by ID Johnson
***
Cadence slept like a rock. While she was very comfortable in the apartment she shared with Aaron in Kansas City, there was just something about being at home that always made her feel comfortable, and while she hadn’t always fallen right to sleep during any of her previous visits, the events of the last week had left her exhausted. For once, she was asleep almost as soon as her head hit the pillow.
The sun was peeking through the pink curtains that hung over each of the three windows in her bedroom when she opened her eyes to realize her sister was sitting next to her, jabbing her in the arm. “Cadence, are you awake?” Cassidy asked, her voice a forced whisper.
Rubbing her arm and wondering if her sister just didn’t know her own strength or was trying to be mean, Cadence groggily said, “I am now. God, what am I? A pin cushion?”
“Sorry,” Cassidy muttered as her older sister rolled over, pushed her hair off of her face, and yawned. “I’ve been trying to wake you up for, like, five minutes.”
Stretching her arms up over her head, Cadence arched her back and then slowly slid up to a sitting position. “Is everything okay?” she asked, fighting another yawn.
“Yeah,” Cassidy said with a shrug. “I just wanted to talk to you.”
It seemed like it had been a very long time since her little sister actually voluntarily wanted to talk to her, so Cadence fluffed up the pillow behind her and scooted against the headboard. “What’s up?” She noticed her sister wasn’t wearing her colored contact so the contrast between the color of her unaffected eye and the steely gray one was striking, and she tried not to let it distract her as she began to speak.
Cassidy let out a deep breath and readjusted on the bed. “I guess, I don’t know. I was just thinking about how everything is so different now. You know? It’s so hard to believe that Elliott is back and Grandma is gone. I was thinking about what Aaron said about the portal. Do you think… do you think something actually did come through? Something bad? And that’s what the Vampires were talking about when I heard them say ‘the time draws near’ and all that stuff?”
The thought had crossed Cadence’s mind, even before she’d opened the portal, although she had likely been in denial at the time. After a thoughtful moment, she shrugged and said, “I honestly don’t know. But I’m sure, if something did come through, whatever it is, we can defeat it.”
Cassidy nodded her head, although her expression didn’t show complete confidence. “It will help now that Elliott is back.”
“Absolutely,” Cadence agreed.
Scooting over toward her sister a bit, Cassidy drew one leg up under the other one. “Brandon and Elliott seem to be getting along really well.”
“That’s good.”
“Yeah. At first, I was kind of afraid that Brandon might be kind of weird around him, you know? I mean, I’m not sure he’s forgiven Elliott for not being around—even though he realizes his dad didn’t even know he existed. I think he was kind of mad about that before.”
Cadence nodded. “That’s understandable.”
“Right. But they are a lot alike. I think it’ll be good for both of them. I just hope….” She paused, looking thoughtfully down at the carpet, as if she wasn’t sure if she could voice her concern.
“Cass?” Cadence asked, putting her hand on her sister’s arm. “You just hope what?”
“I don’t know,” Cassidy shrugged. “I guess I just hope that both of them still have time… for me.”
Cadence held back a laugh, but she did smile. “Oh, I wouldn’t worry about that,” she assured her sister. “They both adore you. Honestly, Cass, I don’t think Elliott was going to come through the portal until he realized I was worried about you. I didn’t tell him what happened until after we were back in Reno, but he said he could tell that something was off when he asked about you and I hesitated. He loves you. A lot.”
An alarmed expression in her eyes, Cassidy asked, “You don’t think he wanted to come back?”
“I wouldn’t say he didn’t want to; he just didn’t want to give all of that up. And he didn’t know about Brandon, either. So, I think he’s happy with his decision. It just must be hard to know he can never go back.”
That answer seemed to satisfy her, and Cassidy nodded. “It would have to be a difficult decision.”
“For sure.” They were both silent for a moment, and Cadence assumed there was more that Cassidy wanted to say or else she would have bolted out of the room. “Why are you concerned about Brandon?” she asked, trying to make her voice as nonchalant as possible.
