by ID Johnson
Puzzled over what in the world he might be talking about, I continued to follow him until he reached the foyer. “What kinds of things?”
He shook his head at me, yet again, and turned to look at me. “Something tells me you’ll know it when you see it.”
Elliott was giving me a clue. I could find out more about what they were doing from the news. I wondered what in the world I could’ve been missing this whole time. Were there news stories about vampires?
My sister was putting on her coat as she walked into the foyer from the adjoining living room, pulling her long hair out of her collar. She had a few presents in her arms, and Elliott took them from her when she caught up to him. My parents were trailing her. “Sorry we have to go back so soon. Hopefully, I’ll be able to come visit soon.”
“Hope so,” I said, stepping forward and wrapping my arms around her. Somehow, I felt like I had something to do now, a new road to explore, and I thought it might be easier to do it if she wasn’t there. At least I wouldn’t have to worry about being spied on, at least I assumed not, although I supposed it was possible one of them planted something in my room.
“Are you okay, Cass?” Cadence asked, and I realized I’d gone down a rabbit hole and my expression must have shown it.
Nodding, I said, “Yeah. Just really gonna miss you.”
She gave me a sympathetic smile. “I’ll miss you, too. I love you, Sis.” She kissed my cheek, and I tried not to focus on the fact that I was truly going to miss, her, too. Who knows when she might actually find time to come back and visit?
Elliott was shaking my dad’s hand, and then he hugged my mom, balancing Cadence’s gifts in one arm. “Thanks again for letting me intrude on your holiday,” he said.
“You are welcome any time,” my dad replied.
“Absolutely not an intrusion. We were glad to have you.” My mom smiled at Elliott, and I wondered if she was considering going up to her craft room to make some “Team Elliott” T-shirts.
He looked at me for a second before his eyes crinkled at the corners. “Miss Cassidy,” he said, offering his hand and bowing a little.
Not quite sure what he was up to, I stuck my hand out, and he turned it so that my fingers were folded down and then gently kissed the ring he’d given me. I couldn’t help but giggle like a little girl. He pulled me over and wrapped me up in his strong arms so that I was actually inside of his black jacket. The scent of leather and aftershave was soothing; it was like a hug from my dad or a favorite uncle, and despite all of the craziness going on in my mind, I was thankful for the security of this cocoon, even if it didn’t last.
He released me and gave me a reassuring smile before he followed Cadence out the door. Pausing in the doorway, he pulled the hat I’d given him out of his back pocket and stuck it on his head. It fit perfectly, and I was proud to see him wear it, like I’d somehow contributed to the good fight, and at least he’d be warm while he was hunting vampires.
The three of us stood in the foyer for a few minutes even after the sound of the SUV Elliott had driven faded from the driveway. “Well, he certainly is a nice young man,” my mom finally breathed.
“Yes, he is,” my dad agreed. He looked at me. “He sure is fond of you, Cass.”
“Yep,” I agreed. “That’s cool. I needed another big brother.” I hoped my voice didn’t sound as solemn to them as it did to me. I still missed Jack, and Elliott was totally different than him, but not in a bad way.
“That Aaron though….” My mom seemed to realize she was headed down a path she had already predetermined I wasn’t bound to go.
I decided to offer her a carrot. “I know. Can you believe that he decided to go out with Eliza instead of Cadence? Especially after Eliza and Cadence had been such good friends. They even went shopping together when they were in Paris. Of course, that’s nothing compared to the rest of what they did when they were in Paris. But still, I think Aaron should stop dating the people he manages. It’s really not good leadership.”
Both of my parents were gawking at me. “You’ve been having some interesting conversations. With your sister?”
They were feeling me out, trying to decide if it was Cadence giving me information or Elliott. I had to protect my source. “Yeah, Cadence was telling me all about her. I mean, it’s hard to imagine the same friend who drove her to Grandma’s house in the middle of the night would turn her back on her just a month later.” I crossed my arms and shook my head.
