“Come on, Cass,” Mom said, smiling. She pulled out a chair next to my dad, who was talking to Jamie, and sat down on the other side of me. There was a bit of a line at the buffet, and some people at our table were already eating. While my stomach was growling, I wanted to know who that other guy was. I wasn’t sure why, but there was something intriguing about him, besides the fact that he reminded me a lot of Chris Hemsworth.
I sat down and weighed my options as I spotted my sister still talking to the mysterious hottie. I didn’t really know any of these people, which gave me little choice. “Mom, who is that guy Cadence is talking to?” I whispered. Aaron was only about three seats down from me, but I didn’t think he was listening since he was talking to Christian.
My mom looked over at the door and then, shrugging, said, “I don’t know.”
I made a face I try not to make. My mom calls it my “teenager
My sister’s boyfriend—scratch that—fiancé--really is magical. The more time I spend around people on his team, the more I realize that. I was super impressed that he somehow managed to coordinate the cleaning and redecorating of an empty apartment a few floors below Cadence’s while also attending his best friend’s memorial service so that by the time we got back from the luncheon, my parents’ belongings had all been resituated in what seemed like an expansive hotel room. Cadence let me keep my stuff in her apartment, though. She said I could stay in the guest room, which was awesome because I hadn’t had the chance to see her much lately.Most of the rest of the day was a blur, though there was definitely a lot of sitting around chatting. After several hours at the luncheon, my parents, Cadence, Aaron, and I headed back to my sister’s apartment, and there was more chatting. I had taken a lot of pictures of the place on my
“Right, the talk. Grandma will give me the same talk she gave to you,” I said to Cadence, still shocked to think of what those pictures must be like. “Then what happened? What’s this Transformation process everyone keeps mentioning?” I already knew way more about that than I probably should’ve, but she had no idea that was the case.“Well, like I said, Grandma is the perfect person to explain all of this, so I don’t want to confuse you, but basically once a person who has the ability to Transform either into a Hunter or a Guardian is in danger from a Vampire, their body starts the Transformation process. Jamie just sped mine along with a shot.”I nodded. Had she worked it out on her own, then, that this wasn’t really a choice? I remembered Aaron saying to my parents, way back at the beginning, when he thought I wasn’t listening, that they wanted Cadence to choose to join them. Even if she’d chosen
I couldn’t help but smile, thinking about Cadence and Elliott working together to kill some awful Vampire that, in my mind, looked a lot like Bela Lugosi. “Why is that?” I asked, wondering why that was such a crucial event.“Well, I didn’t realize he was taking me out there just to scare me. Apparently, this Vampire, Barbarosa, has killed a lot of Hunters over the years. He lived in this creepy old house out in the middle of nowhere, and it was like a maze on the inside. So, when I wasn’t scared and thought it was just a typical hunt, Elliott tried to talk me out of it. My instincts had already kicked in, though, and I was in full slayer mode. So… I went in after Barbarosa, and chased him all through this labyrinth and out the other side. He was almost out the door when Elliott cut him off. Barbarosa had him by the neck, and while he couldn’t kill Elliott, it couldn’t have been comfortable. I had to be super careful when
“Hey, Cass,” Aaron said, walking toward me as Cadence headed for the chair Mom had been sitting in earlier. “Cadence said you had some questions about what happened in Sierraville.” He sat down on the sofa pretty close to me, and I wanted to scoot back, scoot away from him, but not only would that probably be rude, there was nowhere for me to go.“Yeah,” I said, looking anywhere but his eyes. “I just wanted to know what happened to Elliott.”“I think that’s a valid question, and you deserve to know. It’s just… not something that’s easy for either one of us to talk about, as you can imagine.”“Right,” I said, shaking my head. “I can understand that. I don’t need… details… or anything. It’s just, that guy who shot him? Who was he? Why would he do that?”I expected a whole litany of reasons why he wouldn’t be able to te
“When we walked into the woods that night, Elliott knew there was a possibility this was all a farce, too. But he still thought we should go through with it,” Aaron continued.I nodded, understanding that he was saying Elliott took the same calculated risk they all did. “So… can you tell me what happened, or is it too hard to talk about?” I had an idea now. I wasn’t sure that I even wanted him to tell me anymore, certainly not the details, but I also didn’t want to tell him to stop talking now that he was.“Sam shot him.” He said it like it was a fact from a history book. If I had asked, “Who shot Abraham Lincoln?” and his response was, “Booth shot him,” it couldn’t have sounded any more dispassionate. But I couldn’t blame him. He was a facts kinda guy, and I was asking him to talk about something that wasn’t just factual to him. It was emotional and real and it really, rea
As Aaron stood to walk toward where my sister was sitting, I blurted out, “Thanks for telling me,” like I was afraid he might slip away before I got a chance to say anything. “I really appreciate it.”“Sure,” he replied, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Once we figure out what’s going on around here, we’ll coordinate a time for someone to meet you at your grandma’s. I think it’ll go over better if a member of our team can be there with you in case you have questions your grandma can’t answer. She’s not that knowledgeable about the way we do things now.”“Uh, excuse me,” Cadence said, nudging him with her elbow. “What about me? I can tell her the technology stuff.”Aaron looked at her for a moment and kind of made a half-guffaw sound in the back of his throat before he turned back to me and said, “I have your number. I’ll be in
My whole life, I’ve thought my sister was pretty darn amazing. She’s gorgeous, smart, but totally down to earth. Hanging out in her apartment, even for a brief amount of time, listening to her friends talk about how awesome she is at her new job, seeing those photos of her kicking Vampire booty, just solidified the idea even more in my mind. But as I sat at home on my bed pondering everything that had gone on over the past few days, that wasn’t the Cadence that was on my mind. It was the vulnerable one, the one who’d sat in the chair and stared at the wall as her fiancé repeated the story of her best friend’s demise to me, the sister I’d heard in the bedroom next to mine so distraught she couldn’t sleep. As much as I missed Elliott myself, when I closed my eyes, I could believe he was out there somewhere, just off on a mission, and that he’d check in soon enough. Cadence didn’t have the luxury of pretend. Every time she tu
“Well, it looks like we might be headed to Montana soon enough, so your sister might be out of touch for a little while. We’ve got a lead on Finn, so we’re going to see if we can track him down. I’m sure Cadence will fill you in when we get back,” Aaron said.I remembered that Finn was one of Sam’s minions. That was good news, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “Nothing on Sam yet?” I asked.“Not yet. We’re working on it, though.”It went without saying that he wanted Sam as badly as I did, more even, if that was possible. “Okay,” I said.“I’ve gotta go, but if you need anything, you can text me at this number anytime, okay? I rarely sleep, and it might take me a few minutes to get back to you if I’m tied up, but I’m usually pretty good about responding quickly.”I didn’t know what to say at all. It seemed like he was treating m