Chapter 99
We ended up losing by a pretty big margin, which was no surprise. In the locker room, I decided I would just throw my warm ups on over my uniform and go. I didn’t know if Elliott was planning on heading back to KC right then or if he’d come back to our house. While we’d had a nice dinner, I hadn’t really gotten a chance to talk to him without my parents, except for in the car, and he’d been pretty quiet then. Now, I at least needed to tell him thank you. I was surprised to find him waiting for me outside without a crowd around him but then realized he could easily convince anyone that they didn’t want to talk to him right now.
It was dark and the wind was blowing, but he didn’t look cold at all as he stood beneath one of the many lights that illuminates the walkway to the school wearing the hat I’d given him for Christmas. He had his hands in the pockets of his leather jacket and a grin on his face. I felt like I was rushing to catch up with my big brother, who was way cooler than me, or an uncle all the girls wanted to date. But he was mine, and all those other people could just keep on walking right past him.
“You okay, lil girl?” he asked as I hurried over to where he was waiting.
“I think so,” I replied, “thanks to you.” I couldn’t help but throw my arms around him. He wasn’t prepared, and it took him a second to pull his hands out of his pockets.
“No big deal,” he assured me, squeezing me tightly before letting me go.
“My cranium begs to differ,” I replied, releasing him. “Where are my parents?”
“Took Emma home,” he said shrugging. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” I glanced around and didn’t see anyone I needed to talk to. I’d told Lucy goodbye, and the only other person I wanted to see was Liam. I assumed he’d still be in the locker room.
Elliott offered me his arm like he was a gentleman back in the day, and I took it. “You guys did a great job.”
“We stank. We lost by forty points,” I reminded him.
“Not the basketball team. The cheerleading squad.”
“Oh, yeah, thanks,” I said. “I don’t think I wanna be a flyer anymore, though.”
He laughed. “I agree. No more lifts for you. That was… terrifying.”
I looked up at him. “You didn’t know I was gonna fall?”
“How would I know that?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess I just thought…. How did you get there so fast?”
He pulled the keys out of his pocket and pushed a button to unlock the Enclave. “Reflexes,” he replied. “As soon as I saw that those other girls were not going to keep your head off of the ground, I dove in.”
I climbed into the car, realizing he was a lot faster than I’d given him credit for. He walked around the front of the car like a regular human and got inside. “It must be super hard for you to walk around in slow-mo all the time,” I said, buckling my seatbelt.
“Yeah, it was at first, but I’m used to it now.”
“Is it hard for Cadence?”
He pulled the car out of the parking spot and took a deep breath, letting it out kind of loudly. “I don’t think anything is hard for Cadence,” he replied, “I mean, physically. This stuff that’s going down with Jack, though, now that’s hard.”
“Yeah, I noticed the killings in the Caribbean had stopped, like last week,” I said, recalling what I’d seen on the news. “But… there was a family in Dallas recently. Was that… anything?” There was just something about the article I’d read that sounded suspicious.
“It was,” Elliott replied, heading toward my house. “This has to end. And soon.”
I thought about my poor sister, trying to wrap her head around Jack being dead, and then not being dead, but then having to kill him—or whatever you called it when the person was a vampire—and I felt really horrible for her.
“Anyway,” Elliott said, “I just wanted to let you know we might be kinda busy for the next few weeks. Cadence has got to come to terms with what she’s gotta do, and then she’s gotta do it.”
“Right,” I said. I hadn’t talked to my sister in about a week, and then, when I had, it was nothing important. “And… is Aaron still with Eliza?”
He sighed again, and I almost wished I hadn’t asked. “In a word… yes. But, he’s working on it.”
I didn’t know what that meant, but he’d already told me it was more complicated than I could understand without the background, so I let it go. I hated Aaron, though, with a passion I’d previously only reserved for things like corndogs and brussels sprouts.
Elliott came to a stop in front of my house. “This is as far as I can take you, lil girl. You’ll have to walk the rest of the way.”
I couldn’t help but laugh. “Okay. It’s not that far.”
“The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.”
I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I grabbed my cheerleading bag from the floor and reached for the door handle. “Thanks again for saving my face.”
“You’re welcome. You have a nice face. I’d like to keep it intact.”
I knew I was blushing and felt like a goof. Maybe he wouldn’t notice—but then, he noticed everything. “Will you let me know how it goes, with Jack?” He’d already told me he would, and I believed him, I just… wanted to be sure.
“Will do. Keep your lips sealed tight, though, okay? And that goes for that blond-headed boy who sits behind you in history class, too.”
I was definitely a bright red color now. “Elliott!” I exclaimed.
“I might be old, but I’m not blind,” he replied, chuckling.
There were no words. I shook my head and took a step back toward the sidewalk. “Be careful driving home.”
“I’ll try to keep it under a hundred and fifty.” Something told me he wasn’t kidding. I waved goodbye and closed the car door. He waited until I was inside to pull away, but I stood at the window and watched, wondering when I would see him again.
My parents were home, and they both wanted to make sure I was all right. I guess whatever convincing spell Elliott had cast to make everyone think he’d legitimately caught me wore off of parents who otherwise thought their child would now be a stain on the gym floor. I assured them I was fine and then headed upstairs to take a shower and go to bed. Even if I wasn’t out chasing vampire Jack, I knew after hearing he had something to do with the family that was slaughtered in a suburb of Dallas, I’d be seeing him in my dreams.
