League of American Traitors

by Matthew Landis

  “It doesn’t matter, because that’s not what happened. I went after Hannah because I became like them: filled with hate. I blamed them for having to move around all the time. For my mom leaving. So I decided I’d go and get mine. And now I’m paying for it every day.”

  Jasper saw Elsbeth’s face over the target. He tried to imagine how he’d feel if he pulled the trigger for real.

  “You know the whole universe isn’t about you,” he said.

  Nora snorted.

  “If you’d killed yourself, I’d be dead, too,” he said. “That’s not BS. It’s just plain fact. I get that I can’t know how deep this goes, but I don’t buy that your life is worthless now because you took somebody else’s. I am literally walking proof that that’s not true.”

  ****

  They fell into a routine. Late breakfasts, hours of silence in the study room, smoke breaks in the courtyard during the day, and rooftop trips at night. They talked about their lives before Juniper Hill and TV shows they hated. Nora came clean about a crush on Alec Baldwin that lasted most of freshman year. Jasper told her about an equally embarrassing Star Wars LEGO collection. They traded Sheldon stories and gave Colton horrible dating advice and stayed out until they couldn’t feel their fingers.

  Lieutenant Ira Boswell—or actually Boswell’s descendants—filled Jasper’s afternoons. Jasper’s dad had sketched various parts of the Boswell family tree in his notebooks, attaching locations and dates to them. Jasper guessed these were connected to the undercover missions of Dan Cooper, Fake Archivist, to search their stuff. But what his dad was actually looking for, he never said. The chaos continued.

  Thanksgiving Day, Nora, Colton, and Jasper made frozen pizza. Nora found outdated packets of cocoa powder that tasted just not-disgusting enough to drink. They mixed a giant vat and carried it up to the roof where they paired the sludge with stale gingersnaps that almost broke their teeth. Colton wore a parka with a furry hood that you could tell he hated.

  “This is a stupid question I feel horrible for not asking,” Nora said. “Do you miss them? Your parents?”

  “He was always missing, so my dad, not really. But my mom, yeah.”

  “That portrait of her you told me about—the one of above the fireplace? A little Norman Bates. But also kinda adorable.”

  “It was on the edge for sure.”

  Nora flung a cookie over the side of the building. The girl had a wicked arm. “When my parents got divorced, I started cutting my dad’s hair because my mom used to do it to save money.”

  “Okay …”

  “Shaggy is not your look.”

  “I get it.”

  Nora sank back into the couch and popped in a piece of nicotine gum.

  “Have you decided not to pursue lung cancer?”

  “They stop mail during break.” She put another piece in her mouth. “The dueling tournament starts next week.”

  “Sheldon was telling me about it,” Jasper said. “Everybody gets paired off. Paintball pistol guns.”

  Nora nodded. “If you get me as your opponent, try not to shoot me in the neck. The masks don’t go down that far and paintballs hurt like hell.”

  “I’ll just miss on purpose. Kingsley won’t know the difference. I suck.”

  “Very true.”

  Jasper wasn’t sure when she’d started sitting this close to him. “Are you gonna sulk until Christmas because I’m doing the tournament instead of joining your pacifist cult?”

  “I don’t sulk.”

  “You brood like you’re plotting world domination.”

  Now she was definitely leaning into him. Jasper lifted his arm to move over but she kind of settled into it. He went rigid.

  “Relax. I’m just freezing,” she said. “We’re not going to start making out, or anything.”

  “Right.”

  “I don’t randomly make out with people.”

  “That’s good.”

  “Especially not with guys who look like a Chia Pet on steroids,” Nora said.

  “Your obsession with my hair is making me wonder if you’re really the right bodyguard.”

  Nora nestled her head into the crook of his neck. Perfect fit, Jasper thought. He leaned his cheek into her hair and decided it wasn’t really that weird to smell it because she’d pretty much orchestrated this whole situation without asking him, so whatever.

  “I’m really glad you didn’t die,” he said.

  She didn’t say anything for a while. “I wasn’t, at first.”

  “And now?”

