Chapter 522
They were all quiet, taking in my warning about Daunator’s power, until Aaron asked me, “Do you have any idea what his weaknesses are?”
I shook my head immediately. “I’m not sure if he has any.” The team didn’t like that, but it was true.
Hannah tried to sound optimistic. “Christian was working on some new weapons. Maybe those will be helpful.” She shrugged her shoulders, like she knew it was just wishful thinking.
“I don’t know.” I needed to convey to them that we shouldn’t count on that without tipping them off that I was aware that Christian had already tried to destroy the Vampire. Of course, he hadn’t used his new weapons, but from Christian’s description, it looked like the old one had done next to nothing. “It would have to be something like a nuclear bomb for Vampires.” Christian seemed pretty confident in his new grenade, but since he hadn’t tried that yet, I had my doubts.
“Well, without him here, it’s kind of hard to tell what it might be.” Aaron’s annoyance at the missing tech guy was beginning to help me understand that the Guardian Leader relied on Christian more than I had realized.
My sister spoke up. “My dad might know what Christian was working on. He works with him.”
“We can definitely ask him and the other people who’ve been working with Christian.” I was still waiting for them to tell me to contact Christian and wondered why they hadn’t, but I wasn’t going to suggest it myself. “Back to the monsters. Cass?”
“Yeah?” Why does he always have to say my name like that, like he’s about to ask me something I don’t want to answer?
“I know you said you can’t get into their heads, but we have a list of the missing persons. Maybe you could go through and select a few and see if you can reach them, or see what state they’re in. If they are not still humans or Vampires, then that means they might be our creatures.”
Before I could answer, Elliott said, “Or they might be dead.”
Cadence was trying to tell the funny jokes again. “Know a little bit about that do you?” She jabbed him playfully with her elbow.
He didn’t get a chance to answer her before Aaron said, “That is true. They might be dead, but Daunator wouldn’t send his people out to turn a bunch of people only to have most of them die.”
I hadn’t even had a chance to respond, but I agreed with him. I opened my mouth to say something, but Aurora jumped in. “So do you think we’re headed over there to face him ourselves soon?” She seemed excited.
“Most likely,” Aaron said, and I was glad to hear it, too. We needed to have left already. Days ago. “But if Christian’s going to be gone for another week, that will make it difficult.” He looked down at the papers in front of them. One was a map. Christian was there already....
“Why can’t we go without him?” Elliott asked. “It’s not like he’s that good of a shot, and quite honestly, life is more pleasant without him around.”
“If we decide to leave all of the unpleasant people behind, you can water our houseplants.” The bitterness rolling off of Aurora was unbecoming. It made me feel bad for her.
Elliott stared at her for a moment but thought better of responding, giving Aaron a chance to answer his question. “We need Christian, if that’s at all possible. He’s the most familiar with Daunator. He’s the one who knows what weapons might work, and he deserves to get to go on this trip after what he did with Hines and the portal.”
That settled the question of whether or not Aaron thought Christian deserved to stay on the team. Apparently, he was giving Christian a lot of credit for taking Hines into the portal with him.
Elliott wasn’t ready to go there. “You mean letting us walk in there like a bunch of chumps?” I couldn’t blame him for being mad about the entire situation. In fact, I was struggling to understand why Aaron wasn’t. “I mean, just to clarify, you do know this is the same jerk who knew about the portal but didn’t tell any of us, right?”
“I am aware.” Aaron was still calm, but I could tell he didn’t like Elliott questioning him. “He’s also the same guy who threw himself in there with Hines to try to get me out.”
“But that wouldn’t have been necessary if he would’ve told us about it in the first place.” Elliott and Aaron don’t argue very often, but I didn’t like it. I hoped they’d stop. “Jamie, back me up here.”
My eyes enlarged on behalf of my friend who was sitting next to me and looked just as shocked to hear his name as I had every time Aaron had spoken mine. He raised his hands, a sign he, too, wanted the arguing to stop. “Elliott, I’ve known Christian a lot longer than you have, but Aaron’s known him for the longest. And he probably has a better understanding of why he does what he does than we do. So....”
Elliott didn’t like Jamie’s diplomacy. “That is the opposite of back me up, Jamie.”
“He’s been hurt.”
I looked around, trying to figure out who had spoken, and realized it was me. I’d done it again, let my inner thoughts shoot out of my mouth. They were all looking at me like I was a crazy person. Maybe I was. I needed to work my way out of this situation before I said something Christian would want to kill me over.
But my sister didn’t let it go. “What are you talking about, Cass?”
My head shook back and forth quickly, but my thoughts didn’t clear. “Nothing. It’s not my story to tell. Only... I accidentally saw some things I shouldn’t have. Maybe we’ve been too quick to judge him.” I thought of the woman’s face I’d seen in Christian’s head, how he both loved and hated her, the betrayal he felt.
“Says the girl who ripped his face off,” Elliot muttered.
