Chapter 333
“I’m ready to join LIGHTS,” Lucy said quietly. “It’s hard to describe, Emma. Even though technically I didn’t start the Transformation process the other night, something changed in me. Something I can’t quite describe.”
“What about Jason?” I whispered.
Lucy shrugged. “We’ve been dating for a while now, you know. But it’s not like I’m in love with him. He graduates in two months, and then he’s planning on going to Nebraska to play football. I doubt I’d see much of him anyway.”
It sounded similar to when Jack and Cadence had broken up because he was going to Nebraska to play baseball, and she had chosen to go to University of Iowa instead. My mind naturally flickered over the guys in my training group, and there were a couple I thought Lucy might like, though the idea of her looking to date right now was absurd. I took another deep breath. “Well, is your mom gonna talk to my mom?”
“She said she would.” Annie had come out of the guest room a little while ago and was sitting in the living room. “She said she doesn’t know if she can stand to lose me, too, right now, and that was upsetting. I wish she didn’t feel that way.”
“Maybe you should think about it. We can always come back and get you. You don’t have to go with us when we leave tomorrow,” I offered.
“No, I’ve thought about it. I can’t go back into that house, and I can’t stay here either.”
Emma’s eyebrows arched. “You can stay here as long as you need to.”
“No, I know. That’s not what I meant.” When Lucy sighs, it’s loud. All four boys turned and looked at us. She didn’t seem to notice. “I mean, I can’t stay in this town.” Tears sprang into her eyes. “I need to do something. Even if I can’t train yet, just being there, getting the sense of things, will make me feel like I’m doing something productive.”
I completely understood that. It was the hardest thing in the world for me to sit around after Elliott died. I wanted to be doing something to catch his killers, and while I had been able to help a little bit, it wasn’t the same as what I could do now that I was actually in Kansas City. “Do you want me to talk to Cadence?”
“Yes, please,” Lucy replied quickly. I nodded, and then she looked at my sister and made a little rocking motion with her head.
“Now?” I asked, surprised.
“Yes. Why not?” Lucy shrugged.
I looked from her to my sister and then back again before taking a deep breath and pushing up from the table. My sister didn’t seem to be discussing anything particularly trying with the guys, but it seemed like a weird conversation to have when just anyone could wander over.
“Everything okay?” Brandon asked me through my IAC, or Intelligence Assistance Communicator, which is a small computer chip we all have embedded in our eyes. It allows us to speak to each other without opening our mouths, and it also lets us see what another team member is seeing.
“Fine. Just going to talk to Cadence about something.”
“Uh, you don’t sound fine.”
I didn’t have an answer for that, so I didn’t respond, but he stayed where he was, which I appreciated because I had no idea what I was going to say to Cadence and didn’t need another witness.
Elliott was telling a story when I stepped up between him and my sister, which was no surprise. Elliott is always telling a story or eating. He didn’t pause for almost a full minute, and I considered using my IAC to either shut him up or tell my sister I needed to speak with her, but he finally got to the punchline, and once everyone was done laughing, I cleared my voice. “Cadence, can I talk to you outside for a minute?”
“What, Cass? You didn’t think that was funny? My mom drank an entire bottle of canola oil because she thought it was cooking wine.”
“Yes, that’s hilarious,” I replied, forcing a giggle. I hadn’t heard anything he’d said and thought his mother must’ve been a nutcase to do something like that, but I didn’t have any extra brain cells to spare working that out. “Cadence?”
“Okay,” my sister said, squeezing Aaron’s arm as she walked behind him. I followed, noting he seemed to flinch when she touched him. Something else I couldn’t think about at the moment.
The warmth of the sun’s rays was invigorating, despite the fact that we were at a dismal ceremony. A few people were standing in the yard talking or getting in their cars, so I walked around the corner a bit, hoping to give us some privacy. I could’ve used my IAC, but we tend to make facial expressions like we’re talking to each other when we communicate that way, and I didn’t see the point in weirding anyone out.
“Did you see that?” Cadence asked, folding her arms as she stopped near an elm tree that was just starting to open its leaves.
“See what?” I asked. There were a number of occurrences she could’ve been referring to.
