by ID Johnson
“See you in the morning.”
She left, and I took some deep breaths, hoping I could at least get my bag packed before I started to cry, but tears were already rolling down my face, blurring my vision, so I gave in and buried my head in my pillow, trying my best just to get air into my lungs.
Chapter 2
Having never been in a plane smaller than an airliner before, I had no idea what to expect, but the plane we took from Shenandoah to Kansas City was actually a lot bigger and nicer than I was expecting. My mom and dad and I sat in the back and Cadence sat up front with Aaron—who was flying. I had no idea he knew how to fly a plane, and when I told Cadence that was cool, she said she hadn’t known either until a few days before. I took some pictures for Emma of the plane on the inside and outside, as well as a few aerial shots. If nothing else, it gave me a chance to keep my mind off of what was happening and where we were going.
Cadence recommended we wear something comfortable on the plane and said we’d get to her headquarters in time to change, so I had packed the pink dress I’d finally decided to wear to the memorial, as well as a couple other outfits, although I secretly wanted to pack everything I owned. I wondered if Cadence would notice if I happened to miss the plane back home.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like my life in Shenandoah. I had some great friends. I loved most of my classes, and cheerleading had really become my thing recently, but the idea that whomever had shot Elliott was still out there somewhere waiting to be reckoned with had been weighing on my mind. I still needed to figure out who this punk was so I could help take him down, which was easier said than done since clearly the only people who knew were not too keen on talking right now, not to me anyhow.
I looked down at the ring on my finger and tried not to think about missing Elliott. Not only was he amazing, he was the only reason I knew most of what I knew about this organization at all. Perhaps my first mission should be to find another ally. I knew it wouldn’t be Cadence. She hadn’t even wanted to tell me anything in the first place. And Aaron seemed way too busy, even though he was more forthcoming with the info than my sister had been. I decided I could distract myself throughout the day by trying to build another trusting relationship with someone on the inside.
Going through all of the people I’d already met allowed me to consider a few possibilities and eliminate some others. As I stared down at the ant civilization between the clouds, I thought about each of the LIGHTS members I’d met so far. Hannah was the first that came to mind. She was nice enough, but she’d been the one to swipe all of our memories, and if it hadn’t been for a quick text from Elliott, she’d still have mine. She was off the table.
Christian was creepy. There was no doubt in my mind he would not be the one. I’d met Meagan and she seemed nice enough. My sister had taken her on the six-month-long adventure she’d just returned from. I wondered if she could be a possibility. The other woman I’d met, Eliza, had been transferred, according to Elliott, and that was just as well. I didn’t like her even before she stabbed my sister in the back.
The only other person from her team I’d met myself was Jamie. He was a doctor, and Emma had found a picture of him from the late 1880s online and done a facial recognition comparison with one of his social media pictures, the positive results of which went a long way in convincing all three of us that something odd was happening here. He seemed like a pretty nice guy, and I knew he’d put my sister back together again when Giovani, the violent Vampire who had turned Jack from one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met into pure evil, and some other Hunter named Laura, had shot Cadence. So, I thought Jamie might be a possibility. Could I get the good doctor to trust me well enough to answer my questions?
It would be much simpler, of course, if I got my sister to talk, but something told me her answers would be sketchy at best. And, for now, she was very tight-lipped anyway. I knew she was upset about Elliott; that much was clear. But as I watched her from further back in the plane, it seemed like something else was bothering her as well. She didn’t seem as touchy-feely with Aaron as she had been the day before, and I wondered if something had happened between them. It wouldn’t surprise me. I still didn’t fully trust him not to be screwing around with her again, messing with her mind and her heart.
We landed in Kansas City and I was very impressed that Aaron didn’t kill us. He was a good pilot, but I just thought there was no way he was going to be able to get our plane to land perfectly on what had originally looked like a short ribbon on the distant horizon. He landed like it was no big deal, and we all took a collective deep breath, thinking of why we were there, and headed out of the plane.
