by ID Johnson
“Did you know that?” I wondered. “Did you know they were planning to get even?”
He shrugged. “People get angry at me a lot. Usually, they don’t mean it, and it blows over. In this case, I guess none of us really thought Cowboy Sam meant what he said. The other two, Finn and Camila, are just his sidekicks. They don’t think for themselves, anyway.”
“Cowboy Sam?” I repeated. “He sounds like a cartoon character.”
“I have a few other things I’d like to call him,” my sister muttered, and Aaron turned to look at her, sympathetically, for a moment. I wondered if he said anything to her. I hated not knowing.
“Laura and Sam, along with the other two imbeciles, came up with a plan to lure us out into the middle of nowhere. With the titanium bullets, they knew they could take us all out.” My eyes flickered to my sister, who was looking at us questioningly, probably wondering if I would stop him and ask what he was talking about—what titanium bullets—but I didn’t have to do that because I already knew. “They said they had information about where Giovani was, but they couldn’t get to him with their limited resources.”
“And you just believed them?” I asked, my forehead crinkled in surprise.
“No. We checked other sources, and they had a lot of confirmation, from independent Hunters we’ve worked with before.”
“And Eliza,” Cadence said, not turning her head at all this time.
“Right,” Aaron confirmed. “Eliza sent some people to check on the situation, too, and she was convinced it was legitimate. But we are now of the opinion she was actually working with Laura.”
“So Eliza was trying to get you guys killed?” I asked, ready to track her down and put an end to that purple-headed meanie.
“We don’t think she knew that was what the plan was,” Aaron said, “but we are still in the process of investigating that.”
“Where is she?” I asked. “Some place miserable I hope.”
“Siberia,” Cadence replied, almost chuckling.
“With a pretty badly damaged eye,” Aaron added, and now my sister was really laughing, though it didn’t last long. I assumed Cadence must’ve given her a shiner. “So, even though we’d done a lot of investigating and everything managed to check out, it was an ambush.”
“Was Giovani even there?” I asked, shaking my head.
“We don’t think so. There was a Vampire hiding in the cabin in the woods that they told us was the location, but when we arrived, Cadence was pretty sure it wasn’t Giovani. And her gut is usually right about those things. By then, the four of them had already accessed weapons they’d hidden days earlier in the trees with the titanium bullets ready to fire.”
“I was going to say, didn’t you check their weapons, but I guess that answers that question.”
“They didn’t need any special bullets to kill us,” he said, and I assumed he meant the Guardians, “but yeah, we checked everything. It didn’t matter, though.” He let out a sigh and ran his hand through his hair. I was beginning to notice he did that when he was exasperated. “We shouldn’t have ever gone in the first place….”
“We all knew the risks,” Cadence reminded him. “We all knew this was a possibility. We sat right here in this room and decided to go for it.”
“I know.” I had a feeling this wasn’t the first time they’d had this particular recap conversation. “And Elliott knew there was a possibility this was all a farce, too. But he still thought we should go through with it.”
I nodded, understanding that he was saying Elliott took the same calculated risk they all did. “So… can you tell me what happened, or is it too hard to talk about?” I had an idea now. I wasn’t sure that I even wanted him to tell me anymore, certainly not the details, but I also didn’t want to tell him to stop talking now that he was.
“Sam shot him.” He said it like it was a fact from a history book. If I had asked, “Who shot Abraham Lincoln?” and his response was, “Booth shot him,” it couldn’t have sounded any more dispassionate. But I couldn’t blame him. He was a facts kinda guy, and I was asking him to talk about something that wasn’t just factual to him. It was emotional and real and it really, really sucked. So if he had to switch to clinical mode to get through it, then so be it. “Sam shot Meagan in the leg first and was trying to track her down when Elliott got between them. He slowed Sam up enough that he couldn’t get to Meagan before Cadence had Laura in custody, and we were on our way over to assist Elliott. So Sam shot him and then ran away.”
