The end of October and the beginning of November seemed to drag on like an old man accompanying his wife to the beauty parlor. No matter how desperately I wanted time to move along, it continued at a pace that would make snails seem speedy.
No one at school had anything negative to say about me again, though, at least not where I could hear them. Liam showed up with a real nice shiner the Monday after Holt’s party, and he tried to tell everyone he ran into a doorknob, but it didn’t matter because there were enough witnesses to know the truth. Brandon had managed to erase or replace any memory of my fangs from Liam’s mind, so at least he didn’t go around telling everyone he thought I was a Vampire. And on Halloween, when Lucy insisted it would be great for me to actually go as a Vampire and use my real fangs, I said no thanks and stayed at home passing out candy to little kids, dressed like my former self, a high school student who desperately wanted to
I hopped up off the couch and beat him to the door, giddy with excitement at the possibility of getting my IAC soon. Even if it hurt, even if creepy Christian was right up in my face, I was still excited about the possibility.“Well, someone seems to be getting her hopes up for absolutely no reason,” Brandon muttered as he called the elevator.“I know,” I said, grabbing ahold of his arm. “Isn’t it exciting?”“To get your hopes up for no reason?”“Yes—to have something to hope about.” Ever since my Transformation, the only things I could possibly get excited about where the chances that someone from the team might call me—which other than Brandon was rare—or someone from the team might show up at my house—which only happened at the one football game. I wasn’t even excited about Christmas this year, which was a major change for me since I am usually a Christmasah
Christian was behind his computer—which was meganormous—when we walked in. It’s seriously the biggest desktop monitor I’ve ever seen in real life. He didn’t look up at first, and I remembered that he really isn’t unattractive. He has dark blonde hair and a fairly handsome face. He’s tallish and muscular, of course. But there’s just something about when he looks at me that makes me think he would be very happy driving around a neighborhood in a white van looking for kids to help him find puppies. I’m not sure what it is that makes me feel that way either, which I think makes it worse. Maybe it’s because I heard the story about him recording my sister before I actually had a chance to meet him.He looked up at us and didn’t smile, and then I remembered. It’s because he’s creepy.“Hey, Christian,” I said, taking a few steps inside the room, not holding on to Brandon but bumping up ag
We headed out the door, and I was so excited that someone else was going to broach the topic of my IAC with my sister that I almost walked out the front door of the building.“Cassidy Elizabeth!” Jamie shouted at me. “Come here, please!”“Ugh, why does everyone know my middle name?” I muttered, spinning to go into the doctor’s office. “It’s like having ten older siblings.”“Nothing wrong with that,” Brandon reminded me.“Yes, James?” I asked, folding my hands in front of myself like a choir girl.He snickered. “Come here, and let me check those teeth of yours.”I sighed but complied and crossed over to a medical exam table he had set up in the far corner of his office. I hopped up, and he turned on an overhead light. He grabbed a shiny little mirror and a tongue depressor, and I said, “Ah,” like a good patient.It only took him
“You’re hearing what?” Cadence asked, standing in front of me with her arms crossed, a look of disbelief marring her pretty face.I was still sitting on Jamie’s examination table, but the doctor was standing next to my sister and my parents now, Brandon sitting next to me, his hand bumped up against mine. Aaron was across the room, and I couldn’t tell if he wasn’t right up in my business like everyone else because he didn’t think he belonged there or because somehow he already knew what we needed to discuss.“I know, it sounds nuts…” I began.“No, it doesn’t,” Brandon cut me off. “It sound remarkable.”I looked at him and smiled. “They’re just whispers, fragments of sentences, nothing I can even understand.”“Wow. Just… wow,” my mom said, her mouth agape much like my sister’s had been up until a moment ago.&l
“Let’s go,” Jamie said once I’d stepped back. I looked at him, grateful for his help, but also thankful that he was moving on this before any minds could be changed. “Who do you want with you, Cass? The room where Christian installs them is a little small. You can really only have two people in there, maybe three.”“Well, you, of course,” I said to the doctor without hesitating.“Good call,” Brandon assured me.I looked at my mother. “Do you want to come?”“No, honey, I don’t,” she said, smoothing my hair back. “Your father and I will wait for you here.”Nodding, I turned to my sister. She smiled at me, stepped forward, hugged me tightly, and said, “Take Brandon. We’ll wait outside the door.”With a deep breath, I let her go, and turning to look at him, I asked, “Will you go with me?”“To the prom?&
