Cadence was silent as they walked from the office building back to the apartments. Aaron didn’t ask her anything, and she was glad, because she really didn’t know what to say. Ever since she’d awoken in the middle of the day with those horrible images in her head, she hadn’t been able to think of anything else. Seeing that she hadn’t invented the creatures in her own mind was even more terrifying than believing she just had a warped imagination.
They reached the apartment building and headed for the elevator. Lots of friendly faces greeted them, and it was evident everyone they bumped into wanted to stop and chat, but the McReynolds were on a mission. Cadence hadn’t bothered to contact her sister to see if she was home, and as the elevator climbed to Cassidy’s floor, she hoped she was because she wanted to talk to her quickly and then head back over to the office building so that they could get to the bottom of this—not that she
Cassidy nodded like she thought that was true. Where this left them, Cadence wasn’t sure, but she was glad to know her sister was aware of the situation. “You need to come with us to the office. We’re having a meeting, and you seem to know more about what’s going on than anyone else, including Hannah.”“Okay,” Cassidy said, but her voice sounded timid, completely unlike her.“What is it?” Cadence asked.“Nothing, only... I hope Hannah doesn’t get upset that I was helping Eliza out behind her back. And I hope Mila doesn’t get mad at Eliza that she didn’t reveal her source. I think... I think Eliza might be getting help from someone else, too, like an Independent or something. But I don’t know. I think that’s where the ‘guy’ part of Gimu originated.”“I thought you said it might be ‘girl’,” Aaron questioned.“It mi
They all took seats around the conference table in their usual positions, except Christian’s chair was empty, and so was the one next to Cassidy, where Brandon would be sitting if he were there. Cadence regretted excluding him now. Aurora wasn’t there yet, which would give them each a few minutes to get their thoughts together. “Anyone else want coffee?” Elliott asked, standing and heading back out to reception where Mrs. Carminati always had a fresh pot and plenty of K cups.“I’ll take a cup, if you don’t mind,” Hannah chimed in. She was the only one, and as she reminded Elliott how she took it, Aaron got up to grab a stack of papers off of the printer she imagined he must’ve sent there while they were still in Cassidy’s apartment, it was so thick.“Sorry I’m late,” Aurora said, rushing through the door and taking her seat. “I got hung up. New recruit with lots of questions caught me.&
“I sent Christian a text, but who knows if he even took his phone,” Aaron continued.“Surely he did,” Aurora said. “Who goes on vacation and doesn’t take their phone?”“I hope he did, but until he gets in touch, I’ll be a little concerned about him,” Aaron said.“Why? He just threw you in a portal.” Cassidy was clearly not over the situation, even if Christian had done his best to redeem himself later.“I’ve known Christian a really long time, Cass. He doesn’t always make good decisions. In fact, he makes a lot of really horrible, dangerous decisions, but that doesn’t mean I want him to get hurt—or worse.”“I don’t think he’d say the same thing about you,” Cassidy mumbled, and Aaron chose to ignore it.“Well, I for one could care less if he fell off the face of the earth.” Elliott said it like it was
“Is the database something we can look through and see if we can determine if these lead Vampires, or whatever you want to call them, are recently turned or have been around a while?” Aurora asked.“Yeah, we can do that. But it’s not very intuitive, and without Christian here, whoever takes that task on might be here a while,” Aaron explained, getting disappointed looks from everyone.“Who’s Eliza’s team after next? Is it someone whose head you can get into, Cassidy?” Hannah asked, leaning forward in her chair. “Maybe you can find out if he’s been dormant all this time like Daunator or if he’s new.”“It’s a guy named Sylvester,” Cassidy replied. “I can try.”Elliott sighed. “Why would Daunator be giving these people up so quickly if they’ve been part of his clan for so long?”“What do you mean?” Cadence asked, no
Ward turned out to be a plethora of information, so much so that Elliott spent way more time in the archives than he’d spent in a library, collectively, in his entire life. By the time he left, he had dozens of pages of notes—all photo snippets pasted together in his IAC, rather than actual handwritten notes—and plenty of reason to think he was just as indestructible as he’d thought before, unless of course he found himself back inside of the Blood Moon Portal.By the time he headed home, he was starving, and it was well past midnight. He intended to go in, eat something, watch some ESPN, and then let Aaron know what he’d found out. But the TV was on when he walked in the door, and he found his son sitting in front of it, not even watching but staring at his phone instead. These sorts of meetings were getting a little old.“Hey, Brandon. How’s it going?” His first instinct had been to ask why he still wasn’t hanging
