Chapter 482
Brandon wasn’t buying it, that I was okay with the pizza, but he let it go. For now. “So are you coming to Lucy’s tonight?”
“I’m presenting at the leadership meeting tonight, remember?” Now I was a little perturbed. I’d mentioned it. A lot.
“I know, I mean after that. She doesn’t invite us to her place very often, so it would be cool if you can come. When you’re done.”
“That seems like such a parent thing to say,” I muttered as he gathered up his trash and headed toward the kitchen. He heard me, obviously, and stopped, turning to look at me with a scrutinizing expression. I felt the need to defend myself. “Why do you care if I go to my friend’s house because she doesn’t invite me very often? I go there a lot. We were there the other night.”
“I know you go often. The rest of us don’t, that’s all.” He was shaking his head at me, like I’d said something out of line. I didn’t like it.
“I’ll come over when I’m done, okay? Geez, Mom.”
He stopped again, paper plate and napkin still in one hand, empty bottle of Dr. Pepper in the other. “Cass, what is your deal? I was just saying, it’s nice to hang out somewhere else for a change.”
“We don’t have to hang out in your apartment all the time. You always ask us.”
“I ask because no one else does.”
“Do you want to hang out in my empty apartment where I have one small couch and a chair? Tara has the same furniture I do. Lucy just bought that other couch....”
“No, I’m not saying that. Gah... never mind.” He headed into the kitchen, and I set my plate down having not eaten the crust. I definitely wasn’t hungry anymore.
It took him longer to come back than it should have. Part of me thought maybe he was going to go ahead and make me that sandwich, like maybe it had occurred to him that it would be a nice gesture to do so, and he’d decided to go out of his way to make that sort of an effort. He didn’t. When he came back, it was obvious he had just been cooling off a little bit. Maybe I needed to do that, too.
He sat back down, smiled at me, and asked, “How has your research been going? Did you figure out whatever it was you were looking into?”
“No, not really,” I sighed. “I was looking for this woman who’s been missing for a couple of weeks, but I couldn’t find her. It’s so weird....”
“Maybe Heather can help you. She’s been practicing a lot. Last night at the arcade she was talking about how much easier it’s getting for her—”
“If I can’t do it, Heather can’t do it, Brandon,” I interrupted. “It’s not that I can’t do it because I’m not powerful enough.”
“I didn’t say that.” He was obviously offended by my remark, but then, I didn’t care because it was annoying that he assumed Heather could do something I couldn’t. “I was just thinking it might be a good idea to involve her, let her know she’s important to you.”
My forehead crinkled. “What are you talking about? We’re friends—she knows that. I walked back over here with her.”
“Good. I think she’s not sure whether or not you like her.”
“That’s stupid,” I blurted, shifting on the couch so I was facing him. “Why would she think that? She knows I like her.”
“Sometimes you tend to ignore her, that’s all I’m saying. You and Lucy have been friends forever, and you’re close to Tara. Heather doesn’t have any of that.”
“Well, then, why don’t you be her new bestie?” I said, sarcasm dripping from my voice. “Better yet, maybe you should ask her on a date. If the two of you are confiding in each other about how awful your girlfriend is, maybe it’ll be a good match.”
“Cass, I didn’t say that.” He rolled his eyes at me. “Don’t be stupid.”
“Am I being stupid?”
“Am I? You just called me that.”
“So you can’t think of any legitimate names to call me? You have to repeat what I just said to you? And I didn’t call you stupid. I said what you said to me was stupid. There’s a difference.”
The door opened before he could answer me, but Elliott only stuck his head in for a second. He took one look at my face, muttered, “Nope,” and left.
It should’ve been embarrassing, but instead, it just made me even more mad. At Brandon. “You know what, I don’t have time for this,” I said, getting up off of the couch in a huff. “I have legitimate research to be doing. People are disappearing and dying, and if I can’t make a convincing argument to the leadership team, they’re going to suggest we wait until my sister gets back. That’s another eleven days, and people don’t have that kind of time.”
“I hate to keep you from your legitimately important work.” He was shaking his head at me again, his voice quiet, a tone of disappointment in it that made me feel awful—and even more angry.
“You don’t have to be like that,” I said, storming to the door. “You could just be supportive.”
“I was trying to be supportive.” He was up now, behind me. “That’s why I invited you over for lunch!”
“Oh, yes. And you went to so much trouble, too. Would you like for me to pay my half?” I’d been holding back my disappointment about the cuisine for too long. It was bound to come shooting out of my mouth.
He just stared at me incredulously, like he was completely shocked I wasn’t thrilled that he’d ordered pizza. “I guess I won’t try to do anything nice for you again, then.”
“I guess ‘try’ is the operative word there,” I shot back at him, stepping into the hallway. I remembered how we’d bothered Ashley the day before with our loud arguing and wanted to keep it down, but he followed me.
“Gawd, Cass. Who are you?” Brandon asked behind me. “It’s like I don’t even know you right now.”
“Join the club,” I shouted over my shoulder, thinking he sounded enough like my mom that it had to be on purpose. “I’m a horrible disappointment, an awful friend, and the world’s worst girlfriend.”
“No, you’re not,” he said back to me, which might’ve been sweet if he hadn’t added, “not usually anyway.”
I glared at him over my shoulder and hurried to my room. When I got there, I opened my door and slammed it way too hard once I was inside, which is hard to do because it’s on one of those spring things that makes it shut softly if you’re not really trying. I had tears in my eyes again, but I didn’t let them fall this time. I had work to do. It was almost 2:00, which only gave me six hours to figure out what I was going to say to the leaders, and I felt like people’s lives depended upon me not screwing this up—the way I seemed to be screwing up everything else I touched these days.
I flung myself down on the couch and brought my notebook up to my hand. I hadn’t taken a lot of notes in it yesterday, but there were a few. If I thought about Europe, I didn’t have to think about Brandon... or school... or Alex... or how basically everything I’d just shouted at my boyfriend was true. I wasn’t a good friend anymore. Or a good sister or daughter. I certainly wasn’t a good girlfriend. I wanted to say the change had happened around the time I had that second dose of Transformation serum, but I didn’t know if that was exactly true. This had been in the works since I’d first found out my sister was keeping secrets from me. What was I so angry about?
I should’ve gone to talk to Hannah, let her walk around inside of my head for a while—not in the same way that I can do that, but in a clinical way—and see if she could help me. But that would take admitting I had a problem. And I didn’t have time to worry about my own problems when so many other people’s problems were life and death.
So I ignored those thoughts and started searching for changes in the data I’d seen the day before. There were more people missing, more whispers of new Vampires, and still no sign of Mika Novak. Something huge was happening on the other continent, and we needed to get there quickly before Daunator, or whoever was behind this, had an army so large we’d never be able to defeat it. I had to convince the leadership team members that my concerns were legitimate, but if I couldn’t do that, I was afraid of what might happen. The world just might shift again, and this time, it wouldn’t be in our favor.
