by ID Johnson
My grandma flipped through a few more pages of the book, showing me a few old photographs of her and my grandpa. She said she couldn’t show me the whole thing because it would be too overwhelming for her to go through all of the relatives right now, but I did see one picture that left my mouth hanging open. It was the grainy kind of photo that let you know it was taken in the mid-20th century. My grandma, grandpa, Jamie, Hannah, Christian, a couple of people I didn’t recognize, and my soon-to-be brother-in-law standing in front of the apartment building my sister now lived in. I leaned in really closely to look at it. “That’s… insane,” I said, staring at it. My grandma laughed.
“For the love of everything holy, Janette, please don’t show her anything from the disco era,” Jamie said, his tone telling me he wasn’t joking.
Grandma laughed. “Okay, not today.” She winked at me. “Maybe another time. Jamie had a super rad haircut back then.”
His face was turning red, and I desperately wanted to know what she was talking about, but I figured like most other things, I would bide my time. I imagined if anyone had one of those big afro-like haircuts, it would be Elliott not Jamie, so I could only speculate on what would be so funny, but I was hoping someone would let me see soon enough.
“Why don’t we go have some lunch?” Grandma asked, setting the photo album aside and patting my knee.
“Sounds good to me!” I concurred, standing and helping her up off the couch. I’d been too nervous earlier to eat, and if there’s one thing my grandma can do, it’s cook, though she never actually eats much. I’d need to ask about that, too.
My grandma made us a delicious lunch of her special chicken salad on croissants with the cookies she’d promised, although I felt like I was the only one actually eating. I am usually not too shy about shoveling food in my mouth no matter who I’m with, but these other two were really making me feel like a glutton. That didn’t stop me from shoving a few more cookies into my mouth. I may have also taken a few home for later.
I hugged and kissed my grandma goodbye and climbed into the SUV, preparing myself for the speedy ride home, but to my astonishment, I noticed that Jamie wasn’t driving nearly as fast as he had on the way there. About fifteen minutes into the drive, I asked, “Why so slow?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Do you feel the need, the need for… going faster?”
I laughed so loudly I almost snorted and had to put both of my hands over my nose since even a baby like me recognizes the famous movie quote he almost said. “You’re a funny guy in an unassuming way.”
He turned a slight shade of pink. “Yeah, well, in our line of work you have to find some way to be a little bit of a comedian, or you’ll end up in the loony bin.”
I knew he was exaggerating but also caught his drift. “I don’t want to go any faster, thank you, but I thought it was odd.”
“I’m really not in any hurry to get back to Shenandoah,” he replied, and I figured it had more to do with not wanting to pick up Christian than it did with dropping me off.
“How’s it going with my computer?” I asked. “Did Christian get everything installed?”
“Yeah, he’s done. He’s out checking with some of the locals right now, but I’ll let him know when we get closer to town.”
“It’s so cool that you can just call someone with your eye. What’s that like?”
“Well, it’s a lot better than the way it used to be. Back when I started doing this, if you wanted to talk to someone, you had to open your mouth. And if they were really far away, you had to,” he cleared his throat, “PROJECT YOUR VOICE AND HOPE THEY HEARD YOU!” he shouted, and once again I was laughing. “Most of the time, that didn’t work.”
“You mean, sort of like everyone else in the world?” I finally managed to ask.
“Yeah, but at least you have a cell phone now. When I was born, there was no such thing as a phone. Sending a text required an inkwell and a quill.”
“That’s just so hard to believe.” I was shaking my head in disbelief but still laughing. I decided to add, “You are so incredibly old.”
He took his eyes off the road long enough to pull his sunglasses down and glare at me, and I laughed for the third time. My side was beginning to hurt. “Guess I won’t be answering any more questions for you.” He made a smacking sound with his mouth, kind of like my mom does when she can’t believe something we’ve done.
“Oh, come on, Dr. Joplin. You know I was just teasing. You’re not as old as Christian.”
“Or your future brother-in-law, you know? Aaron is older than me.”
“Seriously?” I said, and before he could glare at me again, I clarified. “I mean, he doesn’t necessarily look younger than you, I just was hoping he was only like, you know fifty or something.”
Now it was his turn to get a chuckle. “Not hardly.”
“How old is he?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer.
“Let’s just say he witnessed the Irish Potato Famine.”
“Shut up!” I declared. “Are you serious?”
“As a level three Vampire alert.”
Confused, I asked, “What’s a level three Vampire alert?”
“I don’t know but it sounds pretty serious, doesn’t it?”
I was having trouble getting enough oxygen into my lungs. It took me several minutes to regain control of myself. “I never would’ve thought you were such a jokester.”
He seemed embarrassed again, so I stopped prodding him on. “The IAC takes a little getting used to, but it’s not too hard to learn. Once you Transform, Christian will put it in—he’s the only one who can—and then you’ll be assigned a mentor to teach you how to use it.”
“I guess it really is true, then, that I can’t Transform until I’m seventeen?”
