The thrusting of a grilled cheese sandwich under my nose brought me back to reality. I looked up to meet Brandon’s eyes and smiled, thanking him with a loud growl of my stomach. “I figured you had to be hungry.” He sat down beside me, and Elliott took his regular chair across from us, an open bag of Cheetos in his hand, his fingers already orange from the dust.
“How’s the mathing going?” he asked before slamming another handful of chips into his mouth. “I never did see the point.”
“It’s going,” I replied, biting into a perfectly melty, delicious, buttery gift from the gods. Brandon has a way with bread, cheese, and butter that transforms them into something otherworldly. “I don’t think I’m going to be up for this test, though, if you guys are going out tonight.”
“Yeah, we haven’t decided for sure yet. Depends on what you find out. But if Cadence is going, I&rsqu
Back in my room, I sat on my bed and tuned out the sound of my mom vacuuming the living room floor for the hundredth time. It occurred to me that she needed to make some friends and get out of the apartment more, but I didn’t know who to suggest. Age is such a weird thing here. There was no way to tell if people were three hundred or eighteen unless you just knew their story. I couldn’t imagine my mom hanging out with Aurora or Meagan, but maybe someone like Hannah would be a good match for her. The thought of my mom drinking a latte with Ashley had me cracking up. She might look like Jamie’s other girlfriend, Ellie, but she wasn’t vintage. I felt sorry for my mom that she was here all day long, but then, that was her choice, I supposed. At least she got to decide whether she stayed or went.I leaned back against the headboard, a pillow behind my back, and closed my eyes. Normally, for something this important, I’d go up on the roof, but it wasn&
It occurred to me that a nap might be a good idea. Sometimes, my math teacher allows permission to take the test at exactly midnight, which is great for people like Brandon who are awake in the middle of the night. Maybe I could take the test before the hunt. I decided I’d better wait and see what my sister had planned, though it wouldn’t be surprising if she had decided to show up in Lexington sometime around two or three o’clock in the morning.I heard my sister’s voice and realized I’d dozed off for a few minutes. My mom was asking her a bunch of questions about her day, and Cadence’s voice was shifting from polite to annoyed. I decided to go ahead and save my sister, so I went out into the living room. “Hey, Cass,” she said, a look of relief on her face. “Ready to tell me what you got?”“Sure,” I said, not making direct eye contact with my mother for fear she’d start asking me a bunch of
The algebra test was ridiculous, and by the time I’d finished it, I was ready to rip my messy bun right off the top of my head. I really don’t care about how many fence posts Billy needs to erect an enclosure around his pigs when length is represented by X and Y is the time it takes to fly from Nairobi to Shanghai on the back of a one legged flamingo. I mean, really, when am I ever going to need any of this?But what I did need was to figure out how to get in Holland’s way long enough for my sister and her team to do what they needed to without tipping the Vampire off. I tried to shift my mind away from my arch nemesis, a.k.a. mathematics, and focus in on Brandon and the others. They were nearing the outskirts of Lexington right as I tuned them in, and for a moment it was like I was right there beside them.Elliott was driving, Cadence in the passenger seat, with Brandon sitting next to Roar and Meagan, Ashley, and Martin in the way-back. I knew my si
The next thing I knew, my sister was sprinting through the yard, flying after one of the Vampires. She’d always been incredibly fast since she’d Transformed, but this was a kind of speed I couldn’t even articulate. She caught up to him quickly and a few seconds later, Spittle exploded in a pile of ash. I assumed my sister must’ve used one of the grenades Christian made, the kind I’d used to set Gibbon on fire, but I couldn’t tell what she’d done without losing my grip on Holland.A sense of peace settled around my sister’s countenance as she and Elliott stared out over the Missouri River, and I decided I could probably let my shield down now. It looked as if they must’ve gotten everyone or else they wouldn’t be standing around. I took a few really deep breaths, trying to make sure I had fully left Holland. She hadn’t done a single thing to try to stop me, which seemed odd, but I got the notion that she was look
The answer about what had happened that was keeping my sister so busy came from my own thoughts about Aaron. Transferred—he’d said he’d send any Guardian who went with Cadence away. Was that the weird thing that Brandon had referred to? Had the Leader actually given Brandon and Elliott letters of dismissal or sent them reassignment paperwork? I desperately wanted to know, but I decided to wait for the answer to come to me because Brandon had said he’d get back to me as soon as he could, or at least that was the impression I got. If I was tired before, I was wide awake now.I waited as patiently as I could for what seemed like hours, but when I glanced at the clock, it had been less than fifteen minutes before Brandon came back on. “Sorry about that, babe. You would not believe what we came back home to.”Part of me was afraid to ask. But I needed to know. “What was it?”“A moving truck.&
Cadence sounded concerned as she explained what she needed my help with.“Look, Jamie and I think that maybe it’s Holland making Aaron act this way. We need your help. We are going to go talk to him, and we want you to block her long enough for us to convince him that she’s in his head. Can you do that?”The thought had been on the periphery of my thinking ever since I saw how gunked up Aaron’s mind was. It made sense—though I had no idea how Holland could do such a thing. Of course, I was willing to do whatever I could to help out. That didn’t prevent me from messing with my sister. “Gee, Sis, I don’t know,” I teased. “I’m kinda tired.” I didn’t give her enough time to contemplate whether or not I was serious. “Yes, of course. Go. Let me know when to start.” I had a ton of questions I wanted to ask about how she and Jamie had come to this conclus
The sun was up way too soon, and when I opened my eyes just before my alarm went off, I wanted to turn that bright orb off and roll back over. How I longed for the days after my training was complete when I wouldn’t have to get up and go to the gym so early.“Hey, you up?” My sister’s voice in my head was way too perky, and I ignored her for a moment as I got dressed in shorts and a T-shirt.“Yeah,” was all she was getting. She wasn’t the one to let me know my shield had worked the night before, after all. If Jamie hadn’t told me they’d been able to help Aaron, thanks to me, I’d still be in the dark. I didn’t let thoughts of how lovely the dark could be stay in my mind too long.“Sorry I had to blow you off last night. It worked though. Aaron’s back! Thank you for your help. It would’ve been so much harder without you.”“It would&
For most of training, I held on to the fact that I was mad at my mother. When Tara asked me for the five hundredth time what was wrong, I finally admitted we’d had a disagreement, and she reminded me that I was lucky I have a mom. I knew what she meant; Tara’s mom died a long time ago. And since Lucy had recently lost her dad, I’d been trying not to take either one of my parents for granted. But if I couldn’t even choose what I ate for breakfast, what did I have control over?We were outside running some obstacle courses Meagan’s trainees usually utilize when a familiar voice caught my attention, and I turned my head slightly to look at Aurora. Alex was standing next to her. If I didn’t have better coordination now than I did when I was a human, I probably would’ve tripped over my own feet and landed face first in a tire, but I recovered fast enough and tried to keep my attention on the rest of the course.Dax must’ve not