  “I’m coming around to the idea.”

  Jasper decided that he was going to kiss her—just on the top of the head. Nothing super aggressive. A sort of in-the-moment thing. That was the play here, right? But then he started thinking about her violent streak and also her comment about how this was really all about body heat and by then, well, he’d completely psyched himself out.

  And then she fell asleep.

  She turned out to be a mouth-breather. Sheldon would have respected the almost-choking sound she made as she slept.

  When the moon was overhead, Jasper went to get up, but Nora grabbed his arm and wrapped it back around her waist.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  Broseph. I missed you.”

  “Me, too.”

  “And I got you some sweatpants.” Sheldon tossed Jasper a couple pairs of gray cotton pants. “Those should fit your girly legs. Now, be straight with me: did you sleep in my bed?”

  “I promise you I did not.”

  “You can tell Uncle Shelly anything.”

  “Please never say that again.”

  Sheldon shoved his clothes back into drawers on his side of the room. “You might be wondering why I’m in such a good mood?”

  “Not really.”

  “I’ll tell you why: because over the break, while you were sleeping in my bed and doing weird demonic séances with Nora, I managed to text my way into the phone of Adele Dickinson.”

  “Who?”

  “Dude.”

  “Oh. World War Two Adele.”

  “Whose name neither you nor I are even worthy to mention.”

  “How did you manage that?”

  “Great question. My height and lack of game should lock me out of her league, but I am also hilarious and witty. Nobody sends funnier texts than me.”

  “Or more cat emojis,” Jasper said.

  “Which turned out to be awesome because she loves cats.”

  “So, you’re going out.”

  Sheldon thought about it. “We’re not not going out.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “It means we’re texting all the time, and there has been some discussion about seeing each other in the caf, and maybe going for a walk later this week.”

  “Is that like deer hunting?” Jasper asked.

  “I really, really hope it is.”

  Tucker came in reading on his phone and wearing a T-shirt that said GAIUS BALTAR FOR PRESIDENT.

  Jasper studied the shirt for a second. “Who’s Gaius Baltar?”

  “He’s the greatest TV character ever made,” Tucker said without looking up. “Battlestar Galactica.”

  “This is why most of your friends are online friends,” Sheldon said.

  Jasper caught them up on his findings at dinner, and then they hit the study room.

  Sheldon started building a digital Boswell family tree using Ancestry.com while Tucker plowed through a few of the remaining notebooks. Lacy and Jasper traded theories on why Reed might have paid a big chunk of money to Ira—what Jasper had started calling “The Big Question”—which was basically them repeating the facts over and over with different vocal inflections. Every time Nora left for a smoke break, Jasper thought about the tournament and how he might have to shoot her, preferably not in the face.

  The dueling brackets went live at midnight on the Juniper Hill website.

  “Balls,” Sheldon said, scanning the seeding. “I got Adele’s frie
nd.”

  “Which one?” Lacy asked.

  “Brown hair. Skinny.”

  “They all look like that.”

  “I know. Isn’t it great?”

  Jasper scanned the bracket over Sheldon’s shoulder. “Who’s Eliza Davis?”

  “Shit,” Nora said.

  “At least you’ll make it to the second round,” Sheldon said, smirking.

  “She’s a Civil War kid?” Jasper asked.

  “With one friend,” Nora said. “Me. Which means I’m her second. And she’s already pissed because I spend all my time with you anyway.”

  Tucker came over, headphones on. He handed Jasper a pamphlet and shouted, “THIS WAS STAPLED INSIDE A NOTEBOOK.”

  The cover read AA: The Recovery Program. Jasper opened the flap and saw a summary. Alcoholics Anonymous is a fellowship of men and women who share their experience, strength, and hope with one another that they may solve their common problem and help others to recover from alcoholism. The Twelve Steps filled the rest of the booklet with super dramatic drawings of each. Dates were scribbled by each step.

  “It’s pretty late, Lace,” Nora finally said.

  Lacy yawned. “Yeah. Let’s pack it up.”

  Jasper slid the pamphlet into his coat pocket.

