“Cass, what’s up with your sister’s IAC?” Elliott asked. He must’ve had the same idea as I did. “I can see Aaron, but not her.”
“I’m not sure,” I admitted. I took a deep breath and sent out a signal to try to shield Cadence from Holland, but there was definitely something odd going on. “I’m trying to block Holland and get Cadence back on, but I feel like she’s focusing everything she’s got on disrupting Cadence right now.” It didn’t make any sense. Maybe if I was closer to Cadence, I’d be able to do something. I should be stronger than Holland. Or maybe I just couldn’t focus. Either way, my concern was growing.
I decided to pay attention to what was in front of me now and worry about my sister if Aaron said I needed to. We made our way through the entrance, and Elliott stopped in front of a small ticket booth that looked like maybe it was part of guest relations
I scanned my IAC quickly to try to find anyone who could come and help her, but there was no one. It was obvious Meagan was starting to lose it. She darted away from Elliott’s limp body and tried to find a place to hide. I hated that Sam had that effect on her, that she was so terrified she was beginning to shake.“We’ve gotta go help her,” I said, taking a few steps toward Brandon.“I’m not supposed to let you out of here. Just give him a minute.”Through my IAC, I tried to contact Elliott but got nothing. I tried something else—my telepathy. “He’s going to get Meagan if you don’t get up off of the floor! Go! Go get Sam!” I was shocked when Elliott’s voice sounded in my head. “Where... is... Jamie?” He was clearly still out of it, but at least he could communicate—sort of.I answered, “Across the park, over by the rollercoas
Elliott was still lying where he’d fallen, which was actually a good thing. If the Vampires intended to take him away somewhere to conduct experiments on him, they hadn’t tried to move him yet. I bent down next to him, seeing the spent syringe now. I was certain we were alone and used both my IAC and telepathy to shout at him. “Elliott! Wake up!”I must’ve shouted it a dozen times as I shook him. He was out of it, that was for sure. So, I decided there was only one thing I could do to get him where he needed to be. I put myself back on the floor and lifted him up off of it, rotating him so that he appeared to be standing.He cracked one eye and looked at me, confused. “I thought I told you to stay put.”“I’m not known for listening or following directions,” I replied with a shrug. He was in no position to argue with me. Across the building, I heard a gunshot. We were running out of tim
Jamie had a question mark hanging over his head, but he didn’t argue. We could all see through Elliott’s IAC that Sam was cornered. He was in a room full of distressed mirrors, the kind that make you look like something else. I thought it was ironic in an Alanis Morissette sort of way. Sam didn’t look like himself at all—and he would die the same sort of creature he’d spent centuries destroying.“Whatcha gonna do with me?” Sam was shouting at Elliott just before the mirror behind him exploded into a thousand shards of glass. He ducked and covered his face, but it was too late. Elliott had his Glock pointed right at the old man’s head.“I don’t know,” Elliott replied. He was aware that Meagan was on her way, I could tell by the way his eyes were shifting toward the hallway, like he was waiting for her. But he continued to taunt Sam. “Maybe I’ll keep you in a cage in my apartment where I can to
I was relieved Alex wasn’t here. I needed to thank him for taking out the guy who’d tried to kill my sister, but now probably wasn’t the best time. I had to sort out the way I was feeling about him. I was certain it was just fascination with an historical character, but if it was bothering Brandon, it was a problem.Ashley came in a few minutes before Jamie finished, and Cadence was polite, but I saw her roll her eyes. I guess the two of them still aren’t getting along. Jamie’s girlfriend waited with her arm wrapped around me, and when the doctor took a step back and nodded his head, only a few moments after he began, she started to applaud. “I’m dating a superhero,” she said with a wink, and I couldn’t help but giggle.“Just one more thing,” Jamie said. He took a lock of my sister’s hair, one right next to the bald spot she had on the side of her head, and pulled it over slightly so it was coverin
We all agreed that Holland needed to be taken out. How we were going to do that exactly was another question.“Let’s sleep on it, take Sunday off, and get together Monday morning to see what the situation is,” Aaron proposed.“Wait a minute—you’re going to take the day off?” Elliott asked. “Who are you? Did someone take over your brain again?”“I didn’t say I was going to take the day off.” He slid off of the gurney and stepped over to help Cadence sit up. She was clearly exhausted, as was I. “But I might.”Elliott couldn’t control his laughter. “I’ll believe it when I see it.”“All right. I guess I’ll head back to my prison now,” I said, trying not to sound like a baby and failing. Brandon put his arm around my shoulders as my sister made it to her feet.“At least you don’t have to go to training
Most people probably have a pretty good idea how their life is going to go. At sixteen, there may be more than one path ahead, several options to choose from, but most kids my age are thinking about finishing high school and then going on to college or a trade school, getting a job, getting married, living the life. Some more ambitious people might be thinking about making it big in one industry or another. I have friends at Shenandoah High who still dream of being rock stars. That’s cool—I wish them well. But chances are, they will eventually succumb to the reality of a 9:00 to 5:00 job where the most exciting day of the week is Taco Tuesday. It’s not a bad way to live, mind you. It’s predictable—unless fate has some messed up screwball to throw you and something tragic happens. That will probably never be the case for most people.It seems like it’s a daily occurrence for me.I know, I know. Whiney Teenage Girl, Party of One. I&rsq
Before we’d wiped out most of the violent cells, my sister had been actively recruiting anyone capable of Transforming. That fell off, and when Lucy started her program on July 1, only five other new recruits began with her. There were a couple leftovers from the March cycle who hadn’t finished for whatever reason, but not enough to keep all three trainers busy. So Aurora and Shane were handling all of the training, only bringing Meagan in when they needed a different point of view.Sometimes I went with Lucy to training just because I was bored. My mom still made me practice math every day, but not having homework helped. I was finally ungrounded from seeing Brandon at the end of May—my grounding was stretched a bit longer because of my “fresh mouth”—but sticking around the apartment wasn’t an option. Five seconds in the same room with Liz Findley and I was ready to levitate her right on out the door.“You know, you real
“Are you really coming over for lunch?” Lucy asked. “That would be great.”“Yeah, why not?” I replied. She’d pressed floor five with her IAC, but I hadn’t hit the button for four yet. I pulled out my phone to text my mom that I’d be home a little later than previously planned. She did not have an IAC. “Do you even have food?”The doors opened and we popped out into the hallway. “Yeah, of course I do. I just order it online, and it shows up in my refrigerator and cabinets.”I looked at her like she was crazy. “What are you talking about?”“Yeah, it’s a new service the grocery downstairs added a few weeks ago. It’s pretty cool. You should tell your mom.”“The only time my mom ever leaves campus is to go to the store,” I replied, following Lucy into her apartment. It was always tidy, which didn’t fit with the Lucy I knew
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,