I stared at him for a moment, not in the eyes this time so that I could concentrate, and thought about what that must’ve been like. Visualizing it made my stomach churn, so I pushed the thought aside. I couldn’t think about some ridiculous man dressed like a cowboy standing there, pointing a gun at one of my best friends and pulling the trigger. “Where was… Jamie?” I asked.
“Also shot,” Aaron replied. “Hannah tried to help Elliott, but it was too late. By the time we got him to the hospital, he was gone.” I nodded again. That explained my sister’s reaction to seeing Jamie earlier in the day. He must’ve been wounded pretty badly not to be able to help Elliott at all. “Christian was also shot, but he wasn’t as bad off as Jamie and Meagan. Once the helicopters arrived, they were all flown back to Reno for treatment. There wasn’t anything Cale could do for Elliott, though.”
He said all of that like it would make perfect sense to me, like he wouldn’t need to explain who Cale was or why he would be trying to save anyone. He also didn’t say his name like he was at all upset that my sister had been dating that man a few days ago. How quickly the world changed, and we were all just little collections of dust spinning around on it. “So Sam got away?” I asked.
“Yes, but we hunted Camilla down that night, and she is now deceased.” It also sounded very matter-of-fact, but something about the way he said it made me snicker. “And Laura is in custody awaiting justice.”
“Like a trial or something?” I asked.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted, with a sort of sigh. “I don’t think anything like this has ever happened before, where we’ve actually taken the culprit into custody, so I’m still trying to figure out what to do with her.”
“And the other two are still on the lam?”
“For now. But we will find them. We have a lead on Finn.”
My sister had mentioned that they were going to meet the next day to discuss that. “I really wish there was something I could do to find him, and especially Sam,” I said, shaking my head. “Is there anything at all?”
“Sam’s pretty old, and pretty low tech. He’ll likely go completely off grid and try to disappear for a while. Chances are, if you can help us at all, it will be with Giovani. I know that isn’t quite the same as assisting with the search for Sam, but if you really want to help, there’s some online tasks you could complete, which would be taking over part of what Elliott was doing, looking for Giovani, and freeing up our personnel to look for Sam. That would be helpful.”
“Like checking surveillance cameras, stuff like that?” I asked.
“Precisely.”
It wasn’t the same as being out in the field actually working alongside them, but for now, it might be the most I would get. “Yeah, I’ll do what I can,” I replied.
“Great,” he said, making a sound that almost made me think he was relieved I’d agreed to help. Was he really that hard up for computer savvy people, or was he just happy I’d stop bugging them to let me go with them? Maybe CHENRY77 was about to be reassigned or something.
“You still can’t tell your friends,” my sister reminded me, and I tipped my head to the side and stared at her. “I’m serious. They don’t need to know.”
“Fine,” I said, narrowing my eyes at her, but when I looked back at Aaron, I swear he winked at me, and I wondered if that meant he knew my friends were aware of what was going on. Why would he be placating Cadence? He was the boss, wasn’t he?
Aaron exhaled loudly and looked fr
om Cadence to me and then back again before slapping his hands down on his knees and declaring, “I think that’s enough for one night.”
“I concur,” Cadence replied, standing. She seemed to have gotten a little bit of color back in her face, and her eyes didn’t seem to be so absent.
I supposed it really didn’t matter what I thought. At least they’d told me as much as they had, which was honestly quite a bit. As Aaron stood to walk toward my sister, I blurted out, “Thanks for telling me,” like I was afraid he might slip away before I got a chance to say anything. “I really appreciate it.”
“Sure,” he replied, sliding his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “Once we figure out what’s going on around here, we’ll coordinate a time for someone to meet you at your Grandma’s. I think it’ll go over better if a member of our team can be there with you in case you have questions your grandma can’t answer. She’s not that knowledgeable about the way we do things now.”
“Uh, excuse me,” Cadence said, nudging him with her elbow. “What about me? I can tell her the technology stuff.”
