When Cadence reached the building that housed the gym, a steady stream of new recruits was headed down the hallway toward the showers. She looked for her sister among them but didn’t see her familiar face.
“Hi, Cadence!” Tara said seemingly out of nowhere, though Cadence realized she’d been so busy looking for Cassidy she hadn’t noticed the other girl. Her brown hair was in a ponytail and a few tendrils were matted to her face with sweat, but she didn’t look nearly as tired as the other kids—recruits—and Cadence imagined that was because she wasn’t. Another argument for going through with the procedure.
“Hi, Tara,” she said, pressing a smile to her face. “How’s it going?”
The other newbies in the hallway seemed to suddenly realize who they’d been walking past and there were some oohs and ahhs. This was an entirely new batch from what Cadence could tell, although she’d never paid enough attention to the new recruits. She didn’t recognize any of them except for Tara and Dax Forest who came to a stop behind his girlfriend. “It’s going,” Cadence muttered, trying to force her face into being nonchalant. “Do you know where my sister is?”
“Yeah, she’s still in the gym talking to Alex,” Tara replied. “She’s so fascinated with him. It’s kinda funny.”
“You should’ve seen her trying to impress him during the simulation today,” Dax, a tall blond who had only been on the team for a few months agreed with a chuckle. “Every time she took a shot, she wanted to turn her head and see if he was watching.”
A flutter of panic rose in Cadence’s stomach. She didn’t know who Alex was, but if her sister was trying to impress another guy, what did that say for her relationship with Brandon? “Oh?” she said, trying to seem like it didn’t bother her, but her face was no longer cooperating.
The pair didn’t seem to notice. “Yeah, it’s so funny to see her geek out on a Revolutionary War hero.” Tara giggled and then the two of them moved on down the hallway toward the locker rooms, and Cadence realized they weren’t talking about some new recruit her sister had taken a liking to. She felt better—about Cassidy anyway—and hurried to the gym.
She saw her sister standing across from a short, thin man dressed in something one might expect to see in a Broadway play—set at the turn of the 19thcentury. Despite everyone’s insistence that Mr. Hamilton might blend in better dressed in clothes more appropriate for the current day, Alex had insisted that when he was at home, he would wear whatever the hell he liked, so it was breaches, knee socks, a white wig, and lots of other apparel Cadence didn’t understand. And since Alex had made it abundantly clear that he wanted to be one of the first Guardians to try the Retransformation serum as soon as Holland was stopped, there had been no arguing. This home would only be his place for a short while, if Cadence had any say about it. Then, he could return to Roatan with the others and hopefully die in a decade or two, though he wished it would be sooner. If the Blue Moon Portal legend was true, he wouldn’t die at all, but the team needed his help right now, so they didn’t dwell on the possibilities that even if the Retransformation serum worked for others, it likely wouldn’t work on him.
Cassidy was so intrigued by whatever he was talking about, she didn’t even look up as Cadence approached. Alex was making some sort of a gesture with his arms, as if he were firing a musket, reloading, and re-firing it, and Cassidy’s eyes were wide as she listened. Cadence caught the end of the story, standing in silence, waiting for the Founding Father to finish. “And then, it simply sprang free from the cellar door, its fangs barred and dripping blood. So, I fired again, using the smoke as a screen as I discarded my musket and moved in to tear the beast’s head from its shoulders.”
“And it worked?” Cassidy asked, still seemingly unaware of her sister’s presence.
“Oh, yes. He was soon a pile of ashes there on the cabin floor. It was one of my first kills, but certainly not my last.”
“That’s so fascinating,” Cassidy gushed. “I am always so amazed at how you were able to be so successful with such rudimentary weaponry.”
“Yes, my dear. That is precisely why I say to you do not worry if these… Glocks and Berettas, as you call them, fail you. The true measure of a man… er, a woman, a girl, perhaps, in your case, is the ability to find the strength from within to do what is needed at precisely the right moment.”
Cassidy’s eyes were glazed over like she was staring at a movie star, rather than what should’ve been a long dead politician. “Cass?” she said quietly, hoping not to jar her younger sister back into reality too harshly. “Can I speak to you for a moment?” Then to Alexander Hamilton she said, “Pardon me for interrupting.”
“Aw, if it isn’t the elder Miss Findley. How are you this fine day?”
For once in her life, she was glad that Christian was the way that he was—or at least that he didn’t still speak like it was the 1800s. “Good, thank you… kind sir,” Cadence stumbled, which made her sister giggle. She rolled her eyes and said, “Cass?”
“Okay, yeah, sure,” her teenaged sister mumbled. “Thanks again, Alex.”
“I am at your service any time, Miss Cassidy,” he replied with a slight bow, and Cadence literally grabbed ahold of her sister’s elbow and dragged her a few steps away as he headed across the room in the opposite direction. She smiled at him, not wanting to offend him for more reasons than she could name, but this was the first time Cadence had seen her sister with her head in the clouds since she first started dating Brandon. Even then, it wasn’t this bad.
