All Cadence could do was stare at a spot on the wall behind Jamie’s head, trying to let all of it soak in. “It doesn’t make any sense.” Her voice was a whisper. “If he’s in there, why can’t he force his way out all of the time?”
“I don’t know. I don’t understand it at all. Has this happened before?”
“Yeah, Elliott said that it happened for a few seconds, a lot shorter than what you just described. He was in the lobby talking to Juan Diego. I feel like he was closer to being himself during my procedure. He stayed there the whole time, right? He even held my hand.”
“He did stay there the whole time, but he wasn’t himself. Every time I went in to check on you, I’d try talking to him, and he was rude, said he was too busy to chitchat.”
Her mind fuzzy with exhaustion, Cadence ran her hands down her face. “I don’t know, Jamie. I guess it’s a good sign that he can be himself from time to time, but I feel like he’s getting worse, getting meaner.”
“Yeah, it’s sort of like Holland’s demonic abilities. I mean, she was bad enough before the portal, but now, she’s so much worse. Aaron’s always been extremely Type A to the point where it can be annoying, but this is….”
“This is demonic.” She shook her head. “The enemy amongst us.”
“Right?” Jamie was shaking his head along with her. “I wonder….”
She looked up at him and thought she saw a flicker of an idea cross his face. “What is it?”
“Nothing. It’s just… I wonder if they’re related somehow. But I don’t know how they could be. Aaron didn’t go through the portal. And all traveling through it has done for Elliott is make him eat more, something I didn’t think was possible before he came back.”
“I’ve wondered the same thing. But it seems like this change in Aaron started a few days after we got back from Melbourne. I wonder if Carter did something to him or if Holland did. But she wasn’t even anywhere near us. It just doesn’t add up.”
“I don’t know either,” Jamie admitted. “But we won’t give up, Cadence. We’ll figure it out.”
“Yeah, I know.” She wished her voice could sound more confident. They sat in silence for a few beats before Cadence said. “Well, I’ve got to go talk to my sister, so I better get over there before my mom realizes she’s been up all night and blows a gasket.”
“Your sister’s still up?” Jamie asked, genuinely surprised.
“Yeah. She wanted to go, but I couldn’t risk it without you there. Martin did a great job, but since he’s not a Guardian, I couldn’t send him in to Meagan until after we had the room cleared, which sucked.”
“That is a problem,” Jamie concurred.
“And since Brandon was with me, Cass wanted to watch. We also had her put a blocker on Holland. I didn’t know if it would work or not, but I think it did. None of the Vampires were able to shift. They were still just as strong as the ones we’ve been encountering, but nothing super crazy. And since Holland pulled that bullshit with the crocpire, I was glad because if she really can manifest whatever she thinks we are most afraid of at the time, that could’ve been some freaky shit.”
“I know. It’s weird how Holland keeps figuring out all of these new talents she has that can trip us up. I wonder where that might end. But you say Cass was able to block her?”
“I am surprised it worked. I know she can block her signal to the cell towers that’re messing with our trackers. But it seemed so abstract, I didn’t know how she might be able to do it. I think it must’ve worked. Either that or Holland was so distracted by whatever she’s doing in Europe, she wasn’t paying attention. I guess her mind might be elsewhere because of the baby, too.”
“Wait,” Jamie said slowly, and Cadence looked over at him expectantly.
“Wait what?”
He raised both eyebrows and ran his hand along his jawline. It was the same sort of expression Aaron often got when he’d figured something out before the rest of them, a countenance she hadn’t seen in a while. “Maybe….”
“Maybe… what?”
“Is it possible that Holland is doing this? That she’s sending some sort of negativity, angst, depression, whatever to Aaron? She knows that he’s an emotional empath. We know she has telepathy and can send messages directly to our minds. Maybe she’s doing this. Maybe Cass blocking her from the Vampires in Lexington blocked her signal to Aaron, too.”
Cadence’s face was frozen. She couldn’t open her mouth to speak, nor could she even raise an eyebrow to let him know she was pondering the situation. It took a long moment before she finally asked, “Do you think that’s possible?”
“Sure. Why not? Do you happen to know what Cass was doing when Elliott was with Aaron earlier, when he seemed normal?”
Cadence knew exactly what her sister was doing. “Yeah, I’d gone to ask her to try to get me numbers on Spittle’s crew, and while I was sitting there, she checked Holland’s location and blocked her signal for the trackers.” A bubbling sensation billowed up inside of her so that she nearly shot out of the chair. It was a feeling that had been foreign to her for some time until that moment, but she recognized it immediately. It was hope.
A smile spread across Jamie’s face. “I think we might have found our solution.”
“Oh, Jamie! If this is it, if we’ve actually figured it out….”
“Okay, well let’s not get ahead of ourselves, all right? If this is it, we’ll have to figure out a way to stop it without Cassidy having to block Holland a hundred percent of the time.”
“Maybe if Aaron knows about it, he can stop it himself. Is that possible?”
Jamie thought for a moment before he said, “Well, back when Eliza was influencing him, he was able to fight her off once he knew about it, most of the time anyway. It depended upon his overall emotional state. Like, when he was upset about you….”
“She was able to get to him.” Cadence remembered well. “But for the most part, he was able to keep her at bay.”