“I don’t know that Eliza very well, but I didn’t really care for her when I met her at the funeral,” my dad offered. “There’s just something shady about her. And I don’t typically trust anyone who has such weird hair.”
I almost laughed at that because I wasn’t sure what her hair had to do with anything, and my dad sounded like an old man, but I needed to be on his side. “I totally agree,” I said. “You know, Christian seemed a little odd to me, too,” I continued. “I know he does all the website maintenance and whatnot for their business, but he just seemed a little… creepy. Is he a lot older than he looks, too, like Aaron?”
“Probably,” my dad said, but my mother made a clicking noise with her tongue, a signal for him to shush. “I mean… I don’t know. I hadn’t met Christian before either.”
“Hmmm,” I said, shrugging like it didn’t matter. “I wonder why Grandma even hired him.”
“What?” my mom asked as I turned to walk back to the stairs. “What makes you think your grandma hired Christian, honey? Or anyone, for that matter?”
I was hoping one of them would confirm or deny my assessment, though I didn’t really even know why I’d picked that particular bluff. I had my hand on the stairs and turned to face them. “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess… Grandma used to be the boss, right? I just assumed she’d hired him.”
“Your sister was talking to you about all of this?” Mom asked, her eyes narrow.
“Nah,” I said nonchalantly. I realized by then I had overstepped. I headed up the stairs. “I must have misunderstood what she was saying. It doesn’t really make any sense to think that Grandma would’ve been the boss. I mean, she’s so old.”
“Right,” my mom said. I couldn’t see them, but I thought she must’ve been doing that thing where she gestures at my dad with her head to get him to talk.
“Cassidy,” he called after me. I was almost at the top of the stairs, but I turned and faced him for a moment, “I know all of this is… confusing… but when you get a little older, we’ll tell you more about it, okay, honey? There’s no reason for you to worry about any of this right now.”
“Okay.” I made sure to sound like I didn’t really care. I smiled at them.
My mom needed to insert one more idea. “And don’t worry about your sister either, sweetie. I know she was upset about Aaron when she first got here, but I’m pretty sure she’s already got it all straightened out. She knows that she’s there to do a job and nothing more.”
“Okay,” I repeated, still smiling sappily, like an idiot who had been brainwashed. “I’m going to go watch a movie on my laptop.”
“Have fun, dear,” my mom called, and I could tell I’d fooled her. Luckily, I had had enough practice being brainwashed that I was now able to sound like a victim when Elliott wasn’t even in the house.
Once I was in my room, I took a deep breath and looked out the window. I wasn’t sure what I was looking for, but I didn’t see anything. No one on the roof across the street, no noise on ours. It actually sort of made me sad. It had been comforting to know that Elliott was up there sometimes, but he wasn’t right now, and it was just as well since it was bitterly cold outside.
I sat down at my desk and took a moment to reflect. I’d learned a lot from this short visit. I was no longer concerned about Elliott taking my thoughts and memories from me, but there was plenty that was still unclear to me, and sometimes writing things down helped me to organize my thoughts.
Even though I hadn’t opened the notebook I’d been rec
ording my experiences in since that night at Lucy’s house, the night that Hannah came in and stripped their memories, made Emma and Lucy tear up all of their own notes and delete everything vampire related off of their computers, I decided to go ahead and get it out now. I thought writing down all the information I’d gleaned might help me sort through it.
It took me almost a half an hour to get it all down, starting with the conversation I’d had with Elliott the night before about his family and ending with what my parents had just disclosed without even realizing it. I was slowly beginning to put all of the pieces together, but making these notes made me feel depressed, not satisfied at my efforts.