Cadence couldn’t sleep. Whether it was because she was still on Fiji time, had slept a little on the plane, or was still leery of having another dream like the one she’d had the other day--that hadn’t been a dream--she couldn’t quite tell, but rather than attempting to sleep anyway, she was sitting on the couch, drinking a glass of wine, and going over what they knew and what they didn’t know with Aaron.“So this silver nitrate bomb is implanted under the skin, and when it explodes, it’s supposed to ignite the Vampire from the inside out. That sounds pretty deadly to me,” Aaron said, holding up the design blueprint they’d gotten earlier from Cadence’s dad.“I agree. But I don’t understand why Christian would leave in the middle of production. And Dad said that they’d made fifty so far.”“And yet we could only locate forty-five.” Aaron was shaking his head. “He w
Elliott chuckled. “That Eliza sure is a piece of work. I’m so glad we got rid of her when we did. Don’t you go thinking she’s earned her way back here, now. That was impressive what she did to those Vampires on the roof the other night, but that don’t make her a gold star student.”“I won’t,” Aaron said, and Cadence knew that to be the gospel truth. Eliza could do all the good deeds in the world, but she wasn’t coming back to this team.“All righty. You two have a good night.”“Bye, Elliott,” Cadence called, finally snapping out of her thoughts enough to remember her manners.Aaron told him goodbye, too, and closed the door behind him. He stood with his hands in his pockets for a moment, staring at Cadence.“Do you think...?’“I don’t know.” He came back toward the couch but didn’t sit yet. “God, I hope not. Surely, s
Cassidy was growing frustrated with Christian. He’d been in that hole so long now, his brain had to be turning to mush. Even after he’d told her about the attack, how he’d tried to blow Daunator up with one of his grenades, and it hadn’t done a thing to the monster, he still refused to let her tell anyone he was down there.She decided to try again. It had been a couple of hours since she’d contacted him. She’d spent a lot of that time talking to Eliza, but since the Guardian said she didn’t want her help anymore, now that Aaron and Cadence were back and might be upset about the entire situation, the hunt had fallen through. The team hadn’t been able to find the mark and had gone back to regroup.Despite her decision to leave Cassidy out of it from now on, Eliza had been very chatty, and Cassidy had had to cut her off so that she could work on the other assignments Aaron had given her. She was used to having the bulk of t
Hannah took Jo to give her a bath, and Ona helped Cadence get Cadon latched while Jamie left to go check on his own one-month-old baby. Cadence’s son was a pro almost immediately, latching on the first try to resting peacefully while he nursed. Cadence couldn’t believe how lucky she was to have even one sweet baby, let alone the blessings of two. He wore a tiny little cap to keep him warm, and she couldn’t help but stroke his head while he made soft baby noises in her arms.Hannah brought Jo back before Cadon was finished. It took her daughter much longer to latch. She kept turning her feisty little face away, growling her discontentment as Cadence tried to get her on and not disturb Cadon at the same time. With Aaron’s help, their daughter finally latched, but he had to have his hand on her back or else she’d pull off again. “She is definitely a Daddy’s girl,” Cadence declared, shaking her head at her strong-spirited daughter.
“For the record, there really is no comparison between us naming our son after a famous jazz pianist and you naming your daughter after a murderous dictator,” the Healer pointed out before getting back to the task at hand. “I think in two or three more pushes, we’ll have a baby.” He was looking at Cadence now, smiling at her above the draped sheet that made her feel a little more secure even if it didn’t really hide anything at all from the doctor.“Okay,” she said again, ready to get it over with. Jamie told her to push, and she did, as hard as she could, hoping for two and not three as the lucky number.“Keep pushing,” Jamie said, even though Aaron had reached ten. “She’s almost there.”Cadence strained even harder, giving it every bit of energy she had left, and a few seconds later, she felt her daughter slip into the world. Listening to her cries made Cadence’s heart melt all
“One more push, Cadence,” Jamie insisted, his normally friendly-tone replaced by his not-quite-as-friendly medical professional tone. “One more time, and we’ll have a baby.”Cadence could feel the sweat dripping off of her forehead and wondered how normal human women did this, especially the ones who refused any sort of pain medication. Even with her superhuman strength and resilience, she was tired. Jamie had gloves on so he wasn’t using any of his healing powers to help her, but she had opted for the epidural, which minimized her pain but did nothing for the exhaustion.“You ready?” Aaron asked, standing next to her, holding one leg while Ona, a Healer who was acting as Jamie’s nurse, held the other.“I’m ready,” she nodded. Her husband’s smile hadn’t dimmed since her water broke three hours earlier. It might not have diminished since they’d left Prague eight months ago,
