Chapter 2

After dinner, my mom and sister began to clear the table, and I thought it was nice that Aaron at least volunteered to help, though my mom sent him off with my dad to the living room. I assumed this was so she could ask Cadence the questions she couldn’t ask in front of Aaron--questions about him—and I excused myself. I just wanted to go back to sleep. I still hadn’t called my friends, though, and since Lucy and Emma also knew Elliott, I felt like they needed to know what was happening.

I trudged through the living room and only glanced in my dad and Aaron’s direction as I headed for the stairs. My dad called, “Are you going back to bed, honey?”

“Yeah,” I replied, not bothering to explain the truth about what I was about to do. I didn’t know if Elliott’s demise meant no one would be listening in on me anymore, and since Cadence had told me I wasn’t allowed to talk to Lucy and Emma about any of this, I realized I might be setting my best friends up for another brainwashing—they’d endured a pretty intense one of those before, courtesy of Hannah, one of my sister’s co-workers—but I needed to talk to them just the same. I was obligated to pass on the horrific news in a timely fashion even though I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to get the words out of my mouth.

I decided it would be best to tell them together, and they needed to see my swollen, blotchy face to know that I was telling them the truth, so I pulled out my laptop and FaceTimed them both. It didn’t take long for Lucy to answer because I’m sure she wanted to know why my sister was there. A few seconds later, I had Emma on as well.

“OMG,” Lucy whispered. That was her favorite expression, and she usually used it in moments of exhilaration, but she took one look at my face and could tell something was very wrong.

“You look awful,” Emma, who is honest to a fault, said. “What happened?”

“I’m not sure how to say this,” I began, wondering if I could even say it, “but… Elliott, uh… died.”

The word fell out of my mouth in an unnatural way. I didn’t spit it out or curse it; it was just there, like an unwelcome visitor, the kind that will never leave, the kind you have to find a way to coexist with because nothing can ever make it change back to the way things were before.

Neither of my friends said anything for a very long time. They just stared at me in the same kind of disbelief I’d been attempting to exist in for the last few hours. When they finally did speak, I expected a bunch of questions I didn’t feel like answering, some of them I couldn’t, but what I got instead was sympathy. “I’m so sorry,” Emma said. “That’s the worst thing I’ve ever heard in my life.”

“Thank you,” I said, knowing without question she meant it. Otherwise, it wouldn’t have come out of her mouth.

“Me, too,” Lucy agreed. “I can’t even believe it. I feel… awful. I can only imagine how you must feel, Cass. I wish I was there so I could hug you.”

Both of my friends had tears in their eyes, and even though it pained me to see them also so heartbroken, in a strange way it made me feel slightly better to know I wasn’t alone. “Thank you,” I muttered again. “I don’t know exactly what happened right now. Apparently, they were hunting a Vampire, and Elliott was killed by a Vampire Hunter.”

“Killed by his own side?” Emma asked. “Like Stonewall Jackson?”

I wasn’t sure who that was, so I wasn’t certain how to respond. “I don’t know,” I said. “I just know that there was some sort of an ambush or trick or something. I’ll see if Cadence will tell me more later, but as you can imagine, she’s pretty upset, too.”

“Well, yeah, I would think so,” Lucy replied. “Aaron, too. They were pretty close, weren’t they?”

“Yeah,” I nodded. I took a deep breath and tried to stay focused so I wouldn’t fall back into sobbing, not until I got off the phone anyway. “I guess we’re flying to Kansas City tomorrow for a memorial.”

“Flying?” Emma repeated. “Wouldn’t it be easier to drive? By the time you get to Des Moines… assuming that’s where you’d be leaving from…”

“Actually, I think they have a plane here or something. Elliott told me more than once that he flew up to see me, and that he had a pilot or something. I’m not sure.”

“Really?” Lucy asked, her mouth hanging open a little bit. “You didn’t tell us that.”

“I know. There are probably a lot of things I haven’t told you, actually, not because I didn’t want to but because it’s hard to keep track of everything. Cadence told me a whole bunch of stuff this afternoon I’ll pass along to you as soon as I can. But she told me I couldn’t tell either of you.”

“What else is new?” Emma groaned, shaking her head.

“I really wish they’d just trust us already,” Lucy agreed.

“It wasn’t even Cadence who decided I could know,” I pointed out. “She wasn’t going to tell me anything, but Aaron said he thought I deserved to know.”

“Get out of town!” Lucy exclaimed. “And here I was thinking he was the one keeping us all in the dark.”

“I know. I always got that impression, too, but I think maybe it’s been more my parents. Maybe yours, too. I don’t know. Anyway….”

“Why would our parents matter?” Emma asked, crinkling her forehead at me. “Do you think they know about all of this?”

“Maybe,” I replied with a shrug. “At this point, I have no idea who knows anything.”

“Are you saying you think whatever this is runs in our families, too?” Lucy asked. “Or can just anybody become a Vampire Hunter?”

“I don’t know,” I said again. “But it turns out Elliott wasn’t a Vampire Hunter. He was something else, something called a Guardian. Aaron is one, too.” Talking about Elliott in the past tense was a fresh kick to the gut, and I knew I needed to get off before I lost it again.