My opportunity to test out this other doctor came the moment we stepped foot on the tarmac, or whatever you call the thing you pull the plane over on. My sister was very excited to see Jamie and flung herself at him, asking him how he was feeling. From the way they were talking, I got the impression that he was also wounded in whatever happened with Elliott, and yet, here he was, standing, walking around, being alive and all that, while Elliott was in an urn somewhere. Perhaps he wouldn’t be my new confidant for that reason alone.
“Hi, Cassidy,” Jamie said, offering me his and. “It’s nice to see you again.”
“You, too,” I replied, shaking it, thankful no one said anything stupid about “too bad it’s under these circumstances.” Some baggage guys were loading our luggage into the back of the large SUV Jamie had apparently driven over to pick us up, and we all piled in. I sat in the very back with my mom, and we hadn’t gotten very far when she reached over and grabbed my hand. I didn’t know if this was for my benefit or her own, but I didn’t let go.
Jamie drives almost as crazy as Elliot did, though a few minutes in, after my mom made her “oh, my” comment for the third or fourth time, he must’ve remembered that there were some regular humans in the car because he stopped taking corners so quickly. I absently wondered how they could remember to walk slowly but not to drive like the other cars surrounding them on the road, but I kept my comments to myself.
The drive to headquarters took about fifteen minutes, and we went out of town a little way, into the countryside. Eventually, we got to a gate that automatically opened, I imagined because of a device somewhere in the SUV, and headed back down a winding lane, past a few buildings that seemed to increase in height until we reached the two tallest buildings of all.
It seemed like everyone else had been here before, including my mom. We got out of the car and some man who seemed to work there started grabbing our bags out of the back. I thought it must be nice to have people to do these things and thought about how Lucy never cleaned up after herself, leaving everything for the housekeeper, Sandy. Maybe I could live that way as well.
“We have enough time to head upstairs and change,” Cadence said once we were standing on the sidewalk in front of what looked like a fifteen- or twenty-story tall building.
“Okay,” I muttered, watching the guy with the bags wheel them inside. Aaron said something to him that sounded like he wanted them all taken to the penthouse, and I remembered that Cadence’s and Aaron’s apartments were the only ones up there.
“Bring back memories?” my mom asked my dad, who was staring up at the building, and I couldn’t help but tip my head to the side in observation.
“It does,” he replied with a nod. He glanced down at me and shrugged. “I guess you may as well know now, Cassidy. I grew up here.”
“You did?” I asked. “I thought you lived in Des Moines, at Grandma’s house.”
“I did, part of the time, but my parents’ apartments were on the top floor here. Grandma had her own space and Grandpa had his so they wouldn’t drive each other crazy while they were working. I was here a lot of the time.”
“What about school?” I asked, thoroughly confused.
“Well, I had a private tutor until I was in high school, so when we were here, school was here, and when I was in Des Moines, school was in Des Moines.” That made sense, I su
pposed,
“And then I insisted on going to a regular, public high school. So Grandma and Grandpa arranged for me to live in their house, the one she lives in now, with a few retired Hunters.”
“Were you here when Grandpa died?” Cadence asked, squinting her eyes at him, like she’d never thought of any of this either.
“No, I was in college,” Dad replied, dropping his eyes to the sidewalk. “I wish I would’ve been.”
Cadence looked at Aaron, and then at Jamie, neither of whom said anything, and I absently wondered if they were there when my grandpa died. And then I realized that I needed to read a little more into what they were saying. “Hold on,” I said, just as everyone took a collective step toward the front door. “When you asked if dad was here when Grandpa Jordan died, you’re implying that Grandpa died here. As in, right here?”
Five faces turned and looked at me with various levels of surprise, a bit of amusement on the part of the gentlemen who didn’t know me so well, and some annoyance from my mother.
“We will explain all of that to you later, Cass, I promise,” my sister said. “We need to get going.”