Aaron looked at her for a moment and kind of made a half-guffaw sound in the back of his throat before he turned back to me and said, “I have your number. I’ll be in touch.”
Cadence literally smacked him on the bicep and they switched their conversation to IAC I assumed as she walked beside him to the door. His expression was of slight amusement and unwavering confidence in his decision. She stepped out into the hallway, and I attempted to plug my ears against any other bodily harm or potential goodnight kissing, should she find it in her heart to forgive her fiancé for implying she wasn’t the best person to go with me. In fairness. I had to agree with Aaron that Cadence wouldn’t be good at that job. She had other strengths, but if she had been the one to tell me what happened to Elliott, I think I would still feel like I had no idea what had transpired. She just doesn’t tend to see the details in those types of situations. However, if Aaron arranged for Christian to go with me, I might develop an illness that prevented me from stepping out of the house.
Once my sister came back in, she appeared to be in a better mood. “What happens in the hallway stays in the hallway,” I said, squinting my eyes at her. She turned a slight shade of pink, and I let her keep wondering what I may have overheard, which turned out to be nothing.
“I think we should probably head to bed,” she said, stifling a yawn. “Guardians don’t have to sleep much at all, and the longer I am a Hunter, they say the less sleep I’ll need, too, but so far, I need just as much as I did when I was a human.”
I stood, but stared at her for a moment. “What is it like to no longer refer to yourself as a human?” I asked, contemplating what that would be like.
“It’s a little surreal at first,” she admitted, heading toward the hallway where the bedrooms were, “but you get used to it.”
Finding out was a priority for me at this point. “Thanks for asking Aaron to tell me all of that,” I said, stopping outside of the guest bedroom.
“Sure,” she nodded. “I knew he’d know exactly what to tell you so you’d understand.”
“Which may be why he thinks someone else can better help Grandma,” I pointed out.
She rolled her eyes. “But you’re my baby sister.”
“I’m not a baby.” I folded my arms and gave her a pointed look.
“You’ll always be a baby to me.” She tussled my hair and I went to smack her hand away, but she was so much quicker than me now, I almost fell over in my attempt, which made her laugh at me.
“You’re such a dork,” I muttered.
Before I’d even finished the insult, Cadence wrapped her arms around me, pinning my crossed arms against my chest. “I love you, Cassidy,” she said, her grip a lot tighter than I remembered it ever being before.
“I love you, too,” I admitted, even if I had been super annoyed at her a few seconds ago. She kissed the top of my head and told me goodnight before she headed off to her bedroom.
I went in the nicely decorated guest room and got ready for bed myself, ducking out into the hall bathroom to brush my teeth and other necessities. Being in her apartment seemed strangely familiar already, like I was meant to be there. I wasn’t sure if it was because of my family’s history with the place or if it was something else, but if they would’ve let me move in the next morning, I would’ve been happy to.
When the room was dark, the unfamiliarity was a little more unsettling, even though the bed was comfy and there weren’t any annoying noises coming from any of the other apartments or outside. My mind flipped back through a photo album of the day’s events and landed squarely on the picture of Elliott, Cadey, and I at Christmas, and I felt tears in my eyes. I tried to concentrate on that image, though, instead of the one my unconscious kept trying to conjure of Elliott out in the woods at night, standing between a deranged cowboy and poor Meagan. I think I understand now what my sister meant when she said up until that point, seeing Aaron’s blood all over the floor in Paris was the messiest experience she’d had of the kind. I didn’t want to see Elliott that way, but my sister had been there. I’m sure she could never get that image out of her mind.
Eventually, I started to drift off to sleep, my weary body finally giving in and shutting my brain down for me. In my mind, Elliott was somewhere else, somewhere better, driving a Lamborghini large enough to fit him, with that big goofy smile on his face, and I grinned at the thought, despite the fact that in the back of my mind, I registered the sound of my sister in the adjoining bedroom sobbing uncontrollably.
