Chapter 404
My new apartment was amazing! Sure, it was basically completely empty at this point, though I had gotten Brandon and Dax to move my bedroom furniture in, and I’d ordered a few kitchen necessities on Amazon. I couldn’t live without a blender, after all. How could I make my protein shakes in the morning without a blender? I didn’t mind not having any place to sit or a TV to watch because along with living by myself came an amount of freedom I’d never known before. Not only did I give myself a new curfew of 11:00, I allowed myself to watch scary movies and eat all kinds of junk food. I was basically Kevin in Home Alone.
Except I was living on the edge, and I didn’t know how much longer it would take for my sister and my mom to really sit down and talk about this. Three weeks in, and neither of them had said much of anything. I made a point of dropping by to have lunch with my mom every other day and show her my math progress because I wanted to keep her happy. I also brought Brandon over for dinner a couple of times. She needed to know we were being responsible young people so if this did go south, she couldn’t be angry at him for helping me pull it off. Of course, there was no telling what Liz might do when she found out what I was up to, but for now, I was living the dream. Like a death row inmate who manages to escape a few months before his execution, there was no stopping me now!
That was my hope anyway. But one morning almost a month into my shenanigans, I was at training, helping Aurora lead a particularly difficult session on following specific directions—which is sort of ironic—when Aaron showed up at practice. Now, this does happen from time to time. He does take an interest in what we’re doing over there in the gym, particularly if there’s an exceptionally talented new recruit he might want to keep or find a special appointment for. But that wasn’t the case right now, so there really wasn’t a reason for him to be there.
So, of course, the second I saw him, my heart caught in my throat, and I knew it had something to do with me. By the time he wandered over to where I was standing next to Aurora, I was pouring buckets of sweat from every pore. I tried not looking directly at him, but he had a rolled up tube of papers in his hand, and I had a feeling without even probing his brain for information that this somehow related to my new apartment.
He greeted Aurora briefly before she stepped forward and started shouting directions to the trainees. When he addressed me, it was casual at first. He folded one arm under his elbow, the one with the papers, and asked, “How’s it going, Cass?”
“Good. Real good,” I replied enthusiastically, nodding my head back and forth with a bit too much fervor. “Really, really good.”
“That’s good.” I could hear a slight bit of amusement in his voice. “Lucy seems to be making steady progress in her training.”
“Oh, yeah. She’s doing great. Really, really great.” As soon as the answer was out of my mouth, I knew I sounded like a moron.
He just stood there for a few more minutes, like he was just casually watching the trainees, and I knew he was waiting to see how long it would take me to say something—to give in and confess. I was bound and determined to play it cool, even though there was absolutely nothing cool at all about how I was conducting myself. I was sweating so badly, I could feel it dripping down the backs of my legs.
I guess he had other things to do that day, so eventually he said, “Say, Cass, you wouldn’t happen to have any idea why Juan Diego sent me an invoice for furniture for apartment 550, would you?”
I raised my eyebrows and glanced in his direction, like it was a surprise to me, before I returned my attention to the trainees who were doing their best to stealthily move in on a pretend Vampire in front of us. I wasn’t sure where to start with my lying, so I tried to configure my answer into a logical sentence. “Juan Diego?” I asked, like I didn’t know who that was. “Apartment 550? In our building? No, no I don’t know.” Part of me thought I should ask him why he was asking me. But I didn’t want to give away the fact that I knew why he was asking me. So I said nothing more.
“Huh,” the Guardian Leader said, studying the papers in his hands. “It’s exactly the same furniture as he ordered for Lucy’s apartment, minus the bedroom items. I guess I could go ask him....”
That wouldn’t work in my favor. “I mean... maybe he just assumes someone’s going to be moving in there soon.”
“Yeah, I guess that’s possible. Someone who doesn’t need a bedroom suite, though?”
I took another quick peek at him and couldn’t help but notice he was holding back a smile. Clearly, he was on to me. Which shouldn’t have been surprising. He always knows everything ten minutes before anyone else even asks the question. I should’ve given up. I didn’t. “Yeah, well, maybe he just didn’t know for sure what kinda bed that person might want. People are a little picky about that sort of thing.”
“Uh huh,” Aaron said and went quiet again. I actually thought for a few minutes maybe he would let it go. But then he said the same phrase that has school-aged children quaking in their sneakers when they hear a principal say it. Except instead of his office, he said, “Can I talk to you for a moment in Aurora’s office?”
Aurora heard her name, and her head swiveled around. A quick nod at the bossman, despite my eyes pleading with her to say something, anything, to save me, and I turned back in his direction to follow him to my doom.
Her office is just down the hall, and we were almost there when Aurora came running up behind us. “Actually, uh, Aaron, if you could use Shane’s office, that would be better. My office is a real mess.” She put her hand on her side trying to look casual, but I think it was because she’d actually run so quickly she had a stitch. This was even weirder than the invoice in Aaron’s hand. I had to know what was going on. I try to stay out of my friends’ thoughts whenever possible, but I am a teenage girl, and this had my curiosity piqued.
So I jumped into Roar’s head.
Why in the world would Elliott be in Aurora’s office???
I’d have to figure that out later because Aaron said okay and led me past Aurora’s office to Shane’s. If Aaron thought it was odd that Aurora didn’t want us in there, he didn’t say anything. Maybe because he was preoccupied with how he was going to berate me for being a big, fat liar.
