Chapter 422
Instead of going into the room I was sharing with my sister, I went into Brandon and Elliott’s. It was weird. All of their stuff was still there, exactly how they’d left it. They thought they’d be coming back in an hour or two. Now, who knows? I wondered where they were, if they were okay, if they were scared. I imagined they’d have to be unless they lost their memories of us, the way that Elliott had when he died. I couldn’t imagine Brandon being out there somewhere in the cosmos now, not remembering me. I refused to believe that could be the case.
I opened his suitcase and took out the shirt he’d been wearing earlier because it smelled like him. It was a cotton shirt, blue, with a logo on the front in black. I held it up to my face and took a deep breath and tried to fight back my tears. Taking off my leather jacket and my holster, I set them on the end of the bed and put his shirt on over the top of mine.
Moving to Elliott’s suitcase, I opened it up and quickly found the ski cap I’d given him for our first Christmas together. It was where he always kept it when he traveled. Of course, he didn’t need it in August, but he said he always took it with him in case he missed me too much while he was gone, which was super sweet, even if I was in his head any time he needed me. I put it on.
And then I sat down in the middle of the bed that neither of them would ever sleep in. They wouldn’t have anyway because they don’t sleep, but it seemed so insane to me that they were likely never coming back here, assuming my hunch was right and they were in a portal. What were the chances it always opened in Shepherdstown, West Virginia? Not likely. I was praying this didn’t mean we would have to wait for the next blood moon because I was pretty sure that wasn’t until next year. I was not going to be able to make it that long.
I folded my legs and closed my eyes, trying to relax. I took deep breaths like I was doing meditation or yoga, and concentrated on Brandon’s face, fully expecting to hear his voice in my head asking me what was up. But that didn’t happen. When you’re used to reaching for someone the same way you reach for your phone, and he’s always there, and then he’s not there, it’s the loneliest feeling in the universe.
I thought about getting in touch with Tara, but I didn’t know for sure what to tell her yet, and I was hoping she was asleep. She doesn’t sleep as much as I do, but she’s still a Hunter so she has to rest. If I knew Tara, she’d be sending Dax an IAC message as soon as her eyes were open in a few hours. Maybe by then we’d have a better idea what was happening.
I couldn’t find the Guardians, but I thought I’d have a decent chance of finding Hamish Stewart. I didn’t understand how Holland had become so strong that she was able to block him and herself from me so thoroughly.
Going back to Rog’s memories, I gathered as many details about Stewart as I could. I located people at his university to get an impression of him. Quiet, reclusive, odd. A little strange looking. No one suspected he was a Vampire. He was wealthy, as most Vampires are, and had a nice house in Quebec. Lots of art and artifacts, antiques, a collection of old books and manuscripts. Why in the world would he want to give up all of that for Holland?
I had no answer for that. I tried to put him back at the festival but couldn’t even get that far. As painful as it was, I re-watched the conversations I was having with Brandon and Elliott, up until I blacked out, which thankfully didn’t include what had happened to them because I wasn’t ready for that yet, and I assumed someone was going over that footage somewhere. I looked for Stewart at every angle but couldn’t see a trace of him.
I did notice one of the girls I’d seen at the festival grounds. Her name was Lizzie, and she had long brown hair like me and Cadence and was also about our height. I could see her behind Jamie while Brandon and him were talking, just over his left shoulder, and she seemed to be watching them. I tried jumping back into her head to see if I could figure out why, but it was part of her memories that were scrambled from whatever Holland had done to her.
Hannah’s voice in my head gave me pause. “Cass, what are you working on, hon?”
I could tell she was trying to be sympathetic to my plight because I don’t remember her ever calling me hon before, so I said, “Searching. For Stewart, Holland, whoever.”
“Okay. We’re still in the field, but I’m hoping to talk Cadence into heading back that direction soon.”
“They’re not there, Hannah.”
“I know.” Hannah faded out, and I closed my eyes.
Before I got back into it, a message came out over my IAC, sort of an alert to all members of LIGHTS. It simply said we were having IAC issues, so standby, and if it was an emergency to contact their Area Leader or Hannah. That was it. She was gone again, and I was alone in my Brandon-scented T-shirt and my Elliott hat, pondering what to do with the world.
Over the last few months, I’d done everything I could think of to try to find Holland but hadn’t had any luck whatsoever. If I was ever to locate the Vampire Queen, now would be the time to do so. If I could find her, I might be able to bypass Stewart and figure everything out without him. So... I took another deep breath and dug into the mire of space that separated me from Eastern Europe.
It was a vast wall of nothingness that seemed to stretch on in every direction. I felt like I was walking along the Great Wall of China with lead boots on. I’d search one way for what seemed like hours and then turn around and go the other direction, looking for a chink, a little opening, some sort of way to sneak past her enormous defenses, and always came up empty handed.
