by ID Johnson
She watched him jog back over to the group and didn’t envy any of them. Her training hadn’t been nearly as rigorous as what these recruits were going through, and she’d done most of it one-on-one with Aaron. Most of these kids didn’t have the natural ability and instincts she had, though, and in order to make sure they were ready to go, they had to be properly put through their paces.
Now that she had that taken care of, she decided to stop by and see how Meagan was doing since she hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to her recently. She found the shorter brunette outside on the obstacle course where she had a group of Hunters flying through the obstructions. Cadence noticed Ashley from a distance and forced herself to smile at her as if she were noticing a friend. Meagan was not nearly as tough on her people as Aurora, and she was shouting words of encouragement from the sidelines like a cheerleader.
“How’s it going?” Cadence asked sidling up beside her.
“Good. They’re really starting to get it,” she smiled.
Cadence watched a pair fly over the hurdles next to her and agreed that they did seem to be making a lot of progress. “Sorry I didn’t take you with us last night,” she said without turning her head. “It turned out to be kind of a dud anyway.”
“I heard,” Meagan replied, pausing to yell a few words of support to the Hunters nearest her before she continued. “It’s fine. At least you got them.”
“True,” Cadence agreed. “Hey, I’ve got some stuff going on that I can’t really talk about right now,” she began, spinning to face her friend, “but I’ll fill you in on all of it next week, okay?”
She had Meagan’s full attention now. “All right. Is everything good?”
“Yes, everything’s fine. I just didn’t want you to think I was blowing you off or anything,” Cadence clarified.
“Well, you know if there’s anything I can help you with, all you have to do is ask,” Meagan reminded her.
“I appreciate that,” Cadence said. “Okay, I’ll get out of your hair.”
“See ya,” Meagan replied as Cadence bent down and hugged her quickly and then headed off toward her apartment.
She had some area leaders she needed to check in with, but since Aaron was likely using the office they shared, she decided to head home to do her work instead. Most of the time sharing an office was ideal. She had a desk where she was able to get most of her work done while he worked at his on the other side of the room. But certainly not today. She was hopeful that everything would return to normal after next week.
On her way home, she decided to check in with Christian. He would be leaving with Aaron in a few hours, and she wanted to make sure everything was good before he was out of reach. “Hey! Just wanted to make sure everything is still copacetic.”
“Everything is good,” he assured her. “In fact, I was just about to contact you.”
Cadence hesitated; despite his first statement, that never sounded good. “Okay… what’s up?”
“Well, I took the liberty of running a little test last night, and I wanted to let you know what I discovered.”
“You did what?” Cadence asked, trying not to jump to conclusions.
“Look, after you told me what you did, and after Aaron said he would do whatever it takes to prevent you from doing this, I just wanted to make sure that you actually have Elliott with you, and Aaron didn’t beat you to the punch.”
The thought had crossed Cadence’s mind more than once, especially since she was quite certain Aaron had at least one more trick up his sleeve. “And?”
“I have an instrument that can test DNA. And that’s definitely Elliott in your little baggy.”
“Did you ‘borrow’ part of him?” she asked, images of him coming back together missing a vital organ flooding her mind.
He laughed. “No, I could scan through the plastic.”
“Thank goodness,” she muttered aloud. “Okay. That’s actually good to know.”
“You seem surprised that my useful information was useful.”
“I’m sorry,” Cadence replied, realizing that Christian was actually quite intelligent and resourceful, and she hadn’t been giving him enough credit. “I’m just nervous, that’s all.”
“Well, the code on the door is the code on the safe, and he’s still there as of this moment,” he assured her.
“Awesome.”
“I’ll check again when I go to get my suitcase.”
“Thank you so much, Christian,” Cadence said. “You know, you’ve really stuck your neck out for me this time, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”
“No problem, Cadence.”
She had to wonder why he was so willing to help her when he’d known Aaron for so much longer, and Aaron was actually his boss. Christian never even got along that well with Elliott. Maybe he really did just want her to be happy. “Have a safe trip to Connecticut,” she added.
“Thanks.”
She turned him off and entered the apartment building. She knew she would need to talk to their new maintenance man before she left, but she wanted to make sure Aaron was gone before she asked him to perform the task she needed done. Usually, Juan Diego could be found working on the bottom floor of the apartments or in the yard, but she didn’t see him this time. They had recruited him after Jamie noticed he appeared on their recordings of the incident with Sam in Texas and Cadence’s hospital stay when Laura had shot her. What were the chances of the same guy being at both incidents? Clearly, he was meant to be on their team, but since he wasn’t capable of Transforming, they’d simply brought him in as part of the human team that supported their operation.
When the elevator door opened, his familiar face was smiling out at her. “Hey, Juan Diego!”
“Hello, Ms. Cadence,” he said. “You going up?”
“I am,” she said. He stepped out and held the door for her. “Gracias, amigo. Hey, I’m going to need a special favor in a couple of days, mi amigo.”
