Chapter 86
Both of my best friends were staring at me like I’d completely lost my mind, and I couldn’t blame them. I knew I sounded like a lunatic. But I did have the proof to back up everything we’d discovered together, everything they couldn’t remember. “Look, I know it sounds crazy,” I began, scooting around to face them.
“Yeah, it does.” Emma never missed a beat.
“But you guys used to know just about everything I’m about to tell you. You just don’t remember.”
“How’s that now?” Lucy asked, scooting back a bit and folding her arms. “What do you mean we don’t remember?”
“Yeah, how’s that possible? I remember nearly everything.” Emma pushed her glasses up with her index finger.
“I know you do, but Dr. Sanderson, Elliott, and one of his associates, have been wiping our minds clean. Recently, however, he’s allowed me to keep my memory. I think… once I start explaining everything, it’ll all come back to you.”
“Are you saying we’ve been convinced that Jack Cook is dead when he’s really not?” Lucy asked.
“No.” That would be the hardest part, and I didn’t think I should lead with that because I didn’t even know for sure if that guy on the video was Jack, though in my heart, I thought maybe I really did know. “Look, just let me start from the beginning, and when we get to the part about Jack, maybe that’ll be clearer.”
“Okay,” Lucy agreed.
“Doubtful.” At least Emma was honest.
I took a deep breath and started from the beginning, explaining how I’d overheard my sister talking about going to the Eidolon Festival. I told them both how they’d helped me put the pieces of the puzzle together, to figure out that vampires were involved, though I told them I was certain now that my sister is not actually a vampire but a vampire hunter. I even told them about the night that Hannah came over and wiped their minds clean, how she’d convinced them to tear up their notes and delete everything off of their devices, but Elliott had told me not to do that, so I had all of my stuff still.
“Elliott who was our sub in biology earlier this week?” Lucy clarified.
“Yeah, how else would he have convinced the entire student body that everything was great right after two students in our school died?”
She shrugged, and I turned my attention to Emma. Her face was scrunched up like she was trying to decide whether or not all of this could be true at all. I knew it would be harder to convince her. “Look, I still have the video on my phone,” I reminded them.
“Let me see,” Emma demanded, sticking her hand out.
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my phone. I found the video and handed it over to her. Lucy got up and went to sit on the arm of the chair.
Emma pushed play, and even though I couldn’t see the video, I’d watched it enough times by now to know exactly what was happening just by listening. When it was over, they started it back from the beginning and watched the whole thing a second, and then a third time.
“What exactly does this prove?” Emma asked. “It could be a lot of things.”
“I know it could be,” I agreed. “But that girl in the video is my sister’s coworker, Eliza.” I took my phone back and showed her the social media pictures of the woman with the purple hair that Emma herself had found. “I’m positive that guy beside her is my sister’s boss just by the way he moves, even though I can’t really see him. I’ve seen him enough to know. And… they were supposed to be in Montana the night this video was recorded.”
“That’s so weird,” Lucy said, sliding back onto the couch. “It’s like… I want to remember what you’re talking about, like it’s on the tip of my consciousness, but I can’t quite reach it.”
“Not me,” Emma said with a shrug. “I think you’ve lost your marbles, Cass. Sorry. But I’ll do whatever I can to help you find them again.”
I slunk back across the room and perched on the arm of the couch, wondering if it would do me any good to try and pull up other pictures, the ones of Jamie, maybe, to prove to them that they had believed this all to be true at one point as well, but I didn’t go there. I didn’t see the point. “It’s okay,” I said. “It doesn’t matter. Anyway, knowing what you know now about what I believe to be true, you can imagine my surprise at seeing someone who looks like Jack Cook in a video from a few days ago.”
“For sure,” Lucy agreed. “That would be scary.”
Due to the fact that I’d just spent twenty minutes trying to convince my two best friends that my sister was a vampire slayer of some sort, I hadn’t had too much time to reflect on the video I’d just watched. Was it possible that that really was Jack? The idea had my skin crawling. I couldn’t imagine how that could happen. Jack was such a great guy. Even if he’d somehow been turned into a vampire, would he be capable of killing all of those people? And how in the world would he have gotten to Cabo?
“Well, that we can test,” Emma offered after a few minutes. “I have facial recognition software. I can compare the picture from a still shot of the video to one from Jack’s social media. But that software is on my desktop computer at home, so I can’t do it from here.”
“Would you mind?” I asked. “I mean, I know you don’t think it’s him.”
“Oh, it’s definitely not him,” Emma spoke up quickly. “But if it makes you feel better, then, no, I don’t mind.”
“Okay. Great. Thanks,” I said, deciding now would be a great time to move on to happier topics. “So… our first cheerleading practice for the basketball squad is next Monday. Are you ready Lucy?”
Emma groaned a little, but we ignored her. We’d let her talk about her video games in a little while. “I hope so,” Lucy said, her face perking up. “I’ve been practicing my backbends, but it’s been too cold outside to practice jumps or cartwheels. My mom said if she catches me doing them in the house again, I’m grounded.”
I laughed. “Yeah, mine too. What about the garage?”
“Mine is too crowded with junk.”
“Mine is too crowded with cars.” My sister had left her car at our house, a constant reminder to me that she was gone, and about what she was doing. I had to shift my focus really quickly. “Maybe we can see if Jessica will let us come to her house this week to practice. They have that big, empty garage.”
“Good idea,” Lucy agreed, and I made a mental note to ask Jess. She was in my history class. Lucy started talking about how badly she hated our uniforms, and I let my mind wander back to less important things, high school girl things, and away from vampires. Hopefully, Emma would remember to run that software the next day, and she would call and assure me I had nothing to worry about. The more I thought about it, the crazier the notion was. There was just no way that my sister’s ex-boyfriend was a vampire. None.
