"I'm going to go check on Mom," Cadence said, standing. As an afterthought, she picked up one of the throw pillows on the edge of the couch and threw it at Elliott, hitting him in the head.
"What did I do?" he asked, shocked.
She said nothing, just walked into the kitchen, a smile on her face. She had always wanted a brother.
Jack had never imagined he would be staying in a hotel in Shenandoah. It never crossed his mind that he would ever need to, what with his parents' house a permanent feature in his life and in this town. But he certainly couldn't show up there, not since his entire family and all of his friends thought that he was dead. He would have to stay out of sight. So, Giovani had rented a small room in an unimpressive hotel on the outskirts of town, hopeful that they could get to Cadence soon, possibly tomorrow, and then get out of town.Seeing his own obituary in the paper was extremely surreal. It was
Eliza wasn't having a very good night. The hunt had been long and boring, and she had spent very little time actually doing anything. Any chance she had gotten to speak to Aaron, he had blown her off. Now, he was in the thick of the pursuit, despite the fact that he was just supposed to be consulting, and she was back at the headquarters, weighing through a ton of data, trying to get a location on where one Rogue might be headed. If she was lucky, she might have one more opportunity to get him all to herself before they headed back to Iowa the next morning. If she couldn't find the time to let him know how she was feeling about him before they went back, she may have wasted her only chance.
Cadence looked up at the crowd and froze. The room was packed. In fact, despite the cold weather, the doors in the back were propped open so that the dozens of people standing outside could hear and feel as if they were still a part of the service.Cadence set the paper down on the podium and cleared her voice, trying to gather her thoughts. She glanced at the paper, but it was just a blur. She looked out at the faces in the front two rows, including the Cooks and all of her friends from high school. Her parents were there as well, and Cassidy, who was wiping her eyes with a tattered tissue.
Cadence sat through the rest of the memorial practically numb. She had no idea what she had witnessed, but she knew she needed to talk to Aaron sooner rather than later. She still wasn't sure where he had gone or if he was back. She made it through the rest of the service, Sydney's hand in hers, and took a deep sigh of relief when the final prayer was said, and Rev. Jones invited everyone to join them on the baseball diamond for the ashes ceremony.As Cadence and her friends stood, there was another exchange of hugs. Some people who had not embraced Cadence before the memorial came over to do
Taylor had let go of Cadence's arm and taken Jon's, something she noted as different, but she didn't stop to question it. She slipped her arm through Aaron's, and despite his reservations, he didn't stop her. They were standing in a few inches of snow, and that was reason enough to offer her his support, particularly in the trying emotional situation. "You're a grown up. They want to live vicariously through you." Cadence replied in response to his statement that her friends were inquisitive. She glanced back toward the school and saw Jack's parents, his aunt and uncle, and his cousins making their way over. She was glad; she wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible.
"I don't like it when you say that," she admitted, turning her head to look at him at last. She caught his eyes and held them, hoping that, if he wanted to talk about something she didn't care to discuss, he would say so."About Jack," he explained. "But not here. We need to go somewhere more private." There were still a lot of people milling around, and he had other reasons for wanting to be alone as well.
Laura pounded her thumbs nervously against the steering wheel as she waited, her eyes focused out the windshield but her mind racing through all the scenarios of what might happen next. The information from Eliza had been greatly helpful. Once Laura and Laney had reached Shenandoah, they had easily located the familiar Corvette parked outside a little motel just outside of town. They weren't sure how long Giovani had been there when they arrived, but camping out in the parking lot across from the hotel and sleeping in shifts had yielded no sightings. If he left the hotel, he did so from a different door and on foot. In the day or so they had been watching, the car had not moved... until around 1:00 that afternoon.
"What did you say?" Cadence asked, her head cocked to the side in confusion.Aaron took another deep breath. "I said that Jack isn't dead. He's a Vampire, Cadence. Jack has gone through the Resurrection process."Cadence stared down at her shoes, pondering what Aaron had just said. "I'm sorry," she said, looking back at him. "What? How is that possible? Jack died. He was sick. He was in the