Chapter 301
“Wow. That must’ve been crazy, seeing your first Vampire in the forest like that,” I said, to Dax, shaking my head. “But the girl you came across in the woods was okay?” I thought I’d heard that from my sister or Elliott or someone.
“Yeah, she was okay, but her dad wasn’t so lucky. Her name is Delilah. She was just shaking the whole time she was in my truck. I took her to the police before we went out to look for her dad. He… looked a lot like the folks we ran into tonight.”
I understood what he meant. Throat ripped out. “How terrible. What did the police think?”
“They thought it must be a wild animal of some sort. I told them what I’d seen, and they decided it had to be unrelated, that Delilah was attacked by a criminal of some sort while her dad was being killed by a bear or whatever. I knew what I’d seen, though, and my grandma helped me get ahold of Daniel.”
I knew he meant Daniel Bower, the San Francisco Area Leader. I’d never met him, but I’d seen him on the IAC. “So you decided to go ahead and Transform?”
“Yeah. I’m rethinking that right about now.” He laughed, like maybe he was joking, but I knew that he wasn’t. “I decided if it was possible for me to be a part of all of this, I should give it a shot. My grandma was so proud of me. She said she’d never been brave enough to go through with it herself.”
“She’s going to be excited to hear about everything you’ve done tonight,” I said, thinking if it were my parents we were talking about, instead of his apparently adventure-loving granny, that would be a different story. I’d be home in Shenandoah before I could say, “But Mom….”
“That’s true, especially since she knows that Vampires can’t kill me. But Cassidy, those people looked like they were in a lot of pain.” His face paled, thinking about the Guardians we’d seen the night before. “I can’t imagine….”
“I know. I’ve never had my throat ripped out before, but I have been through unbearable pain, and it’s not something I look forward to ever experiencing again.”
“Really?” Dax asked, his blue eyes wide. “What happened to you?”
With a deep breath, I went back a little before my trip to Philadelphia, back to when I’d first realized what Cadence was, only telling him a small amount about Drew and Jack, and filled him in on my life as a teenage Vampire Hunter. I had to skim over the part about the portal, just telling him my sister had gone behind Aaron’s back to do something maybe she shouldn’t have, and that’s probably what was making the Vampires so powerful right now. He seemed fascinated and told me how brave he thought I was for going to Philadelphia, but I pointed out it was a really stupid mistake. “It depends on how you look at it, I guess. I mean, if you hadn’t done that, you wouldn’t be here. You wouldn’t have been able to help with the IACs and all that yesterday.”
“I don’t think you quite understand what happened last night, Dax,” I said, shaking my head slowly. “All of this was my fault. I’m the one that brought Bonnie here.”
Somehow, he must’ve grasped that already because his answer was quick. “Yeah, but think of all of the information they’re able to get because you can do those things, Cass. It’s because you can talk to Vampires that they were able to get you to bring Bonnie here. Whether that was some sort of wicked scheme, or she was just a little psycho, I don’t know, but I think the good outweighs the bad.”
“But… we wouldn’t even be needing to go through all of this if Cadence hadn’t done what she did. What she did caused Elliott to make a decision that created all of this chaos.” I reasoned, wanting to think Dax was right to some degree but not able to just accept it either. “He only made that decision because of me.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about exactly,” he said. I hadn’t mentioned Elliott dying because I didn’t know how to tell him that without mentioning the portal. “But I’m sure anything Elliott did had more to do with him being an adult who can make his own decisions than just what he thought was best for you.” I nodded, trying to take all of that in and dropped my eyes to the floor. Dax was a pretty smart kid. He said, “Can I ask you something personal?” when my phone rang, sending us both jumping and reaching for our guns.
“Hold that thought,” I said, smiling at him and holding up a finger. While I wanted to be nice, I was kind of glad he hadn’t gotten a chance to ask me. I saw that it was Lucy calling and rushed out to the hallway to take the call, not wanting to disturb Jamie or Tara.
“OMG, Cass!” she exclaimed when I accepted the FaceTime call. “What’s going on? I haven’t talked to you in forever!”
I could see she was in her bathroom, and she was doing her hair and makeup, getting ready for school. I checked the time and saw it wasn’t quite 7:00 yet, so that made sense. “You will not believe what happened the last two nights,” I said, sinking down to the floor in the hall. I noticed Christian’s door was open, and his light was on, but I didn’t really care if he overheard.
“Wait!” Lucy said, setting down her makeup brush. “Let me get Emma on.”
I guessed my other best friend was calling in, and Lucy managed to get her on audio, even though I couldn’t see Emma. We said hello, and then I started filling them on everything that had happened since the RV park. They couldn’t believe the bit about Bonnie, and Lucy was squealing with delight about how cute she was, until I got to the part where she started ripping out people’s throats. When I told her what she did to Aaron—who Lucy has a huge crush on—she had a few choice words for the little Vampire child. I couldn’t blame her for being upset. I was, too, but then I also remembered how sweet Bonnie had been before the bloodbath.
“So anyway, now I’m sitting here with Dax, waiting to see if Tara dies and then comes back. Or just gets better. Or just dies.” I had trouble saying the last few words.
