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
I started with reaching out to Mika Novak, hoping I could figure out where she was and if she’d been changed into a Vampire or if she was literally just missing like a normal human being. But I couldn’t find her anywhere, which was really strange. I double-checked the date on the article I’d read about Havel looking for her and saw that it was dated about a week ago. So she’d been missing for less than two weeks. If she’d been changed into a Vampire, I should’ve been able to find her easily enough as she would’ve likely gone through the entire Resurrection process by now. It can take longer for some people, depending upon how the Vampire that is changing them goes about it, but for the most part, it’s pretty quick. Sometimes it happens within a few hours. She didn’t seem to be a Vampire, though. I put out some feelers in the Vampire community to see if anyone knew anything about her, but I couldn’t locate her name in any of
“We surely did miss you last night at the arcade,” Heather said as we walked back to the apartments together after training. “That there was a heckofa lotta fun.”I had had no idea the other Hybrid went with my friends—our friends—to the arcade. It didn’t bother me, though. Why should it? Just because she was a beautiful blonde who had spent some quality time with my boyfriend locked in a portal, there was no reason for it to bother me that she’d also been at a get-together with him the night before.“I’m sure it was,” I said, forcing a smile. “I was busy getting some data together,” I said, hoping to sound nonchalant, even though I didn’t feel that way about what she was saying or what I was half-heartedly explaining to her. I didn’t really want to go into detail about what was happening in Europe right now because I wanted to talk to the committee about it first. It didn’t
If Heather noticed me choking, she didn’t say anything. We were in the lobby now. I called the elevator with my IAC, a little disappointed that my friend Juan Diego wasn’t hanging out in the lobby so I could practice my horrible Spanish, but it was just as well. I needed to get to Brandon’s apartment. He’d asked me a few minutes ago if I was headed that way, and when I’d said yes, I imagined he’d gone ahead and started lunch.Heather hummed along to the Muzak in the elevator, some deranged version of “Stairway to Heaven” that was barely recognizable. We didn’t talk anymore, and when I got to my floor, I smiled and waved so as not to interrupt her jamming out to the chorus and bounded off to Brandon’s apartment. Despite my recent disposition, I was excited to see him. I knocked on the door with a little extra bounce in my step.He pulled the door open with a smile. “Hello, beautiful,” he said in his