Frustration coursed through Cassidy Findley’s body like lightning, igniting her skin and setting every nerve ending on fire. Times like this made her glad she’d invested in a treadmill for her apartment because she didn’t want to be around anyone else but still needed to pound it out on the pavement—faux as it might be. If she had something against fakes, she would have to hate half of her team right now, maybe all of them. Even the ones who told her she was right, that Daunator was a problem, didn’t actually want to do anything about it, and their inability to take any action on their own had her blood boiling in ways she hadn’t experienced since she’d moved out of her parents’ apartment months ago.
The night before, after the meeting, she’d attempted to go to her friend Lucy Burke’s apartment just to hang out for a while, but Cassidy’s boyfriend, Brandon Keen, had asked about the meeting—how had it gone? Had she gotten anywhere? She didn’t even want to answer him. The only reason she’d been allowed to attend was because she’d begged Jamie to let her present her findings. Otherwise, it was just the Leadership Council, or whatever they were calling themselves these days. How Christian ever got appointed to that committee was beyond her. At any rate, when she’d told her friends it had been a bust, some of them said it was just as well. Her sister and Aaron would be back soon enough. Cassidy had given it a few minutes so that she didn’t seem to be leaving because of their statements and then dismissed herself. After a restless night spent in other people’s minds, she had gotten up and assaulted her treadmill, Heavy Young Heathens pouring through her earbuds.
She had a few messages from her friends flickering in the corner of her IAC but no one she needed to talk to right away, so she’d been ignoring them. Until the little light that registered new messages started going crazy, and she realized she’d just received about a dozen messages within a few seconds of each other. Grumbling to herself, she looked to see who was frantically trying to get her attention and groused even more when she saw it was Christian. She opened his last message, just out of curiosity, and read, “Open your door!”
“Why the hell is Christian at my door?” she mumbled to herself. It was obvious after she’d ripped his face off in DC that he didn’t want to have anything to do with her, nor did she ever want to see his slimy, little, beady eyes again. So it had to be important for him to be knocking on her door.
Part of her wanted to continue to ignore him, but she had already put in over sixty miles, further than she usually ran in one day, and sweat was pouring down her back. Fatigue had yet to set in, but there were other tasks she needed to attend to that day. Realizing she may regret answering the door, but wanting to know what Christian had to say, Cassidy hit stop on her treadmill, turned off her music, pulled out her earplugs, and unclipped herself from the machine.
He pounded on the door again. “You know I’m coming, idiot! You heard the treadmill stop, didn’t you?”
“That doesn’t mean you aren’t still ignoring me!”
She pulled the door open a crack and narrowed her eyes at him. “I’d be stupid not to. What the hell do you want?”
“What? No hello? No good morning? No come on in and make yourself at home?”
Cassidy considered slamming the door in his face, but even as she glanced at the barrier in her hand, he slid his foot in the opening, his palm pressed just below the peephole. “I could still slam it on you.”
“You could try. Please don’t. Listen, I need to talk to you about something.” He glanced over his shoulder back down the hallway. No one was there, but he’d spent so much time beating on the door, chances were he’d at least gathered a little bit of attention from the other people who lived on floor five. “In private.”
“What in the world could I possibly want to talk to you about in private or otherwise? I hate you, in case that scar on your face doesn’t remind you every day.”
Christian let go of the door for a moment to find the small mark near his mouth on the left side of his face that Jamie hadn’t been able to heal because, by the time he’d returned from the portal, it had already repaired itself to some degree. “I realize that, Cassidy. But considering no one else wants to discuss your findings with you, I thought maybe even I wouldn’t be so completely repulsive that you wouldn’t want to take the opportunity to fill me in on a few things.”
He had her attention now, though she’d hate to admit it. Everyone else she’d brought her concerns to had blown her off. Last night at the meeting, she had hardly glanced in Christian’s direction because she couldn’t care less about what he thought. Now, the fact that he might actually listen to what she had to say, and maybe even do something about it, was enough for her to open the door.
Without hesitating, he made his way in. The faint scent of cigarettes hit her as he walked past, mixed with some sort of mint spray she figured he must assume covered up his nasty habit. She’d never actually seen him smoke before, but it was pretty evident he did, at least occasionally. He spun around in the middle of her living room, and Cassidy considered levitating him right back out the still open door. Instead, she took a deep breath and pushed the door closed behind him.
“Nice place. I wish I’d had digs this spacious when I was your age. Even a roof would’ve been acceptable.”
“Listen, if you’re really here to tell me you’ve decided to jump back into the Blood Moon Portal, and you need a hand, I’ll do whatever I can to help you out. I’ll even float you up there myself.”
“Thanks.” He shook his head, spinning back around to face her. “No, I’m sorry to disappoint you, but that’s not why I’m here.”
“That’s too bad. The six hours you were in there were some of the best of my life.” She folded her arms and leaned back on one foot, her opposite hip jutting out.
“How did we end up this way, Cass? I don’t even remember. It seems like you just hated me right off the bat.”
“I didn’t hate you until you let my boyfriend get swallowed up by a portal. Before that, I just disliked you strongly.”
“But why? Where did we go wrong? I remember that time I came to your house in Shenandoah and installed software on your computer so you could feel like you were helping us out with the whole Giovani thing. We got along fine then.”
“See! It’s that—right there.” She realized she was actually pointing at him and dropped her hand. “Why do you have to say things like that? If you’ll recall, it was Lucy, Emma, and me that found Giovani. Why do you always have to talk to other people like they’re not as important as you are? Like everyone else is a moron, and you’re the smartest person in the world?”
“Oh, I see.” He nodded slowly, his lips pursed together. “I intimidate you.”
Cassidy laughed and choked at the same time. “You are such an idiot.” Against her better judgment, she decided to give him one more chance before she tossed him out on his ear. “Did you say you wanted to hear about my findings?”
“Yeah.” His countenance changed drastically, and he took on a melancholy demeanor, one he’d worn a lot recently. Despite her not caring at all about him, she had noticed he’d been particularly somber since his duplicity had been discovered. She imagined it was because he’d gotten in trouble, but then, since there hadn’t really been any true consequences, that didn’t really make a lot of sense either. Maybe he was just preparing for Aaron to transfer him to another country when he arrived back home. At any rate, he wasn’t the cocky bastard he normally was, standing there with his hands pushed deep into the pockets of his jeans.
“What is it?”
He cleared his throat and turned his head slightly. “You can’t repeat what I’m about to tell you.”
“Oh, good. More secrets.”
