by ID Johnson
“Said the Vampire-hybrid,” he shot back.
“This happens all day long,” Liz shouted over them, her tone apologetic as if they were both her bickering children. “So you’re saying it wouldn’t be safe to bring anyone back from the other side, Aaron?”
He nodded firmly. “Yes, that is absolutely my stance.”
Before her sister or Brandon could begin to argue with the Leader, Cadence reached her arm out in front of both of them. “However, I disagreed.”
“What’s that?” Cassidy asked, slowly turning to look at her sister, her spat with her unofficial boyfriend momentarily forgotten.
“I disagreed. I found out about the portal because Elliott left me a letter at Grandma’s. When I read the letter, Grandma told me about the portal. I didn’t think that the risk was too great to take the chance.” Aaron removed his arm from around her and folded his arms across his chest. She wasn’t sure if this was an intentional show of disapproval or if it was subconscious, but she continued. “So… I ran the theory by some people that I trusted, including Christian who was there the first time the portal was used. And I concluded it was worth a try.”
“Is that where you went?” Brandon asked. “Were you trying to contact my dad?”
“Yes,” Cadence nodded.
“And?” Cassidy asked. “Did it work? Could you talk to him?”
The answer would have to wait. There was a knock on the door, and all heads turned toward the sound. “Why don’t you go answer that, Cassidy?” Cadence said, timidly.
Cassidy looked at her sister for a second, a glimmer of hope appearing in her eyes that Cadence hadn’t seen since before the incident in Philadelphia. She also glanced at the expectant faces of her parents before she turned to look at Brandon, whose eyes were the size of saucers. Without another word, Cassidy pulled herself up off the couch and slowly proceeded to the front door. Cadence wanted to give her some privacy, but at the same time, she didn’t want to miss her sister’s expression if Elliott’s impeccable timing had led him to choose that exact moment to reveal the good news.
Pulling the door open cautiously, Cassidy gasped and let it swing against the wall, her hands covering her mouth. She stood frozen for a moment, Cadence, her parents, and Aaron only a few steps behind her.
“How’s my favorite teenager?” Elliott asked, his arms wide open, his feet still planted on the porch, giving her a second to process.
Cassidy seemed to assess him for a moment, and Cadence could identify with the necessity in making sure what she was seeing was real. A split second later, Cass flung herself into his arms, simultaneously bursting into tears. As Elliott stroked her little sister’s hair and reassured her that it was really him, Cadence turned to find Brandon sitting on the armrest of the sofa, as if he wasn’t quite sure how he fit into this Kodak moment.
With a smile, Cadence stepped over to Brandon and put her arm around his shoulders. “You okay?” she asked.
He nodded, a dazed expression in his eyes.
Cadence squeezed him, and once Cassidy regained a bit of her composure and released Elliott, the rest of the crowd parted so that Elliott could tentatively approach the son he’d never known he had.
He stopped a good three feet from where Brandon still perched on the sofa arm. “Did that portal open to 1967?” he asked, “’cause I swear I’m lookin’ in a mirror.”
Brandon let out a soft chuckle, but he didn’t move yet, and Cadence kept her arm around him as they gave him time to process.
“Hi. I’m Elliott,” he said, extending his massive hand. “You must be Brandon.”
Brandon stood to take his hand, looking down as they shook as if he thought his hand might pass right through his father’s. After a moment, he managed, “I’m sorry. I just… I never thought I’d have the chance to meet you.”
Elliott nodded. “I know. And I never thought I’d have the opportunity to be a father again. But it’s really great to meet you. You take as much time as you need. You’ll find out soon enough what a great guy I am.” The last sentence was punctuated with a wink, and Cadence couldn’t help but punch her friend in the arm, though she was a bit gentler this time after his complaint on the airplane.
“Elliott, it is absolutely incredible to see you,” Cadence’s mother said stepping forward to embrace him. “When Cadence said she had good news, I never would have even dared to dream this is what she was talking about.”