“Never mind,” she replied with a scowl. I realized then she was talking about Aaron’s reaction to her small gesture to let him know she’d be back, but I decided to let it go because that wasn’t my reason for dragging her away in the first place. “What is it?”
“Well, Lucy wanted me to talk to you. She wants to know if she can come back to KC with us. Or come soon, or whatever. She doesn’t want to stay here.”
My sister’s brown eyes doubled in size. So I wasn’t the only one who was surprised. “What does her mom think about that?” she finally asked.
“Luce said her mom wasn’t thrilled about it, but she said it was okay with her if it was all right with you and Mom and Dad.”
My sister pursed her lips and looked over her shoulder at the house. If she had X-ray vision like Aaron, I’d think there was a chance she was actually trying to see Lucy, but then I thought she was probably just contemplating the situation. She finally turned back around and said, “It’s okay with me. But she’d have to live with you guys. And Aaron would need to approve it, too.”
I was shocked she’d said yes. My sister doesn’t usually agree to my inquiries so readily. “Really?” I asked, hoping not to press my luck.
“I don’t see why not. Won’t she be seventeen in a couple of months?” I nodded. “And we offered to bring the whole family back. Are you sure they don’t want to come, too?”
“I’m pretty sure. Daniel will graduate in May. I think he’s already decided he’s going to MIT, so that will just leave her mom. Maybe by then, she’ll want to move out of that house.”
My sister wrinkled her nose, and I knew she was thinking the same thing I was. “Well, I guess we’ll have to make sure Mom and Dad are on board, but it’s all right with me. Surely she won’t want to come right away, though.”
“Oh, I think she does,” I replied. It did sound odd to think she’d leave her mom right after her dad was taken so tragically, but Lucy seemed on edge, and I thought she was ready to get away from there. I couldn’t blame her.
“Whatever she wants,” Cadence said. “We can always come back and get her in a week or two.” The fact that her fiancé was a pilot, and we have access to a fleet of aircraft made her confident in that answer, and I nodded.
“Thanks.” I hoped I sounded genuinely grateful and not like a punk kid spitting out the word. That’s something I need to work on—not being so angsty.
“Sure.” Cadence pressed her lips together in some semblance of a smile and scanned the location. We all do that. A lot. Especially when we aren’t at headquarters. I wondered if she even noticed it.
“Did you talk to Alice Cook?” I asked, my stomach tangling. I’d only said a few words to the woman. She and her husband, Steve, were having problems since Jack had died, and I felt awful for her and everyone else in this town who’d been affected by Holland and her devils.
“I did,” Cadence nodded. We turned back toward the house, walking slowly, side by side. “She’s not doing too well. But she hides it.” I wasn’t sure how to respond, so I didn’t say anything. My sister continued. “She asked a lot of questions about what I was doing now, and when she noticed my ring, she got tears in her eyes.”
It hadn’t occurred to me that she didn’t know my sister was engaged. “That had to be hard on her.” Even though Cadence and Jack weren’t dating anymore when he died, his parents had always loved my sister and hoped they’d get back together.
“Yeah. And Aaron....” Cadence stopped talking. We were almost to the sidewalk that led to the front porch. “Anyway, I feel bad for her. And Lucy’s family. And everyone else.”
It seemed like my sister had some concerns about Aaron herself, but she clearly didn’t want to go into it, and I didn’t need another problem to solve. “Hopefully, I’ll be able to intercept any more plans on Holland’s behalf, and nothing like this will happen again,” I said, wishing I would’ve seen this coming. It wasn’t the first time the thought had occurred to me, but as Cadence reminded me the last time it happened, there’s a lot going on in that Vampire’s head, and I can’t possibly see all of it.
“Hopefully, we can figure out where she’s hiding and end her once and for all,” Cadence replied. That was my primary objective—that and wiping out the cells that Holland had been moving into place to try to attack our various headquarters. But we’d been dragging our feet on all of that, and I didn’t quite understand why. Now that this slaughter had taken place, I knew I was going to have to do something, even if it wasn’t my place, and I was just one tiny part of LIGHTS. I had to do whatever I could to make sure the next time an attack occurred, we were the ones coming in with guns a’blazing, not sitting and waiting for them to sneak in and take us by surprise. The only problem was, I was the only one who seemed to realize this. That had to change.
