by ID Johnson
"Great!" he replied. A few moments later, still steaming, he added, "By the way, if you'd been in any real danger, I would've given an order to cover you or done it myself. I believe I'm the one who took the bullet for you, not Christian."
"I didn't ask you to!" she replied, walking into Mike and Patricia's yard.
"I'll keep that in mind next time someone is shooting at you," he assured her.
"Fine," she replied. Other people were arriving. It was just past 5:30, and she plastered a friendly smile on her face, wondering how in the world she was going to make it through this reception without having an emotional breakdown. Before Aaron could say anything else, she flipped her IAC to Full Off. Due to a glitch in either her IAC or her brain, he wouldn't be able to turn it back on the way he could everyone else's.
As she approached the front steps, several people greeting her and nodding hello, she heard heavy footsteps behind her. "Hey," Elliott said, not quite out of breath, as if he had run a short distance.
"Hey," she said, a puzzled looking on her face. "What are you doing here?"
"I didn't want you to be alone," he replied, smiling shyly at her.
"Thanks," she said, stepping out from in front of the doorway where several people were entering the mid-size ranch style house. "Does Aaron know you're here? He might be pissy."
"He knows," Elliott assured her. He reached into his pocket and produced the keys to the Lamborghini. "I had to swap him keys."
She nodded, wondering why on earth he would let his best friend accompany her to the reception after the conversation they had just had. "Well, I don't know how long I'll be able to stay. I feel like punching someone in the nose."
"In that case," Elliott replied, stepping backwards and throwing his hands over his face, "I'll just assume this position."
Despite her foul mood, she couldn't help but laugh. "Why is he such a jerk?" she asked, slamming her head into Elliott's shoulder.
He wrapped his arms around her, nodding politely to a few people who were walking past, likely assuming Cadence was crying over Jack. "All I can say is, it's a very difficult job, one intended for two people, and none of us can fully understand exactly how much pressure he's under. Every minute of every day."
Cadence understood what he was saying, and she agreed. She couldn't relate to how difficult Aaron's job was. Nevertheless, in her opinion, it didn't excuse what he had done. "He shot Jack! For no reason!" she whispered sharply, making sure none of the people attending Jack's funeral reception could hear.
Elliott didn't think there was much he could say to convince her that there was a good reason to shoot Jack, and he hadn't come to the reception to defend Aaron. "I'm sorry, kid," he said, peering down at her. "I'm sure you will talk about it and get it sorted out."
Cadence wasn't so sure, but she couldn't delay entering the home any longer. "I guess we should go in and get this over with," she said letting go of him and giving him a sharp pat on the shoulder.
"Let's roll," he agreed, taking her arm and following her into the house.
There were already quite a few people there. Most of them were familiar to Cadence, and all of them seemed to know her, particularly since she had spoken at the funeral. She saw her own parents across the room and waved. Her mother looked confused, expecting to see her with Aaron and not Elliott, no doubt, since she had sent a text letting them know she'd gotten a ride to the reception with Aaron.
"Cadence!" Sydney said, coming up from behind her. "Hey, glad you're here. Where's Aaron?" she asked, glancing up at Elliott, whom she thought she had known for years, and looking rather disappointed.
"Hey," Cadence replied, hugging her friend. "He couldn't make it after all. His ex-girlfriend just happened to be in town, and he thought it would be a good time to get caught up with her."
"Oh," Sydney grimaced. "I'm sorry to hear that."
"Well, you know," Cadence said as nonchalantly as she could muster. "There's been some speculation that, perhaps, I'm too uhm, girly for him anyhow. If you know what I mean, so it probably wouldn't have worked out anyway." She felt a sharp nudge in her back, as Elliott implied she should stop before she said something she might regret.
"Really?" Sydney asked, pondering the comment. "He seemed all man to me," she replied. "Dr. Sanderson, Elliott, it's nice to see you again," she said, offering Elliott her hand.
"It's nice to see you as well," he replied taking her tiny hand in his giant one.
Taylor and Jon approached them now, Kash behind them talking to one of the coaches from the high school. "Where's Aaron?" Taylor asked, embracing Cadence.
