Monday evening, she headed out into the Forty Mile Desert and eventually found a place she liked. It was at the foot of a fairly tall plateau, and the shadow kept her in the shade as the sun was going down. She wasn’t sure how hot it might feel out here during the daytime, especially since her body didn’t react to temperatures quite the way it used to before she Transformed, but she was willing to give it a try. She’d brought plenty of water, some extra gasoline, and enough protein bars and other snacks to last until Thursday morning. She hoped she’d be out of there Wednesday night, but she didn’t know for sure if she’d feel like leaving if the portal didn’t open or Elliott didn’t decide to come through.
She’d made sure with Christian that Elliott would come back fully clothed. The last thing she wanted to do was ride into town with her naked friend. There was just one other item she’d needed to collect before heading into the desert, and she had that now, too. It occurred to her that she might need some sort of a container to keep an open bag full of ashes in, so she chose something she thought Elliott would find both significant and hilarious, should he choose to join her.
Being out there alone gave her plenty of time to check in with her teammates and area leaders, and by late Wednesday afternoon, she’d gotten a lot of work accomplished as well as actually spending some free time reading a book she’d picked up in one of the towns she’d passed through. It wasn’t often she had time to do anything for pleasure anymore—movies, TV, reading—all of those leisure activities got pushed aside when she took over this assignment. Now, she finally had time to read The Girl on the Train, and she was just getting to one of the good parts when her sister requested a convo.
Annoyed but still happy to see what Cassidy had to say, Cadence set the book aside so she could find out what Cass had discovered about the crazy Vampire activity, if anything. “What’s up, Sis?”
“Hey, are you still out doing whatever you were doing?” Cassidy asked, her voice sounding oddly chipper.
“I am. What are you up to?”
“I just got out of school. I wanted to talk to you last night, but I got busy… studying.”
“By studying do you mean talking to Brandon?”
“Anyway,” she said, her change of subject a positive answer to Cadence’s question, “I did what you said, and I tried to listen. It was really hard to actually make out anything while I was at home or at school…”
“Not at school. You should be listening to your teachers when you’re at school.”
“Pre-AP History is so easy!” The attitude was back, and Cadence was also a little irritated that her sister found history easy. “I didn’t spend the whole day listening.”
“Okay, so what happened?”
“Well, none of that worked very well. So Brandon suggested I try going to a more crowded area. I got Mom to take me to the mall in Council Bluffs, and I was able to pick up some more chatter there.”
“Cool. What did you find out?”
“It was bizarre, Cadence. They were talking about normal, everyday things to each other, and it was like they didn’t even know I was listening. Most of it was nothing. A few of them were talking about ‘hits’ and ‘marks.’ But quite a few of them kept referring to something else.”
“What else?” Cadence asked, hanging on every word.
Cassidy hesitated, “They just kept saying things like, ‘It’s almost time.,’ and ‘The day draws near.’ The way that I hear them, it’s just strands of words, like, with no context. There’s no way for me to connect conversations and tell who is talking to who. So… those are the phrases that stood out to me.”
“Wow,” Cadence said. “That’s really interesting, Cassidy.”
“Do you think something is about to happen?”
It was a good question, and it could be possible that the Vampires were talking about the blue moon. They were highly affected by the moon, and full moons in general could influence their behavior. There seemed to be a good possibility that they were talking about the coming blue moon and nothing more. But it was difficult to say for sure. “I don’t know,” she admitted, “but it might just be the full moon.” Full. Not blue. Don’t say that to her, not yet.
“Isn’t it blue or something?” Cassidy asked, more up-to-speed than her sister had anticipated.
“It depends,” Cadence replied. “Some people say it’s not a true blue moon unless you look at it by season, not month.”
“Oh, well, anyway, it was kind of scary hearing them say things like that.”
“I would imagine it was scary hearing them period. We have no idea what their normal chatter is like. Maybe we should test it again after the full moon and see if you’re still hearing the same sort of things.”
There was a pause, and Cadence realized she was hesitant to commit to something that made her so uncomfortable. “Okay,” she finally said.
“Was Mom flipping out?”
“Oh, I didn’t tell her,” Cassidy assured her older sister. “She thought we were shoe shopping.”
“That was probably for the best.” She was tempted to ask if she got anything cute, but she knew her sister could potentially talk about shoes for hours, and she didn’t have time for that. “Thanks for letting me know, Cass. I know it’s uncomfortable for you, but it’s so amazing that you can do that. You’re the only one on our team who can hear them.”
“I know. You’ve told me, like—five hundred times.”
“Right.” Teenage attitude back in session. “I’ve got to go now. Have a good evening.”
“’Kay.”
“Tell Brandon I said hi. He’ll know what it means.”
“Ugh, you’re so lame,” she said, and Cadence could hear the eye roll.
“Love you, Sis,” Cadence gushed.
“Love you, too, weirdo.”
