branches; a number of severed ones lay on the ground.

  “What,” Jasper said, “is this?”

  “This is a super old cottonwood tree with a bunch of nooses on it,” Sheldon said.

  “It’s a metaphor….” Tucker handed Jasper the knife.

  “It’s also tradition,” Lacy said. “Seventh graders come here their first week. You climb up, carve your initials into the tree, and then cut down a noose. Think of it as a reminder that no matter what the Libertines say, we are not our ancestors, and we don’t deserve their crap.”

  “Don’t use the ropes,” Sheldon said. “They might snap, and you could fall and maybe die. The irony would literally kill me.”

  Jasper climbed slowly. It was getting dark, but as he ascended, he could make out initials carved into the trunk. Twenty feet up, the etchings were easier to read. Jasper scanned the trunk for space, but there wasn’t a free square inch.

  “Higher,” Sheldon called up.

  So Jasper kept climbing. Soon, he could see the manor house, the gym, and the faint outline of the gateway in the distance. There was plenty of open real estate up here.

  The blade sliced through the bark easily. Jasper was done in five minutes, and he had to admit, it didn’t totally suck. Nearby he saw the letters NBB carved into the wood. They looked like a work of art. That kid had serious skill.

  Or maybe he’d just practiced. As Jasper continued examining the trunk, he saw that NBB had been carved into the tree at least twenty times.

  Jasper thought about the tattoo on his dad’s arm. Nil Desperandum. Never despair. Except his dad had completely despaired. He’d been a freaking alcoholic.

  Context.

  “You’re not off the hook,” Jasper said to the air. It was no different than talking to a corpse in a box. “You could’ve been a dad and tried to fix things. Your secret quest doesn’t change how awful you were.”

  Jasper wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to let go of his anger, even if he did find a way out of dueling. And he wasn’t sure if he wanted to. That version of his dad was still too raw to be washed away by this surprise explanation.

  But what twisted his stomach was the other thing: what if he still failed? Then his dad had been awful for nothing. Jasper wondered if that would break him. If he’d become a drunk, too. Maybe that’s how the story ended.

  Maybe he was more like his dad than he wanted to believe.

  A breeze whipped through the branches, setting the nooses swaying. Jasper grabbed the nearest one and started slashing at the rope. When it was loose, he held the loop out for a second, took a deep breath, then let it fall.

  ****

  “I wouldn’t eat that,” Sheldon said. “Or that. Or pretty much anything on this side of the buffet—it’ll all give you diarrhea.”

  Jasper studied a bowl of taco meat. “How about that?”

  “Definitely not that,” Tucker said. He shoved past Jasper—no excuse me or sorry—and piled spaghetti onto his plate. No sauce.

  “Nuggets are the safest bet,” Sheldon said as they continued down the line. “Bacteria cannot survive a deep fryer.”

  Jasper piled some on his plate next to a quivering pile of neon orange macaroni. They got fountain sodas and joined Lacy at a round table.

  “Let’s talk workflow,” Lacy said. “We can meet in the study room by three thirty on weekdays. If you can’t make it, text somebody so we’re not all waiting around.”

  “Like, if maybe you’re going deer hunting,” Sheldon said. “And you’ll be gone for hours in the woods. With Colton. Hunting deer.”

  Lacy winged a nugget at Sheldon, but missed and hit Tucker in the arm. The kid barely noticed—he was back on his phone.

  “Jasper, do you know when the safe’s coming?” Lacy asked.
/>   “Cyrus said a couple days.”

  “Is that enough time for you to finish the network?” she asked Sheldon.

  He gave her a thumbs-up. “Totally separate from the campus Wi-Fi. A no-joke firewall. Chilly P will never find it.”

  “Nobody looks up anything related to this project on any computer but the study room ones,” Lacy said. “We don’t talk about details outside the room, either. We pretend this project doesn’t exist. Got it?”

  “Got it,” replied everybody but Sheldon. He was staring at a pack of straight-haired brunettes walking by them.

  “’Sup ladies—”

  The girls blew right by him.

  “‘’Sup ladies’ is not working for you,” Lacy said. “And we all agreed that the World War girls were out of your league.”

