Chapter 90
After lunch, my dad went upstairs to watch football, my mom went to her bedroom to call her mother, my Grandma Shirley, and Elliott and I set about loading the dishwasher. I wondered if my parents had conveniently left us alone or if he had designed that. I was glad to have the opportunity to follow up on a few topics my parents had touched on during the meal. Though they were careful not to talk about anything in front of me I wasn’t supposed to know, they’d asked how Cadence was doing, and I had more questions about that particular subject than I could ask in front of them.
Elliott was rinsing, and I was loading. I took a bowl from him and slid it into a slot. “So, where does Cadence live exactly?” I asked, reaching out for a handful of silverware.
“We live in an apartment building,” he replied, handing me a glass, which I dropped into the top rack. “She lives in the penthouse.”
I stood up straight and looked at him for a second. “Really? That’s cool.”
“Yeah, I think it was a little bit of a problem for Eliza from the very beginning. There are only two apartments on the top floor, and I don’t think Eliza thought your sister should get that one.” I could see that we’d put in the last dish, so I stepped around the open lid and shoved him out of the way so I could get to the cabinet beneath the sink where we keep the soap. He stepped backward, drying his hands on a towel.
“Why did they give the best apartment to Cadence?” I asked, grabbing a pod out of the container and moving back around to stick it in the right slot in the machine.
“It used to be your grandma’s apartment, I guess,” he replied as I pushed the racks in and closed the dishwasher door.
“Really?” I asked, washing my hands now.
“I guess so. I didn’t work there when they… I mean she… did, so I’m not really sure.”
Taking the towel from him and drying my hands, I looked at him with a giant question mark on my forehead. “So, my grandpa really did use to work there, too?”
Elliott shrugged. “I’m not sure. I never met him.”
“You are too,” I muttered, turning back to put the towel on the counter. I pushed myself up so that I was sitting on the counter now, right next to the sink. “I know you don’t want to talk about that, so I won’t ask anything else,” I sighed.
“Good,” he replied, putting his hands on his hips. “Something tells me you’re not done asking questions, though.”
I couldn’t help but chuckle. He knew me all too well. “So… why is it Christian’s job to monitor the interwebs?”
Laughing, he asked, “Is that what you kids are calling it these days?” I shrugged. “He’s good with technology. Which is surprising, since he’s even older than I am. Older than Jamie and Aaron even….”
My eyebrows shot up. “How old is he?” I asked. I had no idea how old Aaron was, but I knew Jamie was about a hundred and fifty.
“Well, he fought in the Revolutionary War,” Elliott replied casually, like that wasn’t a big deal.
“Shut up!” I exclaimed. “Are you serious?”
“As a heart attack,” he replied. “He’s always been the tech guy as far as I know. Course, he does some weird things with it….” He made a face, and I had to ask what he was talking about, even if I was going to live to regret it.
“What do you mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Elliott?”
“Nothing. He just… I guess he used to be really shy around girls. So, one of the reasons he personally wanted to help create the IAC was so he could record stuff without them knowing it and then replay it over and over and analyze his conversations with girls, figure out what he was doing wrong.” Elliott was shaking his head in a sympathetic way. “What a weirdo.”
“Uh, yeah, I’d say so,” I agreed. “I knew there was something weird about that guy as soon as I met him.”
“He’s okay,” Elliott said. “He’s not dangerous or anything. Just a little… odd. You know how techy people can be.”
I wondered if he was trying to compare Christian to Emma, but I didn’t go there. Emma has a disability—or a different learning aptitude, or something like that—Christian just sounds like a freak show to me. “Who do you like?” I asked, wanting to know more about this Clandestine world while he was willing to talk. “Who do you hang out with?”
“Well, until recently Aaron and I were best friends, but that changed a little bit when your sister entered the picture.” He looked a bit melancholy, and I felt a little sorry for him. “Now, he’s with Eliza most of the time, and I’m with your sister. But… God forbid the two of them need to tell the other something, and then I’m everybody’s best pal.”
He looked so put out by the whole thing, I couldn’t help but laugh. “So, you’re the go between?”
“Yep.”
“Are you mad at Aaron, for what he did?”
“Of course, I am,” Elliott replied quickly. “But there’s not much I can do about it right now. I think he knows, though, that he messed up. I think he’s working on it. It’s just gonna take some time.”
I nodded. I couldn’t imagine Cadence would be willing to forgive such an infraction so quickly. “Anyone else?”
“Nah, not really. I mean, Jamie’s cool. Great guy to have around in a pinch. And there’re are a couple of girls Cadence really likes, Aurora and Meagan—you met Meagan, right?”
