Chapter 210
“Wow,” I muttered. So my sister had saved Aaron’s life. He’d saved her from the bullet in France, and she’d brought him back from the brink of death after the re-Transformation serum. “But did you actually die?”
He shrugged. “Cadence says I did. I don’t honestly remember.”
“Why did Cadence give it to you and not Jamie?” Brandon asked.
“I had flown to Ireland, hoping to re-Transform alone. But she followed me there and arrived just in time.”
I remembered thinking it was odd that my sister had been in Ireland right after Elliott died, right before she came to tell me that he’d been killed. Now, it made sense. Funny how the longer I stuck around, the more questions I asked, the more puzzle pieces seemed to start to fit together.
“Do you think that’s why you’re so much faster than everyone else now?” Brandon asked. “And so much stronger?”
“Yeah, I think so,” he admitted. “I also have X-ray vision.”
“Say what?” I asked, wanting to tug on my jacket lapels.
“Don’t worry. I only use it when I have to. I can control it.”
“That’s awesome!” Brandon exclaimed. “Man, you really are a superhero.”
“I don’t know about that,” Aaron said, shaking his head. “Anyway, I think it’s only fair that you know, since the two of you will be part of our team soon enough. Brandon, you really already are. Cassidy, I’m sure you know you’ll be assigned here.”
I only nodded, thinking back to how that had earned me a target on my back. “Thanks for telling us,” I said. “I promise I won’t mention it to anyone.” There really wasn’t anyone for me to tell who didn’t already know except for Lucy and Emma, and it was getting harder and harder to explain things to them since they’d never even been here before.
“I’m sure you won’t,” he said, offering me a small smile. “There is one other event you don’t know about that I think you should, though,” he said, sighing.
I was confused at first, but after a moment of reflection, I knew what he had to be talking about. I really felt like I’d finally had all of the holes filled in for me, except for one major event, one no one really seemed to want to talk about. “Grandpa Jordan?” I asked. I knew very little about what had happened to him, only that he’d died at headquarters and that he had to have been killed by a Hunter, because that was the only thing, at the time, that would do it.
Aaron nodded. “I think we should wait for your sister to get here, though.”
“Why?” I asked, trying to keep the snark out of my voice. “She’s had plenty of opportunities to tell me what happened and hasn’t. She wasn’t here when it happened. Were you?”
He nodded. “Yes. I was here.”
I looked at Brandon, and he gave me a sympathetic smile. I turned back to my soon-to-be brother-in-law. “Listen, Aaron, I appreciate how honest you’ve always been with me about everything. I don’t know if my sister finding out that I know what happened to Grandpa without her here will upset her or not, but I do know that she’s got so many other things going on, she’ll likely just be relieved to hear she doesn’t have to explain any of this to me.”
He weighed my words carefully, I could tell. Once again, he leaned back in his chair. “Your grandmother had once dated a Hunter by the name of Skelton. Not a very nice guy. He had a tendency not to check the status of Vampires before he wiped them out, whether they were compliant or not. Your grandma decided she wanted nothing to do with him and broke it off, long before she met your grandpa, before she moved here.
“Your grandparents got married and ran a really tight ship for about a hundred years. They’d established KC as headquarters, had all of these facilities built, added new technology. We didn’t have the IAC yet, but we had rigged up a recording mechanism, one Jordan happened to be wearing that night. Skelton had been hanging around for a few months, saying he was working on a project, wanted to straighten himself up. Your grandma has always been a forgiving soul. She trusted him. She shouldn’t have.”
He glanced around the room again, and I instinctively reached for Brandon’s hand, which he gave to me. “One night, right before your grandparents were to leave on the very first vacation they’d planned in decades, Skelton showed up at your grandfather’s door. Remember, they had separate quarters, even though they were happily married?”
I nodded. I remembered. I thought it was odd but could understand why my grandma would want her own space, especially when she was used to living in a large house before she moved into the apartment.
“It was what is currently my apartment.” He said those words like he thought about that pretty frequently. “Your grandma was already there but left the room for a minute. A few moments after she left, she heard a gunshot, just one. She rushed back in, and Skelton said it had been an accident. Your grandfather was on the floor, bleeding from a wound in the back of his head.”
I covered my mouth with my free hand. Why is it that everyone was always getting shot in the head?
“She called me, and I called Jamie, but by the time we got there, it was too late. He was already gone.”
I didn’t know what to say. It seemed like every question that popped into my head was silly. Was my grandma devastated? Of course. Was Aaron? Obviously. Did he take over for my grandpa? I knew he had.
“What happened to Skelton?” Brandon asked.
“He ran off before I got there, and we never found him,” Aaron admitted. “We heard later that he’d been killed by a clan of Vampires in New Mexico, but we never got confirmation.”
“Didn’t Grandma want to hunt him down?” I asked. How could she not want to?
“She said there was no sense risking more bloodshed over it. What was done was done, and he’d have to live with it.”
I couldn’t believe that at first, but then I thought, if more people took my grandma’s approach, Elliott might still be with us.
“What did the recording show?” Brandon asked.
“It showed Skelton aiming and shooting Jordan in the back of the head, clearly on purpose.” Aaron’s voice was solemn again. I was certain he watched that recording more times than he cared to count. I wondered if that was in the archives.
“Thank you for telling me,” I said, managing a small smile. It had been a day of revelations.
The Guardian Leader nodded at us. “You deserved to know. Everything.” And I knew he was talking about his own story as well.
Brandon stood, and I followed suit. “We won’t take up any more of your time.”
“Thanks for stopping by,” Aaron said, standing as well. I thought he was going to shake our hands again, like this was a formal meeting, but he didn’t. I stooped to pick up my gym bag that I’d dropped on the floor earlier, and Brandon grabbed his, too. “I think Cadence is planning to teach you how to use your IAC tonight.”
“Cool.” That did make me smile. The idea that I’d be able to secretly talk to Brandon whenever I wanted to soon seemed like a good deal to me.
We headed out the door, stopping to say goodbye to Mrs. Carminati, and Brandon held my hand as we made our way back to the apartment building. I didn’t say anything, and neither did he. It was perfectly fine, though. With some people, you don’t need to talk to know exactly what they’re thinking, even if they’re not using their eye computers.