That night, my mom made baked chicken (only my mom would go grocery shopping while she’s on vacation) and we had a nice meal in the borrowed apartment. As much as everyone seemed nonchalant and genuinely carefree, I had so many things on my mind. About halfway through dessert, I asked, “So when do I get to start my training?”“Oh, Cassidy,” my mother exclaimed, rolling her eyes. “Can you just slow down a little bit?”“Why?” I asked, trying to keep my tone even. “I think it would be beneficial for me to start while I’m here this week. I don’t have anything else to do.” I shrugged and looked from my sister’s disapproving face to Aaron’s. He looked somewhat more likely to agree with me, as usual.“Are you sure you even want to?” Cadence asked. “It’s a lot of work. Just ask Brandon.”I turned to my right and looked at him. “Yeah, it is
Aurora was a beast, and she wasn’t taking any prisoners. I should’ve known when I was warned by multiple people that this wouldn’t be a walk in the park, but she was very supportive of me. Even when she was kicking my rear end, and even when I wanted to give up and fall over, she would shout some encouragement my way, usually in the form of an insult, and I would pick up the pace. Brandon wasn’t joking. By the time we were finally done with running the obstacle course, practicing The Hill—which was killer—and lap swimming for an hour in the pool, I was completely drained. My muscles ached, and I wondered how difficult it might be to get Jamie to swing by and give me a hug or something so I could restore the torn muscle tissue all over my body.I was in the shower area, getting dressed, when Aurora came in. She was as fresh as a daisy since she hadn’t actually been working out any herself. There were four other girls in the room with u
After we stuffed ourselves on pizza, Brandon said, “Come on. We’ve got an appointment.” I raised an eyebrow at him but took his hand as he led me to the door. I had no idea where we were going. In fact, we hadn’t even talked about Aaron the entire time we’d been eating, choosing to swap high school drama stories instead. Brandon had a few doozies, even though he generally kept away from drama. So, I had no idea where he was taking me, but I went along, thinking it might have something to do with the great mystery both of us were trying to solve.“Any idea when your sister is going to teach you how to use your IAC?” he asked as we walked along.“Nope. I haven’t even spoken to her today,” I admitted. “I think I can probably figure it out on my own, though.”“Yeah, it’s really not that hard, once you know the basic commands. And there’s some really cool stuff in the archives,
Cadence was glowing, holding both of her babies, one in each arm. I smiled at her and then focused on Josephina. She wasn’t crying now, but her little face was wrinkled as if she might burst into tears at any moment. Aaron had his hand on her back, beaming with pride as he looked at his little family. Jamie and another Healer, Ona, were cleaning up a tray table, but I caught his eye, and he winked at me. I hoped he could tell how grateful I was. If it wasn’t for him and his life saving blue magical healing powers, not to mention his medical skills, Cadence never would’ve come back to life.“Where’s my new favorite lil girl?” Elliott asked beside me.“Hey! I’m your lil girl. You’re going to have to think of something else to call her.” I threw an elbow at him.“Oh, I’m just teasing,” Elliott assured me. “Still, she is definitely lil. And she is my girl.”“I&rsqu
I’ll never forget the day my sister died. Even now, eight months later, sitting outside of Jamie’s operating room with Brandon’s hand in mine, every time I think about what happened that day, I get tears in my eyes. So many things could’ve gone differently, if only one of us would’ve made a different choice. I’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on what I could’ve done differently myself that day, and even though everyone tells me there’s no point in dwelling on it, what’s done is done, it still haunts me sometimes when I’m trying to fall asleep at night, when I can so vividly see Cadence hanging there in the air before she plummeted to the ground, the whoosh of power that left my hand just missing its mark.The new Hunter Leader is a guy named Daniel Bower. He came in from California a few months ago. He’s awesome. I’ve known him for a while. He’s the one who helped capture Professor Stewart after th
I continued to beg and plead with her to come back to us. At fifteen minutes, Scarlet’s whispers were loud enough for me to detect what she was saying to Cale. “How long will he give it?”“I don’t know.” Cale seemed agitated and upset, certainly more connected to my sister than Scarlet. “Not yet.”“Please... Cadey, please.” I felt as far and as deep as I could, thinking about how I’d had to go so very far into her brain to plant that dream. The clock continued to tick. Cadence still wasn’t breathing, and Jamie began to sound desperate. At twenty-five minutes, when Jamie said “thirty,” his voice broke. He knew that the chances of her coming back to us now, after this long, were minute at best. He couldn’t give up, though. We couldn’t give up.Aaron blew two breaths of air into my sister’s lungs, and Jamie started counting again.Something was diff
