I looked over Aaron’s shoulder and saw Elliott waiting on me. He didn’t know what we were talking about, but I was sure he was smart enough to figure it out. He had his hands on his hips and a slightly amused look on his face. I glanced over the tree and then back at Aaron. “Can I go with you instead?”
He started walking again, but I held onto his arm as he snickered, “I don’t think you’ll want to do that.”
I had no idea what he was going to be doing, but I figured if Elliott was lookout, then maybe he’d just be directing from the field or something, so I asked, “Why not?”
“Because I’m going up there.” He pointed at a cell tower off in the distance, one that had to be at least twice as tall as the tree, and I immediately let go of his arm. There was no way in the world I was going up there. “Seriously, Cassidy, you’ll be fine. You need to get over this,” my soon-to-be brother-in-law politely instructed, and then he headed off again, and I was left standing there with a knot in my stomach, begging my feet to move in the right direction.
“You didn’t wanna go in the cell tower?” Elliott asked, laughing at me silently as he approached.
“I’m not sure I can do this,” I admitted as he slung his arm around me, and we started walking. I looked over my shoulder at Brandon who was getting into position with my sister, and he smiled at me. I thought, at least if I fall out of this tree and have to be scooped up into a Ziploc bag until Jamie puts me back together, I still have the hottest boyfriend on the planet to carry me around in his backpack.
“You can do this,” Elliott assured me. “It’ll be fine. I’ll do the jumping and climbing, you just hang on like you did last time. ‘Kay, lil girl?”
I gulped down as deep a breath as my constricted lungs would allow and followed him to the tree. It looked even bigger from here, but I knew I just needed to get this over with, so as Elliott crouched down, I jumped up and grabbed ahold of his shoulders and wrapped my legs around his waist. He put his hands underneath the backs of my thighs and pushed me up a little bit, holding me there with one hand while he agilely jumped to one of the lower branches and then made his way up to the higher tiers without ever letting go of me and without faltering even a little. I wondered what it must look like to see him jumping around in that tree, but my eyes were squeezed tight, and I didn’t open them until he said, “Okay, Cass, this is as high as we go. I’m going to set you down now.”
I wasn’t sure how he knew I wasn’t looking, or maybe he didn’t, but he swung me around and made sure my feet were on one of the branches. I opened my eyes then, afraid he might let go of me, and I might plummet to my plastic bag existence. I grabbed ahold of the trunk, which was pretty thin up here, but sturdy enough, and wrapped both arms around it as he snickered at me. “Keep your hand on me, okay?” I insisted, and then I looked down to make sure we weren’t actually standing on the same branch because I wasn’t sure it could hold us both. Elliott had each of his boot-clad feet on two separate branches, I assumed to spread his weight out, and he held onto my arm as I’d asked, even though he looked a little annoyed at having to babysit me and work at the same time.
I didn’t dare look down to see whether or not the rest of the team was in position. Instead, I stared straight ahead into the night sky, which was slightly cloudier than the night before but still relatively clear. I switched my IAC to Brandon’s perspective so I could keep an eye on him and also make sure my sister was okay since they were paired together. They were just moving through the line of trees, and the RVs came into view in front of them as Elliott began his report to the team.
“Okay—it looks to me like we got eight RVs, not seven, and about ten or twelve happy campers sittin’ around the campfire, reminiscin’, talkin’ ‘bout the good old days, back when they were alive, that sorta thing. I do see movement inside the RV right in front of your location, Hannah.”
There were a few chuckles from some of the teammates regarding his word choice, but I didn’t laugh because I was too on edge to speak. Part of it had to do with me being up in the tree, of course, but part of it was also the unknown. I wasn’t sure if these people saw me coming or not, and the fact that I might have led my team into an ambush was unsettling.
Hannah let us know that she understood Elliott’s directions and then he continued, saying he’d “call ‘em as he saw ‘em” whatever that meant, and then I realized Aaron was asking me if I had anything.
While I was slightly flattered anyone cared whether or not I was able to pick up on any chatter, I hadn’t even tried to contact any of the Vampires yet, considering I was still thinking about how far away the ground was, so I stammered, “No, not yet,” and Aaron told us it was hard for him to use his X-ray vision from where he was located because he was so far away. I was definitely glad I hadn’t gone with him…. He said he did think there may be other Vampires hiding in the RVs, so everyone on the ground needed to be careful. I realized then it would be handy if I could seek some of them out, let the others know where they might be, but I would wait until the attack started so that it wouldn’t be me who made first contact.
It turned out I’d only have to wait a few seconds. I could see through Brandon’s IAC that they were on to us. The Vampires sitting around the campfire hadn’t gotten up yet, but there was a nervous energy between them now as their heads came up, and they started to look around. I was so busy paying attention to them that I almost missed what Aaron said next. Almost.