Chapter 89
I could hear the frustration growing in his voice, but before I could counter, my mom yelled up the stairs, “Cassidy! Are you coming down?”
“Yes, Mom!” I cracked the door and shouted out, “Just a minute!”
“It’s going to get cold! Your father and I aren’t going to wait all day!”
“Go ahead!” I shouted in response.
“We aren’t going to eat without you!”
I opened my mouth to scream back at her, but Elliott’s loud voice boomed over mine. “Go ahead and eat without her, Liz. Everything is fine. You’re not at all surprised to hear my voice and will forget in two seconds that we even spoke.”
There was a pause and then my mom shouted, “Okay!” in a pleasant voice, and I heard her talking to my dad as she faded back toward the kitchen. I turned and looked at Elliott as he leaned past me to shut the door. My mouth was hanging open again.
“What?” he asked, shrugging. “It’s a gift.”
“I don’t…. How did you…?” I couldn’t wrap my mind around it and gave up trying. “Elliott, I’m begging you not to take my memories from me. I know I probably would be better off living in a state of ignorant bliss, but I can’t imagine what that would be like.”
“It would be like not worrying about your sister, not caring that you currently think Jack is a vampire, and not thinking I’m an old dude who looks remarkably younger for reasons you currently can’t grasp. What’s so wrong with that?”
He had a point; wouldn’t it be easier not to have to think about this anymore? I could be like the other kids walking around with a stupid smile on my face, thinking everything was all rainbows and unicorns, while my sister was out there battling the forces of evil and her ex-boyfriend is killing surfers and party-goers. “No,” I whispered. “I don’t want that. I don’t want to be a drone.”
“Do you mean clone?”
“Whatever. I don’t wanna walk around with my head in the clouds while Cadence is out there doing whatever she’s doing. Look, she has no idea I know, does she?” He shook his head. “And neither do my parents. Even when Lucy and Emma knew as much as I did, they didn’t tell anyone.”
“They could have if I hadn’t sent Hannah over.”
“But they didn’t! We knew for over a week and didn’t say anything to anyone. Come on, Elliott, please don’t wipe my brain. I promise I won’t get you in trouble.”
He swiveled so he was looking directly at me. “How can you promise that? You have no idea! This little infraction of yours wasn’t reported to me—I was sent here by Aaron and told to handle it correctly this time. That’s a problem, Cassidy. He’s my boss. I don’t like looking like a sucker.”
For a moment, his big head, full of curly brown hair morphed into a lollipop in my imagination, and I had to stifle a laugh. He must’ve known what I was thinking of because he reminded me that it wasn’t funny. “I’m sorry,” I said, trying to shake the thought from my mind. “Maybe I should talk to Aaron myself. I’ve got a few things I wouldn’t mind telling him.” I could feel my blood starting to boil as I thought about how that jerk had treated my sister.
“I really don’t think that’s a good idea,” Elliott replied, running his hands through his hair. “Why can’t you just leave everything alone? You do know what happened to the cat, right?”
“What cat?” I asked, confused.
“You’ll never get to meet the cat, Cassidy, because it’s dead. Curiosity killed it.”
I smirked at him. “Are you threatening me, Dr. Sanderson?”
“No, of course not. I’m warning you, though. You need to leave stuff alone.”
“But you said that we were safe here.” Now, I was beginning to wonder if he was getting at something else. “Is whatever got Jack still hanging around?”
“No, your sister took care of that.” I raised an eyebrow at him, and he got that look on his face like when he knows he’s said too much. “Listen, lil girl, I don’t make the rules. And right now, you’re making it very hard for me to even try to follow them. You’ve gotta stop.”
“I will, I promise.” I stood and marked an X over my heart. “I will leave everything alone. I will not talk to my friends about anything else. I promise.”
He stood and took a few steps closer to me, towering over me. He was well over six feet tall, I thought as I craned my head to gaze up at him. “And what about Jack?”
“Jack who?” I asked, pursing my lips and swallowing hard.
Elliott let out a sigh that blew my hair back off of my forehead. “Seriously, there are people listening to you all the time, Cassidy. You’re never alone.”
I raised my eyebrows at him. “What about now? Are people listening now?” I figured if they were, we’d both be in trouble.
“Maybe,” he said, taking a step backward, his hands on his hips. “You never know.”
“Okay, well, then say your magic words. But I will not look you in the eye, and I will not repeat after you. I refuse to be wiped!”
I had my eyes closed tightly, a defiant look on my face, so I wasn’t expecting him to start laughing hysterically. I opened an eye and looked at him, wondering what I’d said. Then, it dawned on me. “Okay… so maybe that sounded like something a two-year-old might say, but you know what I meant.”
Elliott cleared his throat and said, “Cassidy, there’s no such thing as vampires. Jack Cook is not a vampire. Your sister works for a security team in Kansas City, and you don’t want to ask any more questions.”
I cracked my eyes open and looked at him. I could tell by his expression he was talking to someone over the IAC. But I didn’t feel any different than I had before. So, he could control it. With a deep breath, I said, “Vampires aren’t real. Jack Cook is not a vampire. My sister works for a security team in Kansas City. I will not ask any more questions about any of this.”
“Good.” Elliott “talked” some more through his eye and then went over to the window. “All right, lil girl. I gotta go.”
“So soon?” I asked, following after him. “But you just got here. You may as well stay for lunch.”
He seemed to consider it. “It does smell awfully good.”
“It is. My mom’s pot roast is the best.”
He shrugged and opened the window. “See ya in a bit.”
I was confused, so I ran over to the window and watched him disappear in a flash. A split second later, he was in the yard, waving at me, and then there was a knock on the front door. I realized I hadn’t changed clothes, so I ran to my closet and grabbed a sweatshirt and jeans, throwing them on as quickly as I could without tripping, and headed for the stairs.
By the time I got there, my mom was letting Elliott in, telling him what a pleasant surprise it was to see him, like she hadn’t just spoken to him a few minutes ago when they’d been yelling at each from different floors, and I headed for the kitchen, a wide smile on my face. If we were being watched, I wanted everyone in IAC land to know I was an ignorant, blissful teenager, happy to have a friend over for lunch, despite the burning in my stomach that told me Jack was a monster, Lucy and Emma were about to get their memories wiped again, and my sister was probably in more danger than I could even imagine.