After Aaron finally moved forward, I followed, staying back a little bit. I didn’t want to see her like that. I had never seen a person’s body after they’ve fallen that far, but I could imagine what it was like.Only when I finally did take a few hesitant steps around the trees, Brandon’s hands on my shoulders, she didn’t look like I expected her to at all.Cadence was lying flat on the ground with her hands folded over her abdomen, sort of like Snow White. Her feet were out straight, and her hair was blown out around her. She looked absolutely beautiful. And still. So very, very still.Jamie was doing chest compressions, and when it was time to breathe, Aaron did that for my sister. Some sort of automatic pilot must’ve turned on for him because his movements were very robotic. Jamie would say thirty, and Aaron would breathe into my sister’s open mouth twice before Jamie started counting again.Tears were rolling
“No!” My scream echoed across the mountainside as I watched in horror as my sister fell. I cannot guide what I cannot see, and I didn’t have a chance to get a grip on her before she plummeted. My hands shot out in her direction, but the surge of power I’d sent to grab her went over her head. I saw a streak of blue do the same and knew Jamie had missed as well.Fumbling through Cadence’s stream of consciousness, I tried again, hoping I’d be able to figure out how to get my powers around her before she hit the ground, but she was moving too fast, and without my eyes on her, I wouldn’t be able to get a grip.Part of me wanted to at least jump into her head, to be with her, to let her know she was okay, but then, the thought of what she was about to endure, when she hit the tops of the trees and then cascaded down through them to the earth, I couldn’t bear the thought, and I knew she wouldn’t want me to see it.I
“Brandon!” I shouted, floating over to where he had disappeared. He didn’t answer, and I realized he must’ve fallen all the way in. “Dang it.” I looked around the battlefield. I knew he was safe down there, but I hated that he was in that miserable place. Cadence was firing at Daunator now while Christian moved in, to place the grenade, I assumed, so I thought perhaps she’d be safe for a few minutes. I decided to help Brandon.“Are you all right?” I asked, using my telepathy.“Thank goodness,” he thought, probably not even to me. “Yeah, I’m fine. It’s just really dark in here.”“I know. Hold on, and I’ll get you out.”“If I hold on, won’t it be harder for you to get me out?”“All right smarty pants.” I needed to focus all of my energy if I was going to do this
“You okay?” Brandon shouted to me as he moved a little closer to where I was standing. The holes in the ground were not shaking now as much as they had been before, but they were still an obstacle we had to consider. I didn’t want him to get too close because of my tornadoes, but I was glad he was nearby.“Great,” I called back, sending another pile of creatures over the side of the mountain.Aaron was fighting his way through the crowd of black creatures, working his way to Cadence. The path was getting clearer, as far as the minions were concerned, but once he got within about a hundred yards of Cadence’s location, one of the Vampires that had been engaged with our forces closer to the top of the mountain broke off, clearly on his way to intercept the Guardian Leader.Whether he liked it or not, Aaron wasn’t alone now. I wasn’t sure where she’d come from, but Eliza was running parallel to him, fighting off
Moving the black creatures off of the ledge worked well, and I was just starting my second round when I realized my sister had taken off running toward Daunator. Christian had reached him already, a grenade in his hand. I prayed he didn’t get sucked down into another hole. The fact that Cadence was so far away from Aaron was worrisome, but he was busy with the creatures. While Cadence was slowed a few times by the minions sinking their teeth into her arm or grabbing at her heels, for the most part, they seemed to be letting her through, which seemed like a bad sign to me. Did Daunator want her to fight him?A blast of light illuminated the mountain, and then a wave of smoke obscured my view of Christian and Daunator. He’d thrown a grenade, the old kind, the ones he knew wouldn’t work. When the smoke cleared, Daunator’s laughter echoed through the air, and Christian went flying twenty feet in the air.Paul’s voice came over the IAC as I tos
Christian’s eyes widened. “Get out of here? We can’t. We have to get Daunator.”“We will. But for now, we need to go back and regroup. The most important thing is that you’re safe now,” Cadence explained to him.Christian was starting to freak out again. “No, Cadence, you don’t understand. We can’t just leave from here! We can’t just let him go!” His eyes were wild, and he reached forward and grabbed my sister’s shoulders. That lasted about half a second before Aaron grabbed him and pulled him off.“Listen, Christian, I agree. It’s important we come back and end this, but you need medical attention. And a good visit with Hannah.”And a shower, I thought to myself. But I was staying out of this one for the moment. I felt a stirring in the ground and a shift in energy somewhere further up the mountain. The argument was about to be moot.“No,