by C. J. Hill
He hid it in his toy room and waited for his mother to come home. He’d figured she would be upset that his father had broken her dishes, but Dirk would be able to produce a piece of her china and make her happy again.
Eventually Dirk forgot about the cup. Years later, one of the housekeepers found it and brought it to the kitchen. As soon as his father saw it, he threw it in the trash. Dirk hadn’t protested. By then he’d realized he couldn’t make his mother happy.
Now, with the tablet clutched in his hand, Dirk could find no words to tell his mother anything about his life. He stepped away from the porch column, ready to go inside. “I don’t want to take up your time. Aaron only has a little while to talk. I’ll let you get back to him.” He handed the tablet to his brother.
Dirk knew he shouldn’t leave Aaron outside, unsupervised. He would be too tempted to listen to their mother’s advice and make a break for it. If the kid wanted to run, he needed to know what he was up against and do it right.
As Dirk opened the door to go inside, he said, “Don’t go anywhere. You’re not supposed to know this, but you’ve got a tracking chip in your left hip.”
There. He’d done his duty by his mom. He’d helped Aaron so he didn’t make a mess of his escape.
Dirk went inside, marched upstairs to his bedroom, and stayed there the rest of the night.
***
The next morning while Dirk was still asleep, his father strolled into his bedroom and announced, “I’ve got work to see to. Take Aaron out on the grounds and help him with his flying. He’s got a lot to learn. He should practice most of the day.”
Dirk didn’t get up, didn’t even open his eyes.
One handed, his father picked up the side of the bed and toppled Dirk onto the floor.
There were definite drawbacks to having a parent who got extra strength every time he visited the dragons.
Dirk groaned and sat up. “Fine. I’m awake.”
“Good. Aaron is up too. Make sure he has breakfast before you go out.”
Ten minutes later, Dirk was dressed and downstairs in the kitchen. Bridget had made toast and was putting a thick layer of jam on her bread. Aaron sifted through the cereal cupboard. “Don’t your parents believe in sugar cereal? Why does every box in here have the word bran on it?”
Dirk opened the fridge, took out a piece of pumpkin pie and an apple, then motioned for Aaron to follow him. “Come on. We’ll eat while we walk to the enclosure.”
Outside, clouds covered the sky, a white backdrop against the gray-brown of the trees. Their bare branches reached upward, skinny and scrawny and brittle. Everything looked dead, but it wasn’t. The trees were just smart enough to keep their energy deep inside where winter couldn’t destroy it. They’d learned they didn’t have to fight the cold, they only needed to endure it.
As Dirk headed down the stairs, he handed Aaron the pie. “Breakfast. It’s the most important meal of the day.”
Aaron narrowed his eyes at Dirk. “You know you’re a complete jerk, right?”
Dirk switched the hand he held out. “Fine. Have the apple if you want it.”
Aaron took the apple but hardly seemed to notice it. They shuffled across the wet leaves on their way to the enclosure. “Do you know how long Mom has waited to talk to you? Do you know how badly she’s wanted it? You didn’t even speak to her for an entire minute. What’s wrong with you?”
Dirk took a bite of the pie and felt the tang of cinnamon on his tongue. “My problem is I’m scarred from a bad childhood. You see, my mom left me when I was six.”
“Only because Dad wouldn’t let her take you. She didn’t want to lose you.”
“She didn’t lose me,” Dirk said. “I didn’t wander off in the woods. Kids aren’t like car keys and spare change that you misplace. She took off. She’s got to live with that now. I can’t undo it.”
Aaron stared at him, dumbfounded, noting not just Dirk’s words but the emotions behind them. Apparently, it had never occurred to his brother that Dirk would feel so strongly about being abandoned.
How nice to be twelve and think your parents loved you.
“It wasn’t like that,” Aaron said, begrudgingly taking a bite of the apple. “She wasn’t to blame. You should talk to her.”
Dirk bit into another piece of pie but hardly tasted it. “Maybe next time when you call her.” He only said this so Aaron would drop the subject.
