“Why don’t we see if we can track Christian’s cell phone?” Jamie came between the warring exes again. He was looking at me. “That something Emma could do, Cassidy?”
“Uh, probably. I can ask her.” Emma was my best friend, after all. One of them, anyway.
“I’ll ask her.” Aaron was still looking at me in a way that made me uncomfortable, and the tone in his voice conveyed that he didn’t trust me to ask my own best friend to track Christian’s phone. I wanted to be offended, but I was also intimidated. And I was beginning to realize he was right in doubting how honest I was being at the moment, though I wasn’t sure how he knew he should be. Was it his supernatural emotion-reading ability, or was there something about my expression?
Aaron continued, but his eyes were on Jamie now, and it didn’t look like he wanted to spear his friend through the head, like he did me. “She’s been doing some other work for us. I’ll see if she can track it down so at least we’ll know if he has it with him or not. Where did he go, Hannah?”
“Hawaii.” Her answer was quick. Nope. My face needed to not show I knew that was inaccurate. “He’s supposed to be back next week. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get in touch with him before then.”
Christian wasn’t coming back of his own accord. I knew that, but I couldn’t say it. So I said nothing.
“Well, we should definitely be able to distinguish whether or not his phone is in Hawaii or Kansas City, assuming it’s on.” My sister was optimistic, but I wondered if Christian would’ve left his phone on without being here. I doubted it. And I was aware that he had a satellite phone with him, but it wasn’t one any of these people even knew existed. He’d gone to extreme measures not to be tracked.
“Let’s talk about these new monsters.” Aaron was changing the subject, and I was glad for it. Even though there was still a chance I could get in trouble for something else, at least we weren’t talking about Christian anymore. “What do we know?” He pulled up the video from the hunt the other night, the one I’d manipulated into Cadence’s dream, but it wasn’t playing.
“They’re all black.” Elliott started with the obvious.
“They have red eyes,” Jamie added.
Aurora was spinning her chair back and forth slightly. “Some of them dress weird.”
“They crawl down walls face first, and they bleed some deep reddish black liquid when you cut them.” Hannah was the most concise of anyone, and then the room went quiet. Was that all we knew?
Aaron was looking at me again. This time, his eyes weren’t so heavy. “Anything else, Cass?”
I hesitated. I knew Hannah and Aurora would want to know how I knew what I knew, and I wasn’t ready to tell them. “Uh, yeah. They appeared from the rooftops and went back up that way. That’s where Honey was keeping the band of Vampires she’d recently turned when Eliza and Sergio first ran into them. It could be related. Also, Heather said they reminded her a little of the demons in the portal, except these are people and not creatures, and they bleed when they get injured.”
When I finished, the rest of the room exchanged glances. I braced myself for hostility, but my sister spoke first. “Can you get inside of their minds.”
“No, I tried the other night during the hunt, but I couldn’t jump from Eliza to any of them.”
And... I’d said too much.
“You were watching the hunt?” I hadn’t expected it to be Elliott to jump on that, but it was. I turned and glared at him for a moment. For being my friend, he sure wasn’t doing me any favors recently.
“Yeah, Eliza asked me to help in finding Honey.” I tried to sound nonchalant while also warning him with my eyes that he needed to get off my back.
It was too late. Hannah was already asking, “Why didn’t I know about this?”
My mouth hung open for a second before I decided to be light-hearted and jokey. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, Mila didn’t know either.” She didn’t think it was cute. I could tell by her wrinkled forehead she wasn’t amused. “I didn’t say anything to you because none of you seemed to care about what was going on over there. When I brought the numbers to you last week, you all said just wait.” There—I was finally being honest. Mostly.
“But you didn’t wait.” Hannah folded her arms, frustrated at me.
My anger got the better of me and overpowered my fear of being in trouble. “You’re right, I didn’t. What was I supposed to do? Tell Eliza I couldn’t help her?”
“You should’ve checked with me first. I was in charge.” Hannah’s tone was much like a teacher at school who is trying to keep her cool but is also offended her power has been usurped. I was waiting for someone to jump in on my behalf.
Someone jumped in, but it wasn’t on my behalf. “Technically, since she’s a Hunter, she should’ve checked with me.” Great, now Aurora was mad at me, too.
Apparently, Hannah didn’t want to argue with Aurora, although she had no problem when it was me. “All right, so did she check with you?”
Aurora narrowed her eyes at me. “No.”
“I didn’t check with anyone! I just helped!” My arms flailed out in frustration, but the two women at the other end of the table continued to look at me like I’d committed some heinous crime. I turned to my sister. “Am I supposed to help people when they ask, or get permission first? Am I not allowed to decide when I can use my own powers?” Worded that way, how could she disagree with me?
Cadence took the middle of the road and tried to stay diplomatic, which was best for the team but still irritated me slightly. “I don’t think it matters now. I can see why you would just help out in this situation, but if it happens again, make sure you tell me, or Aurora, or whoever is in charge, what’s going on as soon as you can, just to keep us informed.” I sucked in a breath, biting back a response. She knew I would’ve told her if she had been here, but what good would it have done for me to tell the other two? “No one is telling anyone else how to use their special powers.” She glanced around the room, and I could see she was trying to make sure the other ladies knew not to mention this again.