“Anything for you, senorita,” he said as he let go of the door.
“Gracias,” she repeated, still smiling broadly. Being nice always had its benefits. And so did attempting to speak people’s native language whenever possible even if you couldn’t remember more than five words of the three years of Spanish classes from high school, Cadence found.
The first thing she did when she arrived in her apartment was contact her sister and let her know that Brandon would be picking her up Saturday instead of Cadence. While she was clearly put-out, she was also in the middle of algebra class and couldn’t argue and concentrate on instruction at the same time. Cadence assured her that she would fill her in on everything as soon as she could but that this mission was top secret, and Aaron didn’t even know about it. Cassidy’s profound response had been a resounding, “Whatev.”
Cadence spent the rest of the afternoon talking to various area leaders, helping them talk through their issues and catching up on how their training and recruiting programs were going. She required each of them to turn in a number of reports once a week, and she always tried to look at them and go over any anomalies the next week. They included kill rates by Hunter and Guardian, training time, number of new recruits, and potential promotions, which the leaders could ask for but she had to approve. This was a much more manageable system for her than what she had been doing at first, just trying to check in and see what was going on with every team or waiting for them to contact her. Now, she could be proactive and inspire change.
Another task that she didn’t like at all was payroll. She hadn’t even realized she would be getting paid for this job when she initially took it. Paying Hunters and Guardians made sense. After all LIGHTS couldn’t provide absolutely everything each of them needed. Aaron had attempted to explain to her where the funding actually came from, but she didn’t really understand it, and eventually he had just said, “Governments, private citizens who want protection, and investments are our main sources of income.”
Initially, she found out that A
aron handled payroll for everyone—in the world—by himself. That didn’t work for her. She took on the Hunters, found someone to create an automated program that would pay everyone the same unless a raise was manually entered, and also found someone to add the new recruits in each month in every area. Meagan handled the Kansas City office for her. So, once a month, she ran the program and looked for changes, checked them, and issued checks. So much easier than doing everything one person at a time….
She hoped eventually Aaron would realize her methods may help him as well, but he didn’t seem interested in changing, and she didn’t pressure him. By the time he returned home to get his luggage, she was done with her weekly check-ins and payroll was ready to be issued at the end of the month—which happened to be next Wednesday.
“What are you working on?” he asked as he walked into the office she had off of the living room.
“Just finished payroll,” she replied, sticking her tongue out.
“Already?” he asked. “The end of the month isn’t until next week.”
“I know, but nothing will change between now and then,” she reminded him, not pointing out again that she intended to be busy that day.
He let it go, knowing it was yet another topic they disagreed on. She followed him out of the room and into the bedroom where he pulled a carry-on suitcase out of the closet and began to fill it.
“How was your day?” she asked, plopping down on the bed. She’d offered to help him pack more than once, but she never did it right, so she’d given up.
“Busy,” he replied, placing various items into precise locations. “Yours?”
“About the same,” she shrugged.
“How are the recruits today?”
She wondered why he would ask since he saw them for himself but imagined he must just be trying to make small talk to avoid certain topics. “Really good. We’ve got some talent this time around.”
“I think so,” he agreed. “Are you planning on releasing Ashley and Mickey next week?”
“I don’t know if we’ll get in enough hunts before then. Depends on what goes on with
Philly, I guess.” She had to pretend like she was intending to go there, though it made her nauseous to do so.
“Maybe you and Jamie could take them out tomorrow night?”
She wanted to scream that she had other plans, but instead she smiled and nodded. “Maybe.”
“You know Ashley is in awe of you, right?” he asked, carefully looking over the contents of his suitcase to make sure he didn’t miss anything.
She was surprised to hear that. “I think she might be in awe of you.”
He looked up at her, his eyebrows furrowed. “No… you’re the one she’s constantly comparing herself to.”
“That’s not quite what I meant,” she said, pulling her knees up so she was sitting cross-legged. She still had her shoes on, which she knew would probably drive him crazy—shoes on the bedspread—but she didn’t budge.
He slowly shook his head as if he had no idea what she was getting at and zipped the suitcase. “She was talking about you all the way over there last night, saying how she couldn’t wait to see you in action.”
“Is that what was so funny?” she asked, trying to keep her voice even.
Still looking confused, he sat down next to her on the bed. “What?”
“You guys were laughing pretty hard when you got there,” she reminded him.
After a moment of thought, he said, “Oh, no. I was telling her about that time in that Italian restaurant when you asked that waitress if she wanted to borrow your napkin to wipe the drool off of her chin.”
Cadence remembered the occurrence well. She was used to other women checking him out by now, but that one took the cake. “Why were you talking about that?” she asked.
“She said that she appreciated it when you came in the gym because it took some of the attention off of her. Apparently, she’s had some issues with the guys ogling her.”
“Now that I can see,” Cadence replied. “She’s gorgeous. I mean—them staring at her. Not me.”
“Uhm, you're gorgeous,” he said, leaning toward her and bumping her shoulder with his.
