Brandon walked me back over to Cadence’s apartment in silence. I wanted to go over everything we’d heard with him, but my mind was preoccupied with something else, and I could see he didn’t really want to talk either. We walked in and sat down on the sofa fairly far apart from each other, and I glanced at the time. The plane wouldn’t be leaving for another twenty minutes. I contemplated calling Lucy but decided against it. I needed to be off the grid entirely for this to work, and that meant none of my friends could know where I was.
“Well, that Andrew sure is a screw up,” Brandon finally said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. “And Morgan is… not shy.”
He chuckled. “That’s a nice way of putting it. You think your sister has any food?”
I realized I hadn’t eaten anything either, but I wasn’t hungry. “Help yourself,” I replied nodding at the kitchen. He didn’t wait to be told twice and disappeared behind the sofa into the attached kitchen. I heard the refrigerator door open and the clanking of dishes and thought he was his father’s son. “You want anything?” he shouted.
“No thanks.”
“Cereal, banana, apple, ooh, strawberry Pop-Tarts.”
“No thank you,” I repeated.
“I make a mean toast with butter.”
“Is it toast if it doesn’t have butter?” I asked.
“Sure. It’s called dry toast then.”
“I’m good.”
He was gone for a few minutes, and I checked the time again. Fifteen more minutes until the plane took off. Brandon came back with a bottle of water, a bowl of cereal, a banana, and the aforementioned Pop-Tarts. He grabbed the remote and clicked the TV on as I shook my head at him and decided it was time to move along on my plan. I went into the kitchen and opened the freezer door. It only took me a second to find what I was looking for. I pulled out my phone and took a deep breath. If I got caught, my sister and my parents would kill me. Thank goodness I knew a good doctor.
“Whatcha doin’?” Brandon shouted. I turned to see him peering over the counter from his seat in the chair, loaded spoon approaching his mouth.
“Nothing,” I assured him. I took a drink from the bottle of water so as to hide my deceit and went back into the living room. Ten more minutes until that plane took off. Surely, she wouldn’t notice what I had just done in the meantime.
As I sat back down on the couch, I noticed Brandon was watching a report about Gibbon’s abduction, and even though I knew Andrew’s team had screwed up on every other front, it seemed like whoever he used to run interference, which is what I’d learned they call lying to everyone about the existence of Vampires, seemed to have done a good job. There was no mention of anything supernatural as the reporters talked about the break in at the hospital. The news that some people had died and that a nurse and detective were missing was heartbreaking. I wondered what Giovani had in store for those poor people and prayed he wasn’t planning on turning them, too. Since Jack’s Resurrection, I’d been thinking a lot about what it must feel like to realize you’ve become a Vampire, and I honestly think it would be worse than dying.
Brandon must’ve been thinking about the same thing. “So… you sister’s ex-boyfriend was turned into a Vampire? And she had to kill him?”
“Uh, yeah. She didn’t mean to kill him. She was trying to shoot Giovani, and Jack got in the way.”
“That’s crazy,” Brandon said, finishing up his cereal. “She must feel really bad about that, whether she thinks it was him or not.”
I nodded. I realized I shouldn’t have asked her that question when I had, but I had acted impulsively. That was something I needed to fix.
“I wonder what that’s like,” Brandon continued, “to find out you’re a Vampire. Is it slow? Do you just realize it one day, or do you just all of a sudden recognize you need to drink blood?”
“I have no idea.” I didn’t want to know. I ran my tongue over my teeth. What if I just suddenly had fangs? I shook my head. “You don’t need to worry about it anymore.”
“True,” he said, finishing his Pop-Tarts. All of the food was gone now. He leaned back in his chair and rested his hand on his stomach. I looked at him and shook my head once more. “What? I’m a growing boy. A growing man.”
“You’re… something,” I agreed.
He winked at me, which reminded me of his dad, gathered up his trash, and headed around the corner. The sound of running water made me think he was actually washing his dirty dishes, which scored him a few more points. At least he wasn’t a slob.
It was 9:00. The plane should be leaving. I would give it a few more minutes.
Brandon came back, sat in the chair, and asked, “What would you like to do?”
I couldn’t answer that question, so I only shrugged at him.
“We could go back to the gym. Or watch a movie. Or go see if Jamie’s office is unlocked and mess with his stuff.”
“Why would we want to do that?” I asked.
“Why not?”
I shook my head at him. “Yep, growing man, all right.” It was 9:05. I couldn’t wait much longer. I had an appointment. I would give it five more minutes.
“Jamie’s cool,” he said. “He seems like he’d be fun to mess with, though.”
“He got us into that meeting. He made you what you are today,” I reminded him. I didn’t think he was being malicious, just looking for some fun. “Maybe you could sneak into Aaron’s office and rearrange his pens.”
“No way,” he said quickly. “Something tells me you don’t mess with Aaron’s pens. Or anything else of his.”
I giggled. Brandon was a fun kid. It was too bad I couldn’t trust him. I half-smiled at him and decided the time had come. “I’ll be back,” I said and got up, headed for the guest room.