Chapter 433
“What time is it?” Cadence asked again.
Job pointed at the clock again. “One.”
I locked eyes with my sister and swallowed a lump in my throat. She asked, “What time did you say Tara got that message?”
“What message?” Trina demanded. I was a little surprised Cadence hadn’t told them.
“A text message from Dax,” Cadence replied, not looking away from me to answer.
“Dax?” Oswald repeated loudly. “One of the guys who is trapped in the portal?” He was leaning so far forward in his chair, I could imagine it toppling over and knocking him into the table.
“Yeah,” I assured him. “It was at 7:00 AM.” My sister was puzzled, so I clarified. “Our time. So 6:00 AM Central time. Every six hours?”
“Oh, yeah. We are in the Eastern time zone.” Cadence shook her head. I could tell she was exhausted and not thinking as clearly as usual. “Okay, so....”
“So if he actually got that, we should hear back at 6:00 PM.” I took a deep breath, praying that would actually be the case—that I would hear from my boyfriend in six hours, hopefully less, though that would make no sense whatsoever.
Everyone else was still even more confused than we were. “Wait—I need more information,” Trina said. “What’s going on with the phone?”
We didn’t get the opportunity to answer her. Ashley came flying in through the conference room door, banging it against the wall, her phone in her outstretched hand. “Guys! I just got a text from Jamie!” She was waving her phone around, tears streaming down her cheeks. “Oh, my gosh! It’s true! They are in a portal!”
I’ve never been so jealous of someone in my whole life. To think, Ashley had heard from Jamie, and then a message popped up on my IAC that Tara had heard from Dax. I wish Brandon would’ve thought to send me something....
“What... what does it say?” Cadence asked Ashley.
Through her tears, Ashley read, “‘Hi, baby. Not sure if this will work, probably not, but worth a shot. I think we’re trapped in some sort of a portal. Working to get out, working to get back to you. We are all fine. I love you, and I will see you soon.’”
It was amazing to think it was possible to communicate with someone who was trapped inside a portal. I had no idea what the science behind that might be, but it was both exciting and depressing at the same time. I couldn’t help but stare at my phone, wishing Brandon would’ve sent me a message.
My sister reached across the table and grabbed my hand, not even thinking about herself. She hadn’t gotten a message either. “Maybe his phone is almost dead, or he wanted to see if it worked before he tried.”
I nodded and shoved my phone into my pocket. Surely, Dax would’ve noticed that his 6:00 am message went through. Wouldn’t he have told the others?
Cadence asked a question that had just occurred to me as well. “Why would cell phones work and not IACs?”
Oswald replied, “They don’t run on exactly the same technology. But you’d think if one sort of signal could get in and out every once in a while, so would the other.”
My sister was thoughtful for a moment, but I couldn’t decipher what was on her mind. Eventually, she said, “Cass, check your log. There won’t be any messages, but they’re there.”
I did what she suggested and pulled up my IAC log. She was right. At 7:00 and then again a few minutes ago at 1:00, there were tiny blips of activity. It was just a quick registering of each of the missing Guardians, picking up my signal, and leaving an imprint on my log. I wished it were more, that I could hear his voice in my head, that he could tell me that he was safe, that he had an idea of how they might get out. But it was something, and that was better than nothing. And I knew he was with Jamie, Elliott, Aaron, and Alex, and none of them would let anything happen to Brandon or Dax.
With a deep breath, I said, “All right. So now we wait until 7:00.”
“Yep,” Cadence agreed. I assumed she wished she’d sent a message to Aaron when I told her to, though she was probably glad it wasn’t the one she’d typed up.
I took a look at my message from Tara. I decided I should probably share it with the rest of the team since this was a pretty important break in the mystery. “Tara got a message from Dax, too. It must’ve crossed with the one she sent. It says, ‘I hope you’re getting these somehow. I swear the last one went through. Tara, I love you so much. We are all okay. Still trying to figure out how to get out. Met a weird Vampire girl who is helping us, but I don’t trust her. Please try texting me if you somehow get this.”
“A weird Vampire girl?” Cadence repeated. “Who...?”
“I have no idea,” I admitted. It was almost as strange to me as the fact that my boyfriend was inside a portal. “I hope she doesn’t give them any reason not to trust her.” At least they were all Guardians. Vampires can’t kill Guardians, so they wouldn’t have to worry about that.
Cadence’s eyes shifted to Ashley, who was still standing in the doorway, staring at her phone. “Ash, would you like to come look at the maps with us?”
Ashley didn’t even look up from her phone. “Sure.” She walked over and took a seat next to me, and I patted her shoulder. She was fighting a war between being happy that she’d heard from Jamie and being distraught that he was still gone.
“All right. Where were we?” Cadence asked.
I had no idea. We all looked around at each other, trying to decide what to do next, but once again we were interrupted by a noise at the door. The sound of a nice old woman’s voice had me turning my head.
“They’re right in here,” she said.
A smile broke out over my face as I saw who she was speaking to step through the open door. Tall, with dark hair, he had an air of sophistication about him that I hadn’t picked up over my telepathy. He picked my sister out of the crowd and said, “Ah, yes. You must be Cadence.” Then, he turned to me, and in his thick accent, a mixture between British and French, he said, “And you must be Cassidy.”
I just grinned at him, so glad that he was here to help us. Cadence got up and went over to him cautiously. “I am Cadence Findley.” They shook hands. “And you are?”
“I’m Ward Bernard.”