My eyes fluttered to the picture in the corner of my desk, and I couldn’t help but drop my pen and pick it up. Next to a family portrait I kept on my nightstand, this was the most important framed photograph I owned. It was taken on my birthday last year, outside of a movie theater, and I absolutely loved it. I was standing in the middle with my arms around Lucy’s and Emma’s shoulders. Lucy had her arm draped around my waist, and Em had her arms crossed in front of her, with her hands extended down like she was the most uncomfortable person in the world because I was touching her. But I knew I was one of less than a half-dozen people on the planet she would tolerate standing that close to. And that was one of the many reasons why I loved them so very much. Lucy and Emma were more than my best friends; they were like sisters to me.
And I was essentially lying to them because I keeping the truth from them. I remembered Lucy’s enthusiasm when she was working with me, trying to figure out if Cadence was a vampire, how Emma had argued that it wasn’t possible but then found enough information online to change her own mind. Not only did I need their deductive reasoning skills and their research capabilities, I needed them. I needed to know I wasn’t alone in this, that I had other people to share the craziness around me with who would believe me even when I couldn’t believe myself.
With a sigh, I set the picture aside and the ring on my finger caught my attention. Elliott had been more than accommodating with his disclosure of information, and I knew I wasn’t being fair to him. I shouldn’t have kept pushing him to the point where he might end up in trouble because of me. I had no idea why Aaron was involved in my last “brainwashing” session. I assumed Cadence hadn’t contacted her boss to tell him I was being a problem when she likely wasn’t even speaking to him, but there was no way for me to know how that had transpired. Perhaps Aaron had just randomly been checking in to see how things were going and realized I knew too much. Sadly, I couldn’t even ask Elliott about it.
I needed to stop asking him things altogether. I really didn’t want him to get in trouble. It seemed like he and Aaron were good friends, so maybe that would keep Elliott from getting reprimanded, but I had no way to know the true nature of their relationship. I had a feeling, though, with Elliott, there was no in-between. He either loved you or hated you, so despite what had happened between Aaron and Cadence, Elliott still must’ve been pretty fond of their leader or else I would’ve been able to tell from his attitude.
So… I needed to let it go. Any more information I gleaned needed to come from Internet research or parental slip-ups. That would be easier said than done since CHENRY77 seemed to take everything down as soon as it was posted, and I couldn’t be online constantly checking for information about vampires all day long every day, especially when I had school. But then, I had more than a week off in front of me, so maybe I could accomplish some searching in that time.
And I remembered what Elliott had said about the news, as well. I had no idea what he was talking about, but I figured I’d better start monitoring the headlines a little more closely.
I sighed and pushed my chair back. Another glance at my notebook had me feeling overwhelmed. It seemed ridiculous that I was spending so much time and energy trying to unravel a mystery that the people who allegedly loved me most already knew all there was to know about. Part of me wanted to go downstairs and demand my parents tell me everything, but I figured that would get me nowhere, except possibly brainwashed for real again, and this time Lucy wouldn’t know enough to pull me back out of it. How awful of a friend was I that I couldn’t do the same for her now?
I tossed myself onto the bed, landing on my back with a bounce. Maybe I would tell them again, or at least think of a way to enlist their help without telling them the truth, that my sister is a vampire hunter. I had no idea how to go about it, but I didn’t think I’d last too much longer locked inside my own head. Maybe it would be better just to let Elliott brainwash me again. Maybe I would be better off not knowing what I don’t know.
Chapter 5
I spent the next several days on my laptop, wishing I had someone to bounce ideas off of as I scoured the Internet looking for information about vampire hunters. I had to give it to CHENRY77; he was prolific. Scarcely a vampire site did I visit without traces of Christian’s presence. Even ones that sounded ridiculous and fake, like the, “My girlfriend and I are vampires. Do you want to be one, too? It’s super easy. You will live forever. Just call…” types of posts had his signature associated with them in some regard, often in the comments or as an administrator. I would’ve found it odd that he managed to make his presence known on so many different sorts of boards and chat rooms all across the world if I didn’t know the power of persuasion some of my sister’s friends had. I’m sure it didn’t take much for someone like Elliott to convince the creators of these message boards to surrender their upkeep to Mr. Henry.
