I recognized my sister’s footsteps behind me even though my eyes were closed again. Amanda had stopped calling, so I was trying to find Stewart and getting nowhere. I opened them and turned to look at Cadence as she came to stand beside me. She was just as tired, frustrated, and upset as I was—but not nearly as angry.
“Can I speak to you for a moment, Sis?” she asked, thumbing back down the hall.
I flew up out of the chair, literally, levitating for a moment before I stepped away with her. Glancing back at Ashley, I saw she had stopped crying, but her shoulders were doing that shuddering thing that sometimes happens when you’ve cried yourself into oblivion.
Down the hallway, my sister folded her arms and kept her voice down. “Christian did know, but we can’t murder him. We need his help in getting them back.”
I shook my head, my dander up again. Of course I knew he knew, but now that I knew my sister knew he knew... I felt vindicated. “What makes you think he’ll help us?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “But I’ll give him a chance. In the meantime, I need to figure out who reads ancient Scotch Gaelic.”
“Scottish,” I corrected her. “Scotch is a drink.”
My sister narrowed her eyes at me. She’s not dumb—she was just tired. “We need to figure out whether to stay here or go back to headquarters. Something tells me this portal doesn’t just open in West Virginia.”
“I think we should stay here, me and you anyway, and draw Holland out. She can’t get here fast enough, but if she sends in her people—her own goons, not Stewart’s—maybe I can get a location on her.” It was an idea that had occurred to me while I was searching for her. She had to be planning to move on us soon, especially if there was a possibility of opening the portal without it being a blood moon.
“And what if we get ourselves killed?” Cadence countered.
“That won’t happen.” I have no idea what made me so sure of myself. Maybe it’s because I’m a punk kid, and I felt indestructible. Maybe it’s because I probably am indestructible. But my sister isn’t.
I could tell her sorrow was turning to anger, too. She probably wished she could also tear Christian’s face apart, but since she couldn’t, she’d have to take it out on someone else. Whoever Holland sent our way would be good enough. She said, “I’ll consider it.”
That was the best I was going to get for now. “Okay, listen. We have another problem. No one has told Mom and Dad anything. And... Amanda keeps calling me.” I hated the fact that I was trying to hand one of my problems off to my sister, but I really did think she’d be better equipped to tell Brandon’s mom than I was.
She ran her hand down her face in exhaustion. “Dax’s parents will be worried, too.” Cadence took a deep breath and rested her hands on her hips. “All right. I’ll call them.”
“All of them?”
Nodding, she reached out her hand. “Can I use your phone to call Amanda, though? I don’t have her number.”
“Yeah.” I handed it right over. I didn’t want to give her a chance to change her mind.
She looked at it like it was poisonous before she shoved it into her pocket. I figured she knew my password. It was the same four-digit code I used for everything. “No sign of Stewart?”
I wished she hadn’t asked. “Not last I checked.” It was driving me crazy that I couldn’t find him anywhere. On a whim, I closed my eyes again, thinking I’d run into the same blackness I did every time I felt around for him. But something was different this time. A random thought entered my head, one that wasn’t my own. “Build an army... destroy them before Asteria can. As soon as I arrive in....”
My eyes flew open. “LAX!”
Cadence stared at me in confusion for a moment before a big grin took over her face. “I knew you’d come through! You always do.” She patted me on the arm super hard and even leaned down and kissed my head, which was kinda weird, but at least there weren’t a ton of people standing around to see it. She headed down the hallway more energized than she’d been all day.
I called after her, “What do I do now?”
“Learn Scottish Gaelic?” she shouted back.
“Nope.” That was not happening.
“Find me someone who can read it?”
“Okay.” I would try anyway. Surely, I could come up with someone. I watched Cadence disappear and then headed back into the little area in front of the Vampire cells. Ashley still had her head resting on her neighbor’s shoulder, but she was asleep, and I felt a little sorry for the woman who was comparing notes from the Vampires’ interviews—thus the clipboards.
I settled into my chair and immediately checked on Stewart. He was definitely on an airplane to LAX, and his thoughts were full of ideas of how he could build his own Vampire army and come to destroy Cadence and I. He didn’t seem to know I was there, which was a little strange. Most of them know right away. But he was so caught up in his reverie, maybe he wouldn’t have noticed if the plane crashed.
It seemed really weird that I found him so quickly, all of a sudden, even though I’d been trying all morning. I wondered if Holland had just set up a shield around the area, and he’d flown out of it or something. It was all a bit peculiar.
I decided to try my hand at finding a person who could read Scottish Gaelic. I thought about all of the old people we’d listed earlier. I was certain Schmitz couldn’t help us. I checked his memories for good measure, but it didn’t surprise me that he didn’t know it since he’d grown up somewhere near Hungary. There weren’t a lot of other old Guardians in the Roatan bunch that I was very familiar with. My mind ran through the ones Alex had introduced me to at one time or another, but I didn’t see that any of them would be of use.
Who did I know that might have been around long enough? Hannah had mentioned Ward this morning. Was it possible he might know? I knew he had been in Ireland at the time that Aaron was Transforming, but I had no idea if he’d been to Scotland. Still, it was worth a try.