Biting off the sigh that threatened to come out of my mouth, I allowed them to keep walking and tried to focus on taking in the entryway. There was an atrium with soaring ceilings and live plants, which was pretty cool. Not very many people were milling around, and I supposed that was because most people were getting ready for the memorial. I wondered how large of a crowd Dr. Sanderson would pull together and imagined it would easily be in the hundreds.
Once we reached the elevator, Jamie said, “I’m going to go check on Hannah and see if she needs anything else. I’ll see you all over there.”
“Thanks, Jamie,” Cadence said and hugged him again as the elevator doors opened. No one had actually pushed a button, and I thought they might also be controlling that with the little computers they had in their eyes, their IACs.
The doctor smiled at me, and then he headed off, the rest of us stepping into the elevator. The doors closed and the light for the top floor illumined without anyone pushing a single button. “Neat trick,” I muttered under my breath, and Cadence turned and smiled at me.
It seemed like the elevator ride took forever. When we finally reached the penthouse, the doors opened and we all stepped out. Our luggage was sitting in front of the two apartment doors, the majority of it by the door on the right, so I assumed that was Cadence’s apartment. I averted my eyes when she kissed Aaron and said she’d see him in a few minutes, and I grabbed my bag. My sister turned the handle on her door and held it open as the rest of us wandered in.
“You know, you really should keep your door locked,” my mother commented. “I’m sure you’re perfectly safe here, but you just never know.”
“It was locked,” my sister replied, and I could hear her fighting that exasperated sound both of us are guilty of making when we have to explain things to our mother from time to time.
“Well, I didn’t see a key.”
“I unlocked it with my IAC.”
I was only half listening to my mother comment that she always forgot about my sister’s “eye computer.” My eyes were too busy taking in the incredible artwork on my sister’s walls and the gorgeous view out her window.
“Pretty nice, isn’t it?” Cadence asked, coming up behind me. She whispered, “All of the art is real. That’s an actual Monet.”
I stared at her in shock for a moment and pulled my head away to further inspect the view. “That fountain is amazing.” There were actually a couple of fountains off in the distance, but the one I was gesturing at appeared to be a little girl and a raincloud.
“It is, I agree. I really like to look out this window. It seems so peaceful.” I wondered what all she had seen that would make her go longing for peace, but I was sure I couldn’t even imagine. “I’m gonna go get changed. You wanna bring your stuff to my bedroom?”
“Sure,” I replied, following behind her and taking in the rest of her apartment. It was really nicely furnished and well-decorated. I was impressed.
My sister pointed my parents to the guest room, and my dad reminded her that he used to live here, so she shook her head and kept walking. I wasn’t sure if she thought that was as odd as I did or not.
Her bedroom was equally nice, decorated in blues and silvers. “This place is super nice, Cadence,” I said as she disappeared into a walk-in closet. “Did you pick all this stuff out yourself?” It was a far cry from the bubble gum pink bedroom she’d lived in for the first nineteen years of her life.
“Thanks,” she called. “No, Aaron had it remodeled and redecorated for me before I got here.” She came out with two dress choices, one in dark purple and one in a red color. “What do you think?” she asked, holding them both up in front of her.
“Definitely the purple,” I replied. “Under the circumstances, I think red would be… not cool.”
She raised an eyebrow at me and then shook her head. “Right,” she said, her shake turning into a nod. “Sorry. I guess… Vampires are second nature to me.”
I didn’t know what to say to that so I dug my dress out of my bag and checked to make sure it wasn’t too wrinkly. It seemed to have survived the plane ride, so I turned my back to my sister and started getting dressed, trying not to think about the fact that she looked like some sports model now, and I was a toothpick little high school girl.
She had a mirror across the room, so I grabbed my cosmetics bag and approached it, checking to see what needed fixed. “You can use my bathroom, if you want to,” she said. “All of my makeups all over the place in there.”
“Okay,” I replied, heading out the door. Cadence followed behind me and directed me around the corner to a rather large bathroom. “Kinda funny you finally don’t have an en suite,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, I know. But it functions the same way, though. There’s never anyone else here but me.”