  At the dorm steps, Nora pulled him toward the front hall. They walked over to the chapel, she lit a candle, and they sat and stared at stained-glass depiction of Jesus.

  Nora prayed while Jasper read the Twelve Steps. The bass pumped below their feet.

  “What do you think the pamphlet means?” he asked her when she was through.

  “I think you know what it means.”

  “He was trying to get better.”

  “Looks like it.”

  Jasper felt that shift again—the cracking up of things once settled. “I’m pretty sure if I stop hating him, I’m going to fall apart. I think it’s the only thing keeping me together.”

  “You can hate and love somebody at the same time.”

  “I don’t want to love a dead person who sucked. I want him to come back and redo everything and not suck.” Jasper rubbed his temples. He really needed to look into reading glasses. “I just want him to be a total bastard or not a bastard at all.”

  “But that’s not real life, Jasper. Everybody is a bastard on some level.”

  “I’m not going to forgive him if that’s where all this is leading. You don’t understand how he treated my mom and me. He doesn’t deserve to be forgiven.”

  “Probably not.” Nora went quiet for a while. “Neither do I. What do you think I’m doing here? I’m begging for forgiveness. ’Cause maybe there’s a chance I can get just a little.”

  Jasper shoved the pamphlet back into his coat pocket. “I always thought praying was kind of stupid, to be honest.”

  “A lot of things seem stupid before your life goes to shit.”

  “So, what do I do?”

  “Pastor Bob says you just spill your guts. Ask for things you want. But not things like a new car.”

  “God doesn’t care about my ride?”

  “Probably lower on His priority list.”

  Jasper put his hands together like he’d seen Nora do. He thought about bowing his head, but that didn’t feel right. Too scripted. “God, this is Jasper.”

  “He knows your name.”

  “Just making sure.” Jasper closed his eyes. “So, things are kind of messed up right now. My dad was a bastard, but it turns out he was trying to save my life, so if you could help me sort this out, I’d really appreciate it because right now I’m on the razor edge of a breakdown. Also, I kind of really miss my mom, and yeah—” The words were flowing now, hard and fast and his eyes burned. “Life without her kind of sucks because I’m pretty much alone, and I’ve got new friends but I still feel like I’m on a planet by myself … and I just wish she were here. Also, I’d really like to not die or kill anyone, so if you could help our mission, that would be great.” He choked on the last words, more sobbing than speaking. “I think that’s all.”

  “You can say ‘Amen,’ but it’s not mandatory.”

  “Amen.” He wiped his face. “And God, help Nora stop smoking so I don’t get secondhand lung cancer.”

  “He filters out sarcasm.”

  When Nora got up to go to the basement, Jasper stayed and prayed some more.

  And then he prayed some more.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Point and shoot,” Sheldon said. He loaded Jasper’s paintball pistol and handed it to him. “Point and shoot.”

  Jasper looked across the small clearing at Eliza. She was a shorter, chubbier, and angrier version of Nora. “This is pretty cruel.”

  “Her fault, dude. She could shoot back if she wanted to.”

  Kingsley waved them to the center. Trees formed a wall on every side. The sun was barely up, and Jasper couldn’t feel his toes. “Eliza here has refused to choose a firing distance. Leaves it to you, Jasper.”

  “Fifteen paces,” he said. That put the distance to target at thirty paces, which he could miss without trying.

  “And since you’re the only one with a weapon, I assume you’ll be firing first. Back to back, then.”

  Jasper slid on the mask. He still hadn’t managed to look Nora in the eye this morning.

  “Fifteen paces,” Kingsley said. “March!”

  Snow crunched under Jasper’s feet. Crazy how snowfalls quieted everything.

  “Halt and face!”

  Eliza looked farther away than he’d imagined. He wondered if he even had to try to miss.

  “Fire at will!”

  Eliza ripped off her mask and dropped to her knees. “Please … don’t kill me.”

  Jasper froze.

  “You get up right now, Eliza!” Kingsley roared.

  “Eat me,” Eliza shouted.

  Then she started screaming for mercy.