I had to be fast to find any sort of useful information at all, and a lot of times posts disappeared as I was reading them. I did a lot of screenshots to prevent people’s accounts of what they’d seen from slipping through my fingers. Videos would’ve been great, but they were hard to come by. Nothing topped the one I’d watched with my girls at Lucy’s house, that’s for sure. I realized LIGHTS was pretty good at staying off of cameras, and one of the topics people often mentioned when they claimed to have seen something strange was that none of the security cameras in the area were working and/or their cell phones messed up so that they either couldn’t record in the first place or the video was gone. I wondered how CHENRY had managed to do all that.
Perhaps the most troubling information I read wasn’t anything I had to stumble upon with just the right timing, though. It was all over the news—headlines in several different languages on just about any site I clicked on—proclaimed terror was spreading through the Caribbean. If Elliott hadn’t mentioned anything to me, I probably would’ve never made the connection that the bodies piling up down south were vampire related. There was no question in my mind, however, that when he’d told me he would be busy, and I needed to watch the news, this is what he was referring to.
So far, about twenty people, some locals, mostly tourists, had been killed in Cabo San Lucas and surrounding areas. The news reporters believed it was the work of a serial killer as most of the victims had their throats slashed. I remembered enough about what I’d overheard with Drew to know that’s not what had killed these people. It made me nervous to think that my sister and Elliott might have to go down there and face this beast, but whenever I’d sent him a text to see if that would be necessary, he assured me they had people on the ground in the Caribbean already working on it, and he didn’t see any reason for anyone from KC to head that direction.
I realized I had no idea how this company, or whatever you call it, was even organized. Were there other offices all over the world? If so, why did Cadence have to go to Paris? Wouldn’t there be someone there who could handle whatever had happened? If the Caribbean team could do this without my sister and her friends, why were the French so needy?
But I had no one to ask those questions of, no one who would answer me anyway. As Christmas break drew to a close, I’d made dozens of pages of notes, saved lots of screenshots, and jotted down what seemed like hundreds of answerless questions. I was ready to get back to school, to see my friends, and try
to return to normal, although I had no idea how I was going to do that. No matter what happened in class, I’d constantly have the distraction of trying to figure out what was going on with my sister in the back of my mind.
Lucy called me the Sunday night before school started to check on me. “I haven’t seen you in ages,” she exclaimed. “What have you been up to?”
She’d invited me over plenty of times, but I had declined every invitation. I couldn’t stand to be in the same room with her and Em and not tell them what they should already know. I’d claimed Cadence was visiting, even after she’d left, and that had worked for a while. And then I’d said I had a cold which, thankfully, also wasn’t true. Lucy isn’t stupid, though, and I’m sure she thought I was avoiding her, which was exactly what I was doing.
“I’ve just been, you know, hanging out,” I said. I considered my options. What could I tell her that might be believable?
Turns out, I didn’t have to come up with anything. “Look, Cass, I know Jack’s death has been super hard on you, and I don’t blame you for being upset, but you’ve got to snap out of it. I’m starting to get a little worried about you.”
Jack’s death. It hadn’t crossed my mind to use that as an excuse, probably because it just seemed underhanded and plain wrong. The truth was, Hannah had used some sort of her own magical voodoo to make me feel a lot better about losing Jack. Not that I didn’t miss him or anything. I did, but I wasn’t nearly as distraught as I should’ve been. Lucy knew none of this. “I’m sorry, Luce,” I said, hoping my voice sounded troubled. “It’s just… been so tough.”
“I’m sure it has. I totally get it. I didn’t even know him as well as you did, and I’m freaked out about it. So is Em….” Her voice trailed off, and I wanted to ask what she was talking about, but she sprang back to life before I had a chance. “Anyway, hopefully once we get back to school, everything will be normal again.”