Jamie gently wrapped his arms around her. “I’m so glad you’re okay.” He kissed her cheek. “Love you, Cadence.”“I love you, too,” she said, returning the kiss. He took a step back and smiled at her before heading off toward the mountain.Cassidy hugged her sister a little more tightly than the doctor had. “Don’t you ever die on me again.”“I won’t. You neither. I love you, little sister.”“I know.” Cassidy giggled at her own smart remark. “I love you, too.” Cadence kissed the top of her sister’s head, and Cassidy let her go, stepping back to wait for Brandon.“Good job getting the monster.” Brandon’s hug was more like a pat on the back, and Cadence almost laughed, wondering if he just didn’t want to break her or was embarrassed.“Thanks, Brandon. Take care of my sis.”“I will try,
“The baby, Cadence,” Aaron said in her head. “You’re carrying our baby.”Cadence sucked in air all over again, like she had when she’d first fought to open her eyes. The baby! Jamie had told her she was pregnant before the hunt. How it had slipped her mind was beyond her, but yes, she was going to have a baby.Or was she? Her eyes flew to Jamie’s face, all of her questions bottled up in her eyes as she raised both brows, hoping he could alleviate her worry.Jamie smiled and gave a small nod only she could see. All of the air rushed out of Cadence’s lungs again as her hand flew to her abdomen, sighing in relief.“What is it?” Cassidy asked. “What was the other thing you couldn’t remember before?”Part of her wanted to keep their little secret just that, and she was disappointed that she hadn’t been the one to tell Aaron. She looked to him to see if
Cassidy smiled, but didn’t say anything, and Cadence could tell by her expression, she didn’t know what to make of Cadence’s revelation. It was no matter—she moved on.“Jack was pitching, Elliott. And the batter was a guy who looked so much like you. I couldn’t remember you at the time—sorry—but I asked, and my grandparents said the batter’s name was Jimmy.”“Jimmy?” Elliott echoed. “I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned that name to you.”“I don’t think you have either, but that’s your brother’s name, isn’t it.”Elliott’s head rocked back and forth slowly. “Wow. If that don’t beat all.... It’s like the freakin’ Wizard of Oz. ‘And you were there, and you were there....’ Hmmm.”“Well, it gets Wizardier because your mom was there, too. Arlene. And she wa
A growl from Elliott let her know he disagreed, but he didn’t say anything more, and Christian only nodded before he faded out of view. It was just as well. Cadence was exhausted. She didn’t really want to talk to anyone else, just let her husband pick her up in his strong arms and carry her back to the SUV so she could take a shower and fall asleep for a few years.“I hate to interrupt,” Scarlet said, taking a step closer to where they were sitting. “Cadence, it is wonderful you’re okay. But Jamie, what about that serum you made? Do you think we should try it? If we can get the Hybrids back up there, we might be able to save some of those people who are still trapped in the holes.”“Oh, right.” Jamie scratched his head, like he’d forgotten about the serum. “Yeah, why don’t you and Cale start working on that. The serum is in my backpack, which is in the trees near where we first encountered the bla
Lungs burning, body aching with the pain of soldering itself back together, eyes blinded by brilliant white, Cadence opened her mouth and sucked in air for the first time in as long as she could remember. Her legs still felt like they were on fire, like she’d been running for hours, but as she tipped her head back and began to cough the memories of what had happened to her, how she’d killed Daunator and then found herself in the air with no ground beneath her boots, flooded her mind, and every trace of memory about why she felt like she’d been running fled her mind.“Cadence? Cadence!”Aaron was there. She could feel his hands on her, even though she couldn’t open her eyes to look at him yet. Her throat burned as she continued to sputter, coughing and choking on the air she so desperately wanted in her lungs. How long had she gone without taking a breath? Why did her heart feel like a jackhammer, her chest muscles sore from the exert
Jamie was at twenty-two, and Aaron was trying to focus, but the voices to his left were prominent in his mind. He could still hear Elliott’s murmurs, Cass’s sobs, sighs and gasps from others. Christian was pacing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, behind almost everyone. Aurora, free of her handcuffs now that she was no longer a threat, was doubled over on the ground, her hands linked around her knees, her wails having lost their voice minutes ago so that she was no longer making a noise as her body shook and spasmed. Eliza had her arm around the much taller Hunter, trying to be comforting, but Aaron was aware that, of everyone here, Eliza Wrath was the only one who really didn’t care if Cadence ever opened her eyes again. He could feel it rolling off of her in waves of ugliness like the sea during the type of storm that leaves debris littered all over the beach, breaks boats in its wake, and sends sailors to the bottom of the ocean.There were