After checking in with Meagan and Shane, both of whom were very busy kicking butt, she made her way out of the building and across one of the expansive fields that bordered the facility. Though they were situated fairly close to Kansas City International Airport, very few humans had any idea what went on here. The large lot of land and group of buildings was gated off and it was impossible to see what was back here from the road outside.
She loved walking through this field any time of year, even though the grass was dead this late into winter. Still, thoughts of spring and renewal invaded her mind as she considered the possibilities on the horizon. Was it really possible that she could see Elliott again? That he could come back to them? While it was tempting to imagine him home again, she didn’t want to dwell on it. So many things could still go wrong.
It was winter, but she didn’t get cold anymore. She wore the same black leather jacket she typically wore, particularly on hunts, no hat or gloves, and she was perfectly fine. She did wish, however, she’d thought to put on some boots instead of her sneakers. The ground was damp and she soon had the uncomfortable squishiness of wet socks to deal with.
Jamie was sitting on the fountain. She could see him from a distance as she approached. Though she felt like she knew him better than most of her other team members, there was still a lot she didn’t know, and she realized she wanted to. Aaron had always encouraged her to get to know them better, but it was sort of a standing joke that she didn’t know history and didn’t really care to know the details of the hundreds of years of pasts some of these people carried around with them.
He waved as she approached. She always thought her teammates looked out of place when they weren’t wearing all black since most Guardians wore it almost all the time. But he was wearing light gray slacks and a red button down shirt and could have been any professional out on a break from work, not a Healer capable of bringing teammates back from the brink of death. He had saved her once, saved Aaron, saved Cassidy—saved so many. Unfortunately, he hadn’t been able to do the same for Elliott because Jamie was shot on that hunt himself. They had been very lucky to only lose one member that night when three others had been wounded so severely.
“Hey,” Jamie called out as caught up to him. “You look like you’ve got something on your mind.”
She smiled and sat down next to him. “My own thoughts and those of a thousand voices.”
“I can imagine,” he replied with a chuckle. “How’s all that going?”
“Really well,” Cadence nodded. “I think the new structure is really working out. The area leaders seem to like it, and we’re making a lot of progress in some places where the Vampires had started to run amok”
“Oh yes, a muck. Lovely in the spring but just terrible this time of year,” he joked.
Cadence laughed. “Since when are you funny?”
“Some people have always thought I was funny,” Jamie replied, shrugging. “I’ve been laughed at for years.”
That made her laugh harder, and she realized this was a side of him she’d never seen before.
As she struggled to catch her breath, he asked, “So Cadence, what is it that you wanted to talk about?”
“Well, Jamie,” she began, “you’ve been around a while…”
“Not that long. Compared to Christian and Aaron, I’m a spring chicken.”
“Right. Still—longer than me. And I highly respect your opinion. I just wanted to know your opinion about… what I should do.”
“What you should do about what?”
Cadence sighed and shifted her position on the cold cement beneath her. “Oh, come on. I know he didn’t spend that many hours with you last night and never mentioned our discussion.”
“That Aaron is a tough cookie to crumble,” Jamie reminded her.
“Are you saying he didn’t tell you?”
“No, he did,” Jamie smiled. “You already talked to Christian, right?”
Cadence nodded.
“And your grandmother?”
“Yes, she’s the one who told me about it.”
“Well, what did they recommend?”
Cadence ran her hand through her hair and tried to secure it behind her ears, though the wind had different ideas. “My grandmother didn’t say one way or the other if she thought I should do it, though I got the impression she thought I should at least talk to Elliott. She’s used the portal to talk to my grandfather several times.”
“That’s interesting,” Jamie nodded.
“Christian wants to remain neutral. I could tell he was uncomfortable talking to me about it. He’s already on Aaron’s list, and I think he’s doing everything he can to try to prove himself again after a few really bad decisions.”
“I can definitely agree with you there,” Jamie said. “And Aaron is whole-heartedly against it, right?”
“Oh, yes,” she exclaimed, “to the point where he said he would do whatever he could to prevent me from doing it.”
“Wow, that sounds pretty serious.”
“I know.” Cadence was still a little concerned that she could ruin their relationship—again—if she went through with her plan, even though he’d assured her last night that nothing could come between them.
“Well, if you want my honest opinion,” Jamie began, meeting Cadence’s gaze, “I think you should at least talk to Elliott.”
“You do?” Cadence asked, surprised. She really wasn’t expecting him to say that. She thought for sure the fact that Aaron had gotten to the Healer first would brainwash him into saying that Aaron was right, no matter how he actually felt.
“Sure. Why not? I mean, Elliott’s fully capable of making his own decision as to whether or not he wants to come through, you know? At least if you get a chance to see him, you can have some closure.” Cadence nodded as Jamie continued. “Now, I wouldn’t go telling Elliott about what happened to Cassidy or that he has a son on the team now. That might influence him to come through when he normally wouldn’t. But I would tell him that it is an option, so long as he understands that there’s likely no going back.”
“About that,” Cadence interjected, “do you think Dr. Morrow will ever reach a point where he can send Hamilton back?”
Shaking his head, Jamie said, “I don’t know. Things are beginning to change, Cadence. I think you see that more than the rest of us. We’ve been so locked into having definitive rules in the Ternion for hundreds and thousands of years. Now, all of a sudden, the Passels are operating differently than they ever have before. Now, it is possible for a Guardian to kill a Hunter, if they have a titanium bullet. It is possible for a Hunter to kill another Hunter.”
“You’re telling me,” Cadence muttered, remembering how it had felt when Laura shot her.
“Exactly. And then there’s Cassidy’s situation, which no one would have ever thought possible. There’s a very good chance that the serum Aaron tried to use to become human again will be working within the next year or so. We were very close before. Otherwise, we wouldn’t have been able to stop it. So, it’s just very hard to say whether or not something like that will work on Hamilton. Or Elliott.”