Cassidy didn’t answer for a moment. She shifted her weight and pulled the corner of her mouth in. Her eyes flickered back and forth between Cadence’s face and her hands. Just when Cadence thought she needed to probe further, Cassidy finally said, “He tried to kiss me.”
Cadence’s eyebrows arched, and she held back a smile. “Oh?” she asked, not wanting to say more.
“Yeah. It was… awkward.”
“It was?” Cadence asked, not sure how to proceed.
Letting out a loud sigh, Cassidy said. “I stopped him. I mean… I moved out of the way. I knew what he was doing, but I was… afraid. So I didn’t let him.”
“That’s understandable,” Cadence offered, hoping to reassure her sister that her reaction was perfectly natural. “If you’ve never kissed a boy before, it’s not surprising that you would be hesitant.”
“I’ve kissed boys before, Cadence,” Cassidy said, her eyes narrowing and a bit of that snarky attitude back. “Geez, I’m sixteen.”
“Sorry!” Cadence replied, trying not to be defensive. “You never told me about any of that.”
“I don’t have to tell you everything.”
While she realized the statement was true, Cadence was still slightly offended that her sister hadn’t felt close enough to her to discuss such things. Not that she talked to her younger sister about her romantic adventures. “Okay. Well, why were you afraid then? I thought you liked Brandon.”
“I do!” Cassidy exclaimed, her hands flailing. “I was afraid about… you know.”
Cadence had no idea. “What?” she asked, leaning in closely and trying to keep her voice calm.
“Seriously?” her sister asked, rolling her eyes. “I was afraid that I might….”
“What? Miss? Drool on him? Pee your pants? What?’
“Arghh!” Cassidy proclaimed, running both hands through her hair. “No, that I might… bite him.”
“Huh?”
“With my… fangs.” Her voice was a harsh whisper, her teeth gritted together. No fangs visible at all.
Despite not wanting to offend her sister or discourage her from sharing such personal conversations, Cadence began to laugh. At first she wasn’t even sure what she thought was funnier; the idea of her sister accidentally biting her boyfriend or the expression on Cassidy’s face. The more she laughed, the harder it became to control, and even though her sister told her to stop more than once, she continued until her sides hurt and Cassidy was ready to storm out of the room. “No, no, stay. I’m okay,” Cadence assured her, trying to control herself. Eventually, she recaptured her emotions, and pulling on her sister’s arm to keep her from getting up, she said, “Cassidy, I’m sure that wouldn’t happen. Don’t you only get fangs when you’re angry or in attack mode?”
“No, I guess not since I don’t have any right now!” the younger sister snarled. “Stop laughing at me! It isn’t funny!”
“I’m sorry!” Cadence assured her. “I didn’t mean to laugh. I wasn’t making fun of you. I was just picturing it in my head. Cass, I’m sure you wouldn’t accidentally bite Brandon.”
“Okay, but what if I did?” she asked, still clearly upset. “God, Cadence. Do you have any idea what it’s like to have to live like this?”
“No, I don’t,” Cadence freely admitted, no humor left in her voice at all.
“I mean, I go to school, and I avoid everyone because I’m afraid they’ll know. I can’
t go out with my friends because I’m afraid my fangs will pop out, or my contact will slip and they’ll see my stupid eye. I have voices in my head all the time. And unlike your voices—they’re not talking to me, and they don’t even make any sense. I am the poster child for a freak show! Hell, I can’t even kiss the one guy I even care about anymore because I’m afraid I’ll accidentally rip his face off.”
“Cass, I’m so sorry….”
“And then there’s mom and dad with their annoying, ‘You should go hang out with your friends. Go back to cheerleading. Join a club!’ crap. They don’t understand. No one understands! There is literally no one else in the entire world like me!”
