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
“It’s not really different than that episode of Friends....” Brandon wagered, giving me a little more grace than I probably deserved. It was almost exactly the same.“It doesn’t matter,” I huffed, folding my arms and unfolding them. “Why won’t anyone listen to what I’m trying to tell them? Something really bad is going on. These people are disappearing, and no one cares.”Brandon rested his hand on my shoulder. “Calm down, Cass. They’ll listen. You just have to give them more than a couple of minutes to have time, that’s all.”I was shaking my head and pulled away from him, stepping toward the door. Even if no one was going to listen to me, it wasn’t going to stop me from doing some more research. Thoughts of Havel and his wife came to mind. “Whatever. You don’t get it, Brandon. You haven’t seen what’s happening.” Granted, I hadn&rsquo
Jamie’s tone was nonchalant as he asked me what was bothering me, but he knew there was something going on or else, not only would I not be here, I wouldn’t have been all worked up in the hallway. “No, not exactly. I mean, everything is fine with me. But... there are a lot of missing people in Europe. Like a lot a lot. And I was hoping maybe I could get a few minutes in front of the leadership team to get them to understand that what’s going on is more than a little alarming. So... I asked Elliott to help me because Hannah’s too busy to talk to me right now, and Aurora’s in the gym. Not that Aurora would listen to Elliott, but Hannah would. At least I think she would.” I dropped my eyes and realized I was rambling. “Anyway, I was just hoping... maybe you wouldn’t mind mentioning something to Hannah?”I looked up into his eyes and noticed he had a look on his face like he felt sorry for me, like he could vaguely recal
“Cass?” Jamie said again, leaning toward me. “What are you thinking about?”“Sorry. I was just wondering... do you think there are different degrees of death?”I pulled my eyes away from Margie’s picture to look at him and saw by his expression that he wasn’t completely shocked at the question, as if he’d pondered it himself before. But he didn’t say that. Instead, he made a joke. “You mean like ‘only mostly dead’?”I giggled, recognizing the line from The Princess Bride, one of my favorite movies. Elliott quotes it all the time, but only recently have I noticed Jamie is also familiar with the movie. “Something like that,” I nodded. “Do you think... if someone had only been dead for a few seconds, your blue light could suck them back in?”“Why do you ask?” He shifted on the couch again, and I regretted making him feel uncomforta
Even if I had intended to tell him no, Brandon was behind me when I pushed through the door, so I really didn’t have much of a choice but to let him in. I could try to explain that I had a lot to do now that Jamie had agreed to talk to Hannah for me, but something told me my boyfriend wouldn’t be deterred.“Listen, I’m really sorry about the way I acted before,” he began, following me through the living room to the kitchen like I wasn’t completely ignoring him. “I wasn’t being very fair to you. Clearly, you’re very concerned about the situation in Europe, and I haven’t given it the attention it deserves.”I pulled the fridge open while he was talking, grabbed a bottle of Dr. Pepper, and then turned and looked at him about the time he finished his statement. Those words had not originated in my boyfriend’s head. “Who have you been talking to? Tara? Not Lucy; you didn’t say, ‘OMG.&r