Cadence and I both took in the ocean for a few more minutes. It seemed to be growing angrier. The wind had picked up, a likely explanation, but to me, it seemed to shift with the arrival of the Vampires, as if to say nothing that evil was welcome there.
Since we were asking personal questions, I tried one of my own. “What about Cale?” He was currently standing with Hannah about a hundred yards on the other side of Cadence. “Why is he really here?” He glanced over at my sister, like I’d seen him do a half a million times since he picked us up at the airport.
Swallowing a lump in her throat, Cadence admitted, “I’m pretty sure he still has feelings for me.”
“Oh.” I already knew that, but it was good to see she knew it, too. “Did he say something?”
“Yeah.” I stared at her a moment longer. “Something.”
She wasn’t going to tell me anything else. “W
In front of me, all three of my protectors went rigid for a second, and I felt a tightening in my abdomen before I heard the same popping, whooshing sound we’d heard at Stonehenge. They must’ve sensed it before it happened, having been in there and anticipating it so many times. I just sensed a shift in energy. A glance to my right told me the portal was opening near where Cadence was positioned, Elliott behind her looking like he was ready to catch a baseball. A patch of sky began to shimmer and vibrate dangerously close to the edge of the cliffs.Moira was engaged now. I threw my shield. These Vampires seemed like fresh recruits or recluses who’d never harmed a fly before. Our team was making short work of them. If need be, I’d let Heather take over so I could help with the portal, but I didn’t think that would even be necessary until Ashley asked, “What’s that?” over our IACs. I picked up her visuals and then had to
A split second later, when I thought the portal was already closed, there was another whoosh, and then Aaron was falling. He collided with Cadence, who was still up on Jamie’s and Elliott’s hands, and they both went tumbling over the side of the cliff.It took me a few seconds to realize what had happened, and I wasn’t able to keep them from falling. All of us ran to the edge to see them resurface. I was having trouble getting a grip on both of them at the same time because the water was tossing them around like corks. It pounded them into the rocks a couple of times before I managed to start pulling them out of the water.Aaron was in horrible shape, so Jamie sent a beam of light his direction before I even got them all the way up the cliffside. Of course, they were kissing, which made me gag a little. And they didn’t seem interested in coming up for air. Everyone else was cheering, but this is my sister we’re talking about ,after all. I
Back at the hotel, I camped out in Brandon and Elliott’s room. The bag of Cheetos was much appreciated since as far as I know, they don’t really sell them in those parts. Once again, my tiredness overcame me, and even with the TV on and Elliott chomping away, I passed out on the bed.By the time Brandon woke me up, the sun was going down. I’d slept virtually the whole day, which was depressing, but I felt so much better. “Do you wanna go get some Irish food?”“Uh, no,” I said, having heard that Irish taste buds are way different than mine. “But I bet we can find something American.”He laughed. “Okay.” He wasn’t moving yet, though. I realized he had something in his hand. “You should probably go ahead and read the message from Alex.”Brandon must’ve fished the phone out of my jacket pocket. I had been avoiding it. “Can’t it wait until we get home?”
My mom cried through the whole wedding ceremony. I stood next to my sister and Aurora and did all of the maid of honor things a girl is supposed to do. When my sister’s friend from high school, Taylor, messed up the words to the song she was singing, I tried not to laugh. No one else seemed to notice, probably because nobody knows the song “Broken Arrow” by Rod Stewart except my sister, me, and Rachel Hunter, Rod’s wife.The preacher pronounced Cadence and Aaron man and wife, and everyone cheered. I averted my eyes from the kissing again. When the pianist played the wedding processional, Elliott and I looped arms and followed the happy couple down the aisle. I have never seen my sister look so radiant in all of her days, and that’s saying something. Aaron looked like he just walked out of a GQ photo shoot, and Elliott had scrubbed the orange from under his fingernails.We formed a line. People came by to congratulate all of us, not that I
Life is made up of a series of choices, and every single tiny decision you make can change everything for the rest of your life. Seriously, like, even something as simple as whether or not you get up to go to the bathroom right this very second or continue to hold it for a minute or two could impact the rest of your life. Don’t believe me? Okay—let’s say you’re at a Starbucks, sipping your latte, and you really need to put your book down and go use the facilities, but you decide to wait until you get to the end of the chapter. The next thing you know, some crazy person who doesn’t know the gas from the brake comes flying through the front of the store, sending shards of glass, bits of scone, and a bucket of coffee your direction. Now, if you’d been in the bathroom, maybe your shirt wouldn’t smell like espresso. Or maybe you’d be dead because the car actually careened into the first stall before coming to a stop a few feet away from a t
That’s where I was that afternoon a few days after my sister’s wedding, on the treadmill, when an obscure news article caught my attention. I was just glancing through the headlines when I noticed it in the corner of publication that translates European newspapers into English. Since Daunator was the only major threat still out there, I had been paying attention to the part of the earth he occupied, to our knowledge, so when this article out of the Czech Republic caught my eye, I had to read it.The report was originally published in some off-beat newspaper in Prague, so it didn’t seem like the most reliable source in the world. But if what it said was true, we had a huge problem on our hands. According to the reporter, people were vanishing from the area by the dozens. In fact, it said over the last week, at least fifty people were gone from some little suburb of Prague I couldn’t have pronounced if I wanted to. That was a lot of people! Immediately,
By the time I was done going through all of the resources Christian had inadvertently taught me about over the last few months, I’d compiled a list of over a hundred people that all appeared to be missing from the same relatively small area near Prague. Something told me stepping into the larger cities would give me even more names, but I needed to keep this proportional and not get overwhelmed. There was definitely something here, and I needed to show it to the persons left in charge when my sister and brother-in-law left.I tried Aurora first because technically she should be my boss now. She is the second highest Hunter, at least in KC, so when Cadence left, she had appointed Aurora to be in charge of all of us. Technically, I’m a Hybrid, not a Hunter, but the half of me that isn’t a Vampire is Hunter, so that’s where I fall. When I tried to get her on the IAC, she was obviously busy, saying she was caught at the gym with some new recruits and she&r
“You want me to ask your temporary boss if you can come to our meeting and present some numbers about missing persons in Europe?” Elliott was through the kitchen entryway, fridge open as I shot down the hall behind him. Brandon was sitting on the couch with his phone in his hand, and it looked like maybe he and his mother were having a conversation via text. Probably about how stupid his girlfriend is.“Yeah, I want you to ask someone. It can be Hannah.”“Hannah ain’t the boss of you.” He moved a few items around inside the fridge before pulling out the milk. I was puzzled until he set it on the counter and opened one of the cabinets to produce a box of Fruity Pebbles. I knew Elliott wasn’t about to guzzle a glass of something potentially nutritious, not unless he also had a plate of chocolate chip cookies.“I know technically she isn’t, but she is in charge of the leadership team, mostly, isn’t s