By the time she finished the last sentence, tears were streaming down her face, and Cadence could feel her heart breaking all over again for her little sister. She’d made one tiny mistake, one bad decision, and that misstep had cost her everything she’d ever known. “Cassidy, listen to me,” Cadence said, leaning forward and grabbing her sister’s arm. “I can’t imagine how you feel. I would be lying if I said I could. I do know what it feels like to wake up one day and realize everything has changed. Anyone who has gone through the Transformation process knows that, but we don’t know what it’s like to be the only one of our kind. Listen, I know it’s easy to focus on the negative—to remind yourself that there’s no one like you and how awful that could be—but you also have to remember what a unique opportunity this is.”
“For the team,” Cassidy interrupted.
“No, not just for the team. For you. Look, all I’ve heard about myself for the past year or so is how amazing I am, how I have special powers. I’m faster, stronger, better able to follow my instincts, than everyone else. That can be intimidating. There are times when I doubt myself, when I think, ‘What if I can’t measure up? What if I let the team down?’ So, from that aspect, I totally get what you’re saying. Those are the times when you just have to remember this is a gift, an opportunity to help others in a way that they’ve never been helped before. I don’t know why I was chosen to be the Hunter Leader—why I happen to be better at this than most other Hunters—but it’s who I am. I can either fight it, fear it, or embrace it.”
Cassidy was quiet for a second, her shoulders slumped, staring at her own hands folded in her lap. But she wasn’t crying anymore, and Cadence thought perhaps she was actually pondering everything she had just said. After a long moment, she said, “So… you just choose to embrace it?’
“Every day,” Cadence nodded. “It’s a choice I have to make every day.”
Taking a deep breath, Cassidy turned to face her sister. Streaks marred her pretty face where the tears had recently fallen. “But you have the team with you. To reassure you. To make you feel strong. I don’t have that. All I have is Brandon, usually via IAC, and sometimes you when you’re not too busy, and mom to tell me how pretty I look or how straight my teeth are.”
Cadence smiled, knowing that would be her mother’s way of saying Cassidy’s teeth looked normal. “I’m sorry if I haven’t done a very good job of supporting you.”
“It’s not that,” Cassidy admitted. “I know you’re doing the best you can, and you’re super busy running… the whole world.” The tears were starting to come again. “I just feel so… all alone.”
Cadence scooted forward and wrapped her arms around her sister, who melted into her shoulder, something she had fought recently since the change. “You’re not,” Cadence whispered. “You’re not alone. We are all here to support you.”
“Do you mean that?” Cassidy asked, pulling her head back so she could look her sister in the eye and wiping at her tears. “Do you really mean that?”
“Yes,” Cadence assured her. “What can I do to show you I mean it?”
“I want to move to headquarters,” Cassidy began. “I know everyone thinks I should stay here and finish high school, try to be normal. But I’m not normal. And if that’s going to be okay, then, it’s time for me to go live with people who at least have some sort of understanding of what it’s like to be different.”
Cadence looked into her sister’s eyes and finally realized what she’d been trying to tell her for all of these months. It didn’t really matter what anyone else thought Cassidy needed to do—she was an adult now, regardless of what her human age was, and she should be allowed to decide for herself. If she’d allowed her to come with them to Philadelphia in the first place, as Cassidy had asked to do, she wouldn’t have felt the need to sneak up there, and this wouldn’t have happened. It was time to actually start listening to what her sister was telling her and to stop thinking she knew everything. She wiped the tears off of her little sister’s face and said, “Okay. If that’s what you want, then that works for me.”
Cassidy’s countenance changed almost immediately. A genuine smile played around the corners of her mouth. “Wait,” she said, clutching her sister’s arm. “Does that mean, ‘Okay, I’ll talk to Aaron and see if I can get his permission,’ or ‘Okay, let’s make this happen’?”
Cadence laughed. “Hey, if I don’t need Aaron’s permission to bring Elliott back from the dead, I certainly don’t need his permission to relocate my little sister to headquarters. He’s not the boss of me, you know?”