“She didn’t want things to be this way,” Aaron said, but he didn’t push the issue. Not while they finished the walk to the enclosure or trudged down the stairs, even though his sullen footsteps said the subject hadn’t completely left his mind.
The two went into the enclosure to charge their powers, then Dirk flew with him around the property showing him how to dive, turn, and land. Before their powers wore off, they flew back to recharge them. At noon, sack lunches waited for them at the enclosure door.
Aaron was a quick learner. Mostly because he was fearless. He didn’t worry about knocking into trees or hitting the ground wrong during a landing. Speed didn’t faze him. By the end of the day he was bruised, cut, and had done considerable damage to some trees, but he’d learned a lot—enough that it would be easy for him to fly off the grounds and go halfway across the state before his powers wore off. Had to be tempting. The idea tempted Dirk sometimes, and he didn’t have as many reasons to run away.
Before going back home for dinner, Dirk took Aaron to some thick branches in an old maple to rest for a bit. Dirk liked this spot. From it, you could see a stream that cut through the forest. Some still-green bushes lined the water, stubbornly refusing to abide by the rules of autumn.
He and Aaron would have to go home soon or Cassie would complain about them coming late for the meal. She had a thing for punctuality. But Dirk had to take care of one thing first. “You heard me when I told you about the tracking chip, right? You realize if you take off, you’d better find a way to gouge that thing out first or Dad will track you down. And when he finds you, sunroofs will be the least of your worries.”
“Yeah.” Aaron flicked a piece of bark with his fingernail. “Thanks for the warning.”
Dirk waited for the obvious question, but it didn’t come. “You’re not going to ask me how to get it out?”
Aaron shrugged. “I don’t want you to think I’m planning on leaving. You might tell Dad.”
Aaron was testing him, trying to see how loyal Dirk was to their father.
“I wouldn’t tell Dad, because then I’d have to admit I told you about the chip in the first place. He wouldn’t be happy about that.”
Aaron’s gaze darted to Dirk. “Is he keeping you here somehow? Is he forcing you to do what he wants?”
How should Dirk answer that question? Should he mention that he’d tried to run away last year and his father had sent a dragon to bring him back? Should he admit that the only reason his friends were still alive, especially Tori, was that Dirk was doing everything their father asked him to do?
Dirk leaned back against the tree trunk. “Nah, I just like Ferraris.”
Dirk felt the flash of disappointment—disgust really—that went through Aaron. Well, fine, let the kid be judgmental. That was easy when you were twelve. Besides, it wasn’t like Dirk wanted Aaron to look up to him anyway. He wasn’t role model material.
Aaron shifted on the branch. “Won’t EMP from the dragons destroy the chip?”
“I’m sure it’s been radiation hardened.” Instead of explaining the science behind that, Dirk said, “Which means, no. An EMP won’t affect it.”
“So,” Aaron said slowly, “just out of curiosity, and not because I’m planning on leaving—how do I get the chip out?”
“I don’t know.”
Aaron swore and shook his head.
Dirk laughed, not because it was funny, but because Aaron had taken such careful precautions to guard his emotions when he insisted he didn’t want to leave, and then had completely ruined the effect by swearing in frustration.
“Can you tell where it is?” Dirk asked. “Do you feel the chip?”
“I can’t feel it, but I know where it is. There’s a red bump on my skin that didn’t used to be there. But I can’t go digging around in my hip with a knife. What if I hit a major vein or something?”
Yeah, probably not the best idea.
“I’ll research tracking chips,” Dirk said. “Maybe we could find a way to block its signal or something.”
Aaron considered this. “You would help me leave?”
Dirk didn’t answer for a moment. On the stream, images of tree branches rippled along the surface of the water, refusing to stay still and straight. “Dad wants you here so you’ll help with the dragons. That way instead of attacking with two dragons, he can attack with three. He wants it so badly he thinks he can make it happen. And maybe he can. If he can’t convince you that a revolution is needed, or buy you off with promises of power and possessions, then he might abduct a few of your friends or family and threaten to leave them in the dragon enclosure. He has ways of getting what he wants.”
