by ID Johnson
“Also, Christian is going to come and install some software on your laptop that will allow you to access some sites you wouldn’t normally be able to. He’ll explain to you how to use them to look for the type of information that will be useful to our cause. If you can help him out with surveillance footage and other routine website scanning, that will be very helpful. You still up for that?”
“Of course,” I said, even though the thought of Christian sitting at the desk in my bedroom with my laptop creeped me out. I hoped he didn’t install any spyware or anything like that. I remembered what Elliott said about his bizarre recording habits.
“Great. I’ll have him come with Jamie, and he can work on the installation while you’re in Des Moines.”
“Will it take that long?” I asked, a little surprised.
“Probably not, but there are other things he can do from there if it doesn’t. There are actually a lot of Hunters and Guardians stationed around Shenandoah. Your grandparents started it as a community for families like yours to be well protected from Vampires before they Transformed or if they decided not to.”
“Oh, that explains a lot.”
“Yeah, so I’m sure Christian can find enough to keep himself busy.”
“Awesome.” I felt like I needed to say something else, but my mind went blank. He paused for a long moment, like he thought I should say something else, too. This is why texting is so much better than talking on the phone. Awkwardness can be deleted.
“Well, it looks like we might be headed to Montana soon enough, so your sister might be out of touch for a little while. We’ve got a lead on Finn, so we’re going to see if we can track him down. I’m sure Cadence will fill you in when we get back.”
I remembered that Finn was one of Sam’s minions. That was good news, but it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “Nothing on Sam yet?” I asked.
“Not yet. We’re working on it, though.”
It went without saying that he wanted Sam as badly as I did, more even, if that was possible. “Okay,” I said.
“I’ve gotta go, but if you need anything, you can text me at this number anytime, okay? I rarely sleep, and it might take me a few minutes to get back to you if I’m tied up, but I’m usually pretty good about responding quickly.”
I didn’t know what to say at all. It seemed like he was treating me like an adult, sort of the way that Elliott always had, but it was slightly different since he was the boss. “Okay,” I said again and then had the forethought to say, “thanks.”
“Thank you for volunteering to help out,” he replied, as if my contribution was so significant. I had the idea that they probably had a lot of people who could be doing whatever it was Christian was going to show me how to do, but Aaron was making me feel like I was important, and I wondered if that was one of the reasons whoever picked him as the leader had chosen him. I was beginning to think perhaps I had been wrong about him, although I still remembered what he’d done to my sister. Letting things go is something I need to work on.
He said goodbye, and I hung up my phone contemplating what to do next. Other than a couple of texts, I hadn’t really spoken to Cadence recently. I assumed she’d been busy. I wondered if she even knew Aaron had called me and got the idea she would probably be oblivious to the fact that her friends were coming to see me later in the week. I was okay with it because I could imagine that what she was doing required quite an adjustment, but I also wanted to reach out to her, to share my excitement at being involved with someone who should understand.
It wasn’t her I called though. It was Lucy, who was at Wes’s party, no doubt, and I didn’t think she’d answer. She did though, and when she said, “Just a minute,” it was probably because of the loud music in the background. It seemed like she was headed outside and a minute later she asked, “Change your mind?”
“Uh, no,” I said, thinking the last place I wanted to be was at a loud party. “I just wanted to tell you that I just talked to Aaron, and he’s sending Jamie to take me to visit with my grandma about all of this on Thursday. Christian’s going to show me how to use whatever program they have to gather intel.” I tried to make it sound super important, but it wasn’t necessary. She was squealing before I got the second sentence out. I believe the exact word I said right before she lost it was “Aaron.”
“OMG, Cass! He is literally the hottest guy I have ever seen with my own eyes.”
I laughed but couldn’t verbally agree with her. Wouldn’t that be a little disgusting, considering he was going to be my brother-in-law one day? I tried really hard to think of another candidate but came up short handed. “It was kinda weird talking to him on the phone, though.”
