“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
Thursday morning, I was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt my grandma had given me for my birthday last year that had a picture of a unicorn on it reading a book that said, “The Last Human,” which I thought was hilarious. My grandma really was pretty cool. I couldn’t sit still, though. I was pacing the living room while my mom went about her normal routine of cleaning everything. I must’ve been driving her nuts because she finally looked over at me from the shelf she’d been dusting across the room and shouted, “Cassidy Elizabeth! Sit down!”“Sorry,” I said. She laughed, though, so I guess she wasn’t really mad. Just teasing.“Did you drink coffee again?” she asked, moving on to the hutch.I remembered trying it once before, when Elliott was here, actually, and I was trying to be a mature young adult instead of an awkward adolescent. “No,” I muttered, my mood going from anxious to so
“Hey, Cass,” Jamie said, smiling at me. “How are you?”“Great,” I replied, trying to sound excited. “How are you?”“Not too bad, thanks. Ready to get you up to Des Moines so you’re up to speed with everyone.” He sounded like he was repeating something Aaron would say, not like himself exactly, but I just nodded.I looked at Christian for a second and managed an awkward smile with a mumbled, “Hi,” and he awkwardly smiled back at me. Jamie turned and looked at him but then made an expression like he was used to this sort of strange behavior.“Cassidy has her laptop set up in the dining room,” my mom said, ushering them that direction as she closed the door. I took a few steps backward and they followed. I wasn’t sure if my mom was done with her thought, so I said nothing, and by the time I figured out she was, we were almost in the other room, and I felt like a w
A few deep breaths and Jamie’s words of reassurance had my shoulders coming down out of my ears. “Why is Christian like that?” I asked, thinking I could probably have phrased it more eloquently if I wasn’t distracted by the blurs out the window.“I’m not sure how to answer that,” Jamie admitted. “He’s just an odd guy. The more you get to know him, the more you’ll see that’s how he is. But he’s harmless.”“Good to know,” I said, turning my head to look out the window and then realizing my mistake and turning so that I was staring at the radio. I didn’t want to stare at Jamie, so I was kind of lost with where to avert my eyes.“Are you okay?” he asked, clearly seeing I was uncomfortable.“Fine, thanks.” I didn’t know what else to say. I had a million questions I could ask, but I wasn’t sure what he would agree to tell me before
Somehow, I must have dozed off, because what seemed like a few minutes later, I woke up to Jamie gently shaking my shoulder and realized the SUV was stopped in my grandma’s driveway. I sat up quickly, simultaneously wiping any drool that may have seeped out of my mouth on the back of my hand. Luckily, it was dry. Jamie switched from calling my name to laughing and jumped out of the car.While I wasn’t exactly sure what was so funny, I felt like he was poking fun at me a little bit, so as I got out, I called to him, “You know, a good prom date would’ve come around and opened my door.”“A better prom date wouldn’t have fallen asleep,” he countered, and I had nothing to say in response to that, so I kept my mouth quiet.My grandma met us at the door, smiling and happy to see me as always. “There she is!” she gushed, hugging me and kissing me on the cheek. “You’re getting so tall, Cassidy.&rdquo
Grandma seemed to accept that answer, though I wasn’t sure I did. “Now, let me show you the album,” my grandma said, gently patting the cover. “I won’t show you the whole thing right now because it is too much. I haven’t even gone over it with your sister yet, but I want to show you the wedding photo of your grandfather and I.”I patiently waited as she turned a few pages to an old black and white photograph of herself standing next to a younger looking version of the grandpa I’d seen in pictures, though he didn’t look that much younger than he had in the other photos. I’d always thought he looked strangely young for a grandpa, and of course, now I knew why. The photo looked like it was from the early to mid-19thcentury. “You’re beautiful, Grandma,” I said, staring at her with her hair in short curls around her face, a bouquet of flowers in her arms.“Thank you. Your grandfather s
I was having trouble getting enough oxygen into my lungs. It took me several minutes to regain control of myself. “I never would’ve thought you were such a jokester.”He seemed embarrassed again, so I stopped prodding him on. “The IAC takes a little getting used to, but it’s not too hard to learn. Once you Transform, Christian will put it in—he’s the only one who can—and then you’ll be assigned a mentor to teach you how to use it.”“I guess it really is true, then, that I can’t Transform until I’m seventeen?”“In very rare instances people younger have done it on their own, but no, most of the time, the DNA in your blood hasn’t matured enough to complete the process if you start sooner than that.”I thought about all of that quietly for a few moments before I sighed and said, “Well, I hope that whatever Christian is setting up for me lets me help th
The next few months seemed to whirl by without much going on, and let’s face it, around here, if a month goes by and no one dies, that’s a good month. Christian had shown me how to use the tools he’d installed on my laptop. I was glad Jamie was with us the whole time because there really is just something about that guy. I can’t quite put my finger on it…. Anyway, with this new equipment, I would be able to see closed circuit footage from airports and a few other public places, and Christian gave me as much information as they had available about where Giovani and Sam might be. They were pretty sure they had their finger on Finn and were thinking they’d pick him up soon enough. So I wasn’t shocked to get a call from my sister less than a week later that Finn was dead, and so was the Vampire who’d been involved in the ambush.Later on that month, I went ahead and let Emma install the same software Christian had given to me onto
Once I was in my room, I closed the door behind me, sat down on the edge of the bed and called my sister. It went to voicemail. I was so agitated, I almost chucked my phone across the room. I sent her a text. “Now is good.”I wouldn’t have been shocked if Cadence made me wait an hour or two. Trying to calm my anxiety over what she might have to say and head off my agitation, I picked up my laptop and scanned the news sites, something I’d been doing basically every day since Elliott had mentioned this to me around the time of the killings in Cabo. The headlines jumped out at me. Two plane crashes near Dallas, a school nearby having some sort of vague intruder scare, a truck wreck leaving a man dead. Apparently, my sister had been in Texas.My phone rang, startling me. I set my laptop aside and answered it. “Hello?”“Well, hello there, dear sister. You sound irritated.”“I tried to call you, and you didn