Free Slayers by C. J. Hill

woods.
    The analogy made him grin. The woods surrounded camp and Tori was definitely a babe. The whole time she had shot targets, he’d found himself staring at her … at that Hollywood face, long legs, and smooth skin. Every time she’d flashed her green eyes at him, his concentration had fallen apart.
    Yeah, that whole hot-girl thing was going to cause all sorts of trouble.
    Beautiful girls were used to smiling and getting their way. Tori
would probably question every order he gave and ditch the hard work.
    On top of that, Lilly didn’t like her, which could turn every practice into a cat fight. And if the guys liked Tori, they would start pulling stupid stunts to impress her. That was why Dr. B had always told them not to get involved with one another. For the most part, they’d done a decent job of following that rule. This year might be different.
    Jesse texted: She needs work.
    A minute later, Dr. B wrote back: Then she’s come to the right place.
    Maybe. Jesse slipped his phone into his pocket. If Tori wasn’t legit, it would be evident soon enough. And then Jesse would make a point of finding out who had sent her.

CHAPTER 7
    I nstead of going straight to class, Tori made a detour to the showers. Her jeans were dusty from the horseback riding and she was afraid her shirt smelled sweaty. And, of course, a person’s hair never looked good after being smashed into helmets most of the morning. Besides, who knew what the shower schedule would be like later? She took a brief shower—brief even by Jesse’s Spartan rinse, lather, rinse standards—then threw on khaki shorts and a casual top. She French braided her hair, applied a touch of makeup, and walked to the back of the rifle range where the carts were parked.
    As she slipped behind the wheel, she looked up at the roof. Just like at the main office, a small camera peeked out of its eaves.
    Did the camp have a problem with vandals or something?
    She turned on the cart, backed it up, and glanced at the tree branches, checking for more cameras. Yep, there was another one, not far away.
    It was only because she was scanning the area for cameras that she saw it.

    Something was in the forest, watching her. At first she thought it was a person. It was tall enough. But when she turned to get a better look, it leaped upward. One moment a form was there, the next moment a blur of blue and red disappeared into the canopy of leaves.
    She didn’t wait around to find out what it was. She took the cart out of reverse and pressed the gas pedal down, driving away from the spot as fast as she could.
    Nothing pursued her. There was no sign, no noises from whatever had been in the woods. But her heart rate didn’t settle down for several minutes.
     
     
    Dragon mythology class turned out to be a disappointment. It wasn’t that Dr. B was a bad teacher. He clearly knew a ton about history, and was good at asking questions that opened up discussions, but it was clear from the start of class that the rest of the students loved dragons; thought of them as flying hotrods or something.
    Tori had come to camp in the hopes of understanding certain things about herself. Like why dragons always seemed to show up in her dreams, waiting outside her consciousness to pounce at her with gaping jaws. Sometimes when she went running through her subdivision at night, it wasn’t her heartbeat she heard thudding in her ears. It was a dragon’s. She could almost feel the deep inhale and exhale of its lungs, almost sense its presence hovering somewhere above her. If there was a way to vanquish these dragons, she wanted to know how.
    Wasn’t that the whole point of this camp—to slay dragons, not enshrine them?
    One guy even said, “Man, it would be so cool if they were real.”
    It wouldn’t have been cool. It would have been awful. Tori had known this from the time she was four years old and she’d smashed her father’s glass dragon collection on the same day he’d brought it out of