Dirk had expected Aaron to be repulsed by this statement, or if Aaron really had begun to idolize their father, be defensive on his behalf. But Aaron didn’t even register any surprise. He already knew what was expected of him in the revolution and apparently, he’d worked out the consequences if he didn’t help.
“Personally,” Dirk went on, “I think you’re too young to be involved, and even if you weren’t, well, if Dad has to coerce you to stay here and take part, you’ll be more of a danger than an asset. If you’re a danger, we should let you leave before you can do any damage.”
Aaron tilted his head. “So, are you saying you’d help me if I decided I wanted to leave or are you just saying that you’d tell Dad that he should let me go?”
Committing to that answer was best done in degrees, carefully. “I’ll decide that when you tell me you want to leave.”
Dirk could feel Aaron drawing back, hiding behind his walls again. He stared at the fallen, decaying leaves instead of at Dirk. “I don’t want to leave, but I still want to know how to get rid of the tracking chip. It makes me feel like I’m cattle or something.”
“I know. After I found out about your chip, I did a thorough check on myself, just in case.”
Aaron’s gaze returned to him. “Find anything?”
Dirk sighed for effect. “My muscles are so massive, it’s hard to find something that small.”
Aaron rolled his eyes. The kid was too used to being the top dog at his school—confident he would always be the strongest and the fastest. Dirk had been that way too until he’d gone to camp and met the Slayers.
“Think you could take me on?” Dirk challenged.
Aaron at least had the intelligence to shake his head. “Nah, but someday I will.” With a grin, he added, “and I’ll win.”
Dirk took Aaron’s arm and held it up, comparing their biceps. “Well, today ain’t that day. Break is over. Practice your diving on the way back to the house.”
***
On Saturday, Dirk went to the mall by himself. He told his father he was going Christmas shopping, and he did pick up some presents to make the story believable, but the real reason he went was so that he could buy a new phone. That way he could set up an untraceable account on the dark web and use it to text Tori.
That night he went into Vesta’s enclosure to tell Tori what he’d done. The fledglings didn’t have large spaces like Khan and Minerva. Their habitats were only the size of a basketball court—large enough for them to fly around a bit but small enough for them to understand that they lived in captivity, that they were dependent on humans, and should obey their rules.
Asleep, Vesta looked like a rhino-sized boulder. She didn’t stay that way for long. As soon as she caught Dirk’s scent, she lifted her wings, spreading them like enemy flags raised before a charge. Vesta was still young enough that she challenged anyone who came in her vicinity. She hadn’t learned yet that there was no point fighting a dragon lord. Her gray scales hung on her loosely, armor that was too big. She was still growing so fast that her body overcompensated by giving her room.
Before she could shriek, he took control of her mind. Hearing the dragons screech bothered Tori. Besides, Vesta was finally getting big enough that every once in a while her shrieks produced EMP, and he didn’t want to risk having his new phone fried. The dragon’s EMP was a good thing, in that regard. Dirk was relatively sure his father didn’t bug the enclosures. No point in paying a lot of money to make the place EMP-proof when Dirk could just talk to Tori when he was outside exercising the dragon.
Time to take Vesta for some fresh air and practice. He put on her harness and saddle, then opened the door in the roof. As usual, she bolted upward, full speed, convinced she’d find freedom if she rushed at the sky fast enough. He always let her tire herself out a bit before he reined her in and put her through her paces.
The wind rushed past him, roaring in his ears. Hearing and seeing were so much easier when he was inside a dragon’s mind. Then the landscape came alive. The sky was a sea of stars, the rustle of trees a constant hum, and everything smelled of leafy decay and the crisp possibility of snow.
