I wanted to get into my apartment and start working, but the moment I stepped out of the elevator, that plan was foiled. Whether it was a coincidence or something planned, I couldn’t be sure, but Lucy and Tara just happened to be in the hall, headed my way. “Oh, hey,” I said, looking at the papers Aaron had given me as if they were important—extremely important.
“Hey, how’s it going?” Lucy asked. She was making that face like she wanted to give me the same sort of sympathetic smiles everyone gave her right after her dad died but she also didn’t want to look like she was smiling at me that way.
“Fine.” I shrugged. Shrugging is a sign that you have no worries. “How are you?”
“We’re good. We were just going to grab some lunch. You wanna come?” Tara’s smile was a little more genuine than Lucy’s.
I checked the time. It was almost 3:00. Was that a late lunch or an early dinner? “No, thanks. That’s okay. I’ve got a lot of work to do. My sister and Aaron are back so....”
They both nodded in understanding. “Well, if you change your mind, we’ll be in the sandwich shop.” Lucy pressed her lips together. I know that expression, too, even though I’m not sure what it’s called.
“Thanks.” I wasn’t going to the sandwich shop. They knew that, though. Part of me wanted to be jealous that they’d gotten so close, but I had too much work on my mind to worry about that. I wanted to get into my apartment before I ran into anyone else.
Once inside, I let out a hot breath and dropped the papers on my coffee table. The mention of food had my stomach growling, so I headed to the kitchen and heated up one of those Lean Cuisines that’s really not cuisine at all and wolfed that down while I stared at the top paper on the stack. How Aaron managed to get such detailed information was beyond me. Not only did he have names, ages, and last known addresses, he had things like weight and height. So weird.... Maybe these sorts of statistics would help me, but honestly, I just needed to spend some time jumping into heads—if I could find anyone on the list.
I threw my trash away and grabbed a bottle of Dr. Pepper out of the fridge. I needed to check on Christian first, though. I didn’t want to, but he’d been in that hole so long. I hoped he was okay. Sitting back down on the couch, I thought about the comments we’d all made at the meeting. I didn’t quite get how Aaron could be so forgiving of Christian. How does trying to kill a person twice get a pass? Sure, Christian had taken Hines into the portal, but I didn’t see how that negated his previous actions. Not to mention the fact that I was aware Christian would still try to knock Aaron off if he could. I wasn’t trying to get that, but it was so apparent in Christian’s head, it was hard to miss. The thing is, Aaron’s an emotional empath, so how did he not know? I was pretty sure he did.
I couldn’t figure that out, so I moved on. Who was the woman in Christian’s memories and why did he both love and hate her at the same time? And why did Christian think he was indestructible? The temptation to jump into his head and take a tour was strong, but I needed to resist. It just didn’t seem cool to do that to the people I work with.
After another sip of my pop, I set it on the coffee table, far from the papers, just in case I knocked it over, and closed my eyes. “Christian? Are you okay?”
It took a moment for him to respond. “No,” he said, and then, “yeah, I’m fine.” I imagined the initial answer was probably not supposed to be detected. “How are you?”
“Lovely.” I was honestly surprised he’d asked. “Have you seen Daunator again?”
“Nope. Not since he insulted my weapons earlier.”
So he was still stuck on that. “I’m sorry. This entire situation seems very uncomfortable. Would you like for us to come and get—”
“No!”
He cut me off. He didn’t even want to hear it. “But Christian....”
“Don’t, Cass. I’m not leaving. I’m just working on another plan. Listen, I know you’re trying to help and all that, but don’t, all right? Just leave me alone.”
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. He’d asked for my help, after all. That was the only reason I even knew about all of this. But I couldn’t argue with him. I had a lot to do anyway. “All right, but there’s more I need to tell you.” I hadn’t even mentioned Cadence and Aaron coming back.
“Not now.”
His response was definitive, and it made me a little angry. “Fine. I’ll check back in on you in a couple of hours. Prepare to have a conversation then, though. You need to know what’s going on.”
“Buh bye!”
At least he hadn’t called me Felicia. “Bye.” I left, but it was harder than I’d thought it would be. I felt like I was abandoning a child who didn’t know it was in his best interest to stay with me until his parents came back. Not that anyone else would claim Christian.
The stack of papers was beckoning me, and there was nothing else to do at the moment. I knew Aaron had mentioned Heather and I working together to infiltrate Daunator’s mind, but I wasn’t about to do that right now. Besides, I already knew it wouldn’t work. No, looking for the missing was a much better use of my time, so I jumped into that, pushing Christian and everything else that was bothering me—everyone else that was distracting me—out of my mind.
Starting at the top of the list, I reached out for the person, trying to imagine what he would look like, concentrating on his name. Normally, it doesn’t take me long to find someone that way, if they’re alive and on this planet. But Boris Javko wasn’t answering. I moved to the second name, and the next, giving each one about a minute. No luck by the time I’d reached lucky number seven. On the eighth one, I thought I had something, but then it turned out to be someone else with a similar name in Russia. This was going to take forever.