Chapter 209
After we stuffed ourselves on pizza, Brandon said, “Come on. We’ve got an appointment.” I raised an eyebrow at him but took his hand as he led me to the door. I had no idea where we were going. In fact, we hadn’t even talked about Aaron the entire time we’d been eating, choosing to swap high school drama stories instead. Brandon had a few doozies, even though he generally kept away from drama. So, I had no idea where he was taking me, but I went along, thinking it might have something to do with the great mystery both of us were trying to solve.
“Any idea when your sister is going to teach you how to use your IAC?” he asked as we walked along.
“Nope. I haven’t even spoken to her today,” I admitted. “I think I can probably figure it out on my own, though.”
“Yeah, it’s really not that hard, once you know the basic commands. And there’s some really cool stuff in the archives, too. You can go back and watch old hunts, read reports, stuff like that.”
I looked up at him out of the corner of my eye. “Have you… have you watched Sierraville?” I asked, unable to even speculate as to what the answer might be.
“Not yet,” he said. “But I plan to. Someday.”
I nodded. I think that was probably my answer, too. I wanted to watch it someday, but for now, I needed some more separation. I squeezed his hand. It was nice to think that if we ever got around to watching the hunt where Elliott died, at least we could watch it together.
I realized we were headed to Aaron’s office, which he now shared with Cadence, and I guessed Brandon’s approach of go straight to the horse’s mouth was probably what we were doing. We headed up to the right floor, and as we stepped off the elevator, I took a deep breath.
“It’ll be all right,” Brandon assured me. “The worst that can happen is that he tells us it’s none of our business.”
“Right,” I nodded. Before he could reach the door, I pulled on his arm. “Do you think there might be something in the archives about that?”
“No, I already checked,” he replied, and I let him go.
Mrs. Carminati was as cheerful as ever when she greeted us. “Mr. McReynolds is expecting you,” she said, a broad smile on her ancient face. “Just go on in.”
I still didn’t feel right without knocking first, but Brandon did as instructed and headed into Aaron’s office. I slid my arm up to the crook of his elbow so it wasn’t so obvious we were holding hands. I didn’t think Aaron would say anything, but if Cadence was there, she likely would.
She wasn’t. Aaron was sitting behind his desk on the other side of the room, across from the giant conference room table. My sister had a similar, yet much messier, desk, to the right of his, and it seemed like Aaron was wrapping something up as we entered because he waited until we were almost to his desk before he looked at us, smiled, and said, “How’s it going?”
“Good, thanks,” Brandon said, shaking his hand. Aaron shook my hand, too, which seemed rather formal, and then he gestured for us to take a seat.
I couldn’t believe how immaculate the items on top of his mahogany desk were. Everything was perfectly symmetrical, not even the corner of a piece of paper out of place. My sister’s desk wasn’t awful, but compared to this, she looked like a slob. “Brandon, you said you had a few questions you were hoping I’d help you with,” the Guardian Leader said as he sat back down behind his desk, resting his elbows in places perfectly carved out around other items for such a posture. “What’s going on?”
“Well,” Brandon began, and I was glad to let him be the one to start the conversation. “First of all, I think we should say that we know that what we are about to ask about is really none of our business whatsoever. And I don’t think either one of us would blame you if you told us it wasn’t any of our concern and tossed us out.”
A crooked grin broke out over his handsome face. “Fair enough. What is it?”
Brandon looked at me, and I raised my eyebrows. Was he expecting me to broach the topic? He tipped his head a little, and I realized, he’d said that part first so that he wouldn’t have to ask the real question. “We, uh,” I began, stammering, unable to look into his eyes. To be fair, I had trouble looking into Aaron’s piercing blue eyes even when I wasn’t being nosy. “We heard that… there was some re-Transformation serum. For Guardians. And that you—or someone—maybe not you.” Brandon cleared his throat. “That you used it. And died.”
Aaron stared at me for a long thirty seconds, maybe more. “And?”
I wasn’t expecting that. At all. I had no idea what to say. I turned to Brandon for help. He cleared his throat. “And… we just wanted to know if that’s true. And if so, how you can still be here now.”
Aaron continued to look at me, not Brandon, for a really long moment before he asked, “Have you said anything to your sister about this?”
“No,” I admitted. “I… we thought it would make more sense to ask you about it, since you were the victim—the person who was involved.”
He snickered at my use of the word victim. “Who told you about it?”
“I don’t remember,” I replied quickly.
He didn’t buy that. Aaron leaned back in his chair, folding his arms. “Well, the fact is, what you heard is true. But not a lot of people know about it, and we’d just as soon keep it that way. I did take the re-Transformation serum, right after Sierraville. I was done with—all of this.” He looked around the office for a second, and I noticed there were a ton of old photographs on the wall. I couldn’t imagine everything he must’ve seen in his long lifetime. “I didn’t want to die, of course. But I didn’t want to be a Guardian anymore.” He leaned forward again, put his elbows back on the desk. “It was a temporary lapse in judgment.”
Given what he’d just been through—losing Elliott, having the rest of the team shot up, I could see that. Aaron always seemed to blame himself for every tiny thing that went wrong. “So you took it?”
“Yes, but it didn’t work.” He looked solemn. “If Cadence hadn’t shown up with a couple of vials of Transformation serum, I probably wouldn’t be here.”