“Tori,” Dirk said. “I’ve set up a new site where we can talk. It’s untraceable so you don’t have to worry about me finding you and I don’t have to worry you’ll send the Slayers after me.” He gave her the site name and password. “My dad hacked either your account or mine so we can’t use our regular site anymore. At least not for real conversation. You should still contact me on it every once in a while, though, so my dad doesn’t figure out I’ve got a new site and start looking for it.”
Dirk leaned back in the saddle as Vesta made a sharp upward turn. “You could go on and on about how awesome I am. That would be believable. You could also tell me how much you miss me; that sort of thing.”
He repeated the site address and password a few more times, then waited a couple of minutes and checked his phone to see if she wrote anything to him. She didn’t. But that wasn’t entirely a surprise. Sometimes she was at places where she couldn’t access the internet. She would write soon. Probably by the end of the night.
Chapter 8
Friday night, Jesse drove to Georgetown University. He’d told his parents he was going to a movie with friends. In reality, Dr. B had sent him a message that he was needed for a mission. Non-urgent. No other details. For smaller jobs, Dr. B generally only used a couple of Slayers.
Tori probably wouldn’t be there tonight. And Jesse shouldn’t hope that she was. He was trying to spend less time thinking about her. That had been his one goal this week—not to get over her, not to rid himself of the pain that seemed to have found a permanent place in his chest—he just needed to stop thinking about her so much. He had to stop conjuring up her face, stop rereading her old texts, and stop imagining her in Dirk’s arms. He also needed to stop second guessing whether he should have done something differently; maybe done everything differently.
Was he being petty and jealous to keep Tori at an arm’s length, or was he being smart to get off her merry-go-round-of-indecision-about-Dirk? Whatever the case, Jesse was doing a miserable job at keeping himself from thinking about her.
In his defense, he was reminded of her every day at school, where half of the guys eyed her and flirted with her. And then there was Slayer stuff—he had to work with her there. And as if that weren’t enough, everywhere he went, someone was talking about Senator Hampton, Tori’s father.
If the man won the presidency, Jesse would have four solid years of Tori reminders. Maybe eight.
When Jesse pulled into the parking lot next to the library, he automatically searched for her car. Wasn’t there. He was disappointed, despite himself.
He spotted Dr. B’s truck, even though the camp director had a way of changing vehicles and never used the same license plate twice. Jesse recognized it because the simulator lay in the truck bed. The machine was cov
ered by a tarp, but he knew the thick, rectangular shape well enough.
So, it was going to be a mission where he needed his Slayer powers. That meant he would either need to fly somewhere or be ready for a fight. He parked his car and walked over to the truck for details. Dr. B got out, peered around the lot to make sure they were alone, then motioned for Bess to join him at the back of the truck.
Although they were father and daughter, the two didn’t look much alike. Granted, they were both tall, had blue eyes, and Jesse supposed that Dr. B’s unruly gray hair must have once been brown curls like Bess’s. But Dr. B had an air of perpetual intellectualism and seriousness, as though he was always pondering some significant matter. If Bess ever pondered anything, it was probably her next practical joke.
“What’s up?” Jesse asked.
Bess zipped up her jacket. “My dad’s hopes.”
Dr. B gave her a sharp look, which she ignored. “I’ve been working with Shang,” he said, “trying different methods to help him regain his memory. I can’t say for certain that anything we’ve done has actually helped. He’s recalled a few vague things, but I’m not sure whether he’s remembering things because the pathways in his brain are regrowing or because he wrote a novel about his experience and is making logical correlations.”
Excitement flickered inside Jesse. “But he might have remembered some things?” It was the first good news he’d had in a while. “What has Shang done to improve his memory?”
“Meditation,” Dr. B said, “revisiting places we’ve been, and practicing things we practiced. He still has quite a bit of muscle memory. He may not consciously remember our plays but when confronted by a mechanical dragon, he instinctively follows them—or at least tries to. It’s harder without his powers.”
Jesse raised his eyebrows. “Wait, you’ve had him practice with the heli-dragons?” They were like six-foot hummingbirds that shot out fifteen-foot flames.
