Cadence was silent as they walked from the office building back to the apartments. Aaron didn’t ask her anything, and she was glad, because she really didn’t know what to say. Ever since she’d awoken in the middle of the day with those horrible images in her head, she hadn’t been able to think of anything else. Seeing that she hadn’t invented the creatures in her own mind was even more terrifying than believing she just had a warped imagination.
They reached the apartment building and headed for the elevator. Lots of friendly faces greeted them, and it was evident everyone they bumped into wanted to stop and chat, but the McReynolds were on a mission. Cadence hadn’t bothered to contact her sister to see if she was home, and as the elevator climbed to Cassidy’s floor, she hoped she was because she wanted to talk to her quickly and then head back over to the office building so that they could get to the bottom of this—not that she figured much would come of the meeting if the same people who’d just looked at the footage were looking at it again. But maybe something would click with someone.
Cassidy’s apartment was at the very end of the hall, and Cadence shot down it like she was on the prowl, Aaron chuckling at her as he came along behind her. Cadence ignored him and knocked on the door, crossing her fingers that Cassidy answered.
“What the crap....” Her sister’s voice came through the door before she even opened it. “Why are you here?”
“Hi, sis.” Cadence embraced her baby sister tightly, glad to see her face, even if she couldn’t stay long at the moment. “How are you?”
“Okay. Why are you back early?” Cadence let her go, and Cassidy gestured for them to come in, giving Aaron a small wave that would warn him she wasn’t in the hug-your-new-brother-in-law mood.
Cadence really didn’t want to go over all of it again, but she couldn’t stop herself. “Honestly?” she took a seat on Cassidy’s couch, and her sister sat down beside her while Aaron perched on the edge of the recliner, a reminder they weren’t staying long. “I had a really horrible dream the other day, and I just couldn’t get it out of my head. It seemed dumb at the time, but I decided we needed to head back a day early, so we did. And then....” She looked at Aaron, just in case he wouldn’t want her to say more for some reason, but he nodded, which meant he didn’t see a reason for Cass not to know. “I walked into Hannah’s office and saw my nightmare right there on the screen for all to see. It was the craziest thing ever!”
Cassidy’s eyes widened slightly and her head rocked back and forth. “Oh, yeah. About that....”
Cadence returned the stare. “What do you mean ‘about that’?”
It was evident that her sister had something she didn’t want to tell them, but she was going to say it anyway. “I sort of... sent that dream to you.”
Turning her head to look at Aaron, who for once seemed just as surprised as she felt, Cadence took a moment to let that sink in before she asked, “How is that possible?”
“I don’t know. I’d never done it before, and I didn’t even know if I could do it. Since you never called or used your IAC to get in touch with me, I sort of thought maybe you didn’t get it. But I guess you did.”
“Yeah, I did.” Cadence pressed her palm to her forehead, thankful that at least this meant she wasn’t having some sort of psychic connection to Eliza. “Of all the people, Cassidy.”
“No, I know. And I didn’t want to be involved with what’s going on because of her either. Except... I kind of needed to be. Listen, sis, I’ve been trying to tell the others practically the whole time you two have been gone that I think something is going on with Daunator, but no one will listen.” Looking at Aaron, she said, “Do you know how many missing persons there are in the areas around Budapest and Prague?”
“I haven’t looked at that yet....”
“Almost six hundred.” Cassidy’s tone conveyed what a massive amount of people that was, and Cadence had to lean back against the couch. “In less than two weeks. I was alarmed when we were at 450, but no one seemed to care.”
“Wait,” Aaron began, running his hand through his hair, “are you saying almost six hundred people have gone missing from Eastern Europe since our wedding?”
“Yeah. A lot of them haven’t exactly been missed yet, I guess, and the media is practically ignoring it, but they’re still gone.”
“What are your sources?” Cadence hoped her tone didn’t come across as doubtful or accusatory, because she really did think her sister was on to something. It was just hard to believe a mass disappearance of that magnitude wasn’t all over the news.
“Same places Christian uses to check. Homeless shelters, newspapers, police reports, social media.”
Cadence nodded. “I guess Mila knows this?”
“Yeah, she knows. I was able to jump into some of the missing people’s heads to see them being turned. I figured out that there were five or six Vampires primarily responsible for turning them, or turning others who went on to turn a bunch on their own, and Mila’s team has been hunting them down and destroying them, but Mila doesn’t know I’ve been helping.”
“Why not?” Cadence wanted to know.
“I ended up helping Eliza out, and she just never told them I was working with her. She’s been calling me Gimu—which stands for ‘guy I made up,’ or ‘girl I made up,’ I guess.” Cassidy swallowed hard, and Cadence detected there was something more there her sister wasn’t saying. It didn’t seem critical at the moment, so she let it pass. “So anyway, I helped her the best I could. But when I saw those things the other day, I had to let you know about them. I knew if I went to Hannah, she’d say the same thing she’s been saying for two weeks. ‘Just wait until they get back.’ I hope you guys had a nice honeymoon, but I’m afraid while you were gone, Daunator’s been growing his army. And then these things showed up....”
“Right,” Aaron said for both of them. He looked at Cadence. “They should’ve called us.”
She was nodding in agreement, though it was easier to say that now that there was nothing anyone could do to go back and change it. “I wonder if these creatures and the missing are somehow related.”
“I don’t know,” Cassidy admitted. “Some of them are dressed really weird. Besides, how could his minion Vampires turn a person into whatever the hell those things are?”
“Yeah, I don’t know, but it seems like an awful big coincidence that hundreds of people are missing and hundreds of creatures showed up at the same time,” Cadence replied.
