Chapter 148
It was about two o’clock when we made it into Cadence’s apartment. She still seemed groggy, but I thought she might come around in a little bit, and then maybe I’d finally have a chance to see what this was all about from her perspective. It seemed a little odd to me that the person who spoke to me the least about this whole deal was my own sister.
I loved my sister’s apartment and spent a few minutes staring out the window at the view before Cadence told me to make myself at home on the couch. I sank back into the cushions, feeling a little tired myself. The dream that’d interrupted my slumber came back to me as Aaron mentioned he’d dropped my bag in the guest room.
“I need to go check in with Jamie,” Aaron said to my sister as he walked toward the door. “He said he needs to see me in person. So….”
Cadence was still standing in the middle of the room. “What’s that all about?”
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “I have an idea--but I’m not going to speculate.”
“Okay,” Cadence replied. I could tell by her expression that she wanted to ask more, but she didn’t. She sat down on the couch next to me. “Well, let me know what’s going on.”
“I will,” he said. He stopped short of the door and crossed back over to kiss my sister’s cheek quickly, and I wondered if that had required an IAC message or if he had thought better of leaving without doing so on his own. I tried not to stare at them.
“Aaron, can I go on the hunt tonight?” I asked, assuming there was one. I know my expression was probably ridiculously hopeful, but we had been bonding.
He was almost back to the door now as he turned and looked at me with both eyebrows raised. “Do I really need to respond to that question?”
“It was worth a shot,” I muttered, shrugging and letting out a long sigh. Obviously, I knew he’d say no.
“Not today, girlfriend.” He was shaking his head a me like he thought I was nuts. “You’ve got a couple more years before you’re ready for that.” It seemed like that date kept getting further and further away. I tried not to pout as my sister also looked at me like I was crazy for even going there.
“See you later,” she said as he disappeared out the door. And then, letting out a sigh like she couldn’t believe me. “Here’s the remote,” she said, leaning forward to grab it off the table and tossing it in my general direction. It landed next to me on the couch. “I’ll be back in a minute, and then we can talk about what you wanna do.”
She pulled herself up off the couch and disappeared. I wondered if this was some covert operation to get me here and then abandon me. “Where are you going?”
“Must you know everything?” she shouted from down the hallway. “To the bathroom.”
“Oh.” I felt dumb for even asking. I flipped on the TV and then shouted, “I didn’t know you still had to do that!” I mean, I guess I assumed she did, but I never really thought about it. She still slept and ate, though the Guardians never really seemed to do much of either of those things. Except Elliott. He definitely ate….
“Yeah. I do!” she shouted back at me.
I was a little surprised to see the TV was on a news channel. My sister was never one for caring about such things, and since I’d recently decided not to watch the reports so much, I wished it was on anything but. “CNN? Bluck,” I mumbled to no one. I stared at the remote for a second, looking for the button to change the channel, but once I realized what the reporter was saying, I set it down beside me and listened intently.
“A person of interest in connection with the Jogging Path Killings was arrested today in Philadelphia. Steven Gibbon, 32, was transferred to an area hospital after he was critically wounded in a standoff with police outside of Rocky’s Gym this morning. While police are not confirming exactly what evidence they have that Gibbon is connected to the murders of seven women in the Philadelphia area, they did say that his wounds are not life threatening and that he will be taken into custody as soon as he is discharged.”
“Cadence!” I yelled, as soon as I heard my sister coming back down the hallway. “Did you see this?”
“What is it?” Cadence asked pulling down her sleeves as if she’d just washed her hands. “They caught the Jogging Path Killer?”
My eyes were still glued to the TV as they showed a picture of Steven Gibbon. He was a big guy with a buzzcut, almost no hair, except for on his face where had enough of a five o’clock shadow that it could easily be seven or eight o’clock. “Looks like it,” I replied to my sister, adding, “he’s creepy!” Cadence stared at the TV for a second, and seeing Gibbon reminded me of the conversation I’d attempted to have with her the other night. She hadn’t even registered I’d been talking about this freak show then. “Is he a Vampire?”
“No,” Cadence said quickly. “Not all bad people are Vampires. Some of them are just bad people.”
Staring into the dead eyes of the suspect, I was relieved to hear her answer. Visions of what that guy could do as a human, let alone a Vampire, gave me chills. “Well, I’m glad. Because something tells me he would be even worse if he was a Vampire.”
Cadence was also staring at the TV as they continued to discuss Gibbon and showed a mug shot of him that they said was from a few years ago. As if coming out of a trance, Cadence shook her head. “Hey, Aaron wants us to meet him at Jamie’s office. Let’s head over there, okay?”
I was perfectly happy to turn off the TV, hoping I never had to see Steven Gibbon again. Something about that guy made me think he might show up in my nightmares, though. “Okay.”