“It’s nice to see you, Mrs. Findley,” Elliott replied, patting her on the back. “Mr. Findley,” he continued after releasing her mother and extending his hand to Cadence’s father, “I’m so very sorry for your loss. Janette was an amazing woman.”
“Thank you,” Cadence’s dad said, tears forming in his eyes again. “While I’m still shocked to hear about Mom, it’s nice to know that you are back. And I guess you can vouch for how wonderful things are for my parents now?”
Elliott nodded. “Though I can’t say that I remember everything exactly, I can definitely say that I have an overall impression of peace and joy whenever I think about the place I’ve been for the last eight or so months.”
Eli Findley nodded. “That’s very comforting to hear.” He offered a weak smile to Elliott, and then turning to address his family, he said, “Well, I think I need to drive over to Lorraine’s house and let her and Ralph know what has happened. I’m sure that Jacob and Ella will take it very hard since they don’t know about all of this yet.”
Cadence stepped forward to hug her father, thinking about how hard it would be for her cousins, who were only ten and twelve, to hear about their grandmother passing. Her aunt lived south of Shenandoah, a good four hours from Des Moines by regular human driving, so she wasn’t sure how often the younger kids got to visit their grandmother, but she was certain it would be a heavy blow. “I love you, Dad,” she said, kissing him on the cheek.
“I’m proud of you, Cadence. So was your grandmother,” he replied, kissing the top of her head as he often did when she was a little girl. He said his goodbyes to his wife and Cassidy, who had recovered a bit from her initial shock at seeing Elliott, and made his way out the door.
Once he’d left, Cadence stepped over to her sister. Spreading her arms wide in the air, she said, “Surprise!”
“God, you’re such a dork. I thought you were going to tell all of us you were pregnant,” her sister shot back on the IAC, her arms crossed in front of her, the only indication that she was actually happy with Cadence’s decision a slight twinkle in her eye that hadn’t been there earlier.
“Shut up!” Cadence fired back. “Would that have been the good news or the bad news?”
The only answer Cadence got was an uninterested shrug. “Come on, Elliott. Come upstairs. There’s so much we need to tell you,” Cassidy said, stepping between her sister and her fiancé who had been even quieter than usual during the whole introduction, and grabbing Elliott by the arm.
“Well, okay then,” Elliott replied, looking at Liz as if he was asking for permission. The mother only laughed, and Cassidy took Elliott’s arm in one hand and Brandon’s in the other and pushed and pulled them toward the stairs.
“Do you let her take Brandon to her room?” Cadence asked, turning to face her mother as her sister’s suddenly chipper voice evaporated up the stairs.
Liz shrugged. “I let you take boys to your room.”
“And how did that turn out?” Cadence shot back, her eyes wide. She knew that her mother was aware that she and Jack had gotten more than a little friendly in her bedroom, though never with her parents actually home.
“Cassidy is a good girl,” Liz explained, tidying up the sofa pillows as Cadence chased behind her.
“So was I,” she reminded her mother. She felt Aaron’s hand pulling back on her shoulder, a sign that he thought she might be overreacting or stepping into her mother’s territory, and she reined it in a bit.
Liz just shook her head. “You’re staying here tonight, aren’t you?” she asked, as if it wer
e a foregone conclusion.
Cadence looked at Aaron, who didn’t really provide her with an answer, although his lack of response was an indicator that it was up to her. “I guess so?”
“Good. Your father will be happy to see that you’re still here when he gets back from your aunt’s house.”
“In that case, I need to use the washing machine,” Cadence replied, realizing she’d worn every outfit she had more than once and some of them in the dusty desert.
Liz was walking toward the kitchen, but she paused, and shouted over her shoulder, “It’s in the same place it’s been for the last twenty years!”
“I wasn’t implying I wanted you to do it!” Cadence hollered back, though the kitchen door was already swinging closed.
“Ah, nice to see everything is back to normal,” Aaron said, shaking his head as he pulled her closer.