I could tell by the sink that she was telling the truth. “When did you get back here?” I asked. It seemed like she must’ve put in some considerable effort to make this sort of mess.
“Last week,” she replied as she began to work on her own makeup. “I was only here for a couple of days before we went to California. But I keep a separate bag packed with all of my travel stuff.”
“But you didn’t live here for, like, six months,” I reminded her, reapplying my mascara. “Did you leave it like this?”
“No, this is just a couple of days’ worth of mess,” she explained with a shrug.
“Dude,” I said, moving on to my blush. “I don’t know Aaron well, but something tells me he would have pretty low tolerance for this kinda thing.”
She giggled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean… the man seems pretty meticulous. I bet his apartment is spotless, isn’t it?”
“Uh, yeah,” she said, checking to see if her curling iron was hot enough yet.
I just shook my head at her. “Some things never change.”
“Hey, now,” Cadence said, playfully shoving me in the arm. And I’m sure she was careful, too, because I did not go shooting across the room. “I can be tidy when I want to. I was in a hurry that morning when I left here.” Her voice suddenly got very sad, and I realized the last time she’d been here, Elliott was alive, getting ready to go with her. I hoped those two coats of mascara I’d seen her apply were waterproof, like mine.
I decided I looked good enough for a funeral, and before I went back to get my dress shoes, I turned to face her. “Cadence, can you please tell me what happened?”
She glanced at me and then picked up her curling iron and started making little ringlets around her face. She cleared her throat, and with her eyes glued on the mirror, she said, “I told you. We were ambushed. He saved Meagan.”
I nodded. “Okay, if it’s too painful for you to talk about right now, what about Drew. Can you tell me what happened to her?”
Cadence still looked solemn, but not as much as
she had when she was thinking about Elliott. Perhaps time had helped a bit with the passing of Drew.
“We went to a party that night, the night before Thanksgiving.” She continued to curl. “Drew had found a note about this get-together in Villisca. It was called an Eidolon Festival. I found out later, much later, it’s actually a sanctioned party Vampires are allowed to have from time to time. They still can’t claim victims who fight them, but anyone who chooses to go with them is fair game.”
“Seriously?” I asked, my eyes wide. “That’s… shocking.”
“I know. Aaron doesn’t like it either, but he can’t really change it. Not now anyway.” She sprayed her hair with some finishing spray and unplugged the curler. She looked gorgeous, as always. “So… there wasn’t much Aaron or anyone could do when Drew decided to go off with one of the Vampires. She thought he was just a hot guy, and you know how Drew was, right? Always looking for a good time?”
I nodded, though I probably didn’t realize that was the case, at least not to the extent she seemed to be getting at. “So she went off alone with him?”
“Yes, but I just knew something was wrong. I had this burning in my stomach. And, well, I’d had a dream a few nights before that. I’d seen all of this unfolding. Sort of. Have you ever had a dream like that? Where you feel like it’s real, and then something happens later to let you know the dream was sort-of right?”
Once again, my head bobbed up and down, but I doubted I’d ever had a dream quite as real as the one she was describing.
“I chased after her, but I lost her. By the time I got to her….” Cadence’s voice just sort of petered out. She didn’t even have tears in her eyes, but I could tell it was hard for her to talk about.
“She was already dead?” I finished for her, and my sister nodded. “What about the Vampire? Could Aaron step in then?”
“No, not yet. But I didn’t need his help.” She turned and leaned against the counter, her arms folded in front of her. “The second I saw what was happening, it was like some other part of me took over. It was all completely instinctual. I ran at that monster with all the strength I could muster, and I ripped his head right off.” She turned and looked at me for a moment, and I’m sure my mouth was hanging open. She shook her head like she couldn’t even believe she’d done it. “Then… Aaron showed up and told me the rest of us needed to get out of there, that the rest of the Vampires were slightly unhappy about my choices, and the next thing I know, I’m speeding off on the back of a motorcycle, and nothing in my life has been the same ever since.”