"Gay and with his ex-girlfriend," Sydney summed up succinctly.
"What?" Jon asked, his forehead wrinkling in confusion.
"He couldn't make it," Cadence explained. "You remember Elliott?"
"Yes, of course, hello," Taylor said shaking his hand. Jon did the same. "So I guess Aaron won't be joining us for movie night tonight either?"
"Probably not," Cadence confirmed.
"Well, you better still be coming," Sydney warned. "We can't have movie night without you."
"I am planning on coming," Cadence assured her. "But I don't think I'm going to be staying here very long. This has been a very tough day."
The rest of her friends agreed, and Cadence made the rounds, shaking hands and hugging the other visitors. She went to say hello to Jack's family and saw that his mother was still an emotional wreck. If only she knew the truth. . . .
After about twenty minutes, she went to talk to her parents, Elliott staying behind to talk to Jon and Kash. "Well, where is he?" her mother asked in a sharp whisper.
Cadence pondered her previous answers for a moment. If she ever wanted her parents to like Aaron, she couldn't use the same explanation. "We ran into some trouble in the park across the street. One of the Hunters got hurt, and he's checking on her."
"See, Eli, I told you I heard gunfire," Liz said, swatting at her husband. "Everything okay? Why are their Vampires in Shenandoah again?"
Now was probably not the time to go into all of the details so she said, "I think everyone will be okay. It's . . . complicated. I'll tell you about it later, okay? I'm going to ask Elliott to take me home now."
"We'll be home soon," her father assured her. He glanced around the room, looking for Cassidy, who was standing off to the side with a group of her friends.
"Okay," Cadence nodded, hugging her mom and then her dad. "I'm going to go say bye to Cass and get Elliott."
"Be careful, dear," her mother warned, smoothing her hair.
Cadence walked the short distance across the room to her sister. She was talking to her friends, Milo and Wes, but she looked both bored and nervous. "Hey, sis," she said, putting her hand on her shoulder. "I'm going to head back to the homestead. How you doing?"
"Not so good," Cassidy admitted. "I hate funerals."
"Me, too," Cadence agreed. "Hopefully, we won't have any more for a while." She glanced across the room to see Elliott still talking to her friends. And then turned back to her sister. "Mom said you guys were leaving pretty soon, too," she confirmed.
"That's good," Cassidy admitted. "I wish I could just ride back with you."
Cadence frowned. "I'm sorry, Cass. But Elliott drove Aaron's Lamborghini, and it's just a two-seater."
"Lamborghini?" Milo chimed in. "That's so cool."
Cassidy looked disappointed. "Okay," she said, her eyes dropping to the floor.
"Wait a second," Cadence suggested, bounding off toward Elliott. She talked to him quickly and then to her dad before coming back to Cassidy. "Okay," she said, "Elliott's going to drive Mom's car and Dad's gonna drive the Lamborghini. So, you can ride with us."
"Seriously?" Cassidy grinned, imagining her dad driving the ultra expensive sports car. "That's hilarious."
"I know, right?" Cadence agreed. "I didn't tell Elliott he'd be driving a Honda Odyssey, but I'm sure he will look cool driving anything."
Cassidy hugged her s
ister. "I miss you, Cade," she said sweetly.
"I miss you, too, Sis," she replied. Someday, hopefully before too much longer, Cassidy could join them at LIGHTS, and then the sisters could be together all the time, just as they used to be before Cadence became a Vampire Hunter.
Chapter 8
Giovani hadn't waited to see if they were being trailed. Once he had Jack and was told to get out, he did so. He had been shot a few times before and knew how painful it could be. He didn't stop to examine his brother's injury, rather threw the car into reverse and started on the journey back to Omaha without even returning to the hotel to gather the items they had left behind.
"How are you doing?" Giovani asked, pulling the car onto the highway.