“Oh, yes. Quite normal. There’s a dead guy upstairs in my monsister’s room, and my grandma just disappeared into another dimension. Just another day in the life of Cadence Josephine Findley.”
He laughed at her, as he pulled her head against his shoulder. “Monsister?”
“Monster sister,” she explained. “And not because of the Vampire blood either. Oh, no, her attitude has won her that name.”
“And what am I? Your boyfiend?” he asked, kissing her forehead.
“Nah, I don’t need any fancy millennial terms to describe you,” she said, turning to wrap her arms around his waist. “You’re just a jackass.”
His hands slid down her back and came to rest just above the band of her jeans. “You’ve called me worse,” he reminded her. “You definitely outsmarted me this time. I’ll give you that.”
“I’m sorry I had to lie to you,” she replied, looking into his blue eyes and feeling a bit of the constriction around her heart release.
Rather than verbally accepting her apology, he found her mouth with his, and if there had ever been any doubt that they could make it through this riff, it all melted away as he breathed her in. He continued to kiss her passionately for several moments before he finally released her. “I love you, Cadence. Nothing can ever change that.”
“I love you, too,” she replied, and she meant it, the recent thoughts of whether or not they actually loved each other or only thought they did because of their positions starting to fade away.
Chapter Nineteen
Cadence had fallen asleep after dinner, but not before giving Aaron careful instructions on what to do with her laundry, which she’d managed to put in the washer but hadn’t quite gotten into the drier before she’d convinced him to force her to go to bed. Clearly, she was exhausted. It had been a very long week, and her emotions had been on a roller coaster.
After tucking her in, he made his way down the stairs to follow through with his promise to throw her clothes in the drier. He passed Elliott and Brandon having a conversation about sports in the living room and steered clear, as he knew both of them would take some cheap shots at him for knowing absolutely nothing about anything they might be talking about. He didn’t even know enough to tell which sport they were discussing based on the few words he caught as he crept by. Now, if they were chatting about soccer or cricket, that’s a conversation he could participate in.
The laundry room was in the back of the house off of the kitchen, and as he approached the doorway, he realized Cadence’s mom was already moving her wet laundry to the dryer. “Oh, Mrs. Findley, I was going to do that,” he said, pausing just outside of the room.
“Mrs. Findley?” Liz echoed. “You’ve known me for a very long time, Aaron. Since when have you ever called me that?”
She had a point. Things seemed different, now that he was marrying her daughter. “Well, what would you like for me to call you?” he asked, as she tossed the last of Cadence’s garments into the dryer. It had been well over a century since he’d called anyone any variation of “mom,” and somehow “Liz” seemed a bit too informal now.
“You’ve always called me Liz before,” she reminded him as she set the dial on the apparatus. “Why should anything be any different now?”
“You don’t find it at all odd that Cadence and I are getting married?” he asked as she leaned against the dryer, obviously not in a rush to get anywhere.
“Oh, I guess I did at first,” she admitted. “But the two of you are perfect together. I see that now. Besides, all of this magic mumbo jumbo kind of makes things like age go out the window, doesn’t it?”
He stifled a laugh and the urge to correct her that what they did wasn’t magic. It must have seemed like it to her, especially in light of their recent conversation about portals and people coming back from the dead. “I guess so,” he agreed. “I definitely don’t feel like I’m a hundred and fifty years older than her.”
“Oh, good grief, when you put it like that,” Liz said shaking her head. He noticed how much her oldest daughter resembled her, especially when she was annoyed or agitated. “Let’s just say, I try not to dwell on it.”
“Fair enough,” he said with a nod. “Well, thank you. I’ll come back and get her clothes when they’re dry.”
“Please,” she said leaning forward and resting her hand on his arm, “let me handle it. I may give her a hard time, but I really do enjoy taking care of my daughter. That’s why I insisted that you all stay here this evening. It does my heart good to have both of my girls home.”
Though he’d already apologized to both of Cassidy’s parents for the incident in Philadelphia that had forever changed their youngest daughter, he couldn’t help but feel as if she was hinting at the sorrow their family had endured at learning of her infection and subsequent Transformation. “You know I’ll always do everything I can to keep both of them safe, don’t you?” he asked, looking her in the eye.
