Free Slayers: Friends and Traitors by C. J. Hill

if it was anger or pain that made it beat so frantically.
    She felt his gaze on her, knew he was looking at her with sympathy. His voice was soft. “I don’t want it to be this way.”
    Tori doubted that. He wouldn’t have broken up with her if he didn’t want it to be this way. He probably had a girlfriend back at his school. After all, Jesse was not only tall, dark, and handsome; he was smart, responsible, brave … and he was breaking up with her.
    Don’t cry , she told herself. He wasn’t emotional about this, why should she be?
    Tori stared at the leaves stretching out around her. They were still so bright and green. They hadn’t realized yet that summer was ending.
    “We’ll be together again next June,” Jesse said.
    And next June he would be willing to break the rules for her? He could do that at camp—kiss her in the treetops—but not outside of camp?
    “Say something,” he said.
    There was no point in saying anything. You couldn’t debate someone into loving you. “We should get back to camp,” she said. Without waiting for his reply, she dived from the branch into the waiting air.

 
    CHAPTER 4
     
    Tori went directly to her cabin and began packing her things. She had put it off before. Packing up things meant that camp was really over. Now she put her clothes in her suitcases with a numb sort of speed. Just get through this , she told herself, then everything will be fine . She would pack up her feelings for Jesse and never open them again.
    Tori had more luggage than any of the other Slayers. She had brought actual outfits, a half a dozen different shoes, jewelry, books—the sorts of things she’d used at other camps. Tori hadn’t realized she would spend two months training to be a Slayer. She hadn’t even realized she would be here that long. She’d only signed up for the first session and then had to persuade her parents to let her stay an extra five weeks.
    Lilly and Alyssa had already finished packing most of their stuff. Their duffle bags and backpacks sat waiting by the end of their bunk bed. Alyssa was braiding Lilly’s blonde hair into a French braid, identical to the one she wore. Lilly and Alyssa usually looked like they were trying to be copies of each other.
    “Don’t forget to bring your iron next year,” Lilly called to Tori. “It made the perfect doorstop.” Lilly and Alyssa had not only mocked Tori for bringing an iron to camp, they constantly took it off her dresser and used it to prop open the cabin door whenever they wanted a breeze.
    “And bring the designer sheets again,” Alyssa added. “Those were just divine.” Alyssa and Lilly both snickered.
    Tori wasn’t going to miss them at all.
    Rosa, Team Magnus’ healer, had finished packing and now sat on her bed reading a romance novel. All the Slayers were athletic, although Rosa hardly looked it. She was petite with long black hair, flawless dark skin, and large brown eyes that made her look more like a doll than someone who could pick up a grown man and throw him across the room. Every once in a while she gave the cabin an update from her novel. “Fleur’s carriage is going down a lonely country road. Pues , that can’t be good.”
    “Of course it’s good,” Bess said, tossing a couple of shirts into an open duffle bag at her feet. “Fleur is either going to run into a handsome highwayman or she’s going to be saved from vile highwaymen by some passing hot single duke.” Bess added some shorts to her pile. “That’s why, after we’re done being Slayers, I’m going to do nothing but roam lonely country roads. Apparently that’s where all the action is.”
    Bess was tall, with chin-length curly brown hair that was frequently in states of disarray. Her bright blue eyes and pointed chin made her look elflike, as though she really belonged here in the forest. “How much do you want to bet that within five pages Fleur’s lips will be quivering in unspoken passion?”
    Normally Tori would have added