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
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,