“Why? He’s going to be your boss one day.”
She had a point, but then, if his prediction was correct, Cadence would actually be my boss, not him. That idea was sobering. “Anywho, just wanted to let you know.”
“That’s so awesome! It does seem weird that a stranger has to take you to your own grandma’s house, though. Why can’t she just come and explain everything to you?”
“Because Aaron wants someone there who can answer my questions. Since Jamie knows all about the IAC and stuff my grandma doesn’t know about, he thinks it’ll be better to have someone more up to date there with me.” I wanted to tell her that I already had nefarious plans to turn Jamie into my new ally, but I didn’t say that aloud on the phone for fear someone was monitoring my calls. I know it sounded silly, and maybe it was, but it wouldn’t be the first time someone had spied on me.
“What about Christian?” she asked, and I could literally hear that her nose was wrinkled.
“I’m glad he’s not coming by himself,” I replied. “Maybe Aaron was able to figure out that I wouldn’t be comfortable with him alone.”
“Have you figured out what Aaron’s super power is?” she asked, a topic we had discussed before. “He’s gotta have one.”
“No, and I’m not sure how I would even ask him that.” I sometimes thought it was mind reading. I wondered if that was possible. At this point in my life, it seemed like anything was possible.
“Well, I wanna get back inside, but thanks for calling me.”
“Sure. I hope you’re having a good time, but not too good.”
She laughed. “It’s been fun, but Jason is acting stupid. Hanging out with Wes and Milo is definitely harming his maturity level.”
“Boys,” I laughed, not sure what else I could say. All the guys in our high school seemed like toddlers compared to the guys I’d been hanging out with this weekend. I suddenly remembered who the closest guy to being “the hottest guy I’d ever seen with my own eyes” other than Aaron would be as an image of Dr. Cale flashed through my mind. Jason would look like a puny man-child next to him. Remembering that Lucy was waiting for more of a response, I brought my mind back to our conversation. “Be safe,” I said, something I’d taken to telling everyone I know now whenever I won’t be seeing or talking to them for a while.
“You, too. Call me tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I agreed, though I had no idea what I would have to tell her tomorrow, and then I hung up. With a sigh, I decided to try to watch my movie again, but I knew my mind would be endlessly going over what I should expect on Thursday. I had been right about nausea, that was certain. Thank goodness Jamie was a doctor….
Chapter 6
Thursday morning, I was dressed in shorts and a T-shirt my grandma had given me for my birthday last year that had a picture of a unicorn on it reading a book that said, “The Last Human,” which I thought was hilarious. My grandma really was pretty cool. I couldn’t sit still, though. I was pacing the living room while my mom went about her normal routine of cleaning everything. I must’ve been driving her nuts because she finally looked over at me from the shelf she’d been dusting across the room and shouted, “Cassidy Elizabeth! Sit down!”
“Sorry,” I said. She laughed, though, so I guess she wasn’t really mad. Just teasing.
&nbs
p; “Did you drink coffee again?” she asked, moving on to the hutch.
I remembered trying it once before, when Elliott was here, actually, and I was trying to be a mature young adult instead of an awkward adolescent. “No,” I muttered, my mood going from anxious to somber almost instantly. “I’m just nervous.”
“Why?” she asked, running the green feather duster over the top of the antique hutch. “You’ll be perfectly safe with Jamie.”
“It’s not that,” I said, wondering why she thought that was my concern. “I just don’t know him very well.”
“He’s a nice young man,” my mom assured me.
“Mom, we both know he’s, like, a hundred and fifty.”
She paused and turned to face me now. “I can’t do that, Cassidy,” she said with a shrug.
I was sitting in my dad’s chair across the room from her, so it was sort of hard to make eye contact, but I did my best. “What do you mean?”