Jack grimaced. He had pulled the leg of his jeans up to survey the damage. The wound looked so very odd to him. The bullet had been a silver one, but because of the location of the wound and the velocity, the bullet had not lodged in his leg, which prevented him from dying from silver poisoning. Rather, the bullet simply tore a mangled hole at the entry point, the flesh now hanging in jagged flaps, singed from the burning metal. The wound itself was black and charred. The exit wound was similar but, rather than hanging in flaps, the blackened skin was pushed up, like a mountain. The strangest part for Jack was the complete and utter absence of blood. "It hurts like a son of a bitch," Jack admitted.
"It'll be all right, I promise. We'll get you to Zabrina and she'll patch it up. She's great at nursing. You'll see," Giovani assured him, going as quickly as he dared, which was well above the speed limit.
Jack was in a lot of pain, but he was still upset that Cadence was not with them. "Who the hell were all of those people?" he asked. "Did you know they were all going to be there?"
Giovani considered the question. "Not exactly," he admitted. "I knew she wouldn't be alone, and I knew the Bobbsey Twins were on our tail. But I didn't think there'd be that many Guardians."
"Is that guy really her boyfriend, or were you just being pissy?" he asked, pulling his pant leg back down, no longer caring to see or smell the wound.
"I don't know," Giovani admitted. "I was trying to make them all mad, you know, make them come out shooting, so we could pick a few of them off."
"That would have been easier if I had a gun!" Jack exclaimed.
"Yeah, true," Giovani conceded. "I didn't know if you had ever used one."
"I would have figured it out. Standing there completely defenseless sucked, man," Jack explained. "By the way, why did you say you wanted to shoot Cadence?"
"Brother, I was just trying to make him mad. And it worked," Giovani stated emphatically.
"Sure did," Jack agreed. "Pissed him off well enough to get me shot."
"Look, we'll go get you healed up. Then, you can call her and arrange to meet in private. The two of you can talk, and you can convince her to run away with you. That'll be that. You saw how upset she was when that ass shot you, right? She obviously still loves you," Giovani said as convincingly as he could. If he were ever to get another shot at taking out Cadence Findley, he would definitely need his brother's help.
Jack considered all that his brother had to say. "I don't know," he said quietly. "She's a Hunter now, something you also should have told me. I'm not sure we can make that work, Giovani."
"What?" the older brother proclaimed, trying to sound as shocked as he possibly could. "True love is true love, man, you know?"
Jack nodded his head. Giovani had a point. He definitely still loved Cadence. And she had told him that she loved him, as well. Perhaps he should try again. This time, maybe she would leave the prick who shot him at home. Then, she would remember just how much she wanted to be with Jack. It was too bad he couldn't kill that asshole, Aaron. Maybe there was another way to get him killed. He would have to do some more research on that topic, just as soon as Zabrina fixed this hole in his leg.
***
"How is she doing?" Aaron asked Eliza, standing across the room from where Jamie was doing his best to heal Laura.
Eliza was closer, standing at the foot of the hotel bed. Jamie was lying next to the wounded Hunter, his arms wrapped around her at the points of impact. He was clearly draining quickly, and it seemed he might need more than one opportunity to completely fix whatever damage had been done. Laney was sitting on the edge of the bed, her hand on her sister's leg. Hannah was also nearby, doing her best to keep Laney calm. Christian was in the room as well, seated and out of the way.
"She's doing better, I think," Eliza said aloud, crossing over to where Aaron was standing. "It'll probably completely drain him and then some," she admitted, referring to Jamie. "But he'll fix her. He always does."
"How are you?" he asked, wondering how Eliza was feeling since she had also taken a few bullets.
"I'm fine," she replied, feeling her stomach where Giovani had shot her. The other wound was in her shoulder. "You know, it takes a while to get over the pain, but no damage was done." When a Vampire shot a Guardian, the bullet essentially just bounced off, but the pain from the impact was still very real. If it had been a Hunter firing, Eliza would likely be dead.
"Good," he nodded, turning away from her a bit, his hands on his hips. "You should have told me they were there," he said as calmly as he could. He didn't want to alarm the rest of the team as they were working on Laura, but he knew the problem with Eliza needed to be addressed.
"You're right," she agreed. "I'm sorry. I was trying to get into position myself, so I just told them to check in. You were talking to Cadence; I didn't want to interrupt. Still, I should have told you."
