Chapter 204
We headed out the door, and I was so excited that someone else was going to broach the topic of my IAC with my sister that I almost walked out the front door of the building.
“Cassidy Elizabeth!” Jamie shouted at me. “Come here, please!”
“Ugh, why does everyone know my middle name?” I muttered, spinning to go into the doctor’s office. “It’s like having ten older siblings.”
“Nothing wrong with that,” Brandon reminded me.
“Yes, James?” I asked, folding my hands in front of myself like a choir girl.
He snickered. “Come here, and let me check those teeth of yours.”
I sighed but complied and crossed over to a medical exam table he had set up in the far corner of his office. I hopped up, and he turned on an overhead light. He grabbed a shiny little mirror and a tongue depressor, and I said, “Ah,” like a good patient.
It only took him a second before he said, “Look the same. How many times have they dropped? Just the once at the party?”
He knew about that because he was at our house when I’d come in, and everyone wanted to know what had happened with Liam. “Actually,” I began, looking at Brandon and momentarily wondering what he might think of me for what I was about to say. “They, uh, have shown up a couple other times, too.”
“Were you angry at the time?” Jamie asked, resting his chin on his fist, which was supported by his other arm.
“No. Once, we were watching a comedy, and I started laughing really hard, and out they came.” Luckily, I’d been at Lucy’s house in their movie room, and only Emma and Lucy had been there. “And the other time was when Lucy almost hit a dump truck on the highway last week.” Lucy’s driving could scare a person who can’t die into thinking they were going to die.
“Interesting,” Jamie said. He continued to stroke his chin for a moment as he considered the information I’d just revealed to him. “Well, there are some new Vampires in holding on the other side of campus. We’ve never asked them what might trigger their fangs. Perhaps I could head over there and talk to them….”
I didn’t hear the rest of what he was saying. Almost immediately at the mention of the other Vampires across campus, my head began to fill with whispers and strands of conversation. Most of it was undecipherable to me, but I instinctively put my hand to my head and tried to tune back in to what the doctor was saying. As soon as I realized what I was doing, I pulled my hand away and forced a smile.
“You okay?” Jamie asked, his eyebrows knit together.
“Yeah, just getting a little bit of a headache,” I replied, forced smile still beaming. “I’m fine.”
He nodded. “Brandon, would you mind stepping outside for just a second?” he asked without turning around.
“Sure,” Brandon said, but I could tell he was concerned. I shifted my smile to him, and it became genuine. He didn’t smile back at me, though. He was too busy puzzling over what might be wrong.
As soon as the door closed behind him, Jamie asked, “What’s going on, Cass?”
The idea of denying it came to mind first, but I knew that Jamie was worthy of my trust. The man had saved my life and stopped me from turning into a full-fledged Vampire. Besides, he was held to doctor-patient confidentiality, wasn’t he? “I, uh, keep hearing things,” I said, not looking at him, my eyes fixed to the glossy, waxed, white tile floor instead. “In my brain.”
He was quiet, reflective. “How often?” he asked, not sounding too shocked. It was like that’s what he expected me to say.
“Not that often.” I looked up at him then. It was true. It really wasn’t that frequently. “But… I can never understand what they’re saying. It’s like they’re not talking to me. Like I’m on one of those old party line phones where people used to have to share, and I can only catch a word or two now and again.”
“And me mentioning the Vampires in holding triggered it?”
“Yes, but sometimes it just comes out of nowhere. I won’t even be thinking about them, and I’ll start to hear whispers.”
“Wow,” he said, sitting down next to me on the table. “That’s gotta be hard to deal with.”
I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I was holding. Of all the things he could’ve said, that was probably the most understanding. “Yeah, it really is unsettling.”
“The good news is, you’ll be used to it by the time you get your IAC,” he joked, nudging me. I fake laughed. “Seriously, though, Cass, thanks for letting me know. Vampires have telepathy, and it seems like you have some version of this as well. How well developed it is will be hard to say unless you want to try it out. If you don’t, I totally understand that, as well. But you may have a power none of the rest of us have, which could be both useful and really cool.”
I let that sink in for a moment, not sure what to make of it. I never thought me being part Vampire could be useful in anyway, but to hear him put it like that, well, it made me hopeful. But I wasn’t ready. “Let me think about it,” I said cautiously. “I’d rather have the team in my head first, to get used to it. Then, maybe I can sort the rest of it out.”
“Sure,” Jamie agreed. “Have you told anyone else?”
I shook my head slowly, holding his gaze.
“I think you should tell Cadence,” he said, his words measured. “She needs to know.”
“She’ll try to turn me into some sort of Vampire whisperer,” I said cautiously.
He laughed. “Maybe, but I’ll make sure she understands that you need to take it slowly. Do you want me to call her over here so you can tell her? It might help to have her nearby if you want your IAC.”
“Christian said he’d talk to her and see if he could put it in tomorrow.”
Once again, Jamie was laughing. “You think Christian can talk Cadence into—anything?”
I thought about the video that he’d allegedly taken and thought he’d talked her into something then, but I didn’t mention it. “Can you convince her to put it in?” I asked, hopeful.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’d have a better chance than Christian.”
With a heavy sigh, I said, “Okay, call her over.”