I nodded. “Me-gan,” I said, remembering how I thought her name sounded so odd.
“Meagan likes a guy named Shane who looks like Arnold Schwarzenegger back in the day, though with Channing Tatum’s face. And Hannah’s pretty cool, though I guess you don’t think so.”
It took me a moment to realize he’d mentioned Hannah. I was still stuck on Channing Tatum’s face on Arnold Schwarzenegger’s body. “Huh? Oh, yeah. No, not a fan of hers right now.”
He smirked in my general direction. “She’s good to have around in a bind, though. She did make you feel better after Jack died.”
“Uh, yeah, about that,” I began, wondering if he was about to regret mentioning Jack. “His parents are a mess. Can she do anything to help them?”
“She did, but the thing is, people need to mourn. She can’t just go around messing with people’s emotions all of the time, or they’ll end up having some serious problems later on.”
“That makes sense,” I nodded. “What about… Jack?” My voice was a whisper.
“You don’t need to worry about that.” His gaze was even, and I could feel the weight of it on my lungs. “Let it go.”
“Okay,” I said, and then a few seconds later, I said, “but whose ashes are those?”
Elliott sighed as if I was the most exhausting person on the planet. “Don’t worry about it.”
“Okay.” This time I tried to keep myself from asking any more questions. His answer to the last one had confirmed to me that Jack really was a vampire. Otherwise, he would’ve just said the ashes were Jack’s. I bit my tongue. There were so many other things that wanted to come tumbling out of my mouth.
“I need to head back,” he said quietly.
Disappointment washed over me like a wave at high tide. I nodded. “Okay,” I said again, for the third time, not meaning it at all this time. I hopped down from the counter. “When do you think you might be back?”
“I don’t know.” He slipped his hands into the pockets of his jeans. “If you would stay out of trouble, maybe I wouldn’t have to keep flying up here.”
“Well,” I smiled slyly, “all the more reason for me to get myself in a pickle.”
He laughed at me. “I was not implying that you should use me visiting as an excuse to work your way into a conundrum.” He began to walk back into the dining room, and I followed.
“But if getting myself into a jam means you have to come to my rescue….”
Elliott plucked his jacket off the back of his chair where he’d left it and slipped it on. “Something tells me you’re not the type of girl who needs rescuing, Cass. You’re too much like your sister.” That was definitely a compliment, and it made me feel all warm inside, even if I didn’t think it was true. I felt like a little girl who really did need someone to keep her from falling into her own trap most of the time.
I followed him to the front door. “Are you going to tell my parents goodbye?”
“Nah,” he shrugged. “They’ll probably forget I was even here.”
Wondering if he was serious, I raised an eyebrow at him. “Where’d you park?”
“Couple streets over. I wanted the element of surprise.”
Remembering how terrified I’d been when I opened the door to find him in my room, I replied, “You definitely got that.”
“Cass, please, stay out of trouble,” he implored, stepping forward and wrapping his big bear arms around me. The scent of leather and bike grease was both suffocating and comforting at the same time. “And don’t worry about Jack.” He let me go. “You’re perfectly safe.”
Chills ran down my spine as I thought about the video I’d seen. “Are you sure?” I asked. “I don’t need to worry about… any of them?”
Elliott gently placed both of his hands on my shoulders and leaned down so that I was looking into his eyes. “As long as there’s air in my lungs, you’ll be safe, Cassidy Findley.”
I nodded. Considering how old these people tended to grow, it seemed like pretty good chances to me. “Thanks.”
“No more chatting,” he warned me, opening the door.
“I promise,” I said, my fingers crossed behind my back, not that I intended to run upstairs and blab, but you just never knew….
I guess he has a detector for that, too, because he cocked his head to the side and gave me a stern look. I let out a deep breath. “See you,” he said, and then he proceeded to walk down the sidewalk like a regular human being.
“See you,” I shouted after him, stunned, as I had expected him to vanish in a streak like lightning, but then I imagined there were potentially people outside or looking out the window, since it was a Sunday afternoon with relatively mild weather for January. I closed the door but crossed to the window and watched until he was out of sight. Then, I sank down into my dad’s chair and tried to collect my thoughts. I had no idea what might happen next, but the fact that I was back to having to deal with Jack as a vampire on my own was overwhelming. I was glad I had left my phone upstairs. Otherwise, I probably would’ve caved and called Lucy right then, and since I was fairly certain there was still someone—or something—listening, that was probably not the best idea I’d ever had. I decided to take some time to weigh my options. Hopefully, by the time I talked to my girls again, the answer would be clear to me.
