My mom shook her head and folded her arms. “I don’t understand why Cadence is doing this, getting more of that serum injected into her body. It all seems so... unnecessary. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”
Eyes wide, I studied her for a moment. If it were me, she’d be standing at the foot of my bed the whole time, wringing her hands because she’d be so worried I might die. Cadence could do whatever she wanted, and my mom didn’t bat an eye. “It’ll make her better at her job,” I reminded my mom.
She shrugged. “I guess so. I don’t really see a difference.” I guessed the conversation was over because she headed over to her recliner.
“You don’t see a difference?” I wasn’t done yet. “Mom, Aaron and Tara are, like, ten times faster than the rest of us. They’re stronger.” She was unimpressed. “They have X-ray vision.”
“Now, who
Elliott was nervous. I could tell by all of the awful jokes he was making on our way over to Jamie’s operating room. Of course, he always makes a ton of jokes, but these were more “dad jokey” than usual. I couldn’t blame him for being nervous; I would’ve been, too, I think. But since Elliott had been told nothing could kill him, there was a pretty good chance he’d come through this unscathed. Perhaps it was the intense pain he was likely to experience that had him a little sillier than usual. If this process felt anything like going through the Transformation process felt like for me when I initially went through it, he was in for a pretty crappy morning.I hadn’t seen Cadence, and she still hadn’t answered my message from the night before. I figured she was busy and would likely be a little late because she has a tendency to come in a few minutes after she’s supposed to be some place when she has a lot going on, but when
“Okay, I’m guessing it’ll be about two minutes of severe pain, and then you’ll be fine,” Jamie explained to my sister and Elliott as he picked up a needle and flipped the lid off. “Asleep, but fine.”I didn’t see any tourniquets or anything, which I thought was odd, but I figured Jamie knew what he was doing. He took ahold of Elliott’s arm and bent it at the elbow for a second, like that would be enough for him to find a vein, and I figured if a person has been finding veins for two hundred years, it doesn’t take much.As Jamie brought Elliott’s arm back down so that it was straight, Elliott looked at my sister and said, “See ya on the other side, kid.” I glanced over at my sister and thought she looked slightly calmer. I wondered if Elliott had used his green sparkling eyes of trickery to make her feel a bit more relaxed, but I didn’t have time to think about it too long before Jamie w
Once everything was put away, Jamie went around the end of Cadence’s bed and took Aaron’s hand in both of his for a moment. A few seconds later, it was completely healed. Jamie stifled a yawn as Aaron thanked him, and then the Healer asked, “Are you gonna hang out here for a while?”I had a couple of hours before I was due in the gym, and while I’d had my fair share of watching people sleep when Tara was lying in this very room not long ago, I planned to stay as long as I could. Brandon was getting us both chairs, I realized, and my eyes stayed focused on Aaron, wondering what he would say.He looked surprised that Jamie had even asked, like it hadn’t crossed his mind, but he replied, “Yeah, I guess so.” He didn’t move to get a chair, though, only took a few steps backward, out of Jamie’s way as the doctor crossed the room to do something at a prep station, and Aaron took on a distracted look, like he wasn&rsq
“I guess the Transformation serum took, then?” Elliott asked, still a little dazed from just waking up.“I think so,” Jamie nodded, clearly relieved and glad that he’d figured this process out. “Everything seems relatively normal.”“Relatively?” Elliott asked, sitting up completely as Jamie stepped back.“Yeah, your heartbeat is a little faster than it was before, but that’s to be expected.” I saw Elliott glance around Jamie at Aaron who had only a small grin for his best friend. “Aaron’s heart rate is always elevated.”Elliott seemed to accept that. He slid over to the edge of the bed so that his legs were dangling for a minute before his feet touched the floor. “Can I go then? I’m starving.”“What else is new?” I muttered, smiling at him. At least one of them had woken up with no horrible side effects.“Sure,”
Cadence didn’t wake up until something like three o’clock in the morning. By then, I was sound asleep in my bed. Heaven forbid I stay up past midnight to see if my sister made it through her procedure alive. I was still stunned that my parents had only visited her the one time. Even Aurora had stopped by twice in the afternoon to make sure Cadence was okay, and she wasn’t even family. But when I woke up the next morning, I had a message from my big sis assuring me she was okay. I breathed a sigh of relief and got ready for training.My mom was banging around in the kitchen when I came out to grab a protein drink to down on the way over. Having missed the day before, the last thing I wanted was to be late. Chances were someone would have a snide comment waiting for me either way. “Oh, you’re up,” my mom said, glancing at the clock on the stove. “Can I fix you some breakfast?”Something seemed weird, and I wondered if my mo
“Why is it so quiet?” I asked Brandon, not liking it one bit. I wasn’t sure what it was that had me on edge, but it was unsettling.“Would you like for me to sing you a song?” His sarcasm is almost as brutal as his father’s.“No thanks.” I’ve heard him sing. I opened up my computer and got to the page for our algebra class before we could get off task. It was easy to do if I wasn’t careful, and the last thing I needed was to waste my time. Getting a good grade on this test would be difficult if I wasn’t diligent.“Are you hungry? I’ve got some leftover Chinese food. Or I can make you a sandwich.”He is always trying his best to get me to lose focus. “Not right now, thanks.” I checked over the list our teacher had given us of what to study and realized there were at least three skills I hadn’t yet mastered. “Can we just get to it?”&ldqu
Hines was such a weirdo. His hair was dark black except for a white stripe, and it stood up on top of his head about two feet. He had black rimmed glasses thick enough to be double paned windows, and he was as nervous as a skittish kitten anytime he got anywhere near danger. It didn’t take me too long to see him in my mind.He was on an airplane, and he wasn’t paying me any attention at all. I walked around in his mind for a few minutes and picked up all sorts of absent thoughts and memories, though I couldn’t exactly tell where he was going. I saw an image of the Eiffel Tower in his memory and decided it might be Europe, but I didn’t think it was France. And then he turned his head.It took me a moment to recognize what I was looking at—or who I was looking at, I might say. “Oh, no,” I muttered as I realized what must’ve happened. I hadn’t known I’d even spoken aloud until I said it again. “Oh,
“Well, hello there, sunshine,” Elliott said, talking to my sister.Resting back into his chair, Cadence asked, “How’s it going?” I could tell by her tone she was questioning his countenance as much as I was.“It’s going. It’s going.” He tossed his leather jacket on the back of the chair, making Cadence’s hair blow out around her. He was definitely faster now. I could tell already. “You will never guess who I ran into downstairs.”I wondered if Elliott would still be this happy if he knew who I’d just run into on a plane. “Who?” Cadence asked.Elliott waved at Brandon and I but didn’t say anything directly to us as he headed into the kitchen, still talking to Cadence. She followed. “Your beloved,” I heard him say as he rounded the corner. “And it was weird, but he was back to himself for a few moments. It was strange.”My eavesdrop