  Sheldon watched them get in line. “Stone-cold foxes, every one of them.”

  “So, is that how it works?” Jasper asked, pointing to the girls. “People hang with their eras? Like cliques.”

  “Pretty much. Shared history, and whatever.” Sheldon started pointing to tables. “Got your Revolutionaries—mostly Loyalists. World Wars, we’ve been over them. Then there’s the early 1800s crew—the guy who tried to kill Andrew Jackson is the only legit traitor there. The Cold War kids are mostly descendants of spies and, ironically, keep to themselves.”

  “What about them?” Jasper nodded to a goth convention happening at a corner table. Black clothes, gauges, piercings, all of them brooding like somebody died.

  “Civil War,” Lacy said. She was doing that hair-pulling thing again. “Most of them had ancestors in the Confederate government.”

  “Why do they dress like that?”

  “Same reason they won’t duel,” Sheldon said. “See that girl in the middle, short hair? Nose ring and a scowl that could melt your soul? That’s Nora Booth. No, don’t stare—”

  Jasper caught the girl’s eye for a second. Hollow seemed like a good word. “What’s her deal?”

  Tucker pulled his headphones on. Lacy was seriously going to pull that curl out.

  “She dueled two summers ago,” Sheldon said. “Now she’s on a crusade to end dueling. Won’t even pick up a gun at the range. None of her friends will, either.”

  “I thought you had to be eighteen to fight,” Jasper said.

  “You can challenge early with parental permission.”

  Jasper looked over again, and was rewarded with a nasty glare from Nora. “I need some more soda.”

  He got up and refilled his cup, scoping out some stale brownies on the dessert table. He kept accidentally staring at the goths.

  “Fresh batch.” A cook held out a plate of chocolate squares.

  “Thanks.”

  The guy watched as Jasper took a giant bite. He ate one, too. Then a second—Was he crying?—then turned and went back to the kitchen.

  “Sharing is caring,” Sheldon said when Jasper settled back in his seat. “Hook a brother up.”

  All Jasper could taste was salty metal. “They’re not that good.”

  “Obviously—”

  A hand grabbed Jasper’s wrist. He smelled smoke.

  “Drop it.”

  Nora Booth.

  “Drop. It.” Her voice was more of a hiss actually. The brownie landed on Jasper’s tray and crumbled. “Lace, get Colton in here. Now.”

  Jasper’s stomach cramped hard. He lurched forward and groaned.

  “Lacy!”

  Jasper thought his ribs might break. The floor suddenly seemed like a good idea. He slinked down to the dirty linoleum.

  “Sheldon, get me some water,” Nora said.

  “Wha—”

  “Shutupandgetit.”

  Jasper pressed his face onto the tile. It was so hot. Somebody sat him up.

  And then Nora was dumping salt water into his mouth and he started coughing and she drained another glass down his throat, cursing at Colton to go into the kitchen. Jasper was puking and puking and his eyes watered and everything he’d eaten since birth just came out. And feet—there were feet everywhere as kids watched, and now he was shaking and cold and staring at his puke and he couldn’t stop shaking and he just wanted to sleep … so he lay down in his puke and shivered because every part of him was freezing except for the hand on his back.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Jasper woke up on a plastic cot.

  An IV bag was hanging next to him. He traced the cord to a needle in his right arm. Another one ran into his crotch. Things felt weird down there.

  A dark shadow in the corner turned into Byron.

  “Where am I?” Jasper asked.

  Byron leaned out the door. “He’s awake.”

  Cyrus walked in, followed by a balding guy wearing a stethoscope. The doctor ran a penlight across Jasper’s eyes, checked his pulse, and consulted a clipboard.

  “He needs to be in a hospital.”

  “Your opinion has been noted several times,” Cyrus said. “How is he?”

  “No organ damage, from what I can tell. He needs to be monitored around the clock—heart rate, urine and stool samples, hydration levels.”

  “Were you able to determine the poison?”

  “If I took him to a hospital, I could run labs.”

  “He stays here,” Cyrus said. “Will there be long-term complications?”

