Now that Cadence had that taken care of, she decided to stop by and see how Meagan was doing since she hadn’t gotten a chance to talk to her recently. She found the shorter brunette outside on the obstacle course where she had a group of Hunters flying through the obstructions. Cadence noticed Ashley from a distance and forced herself to smile at her as if she were noticing a friend. Meagan was not nearly as tough on her people as Aurora, and she was shouting words of encouragement from the sidelines like a cheerleader.
“How’s it going?” Cadence asked sidling up beside her.
“Good. They’re really starting to get it,” she smiled.
Cadence watched a pair fly over the hurdles next to her and agreed that they did seem to be making a lot of progress. “Sorry I didn’t take you with us last night,” she said without turning her head. “It turned out to be kind of a dud anyway.”
“I heard,” Meagan replied, pausing to yell a few words of support to the Hunters nearest her before she continued. “It’s fine. At least you got them.”
“True,” Cadence agreed. “Hey, I’ve got some stuff going on that I can’t really talk about right now,” she began, spinning to face her friend, “but I’ll fill you in on all of it next week, okay?”
She had Meagan’s full attention now. “All right. Is everything good?”
“Yes, everything’s fine. I just didn’t want you to think I was blowing you off or anything,” Cadence clarified.
“Well, you know if there’s anything I can help you with, all you have to do is ask,” Meagan reminded her.
“I appreciate that,” Cadence said. “Okay, I’ll get out of your hair.”
“See ya,” Meagan replied as Cadence bent down and hugged her quickly and then headed off toward her apartment.
She had some area leaders she needed to check in with, but since Aaron was likely using the office they shared, she decided to head home to do her work instead. Most of the time sharing an office was ideal. She had a desk where she was able to get most of her work done while he worked at his on the other side of the room. But certainly not today. She was hopeful that everything would return to normal after next week.
On her way home, she decided to check in with Christian. He would be leaving with Aaron in a few hours, and she wanted to make sure everything was good before he was out of reach. “Hey! Just wanted to make sure everything is still copacetic.”
“Everything is good,” he assured her. “In fact, I was just about to contact you.”
Cadence hesitated; despite his first statement, that never sounded good. “Okay… what’s up?”
“Well, I took the liberty of running a little test last night, and I wanted to let you know what I discovered.”
“You did what?” Cadence asked, trying not to jump to conclusions.
“Look, after you told me what you did, and after Aaron said he would do whatever it takes to prevent you from doing this, I just wanted to make sure that you actually have Elliott with you, and Aaron didn’t beat you to the punch.”
The thought had crossed Cadence’s mind more than once, especially since she was quite certain Aaron had at least one more trick up his sleeve. “And?”
“I have an instrument that can test DNA. And that’s definitely Elliott in your little baggy.”
“Did you ‘borrow’ part of him?” she asked, images of him coming back together missing a vital organ flooding her mind.
He laughed. “No, I could scan through the plastic.”
“Thank goodness,” she muttered aloud. “Okay. That’s actually good to know.”
“You seem surprised that my useful information was useful.”
“I’m sorry,” Cadence replied, realizing that Christian was actually quite intelligent and resourceful, and she hadn’t been giving him enough credit. “I’m just nervous, that’s all.”
“Well, the code on the door is the code on the safe, and he’s still there as of this moment,” he assured her.
“Awesome.”
“I’ll check again when I go to get my suitcase.”
“Thank you so much, Christian,” Cadence said. “You know, you’ve really stuck your neck out for me this time, and I can’t tell you how much it means to me.”
“No problem, Cadence.”
She had to wonder why he was so willing to help her when he’d known Aaron for so much longer, and Aaron was actually his boss. Christian never even got along that well with Elliott. Maybe he really did just want her to be happy. “Have a safe trip to Connecticut,” she added.
“Thanks.”
She turned him off and entered the apartment building. She knew she would need to talk to their new maintenance man before she left, but she wanted to make sure Aaron was gone before she asked him to perform the task she needed done. Usually, Juan Diego Arriaga could be found working on the bottom floor of the apartments or in the yard, but she didn’t see him this time. They had recruited him after Jamie noticed he appeared on their recordings of the incident with Sam in Texas and Cadence’s hospital stay when Laura had shot her. What were the chances of the same guy being at both incidents? Clearly, he was meant to be on their team, but since he wasn’t capable of Transforming, they’d simply brought him in as part of the human team that supported their operation.
When the elevator door opened, his familiar face was smiling out at her. “Hey, Juan Diego!”
“Hello, Ms. Cadence,” he said. “You going up?”
“I am,” she said. He stepped out and held the door for her. “Gracias, amigo. Hey, I’m going to need a special favor in a couple of days, mi amigo.”
“Anything for you, senorita,” he said as he let go of the door.
“Gracias,” she repeated, still smiling broadly. Being nice always had its benefits. And so did attempting to speak people’s native language whenever possible even if you couldn’t remember more than five words of the three years of Spanish classes from high school, Cadence found.