The smile broadened until Cassidy appeared happier than Cadence had seen her for months. “Okay, then,” she said. “I guess I need to talk to Mom and Dad.”
“And pack,” Cadence reminded her.
“I hope they will listen as well as you did,” Cassidy said, quickly hugging her sister’s neck before she headed toward the door.
“I hope I can convince Aaron this is a good idea,” Cadence thought to herself, a smile still plastered on her face for her sister’s sake. “Good luck!” she called, assuming her sister was off to talk to her parents. Convincing them would be easy compared to the task she might face in trying to talk Aaron into the idea. Not needing his permission and not pissing him off were two different things, and Cadence knew there could be a fine line between them.
Chapter Twenty
“Okay,” Aaron said, with a simple shrug, sitting next to Cadence on her parent’s front porch swing. After a large breakfast of pancakes, bacon, eggs, and her mother’s signature made-from-scratch biscuits, which she had devoured almost as ferociously as Elliott and Brandon, Cadence had dragged herself outside to talk to her fiancé about the prospect of Cassidy moving to headquarters for good. While, she’d dreaded the conversation, she thought it was best to get it over with quickly rather than let it linger; he would know there was something she wasn’t telling him anyway.
“Okay?” she echoed, stunned at his one-word answer. “Just like that? Okay?”
“What can I say? You made a good argument,” he said with another shrug.
He was wearing a light blue shirt that accented his eyes, and he hadn’t yet shaved, giving him just a bit of stubble around his strong jawline, and Cadence was momentarily distracted. It didn’t help that he had his arm around her, and she was only inches from those perfect, soft lips. Shaking her head to clear it, she said, “So you’re really okay with this?”
“Of course,” Aaron assured her. “I mean, as long as your parents don’t have a problem with it, then it’s fine with me. I don’t expect to take her out into the field until she’s completed the program, but you did that rather quickly, and once she proves she’s ready, she’ll have the same opportunity as any other Hunter.”
“And she’ll be able to finish high school, just like Brandon is doing, online, right?”
“I would definitely expect her to. And then she can go on to college if she wants to. I don’t see why she can’t go ahead and make the move if that’s what she wants.”
Cadence nodded. College was something she still wanted to finish someday, too, if she ever found the time. “Wow—that was a lot easier than I expected,” she muttered.
“I don’t know what made you think I ever opposed her coming to headquarters,” Aaron replied, his forehead creased
. “You are the one who wanted her to finish high school here.”
“I know,” Cadence admitted, “I just thought… I don’t know. She’s a lot of responsibility. I mean, she’d probably be looking to me for other things, too. She’s only sixteen. So I’d still have to make sure she did her homework, followed curfew—and I would not let her have boys in her bedroom.”
Aaron laughed. “Good luck stopping that. Are you proposing she live with us?”
“Well, where else would she live? She can’t live by herself. She’s just a kid. I’m not sure she knows how to make toast.”
“I’m not sure you know how to make toast.”
Cadence ignored his comment and rolled her eyes. “Listen, wouldn’t it be kind of weird having my kid sister in our apartment when we… you know… do stuff?” He flashed her an irresistible grin, and Cadence fought the urge to pull him close and give him an example.
“Yeah,” he admitted, a bit of color shading his face, “but we have good insulation.”
“Not that good,” Cadence muttered under her breath, and Aaron laughed, knowing exactly what she was referring to. “Anywho….” she said, remembering she was sitting on her parents’ porch. She straightened her collar, and then asked, “Can you think of any alternatives?”
It took him a second to regain his composure, too, which was delightful to her. “Uh, yeah, sure. I think so,” he said, pulling his hand from around her and crossing his arms across his chest. “I mean, maybe Hannah or someone wouldn’t mind a roommate for a while.”
“That’s a lot of responsibility to dump on another team member.”
“True, but I honestly don’t think it will be a problem for long, Cadence.”