Cadence was done running in the team workout facility. After yesterday's encounter with Aaron and the merciless gleeful expression always plastered on her ex-friend's face as she trotted along on the elliptical, she decided to take her run outside. Even if it meant working on endurance instead of speed, she was not willing to run into the same problem two days in a row.
And yet, as she rounded a corner nearly 15 miles from headquarters, she found herself running exactly into said problem. "Son of a bitch," she muttered, bringing her sprint to a halt in front of where Aaron sat on a brick wall near a busy intersection. At first, the idea of pretending he was trying to mug her crossed her mind; there were a lot of passing cars after all, and it might be good for a laugh, but there was something ridiculously un-humorous about the expression on his face, so she decided to address him instead. With one hand on her hip, she paused, a bit out of breath. "How the hell did you know where I was?" she asked, her breathing quickly returning to normal.
"It's my job to know where you are," he replied, not really looking at her. He was wearing dark glasses with his coat collar pulled up, as if he was trying not to be recognized, although she would have known him anywhere.
"What do you want?" she inquired, still standing several feet away from him. She was actually glad he was wearing glasses. Otherwise, those piercing blue eyes may have been enough to trick her into forgetting that she was angry with him.
"You know what I want," he replied, and as if on cue, he pulled the glasses down to make eye contact with her.
"Take it up with my handler," she replied, turning on her heels.
"Cadence," he said just loud enough for her to hear, his voice raising in volume as she furthered her distance. "We've got four bodies in a suburb of Dallas. Two of them are kids, Cadence!"
With that, she stopped, a good 50 feet away from him. She looked up at the sky for a moment, absorbing the message and contemplating the implications. Finally, she said over her shoulder, "Then we know it wasn't Jack. He would never...""It was Jack. For sure," Aaron replied, standing.
She turned back to face him now. "How do you know?" she asked, her tone taking on more of a challenge than anything else.
"We have video footage of Jack arguing with the woman who happened to work in the lost baggage department at DFW Airport earlier that day," he replied taking a few steps toward her.
"That doesn't mean..."
"We have several pieces of video implicating Jack was involved in the string of murders taking place up and down the Caribbean coast." He continued to slowly walk toward her but stopped a good distance away, not wanting to make her turn to leave again.
Cadence looked down at the ground. "Just because he was there, doesn't mean..."
"Cadence, we have to bring him in," he said quietly. He waited for her reaction before continuing. "I can't do it without you."
She took a deep breath, and even though she knew he was right, she didn't want to cooperate, not after what he had put her through. Nevertheless, she recognized she had a job to do, and even if Jack hadn't directly taken the lives of those two kids, the monsters he was currently keeping company with were responsible. Perhaps, if she could get Jack, she could get Giovani. "And once you get him?" she asked hesitantly, not wanting to hear his answer.
"You know what must be done," he replied quietly.
Her eyes widened. "You want me to lure Jack in, so you can destroy him? Are you crazy?" she asked her arms flailing.
"No," Aaron replied, his tone still as calm and even as ever. "I want you to lure Jack in so that you can destroy him."
The look of horror on Cadence's face became even more prominent as she took in his words. Closing her eyes and attempting to gather her thoughts, she placed her hand on her forehead and took a deep breath. "You're even crazier than I thought you were," she finally replied. "There is no way that is happening." She turned to go, but this time he didn't let her walk away.
"Cadence" he said on her heels. "You don't understand. You have to do this. It has to be you!"
She spun to face him. "Why? Why in the world does it have to be me? I'm the last person you should be asking to do this!"
"Would you please let me explain?"
"No! There's nothing you can say that could possibly make me understand why you would ask me to do such an unthinkable, barbarous act."
Stopping short of the corner, he watched her take a few more steps before saying, "Look, Cadence, I know that you hate me..."
She froze two steps into the street and whirled around to face him. "Hate you?" she asked, the tone of disbelief in her voice even more obvious now than before. "Hate you? No, Aaron, I don't hate you," she explained, walking toward him now, causing him to retreat a few steps. "I love you, remember?" She was right in his face now, just inches away. "Or have you forgotten? You see, despite your alarmingly poor lack of sound judgment when it comes to character and your incessant need to find fault in everything that I do, I still love you. So, believe me when I say my refusal to destroy the one man who has ever truly loved me has little, to nothing, to do with you!"
As she turned to walk away yet again, he caught his breath, the full meaning of all that she had said taking a moment to sink in. Finally, he said, "Cadence, I know how you feel."
Again she stopped, this time in the middle of the street. "How can you possibly know how I feel? How could you have any idea what it must be like to have someone ask you to destroy the one person who loves you unconditionally?"
A car came around the corner then and almost collided with the extremely agitated Vampire Hunter. The driver blew her horn in irritation and Cadence flipped her the bird before making the same gesture at her boss and taking off in a sprint that left the woman behind the steering wheel wondering what in the world she had just witnessed. She looked at Aaron as if to ask what just happened, but he turned to walk away, leaving the woman shaking her head.