Mom let out a loud sigh and crossed the room to sit in the seat across from me, feather duster still in hand. “I can’t look at these people and see that they appear to be only a year or two older than you but know they were around during the Industrial Revolution. Or in Christian’s case, the Revolutionary War. I just can’t do it. I know it drives you and your sister crazy to hear me call them ‘young man’ or ‘young lady’ but that’s the only way I can process it. Maybe it would be different if I was in your shoes….”
“No, Mom, I get it,” I nodded. “I guess I never thought about it that way. I mean, I don’t have to process the fact that Jamie is so much older than me because he seems to be older than me anyway. I don’t look at him and think, ‘That dude could be my great-great-great-grandpa.’ I guess it’s different when you seem to be older than the person, even if they were born way before you.” I hadn’t really thought about it from that perspective before. “Do you wish….” I stopped myself. I didn’t want to hurt my mom’s feelings.
“Do I wish I wouldn’t have gotten so old?” she asked, laughing. My mom is almost fifty, my dad a little older than that, but neither of them look particularly old, although Mom has little laugh lines around her eyes and I know she colors her hair to keep the gray at bay. “Sometimes I do,” she admitted. “When I realized Aaron looks the same today as he did when I met him, when Cadence was a baby, when I see Hannah,” she shook her head at that, “and think, ‘Hey, that could be me,’ but for the most part, I’m happy with the choice I made. I know I wouldn’t be able to do what they do, what your sister does. What you will do.”
I was glad she had included me. It made me think she was confident in my ability. “What made you so sure?” I asked.
“I don’t know. Just a feeling. I’ve never liked violence of any kind. I have trouble squishing spiders. I can’t imagine tearing the head off of a Vampire.”
“Cadence almost threw up that time she saw a mouse in the trap in the garage,” I reminded her. “But she ripped that Vampire’s head off who had Drew without even thinking about it twice. Maybe you were just never in the right situation.”
“Maybe,” Mom shrugged. “Guess we will never know. It doesn’t matter. I’m happy with my decision. So is your father. He got enough of LIGHTS growing up there.”
“Do you think he’s sad that Cadence has already joined, and I am going to?” I asked.
“No, I know he’s proud of both of you, proud of his family’s legacy. But your dad’s a much better engineer than he ever would’ve been an assassin.”
Her choice of words had me laughing. I could see my dad in ninja garb with nunchucks. My giggling stopped abruptly when I heard a knock on the door, and my stomach climbed into my esophagus. I leaned over and peeked out the blinds and was startled to see an SUV in front of our house. I hadn’t even heard the engine. “They’re sneaky,” I muttered.
“It’ll be fine,” my mom assured me, resting her hand on my knee before she headed to the door.
I took a deep breath and tried to remind myself I was just going to my grandma’s house. With a friend of my sister’s. Who was a one-hundred-and-fifty-year-old doctor. With magical Healing powers….
“Hello!” my mom exclaimed, opening the door. “How are you?” I thought she was being overly welcoming because she knew I was freaking out. I walked over behind her, trying to remind myself to be cool so they didn’t think I was a goofy little kid, but it was harder than expected.
Jamie stepped in and hugged my mom, kissing her on the cheek, and Christian followed, shaking her hand. They were both wearing khaki shorts and T-shirts, which seemed so odd to me. It was hot outside, so I could imagine they would be dressed like regular people, but I was so used to seeing everyone in either black jackets or suits, it just seemed off.
“Hey, Cass,” Jamie said, smiling at me. “How are you?”
“Great,” I replied, trying to sound excited. “How are you?”
“Not too bad, thanks. Ready to get you up to Des Moines so you’re up to speed with everyone.” He sounded like he was repeating something Aaron would say, not like himself exactly, but I just nodded.
I looked at Christian for a second and managed an awkward smile with a mumbled, “Hi,” and he awkwardly smiled back at me. Jamie turned and looked at him but then made an expression like he was used to this sort of strange behavior.
“Cassidy has her laptop set up in the dining room,” my mom said, ushering them that direction as she closed the door. I took a few steps backward and they followed. I wasn’t sure if my mom was done with her thought, so I said nothing, and by the time I figured out she was, we were almost in the other room, and I felt like a weirdo again.