“In very rare instances people younger have done it on their own, but no, most of the time, the DNA in your blood hasn’t matured enough to complete the process if you start sooner than that.”
I thought about all of that quietly for a few moments before I sighed and said, “Well, I hope that whatever Christian is setting up for me lets me help the team out some. I really hate that there’s nothing I can do.”
“I can understand why you would feel that way, Cassidy, but believe me, there will be plenty you can do to help once you’re old enough.”
The landscape flashing by the window was just slightly blurry now that he had slowed down. I pondered it for a few moments. I decided to let it go for now. Jamie was quiet, and I imagined he was talking to people on the IAC or maybe just lost in his own thoughts. This was a good opportunity to get to know him better, and I felt like he was a pretty interesting guy. “Can I ask you something?” I said quietly, hoping he didn’t object.
“You can ask,” he said stretching his back like I’d woken him up out of a daze. “I reserve the right to plead the fifth.”
Naturally, I snickered at that, but considering the sensitivity of what I was about to ask, I changed my tone to a calmer, gentler one before saying, “I heard you got shot at Sierraville, too. Seems like everyone’s been shot at least once. Even my sister. How many times have you gotten shot?”
He glanced at me and then back at the road, and I hoped I hadn’t hit a nerve, though I can imagine it wouldn’t be easy for him to think about whatever had happened to him that night. “Uh, one other time,” he said, “and that was a really long time ago, an accident.”
“Really?” I asked. I was sort of surprised to hear that it had only happened once.
“Yeah, we are usually very careful to look out for crossfire, that sort of thing. Most Hunters know never to take a shot if there’s a possibility a Guardian will be in the way. When your sister got hit, that was either Laura not caring if she hurt Cadence or her really not knowing that she could do any damage. Hunters definitely get injured a lot more frequently than Guardians.”
“And when Aaron got shot, that was a turncoat Vampire who was trying to get vengeance for Holland or something?”
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“Who knows? Eliza took Sebastian out before we had a chance to figure out what had happened, not that I blame her.” A moment later, as an afterthought, he added, “I didn’t realize you knew about that.”
“I know a lot, but not enough,” I admitted. “So what happened the first time you got shot?”
Jamie chuckled. “That was a disaster.” I could tell he was thinking about something that happened many years ago. “It was my ex-girlfriend who shot me, although we hadn’t even started dating.”
“You dated someone after she shot you?” I asked, briefly touching him on the arm. “Get out of town!”
Gesturing at the pastures out of the window, he reminded me, “We are out of town. Yes. Like I said, it was an accident. Most of us weren’t even using guns to fight Vampires then. She got a little overzealous shooting at one and ended up shooting me instead.”
“Wow. She must’ve been cute.”
“She was.” He was turning slightly red again. “Anyway… it wasn’t until a few years later that we started dating.”
“And you healed yourself?”
“Yes. And then healed another Hunter who’d fallen down a flight of stairs and broken his leg pretty badly.”
“Yuck,” I said, hoping my imagination was worse than what had actually happened.
“It was pretty gross. I’ve seen some gross stuff.”
“I bet you have. Doesn’t bother you, I suppose?”
“Not anymore.” He gave me a small smile and was quiet for a moment before he said, “You’re different than your sister.” Jamie steered around a Chevy going a little too slowly in the fast lane.
“How’s that?” I asked. I felt like I was constantly being compared to Cadence, and I usually came up on the short end of the stick, so I wondered if his assessment would be the same.
“Well,” he began, and I felt he was measuring his words carefully, like he didn’t want to offend me, “Cadence is great at so many things. I probably don’t have to list them for you. But she doesn’t ask a lot of questions about other people.”
Not knowing what to say to that, I didn’t say anything for a long while. “I guess, I’m just curious about everything, everybody.”
“That’s a good thing, most of the time,” Jamie nodded. “But you have to be careful, too. I’m sure I don’t need to remind you of what can happen when you’re too curious.”
“Are you going to talk about a cat?” I asked, trying not to roll my eyes.
“Oh, good. You’re familiar with his tale.”
“Was that an awful pun? You’re not a dad, are you? That sounded like a dad joke.”
“Nope, not a dad. Not yet anyway. Maybe I’ll do that in my next century, if I ever find the right girl.”
He had me curious again, and even though he had just warned me not to be, I had to ask. “I guess this Hunter that shot you wasn’t the right one, then? So… why aren’t you seeing anyone now?”
“Who says I’m not?”
“Are you?”
“No.” He answered me really quickly but then grew quiet. “I was in love once, not so long ago, seventy or so years ago. She died. I’ve had a hard time dating since then.”
“Oh.” I couldn’t think of anything else to say at the moment so I only stared at him. “I’m sorry. It wasn’t… I mean. Never mind. It’s not my business.”
“It wasn’t the Hunter, no. Turns out we weren’t actually in love. I didn’t know what love was until I met Ellie. But she died, and there was nothing I could do to save her.”
Something about his tone told me not to ask any more questions about that. “Well, maybe you’ll meet someone else someday.” I hoped my tone was light.
