Chapter 237
As we walked, we passed Cale and Morgan, not only still next to each other, but she had her arm around him. My eyes enlarged, and I looked at my sister who looked just as surprised as I felt. I almost laughed. I’m not sure why I thought it was funny, but I did.
We walked out into the brisk February air, headed back to the hotel, which was close by. “How are you feeling?” Brandon asked.
“Good,” I replied. “I’m a little nervous, but I think it’ll be fun.”
He chuckled. “I guess that’s one way to look at it. Especially since nothing remotely dangerous is going to happen to you.”
“What do you mean?” I asked as one of the cars driving by honked loudly, apparently at nothing.
“You’re going to be surrounded by an army of Healers and my dad. There’s no way in the world Gibbon’s getting within a hundred yards of you.”
I nodded, thinking that was probably true. At least, if everything went according to plan. However, I might not be an expert on how these operations went, but I knew there was a pretty slim chance that anything was going to go according to plan. There was no reason for me to point that out to Brandon, though. “What about you? Are you nervous?”
“A little,” he admitted as I spotted our hotel just ahead of us. “I haven’t worked with Aurora that much. I feel a little scared to be responsible for keeping her safe.”
“But you’re used to guarding my sister,” I reminded him. “Isn’t she more difficult to protect than Aurora?”
He shrugged. “It’s not a matter of difficulty as much as it is anticipation. Different Hunters have different techniques. Aurora, for example, tends to give little signals with her hands, which usually makes her easier to track. But sometimes she doesn’t, which can make it easier to get off sync with her. Your sister, on the other hand, just takes off. And I end up flying along behind her, trying to keep up and head her off somehow. So… it’s just different.”
All of that made sense to me. “Well, it’s really cool that they gave you an actual assignment,” I said. I felt like I was going to essentially take up more resources, having to be babysat all night.
“Yeah, thanks,” he said. “I’ve never been on a hunt like this before. I’ve hunted Vampires, but Gibbon is a true monster.” He shuddered a little bit, and I couldn’t help but smile. It was nice to think I wasn’t the only one who was nervous.
“They wouldn’t have brought you if you weren’t ready.”
“Oh, I know,” Brandon replied. “If Ashley and Mickey are ready, I definitely am, too.”
The mention of the Hunter’s name reminded me of what had happened earlier during the meeting. There was a small sitting area right outside of the hotel, and I rushed over and sat down in a one of the black metal chairs around a matching table. “That reminds me,” I said, as I was sitting, “what was that question all about?”
Brandon snickered as he sat next to me. “Right!” He obviously knew exactly what I was talking about. He grinned as he began to fill me in. “Apparently, when Aaron and Cadence were still fighting about the portal thing, before she left to go to the desert, they took Ashley and Mickey on a training hunt. The objective was for Cadence to demonstrate how to behead a Vampire, and Aaron was going to show Mickey how to keep up with the Hunter.”
“So Aaron was Guarding Cadence?” I knew he was one of the only Guardians that was fast enough to keep up with her, but I thought he usually liked to direct when he could.
Brandon nodded. “Yeah, Hannah was calling it. Well, instead of attacking, when the Vampires—there were two of them—came into range, Cadence just pulled her Glock and dispensed of them.”
“Shut up!” I exclaimed, latching onto his arm.
“Yeah. Really made Aaron mad. Because he was like, what’s the point in bringing them out here if you’re going to do that?”
I couldn’t help but giggle. “Sounds like something my sister would do.”
“I was shocked. She usually likes to rip the sucker’s head off.”
“I can see that, too,” I said. “But if she was mad at Aaron, and he wanted her to attack, I’m not surprised at all that she shot them instead. Cadence can be so stubborn when she wants to be.”
Laughing, Brandon said, “Uh, hello? Kettle—pot—black much?”
“Okay, I know,” I said, trying not to roll my eyes. “But I’m sixteen. She’s a grownup.”
“If you want to be treated like an adult, though, you’ve got to act like one all the time.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, narrowing my eyes at him.
“Nothing,” he said defensively. “I’m just saying… what happened the last time we were here wouldn’t have happened if you’d stayed in KC like she told you.”
I couldn’t argue with that, and doing so would probably prove his point anyway. “I know.” My voice dropped to just above a whisper. “But… she’s still not taking me seriously. I sort of hoped she would after we found Giovani.” By “we” I meant me, Lucy, and Emma. “But she didn’t. And now, now that I’ve led her right to Gibbon’s lair, she’s still not.”
“Just because she didn’t understand what Klondike meant doesn’t mean she wasn’t taking you seriously. Maybe she was planning to do some research and then tell the rest of the team.”
I assumed he was playing devil’s advocate more than purposely trying to disagree with me. “I don’t think she was. I think she just assumed I was off target.”
Brandon’s face told me he couldn’t disagree. “Listen, Cass, working with your sister’s going to be a challenge. You’re too similar—whether you care to admit it or not. But when you’re out there, she’s not your sister; she’s your boss. You have to do what she says.”
The feel of his thumb making circles on the back of my hand was reassuring. “You’re right,” I agreed. “Maybe I should talk to her before we even go in.”
“About what?” he asked, leaning even closer to me.
I let out a deep sigh. If I couldn’t talk to Brandon about this, there was no way I could talk to Cadence. “They brought me here under the premise that I might be able to find Gibbon, right?”
“In a pinch, yes,” he nodded.
“What if we don’t wait for that?” I asked. “What if I just find him to begin with?”
He was shaking his head before I even finished. “She’s not going to go for that. She’ll be afraid you’ll tip him off that we’re here.”
“But… I can make him trust me.” I don’t know why, but I just knew deep down inside, I could make him believe I was on his side, as I had the girl I’d seen the day before, the one who had disclosed Gibbon’s location.
“Well, if you’re planning on taking that approach, you definitely need to talk to Cadence about it beforehand,” Brandon warned. “If you just go for it out on the field, she’ll kick your butt.”
He was right. I nodded and sucked in a deep breath. I didn’t even know if Cadence was planning on coming back to the hotel before the hunt, though I imagined she would. The afternoon was melting into evening, and the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, but 1:00 was still a long way off.
“Let’s go inside,” I said, standing, tugging on his hand. Without a word, Brandon walked with me through the lobby to the elevator, which we boarded, and I pressed the number for our floor, fingering the keycard in my jeans pocket.
“Listen, Cass,” he said at about the time the elevator dinged, “you be careful tonight. I never, ever want to see you in the condition I saw you in the last time we were here.”
Our room was just a few doors down, so I waited to respond. Once we were at the door, I slipped the keycard into the slot. “Don’t worry, Brandon. I’ll be fine. Like you said, there will be an army to protect me, right?”
He nodded.
“I’ll be perfectly fine.”
His head bobbed up and down again, but this time, I wasn’t sure he meant it. That was okay, though, because I wasn’t sure I meant it either.