  Literally.

  “Mercy!” she yelled. “I’m so young, Jasper! I have so many years to live.”

  “This is jacked up, Nora, even for you,” Sheldon yelled. “Tell her to stop!”

  “You think I told her to do that?” Nora shouted back.

  “Think about my parents,” Eliza moaned. “They’ll be heartbroken.”

  “Jasper, you pull that bloody trigger,” Kingsley screamed.

  Jasper took aim. His arm shook. He tried to block out her face, but the screaming was too much.

  Mercy.

  Have mercy.

  “Jasper, just freaking shut her up!” Sheldon yelled.

  He closed his eyes and pulled the trigger.

  Shunk.

  The screaming stopped.

  Jasper opened his eyes and saw a lump of black on the ground. He ripped his mask off and bolted across the clearing.

  Eliza squirmed on the ground. Red paint covered her … neck.

  “Shot me in windpipe, you tool,” Eliza gurgled.

  “Ah, crap—I’m sorry,” Jasper said.

  Kingsley knelt on the ground and took off his gloves. Jasper was sure he was going to choke Eliza at first, but Kingsley gently tilted her head back and wiped away the paint. Almost like a parent.

  “No damage,” he muttered. They did some intense glaring at each other, but Kingsley finally cleared his throat and said, “I’d put some snow on it on the walk back.” He stood and marked his clipboard. “Jasper advances to the next round.”

  Eliza kept clawing at her throat like she was bleeding to death.

  “You’re fine,” Nora said, helping her up. “Didn’t even break the skin.”

  “Your boyfriend shot me in the throat. Pretty sure I’m not fine.”

  “Sorry,” Jasper said. “I wasn’t even—”

  “Yeah, yeah we’re all sorry.” Sheldon pulled Jasper toward the path that led back to the manor house. “Kingsley will wreck you if you admit to throwing a shot. Just let it go.”

  “I closed my eyes.”

  “Yeah, I saw.” He glared at Nora and Eliza li
mping behind them. “Bro, are you gonna start wearing eyeliner soon?”

  “What?”

  “Nora’s cult. Tell me she’s not recruiting you.”

  “She’s not.”

  “Because it’s your freaking decision,” Sheldon said. “Not hers.”

  “I got it.”

  “Do you?”

  They put some distance between Nora and Eliza. Colton walked the path ahead, shotgun scanning the woods.

  “I freaked out, okay,” Jasper said. “In the range. Kingsley put Elsbeth’s face on the target, but I couldn’t shoot it. I got scared. And then, when Eliza pulled that crap, I froze again.”

  “Hmmm.”

  “And, yeah Nora gives a new angle to all this dueling stuff, but I’m not saying I agree with her. I’m just trying to figure out what I’ll do while not pissing myself from terror. I mean, I never even saw a gun up close until I got here. Now, I’m training to point one at actual people. Cut me some freaking slack.”

  Sheldon made a snowball and nailed a tree. “Nora beat me in the spring tournament her sophomore year, you know. Just a few weeks before she challenged that Lincoln girl.”

  “Really?”

  “She’d been training one-on-one with Kingsley for like a year, and was way out of my league. She shot me in the chest—twice. There was this rage in her eyes that I’ll never forget—like a dog bred for fighting about to be released from its cage. And even though I lost, it was probably my most important match because it showed me how hard I had to train if I wanted to survive.”

  “You could survive by hiding,” Jasper said. “That’s Nora’s whole thing.”

  “Yeah, but what Nora forgets is that the Libertines will just go after someone else. They want blood—whose blood it is isn’t really the point. That’s what my family understands … what my brother understood. We’re soldiers, and there’s a war on. Every kid here is trained to fight, but we don’t all do the fighting. And that’s okay. Still, a select few have to fight so that everyone else can live in peace.”

  “You’re not out for revenge, then?”

  “I’m out for honor,” Sheldon said. “Not the jacked up Libertine kind, but the real thing. Honoring my brother’s memory by following his example—by volunteering to go to the front, like he did, so that others don’t have to.”