Chapter 203
Christian was behind his computer—which was meganormous—when we walked in. It’s seriously the biggest desktop monitor I’ve ever seen in real life. He didn’t look up at first, and I remembered that he really isn’t unattractive. He has dark blonde hair and a fairly handsome face. He’s tallish and muscular, of course. But there’s just something about when he looks at me that makes me think he would be very happy driving around a neighborhood in a white van looking for kids to help him find puppies. I’m not sure what it is that makes me feel that way either, which I think makes it worse. Maybe it’s because I heard the story about him recording my sister before I actually had a chance to meet him.
He looked up at us and didn’t smile, and then I remembered. It’s because he’s creepy.
“Hey, Christian,” I said, taking a few steps inside the room, not holding on to Brandon but bumping up against his arm like a toddler who couldn’t walk on her own. “How’s it going.”
“Hello, Cassidy,” he replied, standing up. “It’s nice to see you. How has school been?”
“Good,” I nodded.
“Still cheerleading?”
“Uh, yeah. We have two more games after the break, and then it’s on to the playoffs.”
“That’s cool,” he replied, nodding. “It was nice to see you cheer. You have some nice girls on your squad.”
Creep. E. “Yeah, I do. So… what’s up with you?”
“Oh, I’m still working on that re-Transformation serum for the Guardians,” he said, nodding at his computer. “I think we’re just about there. Not ready to test it again yet. Don’t need to kill anyone else.” He folded his arms and shook his head, and I felt all the blood rush out of my face.
I probably shouldn’t have asked the next question. “Oh, yeah? You killed someone with it?”
He looked surprised. “Oh, you don’t know?” I shook my head and looked at Brandon, who looked as lost as I felt, though I was never certain when Brandon was bluffing. “Well, I sort of killed someone. For a little while. He’s fine now. The rest of the trials have been on tissue, so that’s not as big of a deal. But killing your boss is kind of a big deal.” He had his hands on his hips and was shaking his head, not looking at us.
I realized that he had to be talking about Aaron. I looked at Brandon and both of our mouths dropped open. As Christian looked up, I closed my mouth, not wanting to let him know he’d actually just given us way more information than he’d probably intended to. “I can imagine it would be tough. Thank goodness the dying didn’t stick,” I said, trying to laugh.
“No kidding!” He laughed, a sort of a half-crazy, half-pleasant, normal person laugh, and Brandon joined in. “Anyway, it’s nice to see you. You just making the rounds?”
“Yep. And… I wanted to tell you that we recently read about Bunker Hill. That battle is so fascinating to me. Were you there?”
“No, I wasn’t,” Christian said, shaking his head once again. “I was with General Washington at the time, on our way to Boston. I was with him for the duration.”
“Really?” I couldn’t help but ask. “That’s incredible.” Why had my sister never mentioned this to me?
“Well, I could move a lot faster than everyone else, except for Hamilton. We’d race sometimes. He beat me occasionally, but he was a ranking officer, and I wasn’t at the time, so I did a lot of message delivery for the general. They always thought I’d ridden a horse, but I’d tie it up somewhere and run. I was a lot faster that way.” He seemed to be reminiscing.
“Do you mean Alexander Hamilton?” Brandon asked.
“One and the same,” Christian nodded. Christian’s far off expression grew a bit somber. “Anyway, that was a long time ago. I can tell you all about Valley Forge, crossing the Delaware, the Battle of Long Island, but I wasn’t at Bunker Hill.”
“That’s really amazing,” I said, finally hoping maybe I could find something to connect with this man about so I didn’t have to keep being creeped out every time I saw him. “I’d love to hear it sometime. I really would.”
“Sure,” he nodded. He continued to smile at me, and somehow it looked a little less freakish. “So… uh, any word about your IAC?”
“Actually, no,” I said, thankful he had brought it up on his own. “I would love to get it installed while I’m here, but I’m not sure what my sister thinks about it. It would just be so much easier for you guys to contact me that way, you know? I feel like I could be a lot more useful with it in my eye.” Brandon had told me about all of the archives and training videos they had available through the IAC. There was also the matter of being able to watch the hunts. I knew I could learn a lot that way, even if I wasn’t able to go on them. He’d already observed a few more since he’d returned from Philly, and he was almost to a point in his training where Aaron was going to let him participate. I would love to have the opportunity to watch that—even if it would make me nervous.
“Well, I can ask her, if you want,” Christian said. “Actually, I’d probably start with Aaron. He’s more likely to say yes.”
“Would you mind?” I asked, forcing my hand to reach across the chasm between us, over the expanse of his messy desk, to rest on the sleeve of his green button-down shirt. “That would be so awesome.”
“Sure, it’s no problem. We have a group of recruits coming in tomorrow afternoon to get hooked up. May as well pop yours in while I’m at it and have all the equipment out, if it’s okay with the bosses.”
“That would be so cool. If you could ask, and then just let Brandon know what they say—or call my cell. You have my number, right?”
“I do.”
I wouldn’t have offered if he didn’t already have my number. He’d called Emma once, so I was certain he had to have my number, too, and I was thankful he’d never actually called me. “Okay, well we have some other folks to visit. It was really nice to see you!”
“You, too,” he said, his smile looking almost normal now that I knew him slightly better. “Take care.”
“You, too.”