She rolled her eyes. “So how did that lead to the waitress story, exactly?”
“She asked me if it ever bothered me, and I told her I never really even notice.”
“Of course you notice. You notice everything.”
“I mean, I don’t assume if women are staring at me it’s because they are having lustful thoughts.”
“Why not?” she asked, turning to stare at him. “Have you met you?”
He laughed, possibly a bit embarrassed. “It’s just not something I think about.”
“You walk into that gym and those girls go from Serena Williams to Beyonce in two seconds. No more grunting and groaning, everything is styling.”
It took him a moment to catch his breath, he was laughing so hard now. “Anyway… as I was saying, Ashley really looks up to you, and I think she has potential to be a really good Hunter someday. I think you could mentor her, and we could consider adding her to our team.”
“You mean our KC team?” Cadence clarified.
“Don’t you think?”
Cadence thought about it for a second. She could always use a good Hunter, but she had been thinking a male Hunter might be better since she already had two other good females. Males tended to think differently, and sometimes that helped. “I guess so,” she finally replied. It was worth thinking about.
“Well, I have to head to the airport,” he said, though he didn’t stand.
Cadence nodded, and uncrossing one of her legs, she swiveled around to face him. “Okay. Be careful.”
“You, too.”
“I am always careful.”
He leaned over and kissed her, and she held back a bit, resolved not to get distracted by her complete and utter physical attraction to him. “See you Saturday,” he said as he released her and stood up.
No you won’t, she thought to herself, but said only, “Okay.”
Pulling his luggage off of the bed, he walked toward the door, and she followed. With his hand on the doorknob, he turned and said, “I love you, Cadence. I always will.”
“I love you, too,” she assured him. She watched him go out the door and then stood there staring at it for a few moments, wondering what might happen the next time she actually saw him face-to-face again.
Once he was gone, she was tempted to go check the one thing she knew could make her go unhinged. But she was resolved to wait until after his airplane took off before she did it. She was afraid that, if he had done what she thought he might do, she would not be able to control her rage. She might run over to the airport and scream at him before he even left for Connecticut, which would ruin her entire plan.
Rather than taking the chance, she decided to do some yoga, something she’d tried on several occasions before she Transformed, but could only master now that she had her new super powers. Once she received word from Christian that they were in the air, she’d let herself check.
It took about forty-five minutes for him to call her IAC to let her know the plane had taken off. By then, she’d worked up a bit of a sweat, but she felt much more calm. She found a towel in the bathroom and wiped her brow, making sure her palms were also dry, before she approached the mantel. Bracing herself, she carefully reached up and pulled Elliott’s urn off of the mantel. She knew immediately something was different. The weight was off. Trying to control her anger, she pulled off the lid.
It was empty.
Chapter Eight
“Just calm down,” Jamie repeated in a serene voice as he sat on her couch. Cadence was not sitting. She was pacing, furiously, back and forth. Luckily, she’d been able to control her anger long enough to set the urn back down without heaving it across the room. It sat on the mantel again, reminding her that her fiancé was not to be trusted.
“Why would he do that?” she asked probably fo
r the hundredth time since Jamie had shown up, five minutes after she’d called him on the IAC shrieking about what Aaron had done, which had been about twenty minutes ago.
“For the same reason that you took Elliott out before he could empty it,” the Healer reminded her. “Cadence, he told you he would do whatever he could to prevent you from going through with this. ‘Why are you surprised?’ is probably the deeper question.”
“I thought I could trust him!” she spat, plopping down on the coffee table.
“No, you didn’t,” he replied. “If you thought you could trust him, you wouldn’t have taken the precaution you did. And Elliott would be somewhere else—somewhere that you couldn’t find him.”
She knew he was right. If she really thought she could trust Aaron, she would have left Elliott in his spot on the mantel until she was ready to leave. Yet, the thought that Aaron had maliciously removed him without her knowing made her so angry, she could hardly see straight.
“Jamie, how can I love someone so much and simultaneously spend half of my time wanting to jab his eyes out with knitting needles?”
She could tell he was stifling a laugh, likely at the imagery. “I don’t know,” he said, “but you two manage it pretty well.” Cadence had her fists clenched, her fingernails digging into her palms. “Take a breath,” he urged, reaching over and grabbing her arms. He slid his hands down to hers, forcing her to open them, and once he had her hands, he continued. “Cadence, ask yourself why, exactly, it is that you are so upset about this. After all, he did exactly what you thought he would do. Do you have any idea how remarkable it is that you were actually able to anticipate his next move and block it? I would be shocked to hear that that has ever happened before—in the last hundred and fifty years, anyway.”
He had a point, and she knew it. Things could be a lot worse. Regardless of whether Aaron had taken what he thought was Elliott with him, which she doubted, or he had simply hidden the ashes somewhere at headquarters, which was more likely, the possibility of her actually being able to find him before the blue moon, if she didn’t already have him in her own possession, would have been highly unlikely.