Chapter 1: Exploring the Past

Grandma Janette’s house had always been a place of solace, and even in this trying time when Gibbon was still on the run, Cassidy was recovering from her injury and trying to figure out her new reality, and Cadence was finding her place as the new Hunter Leader, sitting on her grandmother’s sofa, munching on a homemade chocolate chip cookie, flipping through her grandparents’ sacred photo album made things seem a little more like they used to be. That is, if one wasn’t to dwell on the fact that the pictures of her grandmother she was looking at were hundreds of years old.

“Now this one is my first daughter, Susan,” Grandma Janette explained pointing at a fading picture of a small girl standing next to a much younger version of the woman sitting next to her.

“Your first daughter?” Cadence echoed, setting the remains of her cookie on the armrest and dusting the crumbs off on her pant legs before carefully lifting the book up so that she could better see the figures in the photo. “What do you mean? I never knew you had another daughter!”

“Oh, yes, that was quite a long time ago,” Janette replied, looking off in the distance, as if trying to remember. “She was a sweet one. But she didn’t Transform, and well, we lost her, eventually.”

Cadence placed the photo album back on her lap and stared at her grandmother for a long moment, not sure what to say. “You never told me.”

Smiling, Janette turned to face her granddaughter. “Well, as you know, everything is quite complicated, and it really doesn’t make much sense to dump everything on you all at once, Lorraine.”

“Cadence,” she corrected, realizing she had accidentally been called by her aunt’s name. “I’m Cadence, Grandma,”

Shaking her head as if she needed to jar her brain back into working, Janette said, “Yes, of course you are. My memory’s not quite what it used to be, darling.”

“That’s okay,” Cadence replied with a smile, and then mumbling under her breath added, “I’ve been called worse.”

“What’s that, dear?”

“Nothing, Grandma. So… how many children did you and Grandpa Jordan have?”

“Well, altogether, six.”

“Six!”

“Yes. We were married for a very long time, Cadence. But only one Transformed, so after the first three passed on, I told your grandfather I didn’t want to have any more children. It was just too hard to see them age and then, well, pass away.”

“I can imagine. That had to be awful,” Cadence nodded, not daring to mentally put herself in her grandmother’s shoes. If she and Aaron ever had kids, she would force them to Transform, even if she had to make Jamie sneak into their rooms while they were sleeping and inject them with Transformation fluid without their consent. That was the best way to make sure that they didn’t die before she did. “So one of them did Transform?”

“Yes,” Janette acknowledged, “but that’s another part of my history I don’t really like to talk about, darling.”

Assuming something bad must have happened to that child, who would have been a Hunter like her, Cadence said, “Okay,” and flipped the page. The next picture showed her grandmother and grandfather standing next to a boy about twenty-three or twenty-four, all of them holding various weapons “I guess you want me to skip this page then?” she asked.

“That’s him,” Janette said with a sigh. “His name was Harold. Such a good boy. And a fast learner.”

Cadence could see a tear forming in the corner of her grandmother’s eye, and she started to turn the page, but Janette’s wrinkled hand caught her and they lingered a bit longer. “I wish I knew more about him,” Cadence finally said. “Did Aaron know him?”

“No,” Janette said, wiping the tears off of her cheeks with her free hand, “but Christian did. He can tell you all about my Harold.”

As Cadence continued to flip through the book, she found out a lot more about her Grandma Janette than she would have ever guessed. Not only did she have several more children than Cadence was aware of, she had dozens more grandchildren, most of which had never Transformed at all, and one who had re-Transformed back into a human decades ago and then passed away.

“Now, I do have some great-grandchildren who have Transformed,” Janette pointed out. So those would be your, umm, third cousins, I believe. There’s one who operates out of Washington State, named Phillip. This is him,” she said pointing to a picture of a man who looked to be about sixty, though in actuality he was probably much older.

“I think I’ve talked to him before,” Cadence replied, squinting at the picture. “He works with another guy named Clive, right?”

“That’s him,” Janette agreed. “Clive is also your cousin, but… I can’t remember exactly how. More distant.”

“Interesting,” Cadence muttered. “I wonder if they know that. They never mentioned it.”

“I’m sure they do. And then there’s Janice, who was named after me,” she said, pointing to another picture on the next page. This picture was older, so the woman looked younger than she would be today. She was dressed like a flapper and was carrying what appeared to be a machine gun.

“Where is she?”

“I think she’s in Europe somewhere now,” Janette replied. “I don’t think she’s working anymore.”

Cadence flipped through the next several pages, her grandmother continuing to give names and stories. Only a few of her distant cousins were still alive and operating. Cadence hadn’t interacted with any of the rest of them. One was actually a Guardian, so she knew she could find him and learn more about her distant family—if she ever traveled to Australia where he was now living.

“Now, this is the gal I wanted to tell you about,” Janette said, fighting a yawn.

“Are you tired, Gran?” Cadence asked, a little concerned.

“A little, darling,” Janette smiled. “Grandma’s getting old.”