Chapter 226
Elliott Sanderson was sitting on the sofa in my movie room, alive and well. I was having trouble believing it, and I don’t think I was the only one. Brandon sat down on the wraparound sofa about as far away from his dad as possible, and I had no problem sitting between them, though in this case I chose to sit closer to Elliott, in case I needed to pinch him or something.
“So how are you, lil girl?” he asked, his eyes giving away his concern. “I heard you had a little adventure.”
I absently wondered why I was “lil” but my adventure was “little” while I thought about a response. Apparently, one of the million things I needed to tell him had already been told. “Yeah, I had a little run in with a Vampire or two. I’m fine,” I replied, shrugging like it was no big deal. I really didn’t want to talk about myself, relive everything right now. I wanted to hear about him.
That wasn’t going to happen right away. “Are you fine?” he asked, his eyebrows arched. “Because I hear you’ve been having a pretty rough time lately.”
I turned and looked at Brandon whose expression showed he must agree with his dad, but then, Brandon hadn’t really known any other version of me. I turned back to Elliott. “I’m fine. I mean, I’m tired of this horrible town, of being stuck here while everyone else is out doing important work, but other than that, I’m okay.”
He nodded and folded his arms, but I knew he wasn’t completely buying it, and I imagined he could probably read me better than I could read myself. I didn’t wait for a follow up question. “So… what was it like?” I asked.
“Being dead?” he snickered. “Heck, I don’t know. Don’t remember most of it.”
“Really?” That was shocking to me. I’d heard him say to my dad that he didn’t really remember where he was, but I expected there to be something.
“Nah, not really. I know wherever I was it was great. But then, all of a sudden, I saw Cadence standing in front of me, sorta wavy like. You know, like if she were underwater? Anywho, I immediately remembered everything I’d forgotten—her, you. Everyone. And she told me everything was just fine. But I got the impression she wasn’t being honest, not about everyone anyway, so I decided to step through the blue dancing lights. And now—well, here I am.”
“You know you can’t ever go back, though, right?” Brandon asked. “She told you that?”
“She told me,” he nodded. “We’ll see. Just because no one has done it before doesn’t mean it can’t happen. I mean, from what I understand a lot has changed already in the last few months since I departed.” He looked at me with even more concern in his eyes. “I hear that Aaron killed a Hunter. That’s a first. And… there’s… you.”
He said it with love in his voice and a small grin on his face. “Yep. There’s me,” I replied, trying not sound like a typical teenager and failing. “Where were you when you came through? Where had Cadence gone?”
“She didn’t tell you?” he asked, and that small grin morphed into a bigger one. “Only Cadence would decide to bring me back in the same jurisdiction in which I left.”
“Reno?” I asked, once again swiveling around to look at Brandon. He was right. Cale was involved. Interesting.
“Yep. She said she needed the desert sky to ensure a lack of clouds.”
“Uh huh,” Brandon said, clearly thinking that my sister’s only motivation had nothing to do with terrain.
Elliott shrugged. “I don’t know what’s going on. I guess Aaron didn’t want her to do it or something, so she snuck off. But they seemed fine with each other when we got to… at your grandmother’s house.”
His words brought a wave of grief over me. I knew he’d been avoiding mentioning her, but I needed to accept that my grandma was gone. I nodded. “Well, that’s good. I’m sure they’ll be fine.”
“Hope so. I think my dying is what brought them back together again in the first place, so I’d really hate for my living to tear them apart.” He said it jokingly, but I knew there was a ring of fear in his voice.
“Did anyone know where she was?” Brandon asked.
“She says she thinks Christian had it figured out. Cale knew—once she showed up at his place a few days ago. I think that’s all.”
Brandon nodded. “She sure is sneaky.”
“And determined. Man, I thought Aaron was stubborn. Can’t believe anyone pulled something this huge over on him.” Elliott was shaking his head, making his curls dance around, something I’d missed. I wanted to reach out and straighten them but thought that might be weird for Brandon who had recently started cutting his too short for me to mess with—not that I had anyway. Much.
“She told you all about Gibbon?” I asked, deciding to change the subject. Problems between Aaron and Cadence not only weren’t my business, I refused to worry about personal things my sister didn’t mention to me.
“Yeah, she told me. Sounds like a nut job if I’ve ever heard of one before.”
“We need to get him.” He nodded at me, and I continued. “I’ve been trying to reach out to some other Vampires, to see if I can find anything out. So far, I haven’t had a lot of luck. Now that the blue moon is over, maybe I’ll have better reception. It seemed to have them riled up a little bit.”
“It’s really cool that you can do that. I’m sure we can think of all kinds of nefarious activities for you to undertake now that you can eavesdrop on their conversations.”
Elliott winked at me, and for the first time since my Transformation, I actually felt like maybe it really was cool that I could hear Vampires talking when they didn’t know I was listening, or that I could send out questions and possibly get a response. “Thanks,” was about all I could muster, but I felt my face turning red.