“Yes,” she said without hesitation. “I certainly don’t blame you for what happened to Cassidy, Aaron. That was a combination of bad choices. I could have done a better job of making sure she understood the importance of doing exactly what her sister said, and no one is more responsible than Cassidy herself.”
“Still,” he insisted, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, “she was my responsibility. I should have made sure she got home safely.”
Liz shook her head and patted him on the shoulder. “Oh, Aaron, you always carry the weight of the world with you. It was an accident. Cassidy will be fine. It’s taking her some time to adjust, but she’ll make a full recovery. And as much as she loves spending time with Brandon, I haven’t seen her happier in the last three months than she has been tonight having Elliott back. He’s like the big brother she never had.”
He nodded in agreement as she smiled and turned to tidy up the shelf above the dryer. That may have been his cue to leave, but instead, he reminded her, “You know, eventually, Cassidy is going to join our team. Technically, Cadence will be her leader, but I promise you the rest of the team will take good care of her as well.”
“I’m sure you will,” Liz said with a smile, sliding a bottle of bleach into a nicely fitted slot between some dryer sheets and detergent. Then, with a sigh, she put both of her hands on the top of the dryer, and turning to him, she said, “Can I ask you something?”
A bit apprehensive about what the question might be, Aaron hesitated but finally said, “Sure.”
“You know, the longer I’ve watched Cadence perform as a Hunter, the more I’ve regretted not Transforming myself.” Aaron felt his eyes widen, afraid she might be asking to attempt to undergo the process herself now, a feat they’d never tried before and one he’d certainly be hesitant to try. She began to laugh. “Don’t worry. I’m not thinking of going through with it now.” He let go a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. “I was just thinking, Eli is eligible to retire soon. Cassidy is more than ready to move to headquarters to continue her training. In fact, she’s ready to get out there on the hunt right now. How would you feel about the rest of the family joining you in Kansas City? Would
that make you completely uncomfortable, having Cadence’s parents hanging around? I know Cadence really wants Cassidy to stay here and finish high school, but I don’t think that has the same kind of importance to Cass now that she’s… different.”
Aaron was surprised to hear the question; it wasn’t something he had thought she’d even consider. Lots of families from other Hunters and Guardians lived and worked at LIGHTS, plenty of humans were privy to the secret information due to family relations, and there were even some that had chosen to Transform but didn’t want to actively pursue Vampires who lived there. “I think it would be great,” he finally replied. “I haven’t ever discussed it with Cadence, but I can’t imagine she’d be unhappy about it. I know she misses you.”
“Great!” Liz said with a broad smile. “It might take us a while to tie up loose ends here, of course, but if it’s something you think we could do, then, I think it’s worth discussing.”
“Definitely,” he agreed, hoping he hadn’t misspoken and Cadence would actually be excited about the prospect.
“And then, when we have grandkids….” Liz continued.
“Well, that’s not something I’d mention to Cadence just yet,” he stopped her. “I think she’s hoping to wait a few years on that one.”
Liz sighed as if she was hoping to hear differently. “I suppose she is still young,” she admitted. “But eventually….”
“Yes, eventually, it would be a huge bonus to have you nearby,” he concurred. “Just hold that card for a while, okay?”
“Okay,” she said with a smile and a squeeze of his arm. “It is exciting to think about having something else to do, other than bustling around this place picking up dirty socks and loading the dishwasher.”
That statement sparked an idea in his mind, but he wasn’t willing to say anything just yet. It was too soon. As Liz made her way out of the laundry room, he glanced at the dryer and saw that there was still another thirty minutes left to go. With a sigh, he decided he’d have to go join the conversation in the living room, hoping Elliott and Brandon would show him a little mercy when it came to whatever sports they were discussing, although it wouldn’t be the first time in the last two days he felt like an idiot. Cadence had done quite the job of reminding him he didn’t always know everything.