Cadence was proud of herself. Even though the hunt the night before had completely exhausted her, she still managed to make it into the gym by 10:00, only an hour later than usual. She was surprised how deserted it looked, however, but when she walked into the room that housed her favorite treadmill, she had to do a double take. “Christian? What are you doing here?” she asked, clipping her water bottle into the holder and tossing her towel across the frame as she fastened herself to the dead man and started up.
“Well, I usually run in the middle of the night, while you’re fast asleep, but since we were up most of the night trying to figure out what the hell is going on, this is the first chance I’ve gotten.” He was on the machine two away from her, and a quick glance at his screen let her know that he had only been here about fifteen minutes.
While she wasn’t particularly fond of him, it was nice to have someone to chat with that she normally didn’t get a chance to while she put herself through her paces. Since she wanted to use all of her breath for her sprint, she switched to the IAC. “I noticed Aaron still wasn’t back when I went to sleep. Was he with you?”
“I think he just went home to take a shower a couple of hours ago and then went back to his office,” Christian said, not really answering her question. It didn’t surprise her too much, though. He was usually evasive. “You know how he is. He won’t rest until he figures out if something came through that portal.”
“You don’t think anything did?” she asked, turning to look at him. He was wearing a gray shirt that paled his face more than usual, and she imagined for a moment he could potentially pass for a Vampire himself. His white socks were pulled up a little too high, almost meeting the black shorts he wore, and she wondered what it was about him that had made her think he was hot when she first got here. Maybe it was the air of mystery he had about him. Or was that reclusiveness?
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Maybe.”
“But what about the super strengths we are seeing.”
“Yeah, that’s a good reason to think there’s something out there, but I am going to need more evidence to decide for sure.”
Cadence nodded but thought that seemed like a contradiction. Christian was a bit of a contradiction himself, though. He seemed to enjoy the company of women but had no idea about how to get a good woman and keep her. He was smart but continued to do completely unintelligent things. He wanted to prove himself but constantly put his teammates in danger.
“By the way,” he said, causing her to turn her head again to look at him. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about the portal.”
Cadence raised an eyebrow. “What about it?”
He hesitated momentarily before he said, “You owe me.”
She almost laughed. “What’s that now? After everything you’ve done to screw up my life, including almost killing my fiancé and letting my sister go after a serial killer-slash-vampire by herself, you think I owe you?” He couldn’t be serious.
“Well, first of all, the thing with Aaron happened well before the portal, and secondly, I wasn’t the one put in charge of watching Cassidy. Jamie was, remember?” Cadence almost replied, but he didn’t give her a chance. “In fact, if you will look at some of these situations more closely, you will see that Jamie is just as much to blame for them as I am.”
A guffaw came out of her mouth now. “Jamie? Really? How so?”
“Oh, come on,” Christian began. “Jamie was working on the serum with me. He was there when Dr. Morrow told me he thought it was just about ready to use. He could’ve just as easily told Aaron not to use it. And then, when Gibbon was bearing down on us, it was Jamie who asked me to watch her, even though he didn’t ask your permission to leave her with me, did he?”
“No, but…”
“Or Aaron’s. He just made that decision himself. He’s fourth in command. He doesn’t have the right to make those sorts of decisions without clearing them with you.”
Cadence couldn’t help but roll her eyes. “And I suppose it was Jamie who forced you to show Eliza that horrid video you made of the two of us, too, wasn’t it?” She knew he couldn’t possibly blame that on the doctor.
“Actually,” Christian began, “in a way, it was Jamie’s fault that Eliza was able to manipulate me.”
“What?” Cadence asked, nearly falling off of the treadmill as her head whipped around to look at him. “What are you talking about?”
“Yeah. He was supposed to be watching her. We’d all decided he was the best one to keep her under control and away from Aaron. But… he got distracted. By you… and the next thing you know….”
“Oh, whatever!” Cadence exclaimed. “You’ve lost all of your marbles, Christian. None of those things were Jamie’s fault. You need to accept responsibility.”
“And you need to pay me back,” he countered. “Or else, the next time you need my help, I will just laugh in your face and tell you to go to talk to Jamie.”
While Cadence thought that argument was sort of silly considering Jamie had also helped her get Elliott’s remains to where she could more easily open the portal, she was curious to see what it was Christian wanted. “And if I did owe you a favor, what is it exactly that you’d want?”
He was quiet for a moment, and she couldn’t tell if he was thinking about it or if he was too embarrassed to ask. A thin line of sweat was beginning to form over her upper lip, so she grabbed her towel and wiped it away. Finally, Christian said, “I want a date.”
She raised an eyebrow but didn’t turn to look at him this time. “With who?” If he said her, she was likely to chuck her water bottle at him.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. “Someone pretty. And nice.”
“And what makes you think that I can set you up with someone?” she asked. “I hardly know any of the women around here, and I don’t know anyone outside of headquarters anymore.”
“I’m sure you can come up with something,” he argued. “I really don’t care how you get it done, just do it.”
“Why can’t you get your own dates?” she asked, tipping her head slightly to look at him out of the corner of her eye. “You’re good enough looking.”
“Thanks,” he muttered as if it hadn’t been a true compliment. “I get plenty of first dates,” he explained. “In fact, just about every girl I ask out says yes. I like to hit up the pretty new recruits as I’m putting in their IACs. They’re all excited to be here and feel like they’re getting attention from a somewhat important person.”
Cadence was a little surprised to hear he’d been asking out the new girls. It seemed a little creepy to her, but she did think it seemed like a decent strategy. “So what’s the problem?”
“So most of the time, it doesn’t last beyond that first date. I would say only a quarter of them will go out with me again. Sometimes I can get a second booty call, but that’s all. What am I doing wrong?”
A sickening feeling hit Cadence in the middle of her stomach as she thought about the explanations she’d heard about why Christian recorded her. Improvement of his technique. How many other unsuspecting girls did he have on film—doing who knows what? “Well, have you tried not aiming to get into their panties on a first date?” she suggested.
“Of course, I have,” he replied. “It doesn’t seem to matter if I’m a perfect gentleman or a dashing rogue. The results are almost always the same.”
Cadence mulled over all of the girls she even knew. She could count them on one hand and at least one of them, Meagan, had a boyfriend. She definitely wasn’t even including Cassidy in the vicinity of a possibility. “I’ll see what I can do, Christian, but just because I get a girl to go out with you, that doesn’t mean that she’ll be any more likely to stick it out than if you ask her yourself.”
“You have a sway with people, Cadence. You have power over everyone, and while I realize your skills work more on men than women, they seem to cater to you, too.”
She nearly turned completely sideways on the treadmill as she tried to comprehend what he’d just said. “What in the world are you talking about?” Cadence asked. “I have sway over people? Particularly men?”
