“Don’t worry. I had a large pizza for lunch,” Brandon replied. Cassidy turned, gaping at him in surprise, and he shrugged. “I’m a stress eater.”
“Dax, how are you doing?” Cadence asked, hopeful that she had his name right since she hadn’t checked her IAC to make sure.
“I’m okay,” he replied, managing a smile. “Still… overwhelmed. And tired.”
“I can imagine.” She gave him a sympathetic grin. Her IAC began to light up, but she ignored it for a moment, trying to focus on the young man in front of her. “I promise, there are dull days around here. Hopefully, you’ll see that soon enough.”
“Dull days. Dull people. Dull-witted people,” Elliott mused, grabbing a bag of Cheetos out of Cassidy’s bag when she wasn’t looking.
“I brought those for the kids,” Cadence scolded him.
“When have I ever been accused of being an adult?”
Cassidy shook her head at him and handed the snack bag over to Dax as Cadence attempted to come up with something clever to say in response, but Cale walked in the room just then, so she moved out of the way, turning her attention to her IAC as Elliott stood to greet the doctor.
Something was going on in Australia. The messages she was receiving weren’t making a whole lot of sense. It was as if their IACs were flickering in and out. She knew there was a hunt going on there right now, but she thought it was fairly routine and hadn’t been monitoring it too closely. Becky wasn’t an Area Hunter Leader, but she was a good candidate, and she knew Paul was a fabulous Guardian. She was concentrating on trying to make sense of it, when she realized Cale was talking to her.
“Cadence!” He had Tara’s hand in his, and he turned to the monitor behind him, turning it up so that it was making an awful buzzing sound. “She’s….”
“I know,” Cadence replied, looking at Elliott and wondering what he’d said. “I know.”
“You know she’s dead?” He checked the faces of the young people around him, like he didn’t want to alarm any of them if they hadn’t figure that out already and seemed relieved that no one gasped. He turned the monitor off.
“No, turn it back on,” Cassidy insisted. “We’re waiting to see if she comes back to life.”
“What?” Cale asked, not doing as he was asked. He looked at Cadence again. “What’s going on?”
“Elliott didn’t tell you?” She stepped back over toward him a bit.
“Hell, no, I didn’t tell him. Did you hear me tell him?”
“I was… busy. Something seems to be going on in Australia.” She noticed Jamie stir at those words, but he didn’t open his eyes. She checked, but his IAC wasn’t on, so it couldn’t be that he was getting the weird messages, too.
“Still can’t do two things at once.” Elliott shook his head as if he was disgusted by her, and she punched him in the arm.
“What is going on?” Cale insisted.
With a sigh, Cadence began to explain. “Look, here’s the thing. We kinda did something… and we need to keep it a secret.”
“Oh, God, Cadence!” Cale lamented. “Not again!”
Putting her hand on the sleeve of his white lab coat, she said, “I know. It’s just… we had to. We didn’t have any choice. If we didn’t do it… she was going to die.”
“Well, it looks like whatever you did didn’t work,” he replied shaking his head but not pulling away from her.
“We don’t know that yet,” Cassidy insisted, leaning forward and placing a hand on top of the sheet covering Tara’s leg.
Cale looked confused, surveying the faces around him. “What did you do?”
Clearing her throat and crossing her arms, Cadence said quietly, “Transformation serum.”
“Cadence….”
“Hey, I didn’t do it on my own this time. It was a team effort.” Her defensive tone seemed not to make a difference to him.
“Yeah, and I’m sure the one person who was not chosen to play by the team captain was the guy who can fire me or send me to Siberia.”
“If it’s any consolation, I hear it’s lovely this time of year,” Elliott mused.
Cadence gave him a sharp look but didn’t strike him this time. “You aren’t doing anything. You’re just here to… keep an eye on her while Jamie’s out, that’s all.”
“So that if she happens to reanimate I can, what? Explain to her that she died, but now she’s alive again?”
“No, don’t tell her that. She won’t know she died.” Cadence knew first hand it didn’t work that way having struggled to convince Aaron he was actually dead. Of course, she still wasn’t completely sure if that’s how it always worked. “Just… make sure she’s not in any pain.”
With a long sigh, Cale said, “I think I’d rather wake Jamie up and let him deal with this.”
“Can you do that?” Cassidy asked, staring up at the handsome doctor. “Like, recharge his battery with yours?”
“I don’t know.” Cale turned away, putting both hands on his hips and letting out a deep sigh. “I’d be willing to try before I’d voluntarily deal with this mess.”
Before Cadence could say anything more, Aaron called for her and Elliott to get to the office as soon as they could, and she hoped this had to do with Australia and not their science experiment. “Elliott and I have to go.”
Cale looked at her as if she’d just ran over his puppy with her minivan. “Cadence… I’m not sure I can be a part of it this time.”
“You don’t have to do anything, I promise. If Aaron comes in, tell him she just died. I’ll take it from there. But something tells me we’re going to be busy for a while. There’s a big mess in Australia.”
“Where?”
The sound of Jamie’s muffled voice caught her off guard. Cadence turned to look at her friend, who appeared as if he was still sound asleep.
“He asked where.” Cassidy’s voice sounded slightly agitated, like she was on the verge of coming unglued again, and Cadence looked at her sister in confusion and then back at Jamie who was still unmoving.