Chapter 5
My whole life, I’ve thought my sister was pretty darn amazing. She’s gorgeous, smart, but totally down to earth. Hanging out in her apartment, even for a brief amount of time, listening to her friends talk about how awesome she is at her new job, seeing those photos of her kicking Vampire booty just solidified the idea even more in my mind. But as I sat at home on my bed pondering everything that had gone on over the past few days, that wasn’t the Cadence that was on my mind. It was the vulnerable one, the one who’d sat in the chair and stared at the wall as her fiancé repeated the story of her best friend’s demise to me, the sister I’d heard in the bedroom next to mine so distraught she couldn’t sleep. As much as I missed Elliott myself, when I closed my eyes, I could believe he was out there somewhere, just off on a mission, and that he’d check in soon enough. Cadence didn’t have the luxury of pretend. Every time she turned around expecting to see him, there was an empty place. An empty chair in the conference room, perhaps, an empty apartment door to walk past. An empty spot on her sofa where he used to sit.
I’d told my friends everything I’d learned on my adventure, and they were equal parts amazed and astonished. There were a few things Emma refused to accept, and I decided she could just go ahead and think I’d made them up. It didn’t matter. If what I’d learned was accurate, she’d be there herself eventually. I was still missing some details on that.
It was a summer evening a few days after I’d gotten back from KC, and some people were going to my friend Wes’s house to hang out. I’d been invited, of course, because Wes and I are pretty tight when he’s not annoying the crap out of me with immature bodily function jokes, but I had decided at the last minute not to go. There were lots of rumors going around about Dr. Sanderson—that he’d died in a car wreck, been murdered by the mafia, even that he’d been on a recent airliner that crashed in Eurasia. I knew if I was there, people would start asking me questions, and I didn’t want to tell anyone anything else. I figured if my sister had to keep everything she knew a secret from the majority of the world, I should get used to that myself. Even though I hadn’t met with my Grandma yet, I thought that would probably be one of the things she told me.
I had just started watching a movie on Netflix on my laptop when my phone began to ring. It was an unknown number, but I figured I’d better answer it, and I hoped it was the phone call I’d been waiting for the past couple of days.
>
Clearing my voice as I paused the comedy, I said, “Hello?” praying that the voice on the other end was familiar.
“Hey, Cass. How are you? It’s Aaron.”
Like I wouldn’t recognize his voice. “Oh, hi,” I said, trying to be completely cas and hoping I wasn’t coming across like a complete dork. “What’s up?”
He chuckled a little bit, and I assumed that meant that my attempt was foiled. “A lot, honestly,” he replied, and I imagined no one ever believed him if he gave the standard “not much” answer since he seemed to be orchestrating the world. “I wanted to talk to you about a couple of things if you’ve got a second.”
“Uh, sure,” I replied, pretending like I was checking something or excusing myself from a prior engaging situation. “I’ve got a few minutes.” I rolled my eyes at myself. He could probably see me through the IAC of a strategically placed Guardian on the neighbor’s roof or something.
“Great. First of all, I’ve talked to your grandma, and she said anytime you wanna come up to talk to her is fine, so I’m going to send Jamie to get you on Thursday, and he’ll go with you. Are you comfortable with that, or would you rather I had your sister accompany you? I’d send Aurora, too, but she’s on a special assignment.”
He really seemed to know everything. How did he have any idea that I’d even spoken to Aurora. “Oh, no, Jamie seems like a nice guy,” I stammered. “I mean… not that I don’t want to see Cadence. It’s just….” How would I establish myself as an independent Hunter if my big sister was with me all the time? I didn’t know how to explain it to him.
“I understand,” he said confidently, and I got the impression that he really did know exactly how I felt about the situation. “Perfect. He’ll be at your house around 10:00 on Thursday morning if that time works for you, and he’ll get you to Des Moines.”
“Cool.” It was Tuesday so that meant I’d only have two days to make myself nauseous with excitement and worried. That seemed sufficient.