"If I had known they were trailing him, I could've prevented this," he said, gesturing toward Laura.
Eliza began to grow a bit defensive. "Maybe," she said, trying to stay calm. "But it's not my fault you didn't know they were there."
Aaron decided to switch to IAC before they started yelling at each other, something they were notorious for. "How do you figure it's not your fault I didn't know we had two additional Hunters on the field when you knew about it well before I saw either one of them?"
Eliza crossed her arms and glared at him. "Who scouted the location? Who placed all of us? Who was working observation? Not me!"
"So you think this is Elliott's fault?" Aaron speculated.
"He should have seen them. It's not like they didn't drive up and park."
Aaron was quiet for a moment. "Okay, fine, I'll give you that. Maybe he should have seen the car. But they told you they were there, and you said nothing."
"Fine," Eliza shot back. "It's all my fault. It's always my fault."
"I didn't say that," Aaron said, realizing a bit too late that he had activated Eliza's famous tantrum side.
"Sure you did," she shot back, glaring at him. "You know, this is just as much Cadence's fault as anyone else's," she declared.
"What? How is this Cadence's fault?" he asked, his facial expression showing his confusion.
"If she had followed your orders and stopped trying to get Jack to come with her, then Giovani wouldn't have had a chance to shoot Laura. Or if she had taken the gun when you tried to give it to her, she could have shot Giovani first."
Aaron scoffed, shaking his head. "That's absurd. She followed orders; she's not required to carry a weapon. Who knows what Giovani would have done if she had a gun? You're completely speculating, Eliza."
"Okay, sure, defend her, like you always do," she said, turning her back to him. "She's not as perfect as you think she is, you know. She just chose Jack over you."
"This is ridiculous," Aaron said, tossing his hands up in the air, despite the fact that no one else could even hear their conversation. "I don't have time for this, Eliza. This is not a contest, okay? I'm just asking that, in the future, if you become aware of anyone else--Vampire, Hunter, Guardian, human--within the perimeter, please let me know. All right?"
"Fine," Eliza said, walking back over to the bedside.
Aaron caught a few wondering glances from the othe
rs, particularly Hannah and Laney, but did not address their concerns. He walked across the room and sat down in a chair adjacent to Christian and rubbed his face in exhaustion.
"Girl problems?" Christian asked quietly, leaning forward in his chair.
"Oh, my God!" Aaron whispered back, looking at Eliza who was sitting on the corner of Laura's bed, arms folded, glaring at him. "Why does everything have to be so complicated? Why can't they just take constructive feedback?"
"I don't know, man. Or let you know what they really think before they lose it and end up screaming it at you," Christian offered.
"Absolutely," Aaron agreed, thinking of his discussion with Cadence in the park. "By the way, covering Cadence was a good idea today but next time, run it by me first, okay, man?"
"Sure," Christian confirmed, nodding his head. "I wasn't sure if there was time. Sorry."
"No, it's fine. It was a good thing you were there; I just didn't know where you were headed," Aaron explained.
"Right," Christian stated, showing he understood."You think he didn't shoot Cadence because of Jack?"
"Yeah," Aaron nodded. "I don't think they were intending to hurt her. I think Jack was hoping to take her."
"Do you think she would have gone if we hadn't stepped in?" Christian asked.
"No," Aaron said emphatically. "Why would you ask that?"
Christian seemed to hesitate before answering. "I don't know," he admitted. "I just know how much she cares about him. I was afraid she might think, if she went with him, maybe she could talk him in to going back with her."
"I don't think Cadence would do something that risky," Aaron said, leaning back in his chair, still pondering the idea.
"Good," Christian replied, breathing a small sigh of relief. "But I wouldn't put it past Giovani to shoot her if he has the chance again. She killed his mother, after all."
"I agree with you there," Aaron confirmed. "The next time we face them, we've got to be a hell of a lot better prepared, and there can't be any freaking surprises like there were today."
"Giovani is notorious for that shit, though," Christian reminded him. He sat back in his chair then, clearly pondering the possibilities. He added, "God, if anything ever happened to her. . . I don't know what I'd do."