I spent the rest of the afternoon into the evening at Brandon’s apartment, sitting on his couch, talking and watching movies we’d already seen a million times before. That way, whenever I got interrupted to work on something, he didn’t have to pause the movie. He’s always been understanding about me having to mentally step away for a minute, but I felt like he was even more so with everything I had going on.
After the leadership team met, Elliott came in and said, “Well, we’re headed to Hungary.”
We’d been watching Office Space, and Brandon did pause it for that. “Me, too?” he asked, hopeful.
“Not sure yet. I’m guessing Aaron will let you know.”
That sounded like a cop out to me, like Elliott didn’t want to tell Brandon he couldn’t go. He walked down the hall a few steps before he came back into the living room. I’d hoped he’d have more news, but he just looked at our hands, intertwined on the couch between us, and asked, “Back together?”
“Yeah,” Brandon said like it wasn’t a big deal.
“Huh.” Elliott nodded and headed to his room.
I blew out a hot breath, thinking he must’ve been so used to seeing us here together he forgot to notice it was unusual at first. “I’ll check with my sister and see what the plan is,” I offered.
“Thanks. I really don’t want you going over there without me. I mean, it’s not like I don’t know you can handle your business, but I want to be with you. And... I want to know what’s going on.”
“I understand.” He really didn’t have to explain. I hadn’t liked being away from him when he was in the portal, so I got it.
Cadence was really busy, so she said she’d talk to me later, which irritated Brandon, but he didn’t really know that my sister and I had had a bit of a disagreement earlier. I knew that Heather had found Christian because she’d sent me an IAC message. She seemed a little upset that I hadn’t done it myself, but I just thanked her for taking care of it.
When I’d dropped in on Christian to see how he was doing, he refused to speak to me saying, “You let that cowgirl get into my head.”
I tried to explain that Heather had been asked to find him by the bosses because I’d refused, but he was in no mood to converse. Besides, he was losing it now even more swiftly than he had been before. I couldn’t blame him. I really wanted to know how much longer it would be until we could get him out, how we would get him out, and if we were planning on taking on Daunator at the same time or if that was a different plan.
The movie was just about over when my sister finally got back to me. It was early evening, and I was pretty sure Mila would be contacting me soon. I already knew where Sylvester was. I’d been checking in on him periodically all evening just so I could be of use to the Hungarian leader, so as much as I wanted information from my sister, neither one of us had time to spare.
“Hey, we’re leaving for Hungary at 8:00 AM, so get your bags packed. Only a couple of days, so no need to pack everything you own.”
“Okay,” I said, wondering when I ever did that. “Who else is going?”
She hesitated. Not a good sign. “Well, we’ve decided to keep the Hunters to a minimum. Listen, Cass. I had a really weird conversation today with a ghost from our past, our grandparents’ past anyway, and we think we know now how Daunator is able to kill Guardians, so this is going to be a barebones operation. We do need our best Guardians there to help us out, but we aren’t taking anyone who isn’t proven in the field, and we aren’t taking any extra Hunters. Aurora may get to go, but she’s probably the only other one from here, and we may not even let Mila’s Hunters go.”
“Okay,” I said again, trying to work through who she was talking about. “A ghost from our past?”
“Uh, yeah. Skelton.”
I was not expecting her to say that name at all, so it took me a moment to remember who that was. I sat up on the couch, alarming Brandon. I motioned to him that I was okay. “The jerk who killed Grandpa?”
“Yes. He showed up to warn me that we shouldn’t go over there. Obviously, thanks to Christian, that’s not a choice.”
“Why did he not want us to go over there?” I read my own name lumped in there with Christian, even though she didn’t say it.
“Because he thinks Daunator can infiltrate our brains and make us do bad things, especially Hunters. That’s how he can kill Guardians. Skelton claims that the reason he killed Grandpa was because Daunator made him.”
I couldn’t tell if she believed him or not. Her words indicated that she thought that was ridiculous, but she didn’t sound as angry as I would’ve expected. “Did he call you?”
“No, he showed up here. I met him out by the chapel.”
“Did Aaron go with you?”
“Skelton asked to see me alone. Aaron came out later though—with Jamie. Doc was about as angry as I’ve ever seen him. Anyway, it doesn’t really matter. We have a lot to do. You’re going to help Mila out in a bit, right?”
I had a million more questions, but I knew she wasn’t going to answer them at the moment. “I’m planning to. What am I doing in Hungary?”
“Same thing you always do. Shield if needed. We may need you to actually pull Christian out of that hole, assuming we can find him.”
“I can find him. What about the others?” I thought of Dala. I’d checked on her earlier and the blackness had traveled up her arm to her shoulder now. She was still crying, but her memories were fading. I needed to find her fast.