  “I won’t answer that without a full battery of tests—at a hospital. But you should thank that girl who pulled the saltwater stunt. She probably saved his liver and kidneys.”

  Jasper realized he was wearing sweatpants. “How long have I been here?” he rasped.

  “Two days,” the doctor said. “And you’ll stay for another three until I come back.”

  The doctor put on latex gloves and removed Jasper’s catheter. He checked the IV bags and complained about the room being filthy before Cyrus walked him out.

  “I gotta piss,” Jasper said.

  Byron held Jasper upright as he went. The bodyguard was probably mocking their for-sure-size difference down there. Jasper spotted blood in the toilet bowl.

  “Your kidneys are filtering out the toxin,” Byron said. “Doctor said it will last a few days.”

  Jasper limped back to the cot and chewed on sawdust toast. “Did they find the cook who gave me the brownies?”

  “He locked himself in the freezer.”

  “He’s dead?”

  “Yes.”

  An hour later, Lacy, Tucker, and Sheldon filed in behind Cyrus—all wrinkled clothes and bloodshot eyes.

  “We messed up,” Lacy said.

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “It is mostly their fault,” Cyrus said. “They were ordered to watch out for you.” He glared at each of them. “The cook’s name was Thomas Malcolm, a Loyalist descendant. The headmistress hired him six years ago after he graduated.” Cyrus lowered his voice. “His attempt on Jasper’s life is proof that the True Sons have infiltrated our organization, as I previously suspected.”

  “Whoa,” Sheldon said. “That’s kind of a reach, isn’t it?”

  Cyrus stared daggers at him. “And what explanation would you give?”

  Sheldon opened his mouth to say something, but thought better of it and lowered his head again.

  “If that’s really what you think, we should tell my dad,” Lacy said. “The Directors could look into it.”

  Cyrus looked over his shoulder, and then he actually looked up at the ceiling—like one of those paranoid people who think the government is listening in on every conversation through tiny recording devices. “We tell no one until I know for sure who we can trust.”

  “But Jasper—” Lacy protested.

  “Jasper is alive, no thanks to any of you.” Cyrus opened the door and motioned somebody to come in. Jasper heard the hard clunk of combat boots on tile.

  Nora Booth.

  She looked tougher up close, tattoo murals on both arms and black bangs diving hard over one eye. Smaller, too. Her black jeans and tank could’ve fit a twelve-
year-old.

  Cyrus shut the door behind her. “Ms. Booth saw danger where no one else did. Our success may depend upon it again. I’ve asked her to join us.”

  Lacy was trying to disappear into a corner. Sheldon and Tucker studied the tile.

  “Nora’s class schedule has been rearranged; she will be with Jasper at all times during the day. A contingent of Donelsons will also shadow him and stand guard over his dorm room at night. Do not interfere with any of them. Do I make myself clear?”

  Three nods.

  “The safe has been moved to your study room. When Jasper recovers, you will commence the project. Now, back to class.”

  The trio filed out like prisoners.

  Nora didn’t budge.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The headmistress dropped off textbooks and syllabi from the classes Jasper was missing. Nora refused to let her in the room.

  “Young lady—”

  Nora shut the door in her face.

  “You don’t trust her?” Jasper asked.

  “I don’t like her.”

  Time felt like it was blurring. Jasper would wake up to find Nora sitting or standing or pacing the room. She’d make him eat stale toast and guzzle water and then stand behind him as he pissed.

  “I’ve got this,” he’d say.

  She wouldn’t move a muscle.

  Colton came back the next morning with eggs and orange juice. Nora chatted with the Donelson guards outside.

  “How y’all doing in here?” Colton asked.

  “Still alive.”

  “Lacy and them taking it hard?”

  “It’s not their fault.” Jasper drained the container of OJ. “So, you took her deer hunting?”

  “Rained most of the time…. Saw a couple, but nothing worth shooting.”

  “So, then, what did you do? Just sit in the woods?”

  “Ain’t a whole lot to do around here.”

  “Maybe coffee or something like that would have been better.”

  “I guess.” Colton looked over his shoulder at Nora. “Ain’t right, her being here.”

  “Why?”