Back upstairs, Elliott and Brandon were waiting for her. “We did what we could,” the senior Guardian shrugged. “Ain’t no fixin’ that mirror, though.”
“I guess Spittle got all seven years of his bad luck in one tiny, explosive package,” Brandon joked.
“Do you mean the grenade or Cadence?” Elliott said, laughing at his own comment before the other two joined in.
“Both,” Brandon agreed and then they all headed back to the SUV, leaving the Anderson House behind them.
There was lots of chatter on Cadence’s IAC as they headed for home, but she tuned it out. The one person she realized had not contacted her at all was Aaron, which made her sad, but at the same time, she figured he’d be ready to lower the hammer on them the second she returned to campus. She’d have to be ready to take it, though. At least she’d accomplished her mission and no one had gotten too severely hurt. Meagan seemed to be doing fine, though she was still holding her bandaged arm.
Elliott pulled the SUV onto the highway, which was virtually deserted that time of morning, and Cadence turned to face her team. “Would anyone object to doing the debrief now?” She had a feeling she’d have other things to worry about by the time she made it back to headquarters.
“What? Now? In the van?” Aurora asked, a hint of mischief in her eyes.
“But what about all the nifty maps, and graphs, and charts, and video replays?” Brandon added, chuckling louder with each new item.
Cadence shook her head and resisted rolling her eyes. “I know that it’s not the way we usually do things, and I respect that Aaron has a way he likes to go over the hunt,” she emphasized that second part so they wouldn’t think she was trying to change things just to be irritating to Aaron. “But we are tired, and we have time to go over it now. There really isn’t anything I’d recommend changing. Except we need more grenades. And better knives.”
“Yeah, what was up with that?” Ashley asked, leaning up so that she could see Cadence better between Aurora and Brandon’s heads. “Your knife seemed to do nothing.”
Cadence fingered the blade she had tucked in her waistband. “I’m not sure.” She didn’t want to tell them she thought she’d stolen Van’s knife but probably had something that wasn’t even made of metal, let alone silver. “But we need to do a better job of double-checking our weapons. Or I do anyway.”
“Titanium would’ve been helpful,” Meagan noted, her voice sounding a little sleepier than normal, likely due to her wound.
“I agree. As would have more Guardians, but we do what we can, and under the circumstances, I think we did a pretty good job.” Cadence looked around and saw nothing but agreement amongst her team members. Normally, a debrief would take a lot longer than this, but she really couldn’t think of anything more to say, so she asked, “Does anyone have any questions?” hoping the answer was no.
“Actually, I do,” Ashley said, and Cadence wasn’t too surprised that if anyone had something to ask, it was the blonde. “Do you think this means Aaron will let us move on to the other larger pockets of Vampires, the ones that are actually a threat?”
“I don’t know what this means,” Cadence admitted. “I’d like to think so. But that’s something he and I will have to discuss.” She knew all of the team members present were aware that she’d arranged this hunt on her own, without his consent. She’d had to tell them in order to explain the absence of the Guardians who would’ve normally gone with them. Still, she didn’t want them to think there was a rift between the two Leaders. Those who knew them best were already aware and had also likely noticed Aaron wasn’t himself, but the others may still be in the dark, and she’d just as soon keep it that way until she figured out how to help him.
The rest of the drive was mostly silent, though a snicker between Brandon and Aurora now and again made her think they might be chatting about something on their IACs. Elliott was stoic, and she wondered if it affected him at all seeing Aurora run after that Vampire without a Guardian. If it did, he hadn’t let it show. It seemed odd to her that she wasn’t part of a couple during the hunt, that someone else might be thinking about their significant other—even if they both denied it—while she knew hers was safe at home, slowly losing his mind.
Less than an hour after they left Lexington, they pulled to a stop in front of the apartment building. Cadence was gazing out her window and didn’t realize anything was different until Elliott asked, “What the hell did he do?”
She turned to look out the windshield and saw a large moving truck parked directly in front of them, a few of the humans who worked at headquarters loading in some boxes. Even from here, she could see enough to know whose stuff was in that vehicle.
“Son of a bitch,” Elliott muttered, reaching for the door handle.
“Just… wait,” Cadence said, reaching out to grab ahold of him. “It’s not their fault.”
“I know. I’m not taking my rage out on them.” His free hand was a fist, and Cadence wondered who would win that fight if she actually let Elliott go try to bash Aaron’s head in.
“Let me talk to him,” she urged. She turned to look at Brandon and realized all the color had drained from his face. Things had just gotten real. “I’ll fix this.”
“You better,” Brandon said. “Cause I ain’t goin’ anywhere without Cass.”
“I’ll fix it,” she said again, pushing her door open and climbing out. Exactly how she would reason with someone who was clearly unreasonable at that point was beyond her, but she’d find a way. She’d lived eight months without Elliott, and she wasn’t doing that again. She’d have to convince Aaron that he was overreacting. It wouldn’t be easy, but there was a first time for everything. Something told her, as she headed across campus, tonight was not going to be that time.