“Maybe so. In the meantime, I’ve got plenty of work to do to keep me busy.”
I nodded. “Yep. And I wanna help as much as I can. With all of it.”
Jamie laughed. “I know you do, Cass. We’ll put you to work the best we can. As for the rest, just be patient. You’ll be surprised how quickly a year can go by.”
I didn’t believe him, but I smiled and turned my face back to the window. This year was going to take forever….
Chapter 7
The next few months seemed to whirl by without much going on, and let’s face it, around here, if a month goes by and no one dies, that’s a good month. Christian had shown me how to use the tools he’d installed on my laptop. I was glad Jamie was with us the whole time because there really is just something about that guy. I can’t quite put my finger on it…. Anyway, with this new equipment, I would be able to see closed circuit footage from airports and a few other public places, and Christian gave me as much information as they had available about where Giovani and Sam might be. They were pretty sure they had their finger on Finn and were thinking they’d pick him up soon enough. So I wasn’t shocked to get a call from my sister less than a week later that Finn was dead, and so was the Vampire who’d been involved in the ambush.
Later on that month, I went ahead and let Emma install the same software Christian had given to me onto her own laptop and on Lucy’s. I know he’d probably be mad if he knew, but Emma didn’t think there was any way he could find out, and she said it was super easy for her to copy it. Maybe he wasn’t as techy as we thought. Or maybe it really didn’t matter, and they were just giving me something to do. I spent hours looking at grainy footage, trying to spot Giovani or Zabrina. Or Sam. They didn’t think he’d show up at an airport, but that didn’t keep me from looking.
At one point, I thought I’d actually seen Giovani. I’d even reported it to my sister. But it turned out to be that guy who plays Merry in Lord of the Rings coming back from filming a movie in Africa. In my defense, Giovani’s picture looks a lot like him—though my sister teased me for at least a month about how I should become a member of the paparazzi with my star spotting skills. She’s a barrel of giggles, that Cadence.
Eventually, school had to start, which I protested and lost. I like school okay, but it was taking me away from my sleuthing time. Cheerleading practice and football games, once they started, were also really eating into my screen time. I considered quitting, but Lucy said she’d kill me if I did. I knew finding Sam and Giovani was becoming an obsession for me, and I thought Lucy and Emma were considering staging an intervention. Or at the very least, speaking to my mother. I don’t think Mom realized just how much time I’d been spending on this assignment.
Someone from LIGHTS called or texted me every few days, which was cool. Jamie was awesome, though he wasn’t Elliott, and I realized no one was ever going to be able to replace my lost friend. Aurora was also really cool, and she was always super helpful and willing to answer my questions. Occasionally, Aaron would call, but I think he was almost as uncomfortable talking to me on the phone as I was talking to him, though you wouldn’t know it by listening to him. He always sounded calm and chill, which was a little annoying. My sister didn’t call much at all, though. I’d get a text now and again, a phone call every week or week and a half, and when we chatted it was rarely about work. It drove me a little crazy that she still seemed to be pushing me away when everyone else was so welcoming. It was almost like she was afraid they might like me more than they liked her once they got to know me.
So I was surprised when I got a text from her one afternoon in early October. I was riding home with Lucy after cheerleading practice. I’d just turned sixteen (and yes, my sister had called on my birthday and sent me a gift) but I hadn’t gotten my driver’s license yet, not even my permit. I’m not sure why not, but I was perfectly content to let Luce be my chauffeur for a little while longer. I glanced at my phone and saw that it said, “Can I call you?”
I didn’t want to distract Lucy while she was driving, and I figured whatever had caused Cadence to text me first must mean it was pretty important. “Give me five minutes,” I typed in and put my phone back in my pocket.
“What was that?” Lucy asked.
“Nothing. Cadence just saying hi.”
“Oh. She really doesn’t call you that much.” She turned on to my street.
“Yeah, I know. I think she’s just really busy, trying to find Sam.” It was nice that my friends knew everything now. I wasn’t really worried about anyone trying to come and swipe their memories either. I figured that had all sort of gone away when Elliott did, not that I wouldn’t have traded the circumstances to have him back. I would’ve traded just about anything to have him back.
Lucy pulled up in front of my house. “Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said, trying not to be in too much of a hurry as I got out of the car.”
“See ya!” she hollered as I approached the front door. Before I went inside, I turned and waved at her.
Mom met me at the door. “Hi, honey,” she said, kissing my cheek before I had a chance to pull away. “How was your day?”
“Fine, but Cadence just sent me a text saying she needs to call me. I’m going to run upstairs and see what it is.” I studied my mom’s face to see if she had any idea what this might be about, but she didn’t seem to. She said something about dad being home for dinner soon, and I shot up the stairs wondering if I’d hurt her feelings by not asking her how her day was, but I just didn’t have time to be sweet right now.
Once I was in my room, I closed the door behind me, sat down on the edge of the bed and called my sister. It went to voicemail. I was so agitated, I almost chucked my phone across the room. I sent her a text. “Now is good.”