Cassidy was growing frustrated with Christian. He’d been in that hole so long now, his brain had to be turning to mush. Even after he’d told her about the attack, how he’d tried to blow Daunator up with one of his grenades, and it hadn’t done a thing to the monster, he still refused to let her tell anyone he was down there.
She decided to try again. It had been a couple of hours since she’d contacted him. She’d spent a lot of that time talking to Eliza, but since the Guardian said she didn’t want her help anymore, now that Aaron and Cadence were back and might be upset about the entire situation, the hunt had fallen through. The team hadn’t been able to find the mark and had gone back to regroup.
Despite her decision to leave Cassidy out of it from now on, Eliza had been very chatty, and Cassidy had had to cut her off so that she could work on the other assignments Aaron had given her. She was used to having the bulk of the research now, since she could handle it a lot better than most of the other team members, but it still ate up a lot of her time. She’d started going through the list of missing persons, trying to establish if any of them were still alive. She’d found a few Vampires, but a lot of them seemed to be out there somewhere, just completely without thoughts of their own. It was such a strange state of mind, Cassidy was having trouble explaining it, even to herself. It was like a humming noise was coming from all of their minds, nothing purposeful or decipherable, sort of like a radio station that was only in tune enough to omit a buzzing noise, but not even enough to get the white noise sound.
The list was organized from the person who’d been reported missing first up to the most recent, in each of the areas, and Cassidy had decided to start from the oldest to the newest, but perhaps that hadn’t been the best strategy. She’d decided to try one of the more recent victims, but first she wanted to check in on her idiot teammate.
“Christian, you still okay?”
She caught the lyrics of a song she didn’t recognize. “Let’s defend it with the sword, or die with the braves. For we had better die in freedom than live and be slaves.”
“Christian? Can you hear me?”
“Oh, hi, mind wanderer. Are you back to tell me you’ve turned me in?”
“No, I’m back to make sure you’re still alive. Seeing as though you are, I guess I’ll go.”
“Wait, Cassidy.”
She did, though he didn’t continue with his thought. Blowing out a breath that stirred the hair on her forehead, she asked, “What do you want?”
“Listen, uh, he said... he said you guys should try to come and save me. If you do, he’ll have what he wants. So... don’t do that, okay? I mean, I know your sister should be back soon. Don’t let her come over here until after I figure out how to kill him.”
Cassidy could understand now why Christian hadn’t wanted them to rescue him once he found out even the grenades wouldn’t work. “She’s back already, Christian. They’ve been trying to contact you. I lied the best I could, but I won’t be able to cover it up if they ask me to contact you telepathically. I think they might even be a little suspicious of me. They might ask Heather. She can do it, too, you know? She can track you down and tell them where you are.”
“Why are they suspicious? They should be able to see my IAC activity in Hawaii.”
“Because when Aaron tried to get you, he couldn’t. You set it so that he couldn’t turn it on, remember?”
“Yeah, but... I’m on vacation.”
“But he should be able to make you talk to him. You didn’t think this through very well, bruh. Not very well at all. And now you’re stuck in a damn hole where your IAC isn’t showing up at all. We’re going to have to come and get you out. Nothing you try is going to work on Daunator. You know that.”
His thoughts were blank for several minutes, enough time that Cassidy thought maybe he’d just decided he wasn’t going to talk to her anymore. Finally, he said, “Did your sister tell you what I said to her, right after you ripped my face off?”
Cassidy had no idea what he was talking about. “No.”
“Good.”
“What did you say?”
“It doesn’t matter. She just can’t come over here, all right. I need you to keep her there.”
“Christian... I can jump a little deeper into your head and find it.”
“But you won’t because you’re not a bitch, right?”
Cassidy didn’t quite think reading people’s minds made her a bitch, but she couldn’t argue with the sentiment. “Will you at least tell me who that other girl is? The one with the lavender eyes?”
“No. Stay out of my head, Findley.”
“Christian, I’m trying to help you....”
“I’m sorry to disappoint you, womanchild, but not everyone is as lucky as you and your brawny boyfriend, okay? Not everyone has the kind of love that makes you wanna get up in the morning just so you can hold hands, eat sugar cookies, and stare into each other’s eyes, all right?”
“What the crap?” Cassidy muttered aloud to herself. Who did those things? “Christian, my life isn’t perfect. Brandon dumped me a couple of days ago, okay?”
“Bullshit. That’s just a lie on your part to get me to talk to you.”
“It’s not. I wouldn’t lie about that. He... he said he thought I needed more space, to get myself together. I didn’t tell him I was helping you, though he did know I’ve been working with Eliza. Anyway, if that girl hurt you, I get it. I feel like someone jabbed a knife into my heart.”