Taking some deep breaths, Cassidy commanded herself to calm down a little bit. This was Christian, after all. At the very worst, he would get what was coming to him. Unless, of course, she ended up getting in trouble for helping him in the first place and not telling anyone.
In the silence, she remained in his head, pushing a little deeper than she meant to and caught the flicker of a woman’s face in his mind’s eye. She was beautiful, with long brown hair and lavender eyes. The way she was dressed, Cassidy could tell the memory was from a long time ago. Part of her wanted to dig even deeper and solve the mystery for herself, but that always seemed to feel unethical. So she decided to ask instead. “Who is she?”
It took him forever to answer, and when he did, he was still angry. “Why would I tell you that when you just threatened to reveal everything else to your sister?”
“That’s a fair point. Look, Christian, I’m only trying to make sure you don’t get hurt or lost forever and I don’t get my ass in trouble. So... if you don’t want to tell me who she is or how you know Daunator can’t kill you, that’s fine. But whether you do or whether you don’t, I’m still going to have to use a little bit of rational judgement to determine whether or not you’re in over your head—both literally and figuratively speaking.”
“Well, I can already tell you I’m way in over my head—literally.”
“So why be both?”
“It doesn’t matter, Cassidy. It doesn’t matter if I tell you or not because it doesn’t change my predicament.”
She decided that was probably true, and there really was no reason for him to disclose any other secrets, unless he wanted to. In order to do that, he’d have to trust her. Clearly, right now he didn’t, and she couldn’t blame him. She had recently ripped his face off, after all. The distrust was mutual.
“So... why don’t you try shouting to the monster that you’ll get me and my sister there if he comes out to play? Have you tried that tactic?”
“No, not yet.” He was quiet again, and Cassidy fought the urge to dig into his mind further. “I guess I could.”
Eliza was messaging her. “All right. Let me know how it goes. Do you want me to check in more often, since I’m the only person who can talk to you now?”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Part of her wanted to tell him he had to say please just to listen to him groan about it, but she didn’t. “All right. I’ll talk to you soon. Hang in there.”
“Yep.”
“Sorry, Eliza. I was talking to Christian.”
“Christian? You found him? Is he okay?”
Cassidy could see how Eliza’s energy could start to wear on a person’s nerves really quickly. “Yes, I found him, and he is okay, but Daunator has him stuck in a hole in the ground.”
“A hole? What do you mean?”
“It’s kind of hard to describe. It’s like a really deep, dark, hole in the ground. There’s no way he can get out on his own. So he’s hoping Daunator will show up and fight him so he can kill the Vampire. And then... I don’t know what his plan is to get out, but for now, he wants to be left in there alone to figure it out.”
“Is he nuts? I can get a team together and go find him, with your help.”
“I’m sure you could, but that’s not what he wants. So... I’m just going to keep checking on him for a while and see how it goes.”
“What if Daunator really can kill Guardians?” Eliza’s concern seemed much more genuine than Cassidy’s had ever been.
“I asked the same question. He doesn’t seem worried about it.” Now would be the perfect time for her to disclose what Christian had said earlier about not being able to die and to ask Eliza if she knew who the woman was, but since Christian had eluded to the fact that no one else knew about any of that, she decided not to divulge his secret, even to the other person who had part of his confidence.
“I don’t like this, Cass.”
I don’t like that you just used my nickname like we’re pals, Cassidy thought to herself but didn’t say aloud. “I know. I don’t either. But that’s where we are for the moment.”
“And no bosses yet?”
“Nope.” More than ever, Cassidy wanted to reach out to her sister and see if she could help with any of this.
“All right. Since we got Honey last night, there’s only a couple more of Daunator’s main henchmen on our list. I’m not sure when we’ll be going after the next one, but it will probably be soon. Will you be able to help me out when the time comes?”
“I should be able to.” Cassidy had nothing better to do. She certainly wouldn’t be spending time with Brandon. And if he was over at one of their mutual friends’ apartments, that would be super awkward as well.
“Great. I’ll keep you posted. Thanks!”
“Sure. I’ll go see if I can find Heather and ask her about our minions. I’ll let you know.”
Cassidy turned off her IAC before Eliza had a chance to annoy her with an upbeat goodbye and remembered Heather would be at the gym this time of day. It was a weekday, so she should be at training, something Cassidy often attended, too, to help Aurora, but she hadn’t felt like going that morning. Now, she wished she could pull Heather out and interrogate her. Sure, she could access her via her IAC or telepathy, but that would be a distraction to the other Hybrid while she was trying to train. She’d just have to wait. She sent Heather a message and asked her to let Cass know when she was done so they could meet up. She had a few questions she hoped the older girl could answer. If Heather didn’t know what those creatures were, she had no idea who might. Maybe Schmitz, but he wouldn’t want to talk about it. No, Heather was her last hope at getting some answers before the bosses got back. Otherwise, it was going to be a long couple of days—especially for Christian.
