I was in my room trying to decide what to use the gift cards on that my grandma had given me for Christmas when my sister came in. She did a little half-knock but didn’t really wait for me to say anything, which was fine, just not like her. I set my laptop aside when I saw her face, and she plopped down next to me on the bed, wrapping her arm around my waist and slumping against my shoulder.
A little caught off guard, I said, “Hi,” but it came out more like a question. One of my favorite songs was playing on Spotify, but I leaned over and turned it down, thinking she must have something she wanted to say.
“Hi,” Cadence said quietly. The room grew silent again, and I debated asking her all of the questions that were dancing in my head, the ones Elliott had answered and the ones he’d evaded. I knew my sister had a secret life now, one she wasn’t able to talk about, and it was increasingly frustrating to be around her but not be a
It was almost painful to listen to Cadence speak. She grabbed a throw pillow and squeezed it, and I thought it might actually burst. I expected to see tears, but there weren’t any. I decided to change the subject.“What about your other friends?” I asked, shifting around so that I was on my hip now, facing her. “What about Meagan, Hannah, those other people I met at the funeral?” I wasn’t sure if I should say the word funeral, or if I should rattle off the names of her friends like I’d been searching online for information about them for the last several weeks, so I tried to keep it nonchalant.“Meagan’s great,” Cadence said, her face lighting up a little bit. “We went through our training together. And Hannah is pretty cool. She’s older than us, though, and has been working there a long time.” She made a face like she may have told me too much; how old did she think I thought Hannah was? As
My bedroom door practically burst open. “Hey, girls. Whatcha doin’?”“Why, Elliott, fancy seeing you here,” I proclaimed, staring at my sister hard, letting her think I might be on to her.“Well, I was just in the neighborhood and thought I might drop in.” He was still standing in the doorway, leaning into the room, his broad shoulders taking up most of the space in the threshold.“I was just asking Cadence some questions about your jobs. I was about to tell her how I’m thinking of going into the same line of work, you know, when I’m older.”“What?” Cadence asked, looking from me to Elliott and then back again. “Cassidy, I thought you wanted to be an engineer like dad, or a doctor or something.”I shrugged. “Plans change. Elliott, did you work at LIGHTS when our Grandma Janette worked there?”“No,” he answered quickly, his forehe
“Why do you have to leave?” I asked, jumping up off the bed and following Elliott as he headed toward the stairs.“I told you. We’ve got work to do.” He paused in front of the stairwell.“But… seriously, it’s Christmas break.”“You know, you should turn on a television sometime, lil girl. There are things happening in this world you may want to be aware of.” He started down the stairs, and I followed.Puzzled over what in the world he might be talking about, I continued to follow him until he reached the foyer. “What kinds of things?”He shook his head at me, yet again, and turned to look at me. “Something tells me you’ll know it when you see it.”Elliott was giving me a clue. I could find out more about what they were doing from the news. I wondered what in the world I could’ve been missing this whole time. Were there news stories about va
Once I was in my room, I took a deep breath and looked out the window. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I didn’t see anything. No one on the roof across the street, no noise on ours. It actually sort of made me sad. It had been comforting to know that Elliott was up there sometimes, but he wasn’t right now, and it was just as well since it was bitterly cold outside.I sat down at my desk and took a moment to reflect. I’d learned a lot from this short visit. I was no longer concerned about Elliott taking my thoughts and memories from me, but there was plenty that was still unclear to me, and sometimes writing things down helped me to organize my thoughts.Even though I hadn’t opened the notebook I’d been recording my experiences in since that night at Lucy’s house, the night that Hannah came in and stripped their memories, made Emma and Lucy tear up all of their own notes and delete everything vampire related off of the
I spent the next several days on my laptop, wishing I had someone to bounce ideas off of as I scoured the Internet looking for information about vampire hunters. I had to give it to CHENRY77; he was prolific. Scarcely a vampire site did I visit without traces of Christian’s presence. Even ones that sounded ridiculous and fake, like the, “My girlfriend and I are vampires. Do you want to be one, too? It’s super easy. You will live forever. Just call…” types of posts had his signature associated with them in some regard, often in the comments or as an administrator. I would’ve found it odd that he managed to make his presence known on so many different sorts of boards and chat rooms all across the world if I didn’t know the power of persuasion some of my sister’s friends had. I’m sure it didn’t take much for someone like Elliott to convince the creators of these message boards to surrender their upkeep to Mr. Henry.I
“Right. I hope so.” There was no way for me to tell Lucy things were never going to be normal again, not for me anyhow. And I wondered if Elliott would actually show up at my school in the next few days. I seriously doubted it. He was probably just messing with me. But if he did, well, there would go any shot of anyone thinking Cassidy’s life was back to its previous mundane existence. “What’s wrong with Emma?” I was actually a little surprised I had a chance to ask that before Lucy launched into another soliloquy.“Oh, uh, nothing,” she said, but I knew if I stayed quiet she’d tell me more. “She’s just, uh, being a little paranoid. A little more paranoid than usual.”“What? Did her mashed potatoes and turkey touch each other on her plate at Christmas dinner?” I joked. I was trying to lighten the mood, but I was actually a little concerned myself.“Ha, no,” Lucy said,
Realizing we were back on her dream now, I agreed. “It is weird, but like you said, it’s just a dream. Maybe you just happened to see all of those people on TV yesterday or something.”“I don’t think so,” Lucy said quickly, like she’d already gone through the possibilities. “And I definitely haven’t watched any scary movies or videos.”“We watched Twilight last time I was at your house,” I reminded her.“Uh, the only part about that movie that’s scary is K-Stew’s acting.”I tried not to laugh. “But it does involve vampires.”“True.”“People have been trying to figure out dreams forever, Lucy. I’m sure it’s nothing to worry about. Just try to forget about it, okay?”“Okay….”I glanced at the clock by my bed and saw that it was almost 10:00. “It’s j
I picked up my laptop, thinking I needed to charge it, when one of those stupid pop-up news videos came on. “It’s now confirmed that twenty-five bodies have been found in the Caribbean, all victims of the same brutal throat slashing…” the newscaster was saying. Ordinarily, I would’ve closed the tab or shut my computer, but this time, I didn’t. I held it closer and actually clicked to enlarge the video so I could see it better. Elliott had warned me to pay attention to the news, so I figured I’d better do just that.The newscaster continued. “Video footage of two of the newest victims shows them enjoying a night out at a local club just hours before their bodies were found in a rainforest area near the beach, approximately a mile from the location of the club seen here.” She stopped talking for a moment as the camera zoomed in on the footage of a man and a woman who looked to be in their early twenties drinking at a club.