Chapter 491
I spent the next couple of days trying to find the answers to Christian’s questions. It wasn’t easy, and some of them were basically impossible to find because I just didn’t have access to the sources I needed. A lot of the people who were missing were not accessible, which seemed so odd to me. Normally, if I have a name, I can eventually find someone. Having a name, a face, and a location make it easier. Even with all of that, the struggle was real.
But I was able to get a lot of data that should, theoretically, help him, including the names of several Vampires that had been turning the people I could locate, or were just active in the area. The info I had on them was sketchy, and I needed to sit down with Christian and go over it, but I couldn’t bring myself to contact him. I figured he’d have to come back to me eventually if he was serious about this endeavor. Unless he was waiting for me to reach out to him, which I hadn’t been comfortable doing. If he didn’t go soon, my sister and Aaron would be back, and then the whole operation would be moot.
I’d neglected my friends for a few days. I’d seen some of them a few times for a few minutes, but for the most part, I was in my apartment, alone, stuck in my head. So when Brandon asked me to come down and watch Aquaman with them, I reluctantly agreed. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be with them. I just had so much on my mind. Organizing the information so that Christian could understand it easily was also time consuming, but since most of it was already in notes in my IAC, I figured I could work on that while I pretended to watch the movie, cutting and pasting the information into spreadsheets so he could better use it for whatever he planned to do next.
Everyone was there. Tara and Dax sat together on the smaller couch while Lucy was in the recliner. Heather was sitting on the floor by Brandon’s feet, again, and I sat next to him, his arm around my shoulders. They were eating pizza—shocker—and slurping down cans of pop like they needed to get rid of it before the Feds found it or something. I nibbled at a slice of pie and had a Dr. Pepper in front of me on the coffee table, but I was somewhere else.
Brandon had to have noticed. I don’t know what made me think I could hide it from him. But he didn’t say much about it while the movie was playing. I was slightly engaged when Dax walked back into the room from the kitchen and announced that no one looked like Jason Momoa with his shirt off. “That’s gotta be CGI or something,” he said, handing Heather a can of Coke.
I didn’t catch the other girls’ responses because I’d already decided I didn’t care about Jason Momoa without his shirt on. But Brandon pulled me back out of my own thoughts when he whispered, “Does it not gross you out when the other girls talk about you brother-in-law that way?”
I was confused and startled at the sound of his voice so close to my ear. I’d had no idea he’d even leaned over, I’d been so engrossed in the spreadsheet I was working on. How did we go from Jason to Aaron? Since I hadn’t heard what anyone had said, I couldn’t get there on my own and didn’t want to try to sort it out, so I agreed with him. “Oh, yeah, gross.”
Glancing over at my boyfriend’s face, I could tell I hadn’t fooled him, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say and really wanted to get back to work. He scooched back over into his own personal space, a concerned expression on his face, and I resolved to do a better job of pretending I was paying attention.
It didn’t work. I only realized the movie was over when everyone started to get up. Part of me wanted to sigh in relief. Now, finally, I could get back to my apartment and do some work. I said goodbye to my friends, letting them all empty out the door first, and waited for Brandon to return from walking them out.
As he sat back down next to me, I shifted, hoping he’d understand my urgency when I said, “I should probably go, too. I’ve got a lot to do.”
He looked disappointed. “Actually, I was hoping you’d stay or a few moments. I’d like to talk to you.”
I didn’t like his tone. It sounded too serious, almost like I was in trouble for something. “About what?” I asked, staring at him.
He took a deep breath in through his nose, like this was hard to say. “You know, just stuff.” I was starting to feel a little bit of anger at him. It seemed ridiculous to me that he was acting this way. How could he not understand how busy I was? Undeterred by my expression, he continued. “I was thinking... we haven’t talked recently. I was wondering how it’s going, how you’re doing, that sort of thing.”
“Brandon, we talk all the time,” I shouted back at him. “What’s the matter with you? You’re being weird.”
“I’m being weird?”
My eyes widened in disbelief. Was he implying that I was the one acting like a weirdo? Really?
His hand came up in a gesture of apology, but I was done with this conversation. I scooted toward the edge of the sofa. “I’m sorry,” he began, not quickly enough. “It’s just... lately you’ve seemed super distracted, and I’m worried about you.”
Anger clouding my ability to admit the fact that he was right, I had been distracted, I let myself question his logic “Distracted? What do you mean? I’m not distracted. I told you I’m doing everything I can to figure out what’s happening over in Europe right now. No one else seems to be taking it seriously, so it’s kinda up to me.” Obviously, I couldn’t tell him about my conversation with Christian since he’d made me swear not to say anything, not that I felt like confiding in Brandon at the moment anyway, not while he was acting like this, like a wounded kitten.
“But why?” he reasoned, not for the first time. “Why does it have to be up to you? Maybe they’re not taking it seriously because it’s nothing to be worried about.”
I was beyond angry now. He was questioning something I felt very strongly about. My arms were already crossed, but now I was scowling at him. And yelling. “Or maybe they’re just standing around while Armageddon is beginning because no one around here knows how to do anything without Aaron telling them what to do!”
Brandon stared at me with his eyes wide as he contemplated how many people we both care about that I’d just insulted. I didn’t care. I was too angry to care. “That was a little harsh, don’t you think?” he asked indignantly.
I did not think. Not at the moment, anyway. “Gosh, Brandon! I don’t want to talk about it, all right? Clearly, you also don’t seem to understand that we are letting Daunator build an army while we sit here and do nothing, so if you want to sit by and let him do that, fine, go ahead. But I’m going to do whatever I can to try to stop him.”
