Chapter 132
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.
“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.
