The next thing I knew, my sister was sprinting through the yard, flying after one of the Vampires. She’d always been incredibly fast since she’d Transformed, but this was a kind of speed I couldn’t even articulate. She caught up to him quickly and a few seconds later, Spittle exploded in a pile of ash. I assumed my sister must’ve used one of the grenades Christian made, the kind I’d used to set Gibbon on fire, but I couldn’t tell what she’d done without losing my grip on Holland.
A sense of peace settled around my sister’s countenance as she and Elliott stared out over the Missouri River, and I decided I could probably let my shield down now. It looked as if they must’ve gotten everyone or else they wouldn’t be standing around. I took a few really deep breaths, trying to make sure I had fully left Holland. She hadn’t done a single thing to try to stop me, which seemed odd, but I got the notion that she was looking for something. What or who, I had no way of knowing because getting into her head lately had been almost as impossible as getting into Aaron’s. I wished there was something I could do to strengthen my own power so that I could force my way in and rummage around for anything and everything I might need in order to figure out a way to stop her once and for all, but it was very clear to me, despite my shield, Holland is a lot more powerful than I am. Whether or not I’d actually done anything or not, I’d find out later. I didn’t see any Vampires shapeshift, but that didn’t mean it hadn’t happened, and I’d simply missed it. I was looking forward to talking to my sister and Brandon as soon as they got a chance, but for now, it looked like they had some clean-up to do. Thankfully, they hadn’t wrecked the historical landmark too much, and when someone pulled up in a Jeep outside to see what was going on, Elliott was easily able to persuade the woman to go away. I wondered how his powers of persuasion had been affected by the second round of Transformation serum. It looked like he was somehow an even better liar now than he had been before.
Normally, after a hunt, Aaron and Cadence take everyone into the debriefing room and talk about what happened—what went right, what went wrong, etc. But since Aaron wasn’t there, and it was obvious my sister was exhausted, they had the debrief in the SUV on the way home. I thought this seemed like a very efficient way to run a hunt and hoped it could stay that way whenever possible.
I did my best to stay tuned in, but my eyelids were growing heavy, and none of it really pertained to me. I was more interested in speaking to my sister and Brandon when they got back, so I may have fallen asleep for a few minutes. When I finally became fully conscious again, my sister was out of the vehicle and headed across campus. I didn’t want to bother her, so I went to Brandon instead.
“How did it go? Did my shield work?” I asked. I didn’t have visuals yet, so I waited to see what he had to say, surprised it took him a little longer to respond than I would’ve expected. I assumed since the debrief was over, he’d be up in his apartment by now, chilling out for a while before he either took his algebra test or actually got a few hours of sleep.
But as soon as he answered I could tell he definitely wasn’t chilling out. “Hey—it was good. Look, something really weird happened while we were gone. I’ll get back to you in a bit, okay?”
“Okay,” I replied, unsure what he could possibly be talking about. My gut tightened a little bit in worry. “Are you all right?”
“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he reassured me. “Just gotta take care of something.”
His tone was more angry than anything else, though I could tell it definitely wasn’t pointed at me. I assumed he was mad at Aaron.“Okay.” I clicked off, giving him the privacy he’d asked for and contemplating what to do next.
I decided Cadence could blow me off if she wanted to, so I sent her a message next. “Cadence, how did it go?” I asked, hoping she’d give me a little more info about whether or not the shield had worked. “I was watching, and I didn’t see any shifters. I was going to ask Brandon ‘cause I figured you were busy, but he said something weird is going on.”
As soon as my sister replied, I could tell she was also annoyed, though again, not at me. Something was definitely up, and it bothered me that I had no idea what it was, even though I’d been on campus the whole time. “Yeah, I’m handling that situation; it’ll be fine. No shapeshifters. All went as planned.” I breathed a sigh of relief that I’d at least managed to keep the shifters away. “I’ll come see you when I’m done talking to Aaron.” My sister spat his name out like it was a curse word, and I began to develop a sense that whatever was going on, it centered around him.
“Okay, but you’ll have to sneak in. Mom will be ticked if she knows I’m still awake on a school night.” I didn’t say anything about my suspicions about Aaron right at that particular moment because my sister seemed like she was about to do her best to go handle it on her own without any of my help. I hoped she was successful. Something had to give soon, or we were all going to be breaking protocol and getting ourselves transferred.
“Right. I know. I’ll sneak in,” Cadence said before she switched off our conversation, leaving me sitting in my bedroom in the dark pondering what might’ve happened.