Chapter 6

Jamie’s tone was nonchalant as he asked me what was bothering me, but he knew there was something going on or else, not only would I not be here, I wouldn’t have been all worked up in the hallway. “No, not exactly. I mean, everything is fine with me. But... there are a lot of missing people in Europe. Like a lot a lot. And I was hoping maybe I could get a few minutes in front of the leadership team to get them to understand that what’s going on is more than a little alarming. So... I asked Elliott to help me because Hannah’s too busy to talk to me right now, and Aurora’s in the gym. Not that Aurora would listen to Elliott, but Hannah would. At least I think she would.” I dropped my eyes and realized I was rambling. “Anyway, I was just hoping... maybe you wouldn’t mind mentioning something to Hannah?”

I looked up into his eyes and noticed he had a look on his face like he felt sorry for me, like he could vaguely recall what it was like to be an enthusiastic kid that no one really takes seriously. “Okay,” he said with a shrug. “We have a weekly meeting scheduled for tomorrow evening. I can ask her. I don’t think we have a whole lot on the agenda, so I’m sure she wouldn’t mind giving you a few minutes. You could’ve probably waited until she was done with whatever she’s working on and she’d get back to you, though, Cass.”

“Maybe so,” I said, pushing my hair back over my shoulder. “But I figured she’d put more stock in what Elliott had to say—or you.” I probably should’ve come here in the first place. Elliott was reluctant to help me with anything after I’d made him help me move out of my parents’ apartment. “Thanks, Jamie. I really appreciate it.”

“It’s no problem,” he assured me, folding his arms before he said, “just be ready for her to want to wait until Aaron comes back. She doesn’t like to make decisions without his approval, and I doubt she’ll even want to contact him, unless what you have to show her is really bad.”

“It is really bad,” I blurted out before I even let the idea that Hannah might not want to go to Europe immediately settle in. “Surely she won’t be able to ignore this. We’re talking dozens, maybe hundreds of people, Jamie. It’s insane.”

His eyes widened, so I could see he agreed with me that it was a lot. “Make sure you have all of your sources and all of your ducks in a row, and we’ll see what we can do.”

I thought about the idiom he’d used and figured I had unruly squirrels, not nicely situated ducks. He was right, though. I couldn’t stand up in front of the leadership team and talk to them like I was addressing a group of friends at a froyo place. “I’ll make sure I have everything in order,” I assured him, taking a deep breath and slapping a smile on my face.

There was no need for me to stay there. I’d gotten what I wanted. I couldn’t imagine Hannah telling Jamie no, so I would need to go back to my apartment and start preparing what I was going to say. But something about that photo of Margie caught my eye. I must’ve been staring at Jamie’s older sister for a few seconds because he asked me again, “Is everything okay, Cass?”

“Yeah.” I shook my head to clear it but found my hand reaching out to touch the frame anyway. It was a more recent picture than the one of his parents, which had to have been taken about a hundred and twenty years ago, since I’m pretty sure they died in the 1930s or 40s. Margie’s hair was a normal color in the picture, not the blue it is now, and it looked like maybe she hadn’t been expecting the picture because she looked borderline annoyed. I remembered the story Jamie had told me about how they’d both Transformed the same night, the night before Margie’s twenty-first birthday, when she would’ve theoretically not been able to Transform after that, though I’m not quite sure anymore what’s a solid truth and what has wiggle room when it comes to all of the rules everyone thought were in place.

Margie had run out of their house, frustrated that her parents didn’t want her to Transform, and Jamie had followed, afraid she’d get hurt. She’d found a Vampire that night, her goal, and chased it down the street, her younger brother running after her. A streetcar had hit her, cracking her head open on the pavement, and if both siblings hadn’t already begun the Transformation process, Margie would’ve died that night. Even though Jamie was already a really successful surgeon well before his own twenty-first birthday, he wouldn’t have been able to save her if it wasn’t for his magical powers.

If Margie Joplin had died that night, or if she’d never taken off in pursuit of a Vampire, causing her brother to follow along, I wouldn’t be here. I’d be a Vampire, I guess. Unless some other Healer on the team was capable of doing what Jamie had for me that afternoon in Philadelphia.

My sister would be dead, too. The bullet Laura sent through her chest would’ve killed her.

Aaron would be dead—killed by a Hunter whose hand and weapon were taken over by a Vampire in Paris a few weeks after my sister started this journey.

I wondered who else would be dead if Jamie wasn’t able to save them and imagined it would be just about everyone I know. There was no point in asking him how many people he’d saved, though, because I was sure he didn’t keep count. He just did it. That’s who he is. And now, with his enhanced powers, I imagined how many more people he could save. He could’ve saved Alex, but he didn’t want Jamie to. I imagined that was hard for the Healer to live with but didn’t want to ask that, either. There was someone else he wasn’t able to save, though. Elliott. But now, would Jamie have been able to hit the other Guardian with his blue light from across the forest floor in Sierraville and spare his life?