My laptop was on the dining room table. I had decided Christian didn’t belong in my bedroom. I opened it and said, “Do you need my password, in case it restarts or something?”
“Uh, probably not,” Christian replied, “but if I do, I’ll get it from Jamie.”
“Okay.” I wondered why he didn’t just want me to write it down but thought it was probably a good thing that he wasn’t insistent that I just hand it over to him. “Is there anything else you need?”
“Do you have any bottled water?” Christian asked, his hands on his hips.
I had meant computer related, so his question threw me off a bit. “Uh….”
“I’ll get it,” my mom said, squeezing my shoulder as she walked by. “Would you like a glass of ice?”
“No, thank you,” Christian replied, as if ice was repulsive. I usually tried to avoid looking at him because there was something about him that gave me the heebie-jeebies, but I couldn’t help but stare in awe right now. He was so weird….
“Here you go,” Mom said, handing it to him, and he plucked it out of her hand with a quick thanks and pulled the chair out in front of my laptop, causing me to jump backward to keep from getting hit by it.
“Shall we go?” Jamie asked as Christian began the sort of frantic typing one might see at the airport. I could tell Jamie was slightly amused at his friend’s behavior but that he was also used to it, and I wondered if it was anything at all like my appreciation of all things Emma, though I hated to compare her to Christian.
“Yes,” I nodded, turning to look at my mom.
She put her arm around my shoulder and walked with us to the door. I grabbed my phone and cross body bag off the table next to the door and my sunglasses from the little bowl I kept them in. “Now, drive carefully, Dr. Joplin,” my mother said, her arm still draped around me. “I know you can put her back together, but I’d just as soon keep her in one piece. She’s more fragile than the other young ladies you’re used to working with.”
“Yes, Mrs. Findley,” Jamie replied, smiling at my mother hen. I could feel my face turning red. Why did my mother have to be so embarrassing?
“Be carefully, honey,” she said, kissing me on the head.
“I will.” I hugged her back but didn’t kiss her on the cheek like I usually did. She looked a little hurt, so I rolled my eyes and gave her a qu
ick peck.
“Have a good time.”
“I’ll have her back in a few hours,” Jamie assured her as he opened the door and I followed him outside. Why did I feel like I was going on a date? My mom had a way of taking awkward situations and making them impossible.
My sentiment didn’t change when Jamie opened the door for me. If he pulled out a corsage, I was bailing. Of course, he didn’t, but he did close the door for me before running—in slow motion, for him—around to the driver’s side and climbing in beside me.
“Well, that was… weird,” he said, starting the engine. He pulled out some dark sunglasses and put them on, and I tried not to think of him as the same special agent type individual who had whisked my sister away from her first Vampire encounter.
“You think?” I said, rolling my eyes. “My mom, God love her, sure knows how to embarrass a person.”
“Oh, you’re mom’s fine,” he argued, turning the corner at the end of the street. He was driving just as recklessly as he had the last time I was in a vehicle with him at the helm. “I was actually referring to Christian.”
“I can totally see that, too,” I agreed. “But my mom talked to you like....” I stopped myself. I definitely couldn’t say what I was thinking.
“Like I was taking you to the prom?” he asked, merging onto the highway going the speed my dad goes when he’s out on the open road.
“Uh, yeah.” I wanted to grab the bar above the door but didn’t do it. Jamie just snickered. “Explain to me why you guys drive so fast?” It probably shouldn’t have been a question, but it came out that way. Elliott had done the same thing in the Lamborghini once, though I got the impression he was either trying to scare me, or he thought I’d have fun flying down the highway. I had no idea what Jamie’s objective was.
“Am I scaring you?” he asked, weaving out from behind a semi-truck and evading a minivan that happened to be changing lanes. The other drivers just kept on going like it was no big deal, like they didn’t even notice, and I realized we were going so fast, we might’ve seemed like a blur to them.