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Chapter 2

Aaron pulled into the driveway, and I took a few deep breaths while they waited on me. Before I even finished climbing out of the vehicle, I saw my parents standing at the door. Normally, my dad wouldn’t be home from work yet. But he was here.

My mom greeted and hugged each of us, as did my dad, except he shook Aaron’s hand, and we all moved into the living room. Obviously, my parents knew something was up, but I think they were relieved to see we were all alive. My parents sat in their chairs, my sister and Aaron on the couch, and I lowered myself into the chair across from my mom.

“What’s going on?” she asked, looking at each of our faces. “You kids are scaring me.”

Cadence looked at me, and I wished Brandon—or someone—was here to hold my hand the way she was grasping Aaron’s. But I was on my own. And I’d asked for this. I knew I could back out, and Cadence would tell them, but this really was something I needed to do. I cleared my throat.

“Mom, Dad, I did something really stupid,” I began, drawing both of their attention to me. They were staring at me intently, puzzled, and even though I’d rehearsed what I was planning to say dozens of times, none of it came out the way that I intended it to. “I wanted to be involved so badly that I invited myself on the hunt to Philadelphia.”

“You did what?” Mom asked, her forehead crinkled.

“I took a train to Philly, thinking once I got there, Cadence would have to let me go on the hunt.”

“Cassidy Elizabeth!” my mom blurted, looking at my dad who looked dumbfounded. “Do you have any idea how dangerous that is? You could’ve been killed! And not by a Vampire either. There are bad people in this world as well, you know? Oh, my goodness!”

“I know, Mom, I know,” I said, thinking she was on the verge of a heart attack. “It was stupid and reckless. I know that now. I don’t know if it makes you feel any better, it won’t by the time I’m done, but I wasn’t alone. I took a Guardian with me. Still… you’re right. Because… something did happen.” I looked from my parents to Cadence and Aaron and then back to my mom. “Something pretty bad happened.”

I assumed they were both imagining the worst, but I didn’t know how to tell them. I hadn’t told anyone yet, hadn’t found a way to formulate the words, hadn’t probably even admitted it fully to myself. My dad quietly asked, “What is it, honey?”

Looking at his face, I could tell that there was nothing I could say that would prevent my daddy from loving me. That he might be disappointed in my choices or angry that I’d done something so idiotic, but that he would recognize how difficult this was for me, that the consequences far outweighed the crime, and when I looked at my mom, who had tears in her eyes, I saw the same expression there.

I couldn’t hold back my own tears. They began to roll down my face like raindrops from a spring storm, large and bouncy and relentless. Cadence stood and handed me a tissue, and I thanked her before I turned back and quietly said to my parents. “I got scratched… by a Vampire.” I let that sink in for a moment. They were confused; I knew they wanted to know what that meant the same as I did. I took a deep breath and found a way to soldier on. “I was beginning to Resurrect—to change into one—but Jamie was able to administer the Transformation serum in time. So… I’m not a Vampire. Not exactly. I’m… some sort of a Hybrid.”

My mother’s face said it all. She looked at my father and then back to me, and then burst into tears, which caused me to start sobbing as well. My sister seemed torn between who to comfort, and while my dad managed to keep it together, he looked distraught himself. After a moment, he went to my mom and wrapped his arms around her, and then Cadence came to me and tilted my head against her shoulder.

I tried to remind myself of what could’ve happened, of how lucky I was to not be dead, to not be a full-fledged Vampire, to not have been kidnapped. I tried to remember that Cadence was also taken against her will, though she’d traded herself for me, and that she’d been able to get out of the situation as well. Things could’ve been a lot worse. But my parents didn’t know all of that. All they knew was that their sweet child, the one who’d never so much as skipped a class at school, had taken a train to Philly and gotten herself in a very bad situation.

After several minutes of crying, we all managed to bring ourselves back under control, but then my mom came and hugged my sister and me, followed by my dad, and the water works were on again. I wondered how awkward Aaron must feel, sitting there, watching this, but I figured he’d had to have been in other uncomfortable situations in the last hundred and seventy years.

My breathing returned to normal eventually, and the tears dried up. My mom was still wiping at her eyes as she made it back to her chair, and my dad patted her on the arm before he sat back down. Cadence stayed with me, sitting on the armrest.

“Well, Cass,” my mom said slowly, “can you tell us what happened, or is it still too painful?”

I knew the moment I opened my mouth again, I’d break into another fit of sobbing. Cadence squeezed my arm, like she wanted me to wait, and I instinctively knew what she was getting at.

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