Share
Help From Afar
Cale followed the road back around the way that Cassidy directed, and Cadence asked, “Who let you know to pick us up?”
“Hannah. I just got here a few minutes before you did, so she asked me to wait for you at the airport.”
“Oh, how was your flight?” Cadence realized she was just making polite conversation at this point and hoped he didn’t mind a little bit of normalcy for normalcy’s sake.
“Not bad. The movie was lame, but I had all of the peanuts to myself.” He pulled into a parking lot and flashed her a goofy grin, and Cadence found herself chuckling for the first time in a long time. He’d taken a private plane, she was certain, which made the comment even more ridiculous.
“Was it Chicken Run?” Cassidy asked, pushing her door open. “Because I hate that movie.”
“Nah. National Lampoons Vacation—the Ed Helms version.”
&
Related chapters
The Clandestine Saga Decoding
“How much of it is about the portal?” Cassidy asked, jumping right in.Ward carefully opened the book to a point about three-fourths of the way into the volume, which looked to be about three hundred pages long. The sheets were a discolored yellow, and the ink, had clearly changed colors in several places, varying from a dark black to a lighter gray. It was clear the entire tome had been handwritten. Cadence envisioned an ancient Vampire sitting down with squid’s ink or the blood of a freshly beheaded chicken to dip his crooked talon in a well and scratch each letter out on the page.“Only four pages are devoted to the Blood Moon Portal. Though there are other mentions of it elsewhere, they are all in reference to information shared here or not recorded at all.”“Four pages doesn’t seem like much,” Ashley said, and for a moment, Cadence considered sending her someplace else. But it was almost 6:00, and she had a fe
The Clandestine Saga Riddles
“How do we know it just doesn’t mean some spot in alignment with the east side of Jupiter?” Ashley asked, wiping her nose with a tissue she pulled out of her pants pocket.“Brandon said that Heather told him it really is outer space. The first time the portal opened while they were in there, it was under the ocean, and she refused to go. Besides, they only have a few seconds to get to wherever the opening is, and it’s usually pretty far from where they are. They are trying to figure out a pattern so they can guess which tunnel is going to open next and be there.” Cassidy’s tone seemed normal again, despite the fact that her eyes were still a little misty.“The ocean?” Ward asked before Ashley could formulate a response. “So that was likely the eighth place on the list or the twenty-seventh. One says trainnse de dh'uisge domhain, which I believe is Challenger Deep, or the Mariana Trench. The other says
The Clandestine Saga Assignments
“All right. If the two of you can work on that, I’d appreciate it. Cassidy, can you write up a text to send to Brandon’s phone that says the gist of what we’ve discovered here? Don’t mention Stewart going in yet. I think we need to talk a little more about how that will work before we bring it up. We’ll let them know, though, that we’ll be sending someone in so they can all get out.”“Sure,” Cassidy said, grabbing Cadence’s phone off of the table.“Let me look at it before you send it.” Her sister nodded. “Cale, will you go over to Christian’s lab and check on Tara and Lucy? That’s where they are isn’t it?” Christian nodded, and Cadence continued. “See if they need anything and if Tara is doing okay. If they want you to, stick around and help them with their assignment. I think that would be the best way you can help us. Who do we have on the ground in the
The Clandestine Saga Left Behind
If there was an order to the opening of the portal regarding the various tunnels, Brandon wasn’t seeing it. After the last opening had been at fourteen, which made absolutely no sense to anyone, Brandon had given up on that being their method of concocting a way out of here. Heather insisted there was never any rhyme or reason to it, but the three older, wiser Guardians were still hashing it out. Not that his dad was much help; he wasn’t quite as clever as the other two when it came to situations like that. He had his merits, though, and Brandon would’ve rather been trapped in here with Elliott than just about anyone when it came to finding a way home. He had managed to cheat death once already, after all.Heather was sitting against the tunnel wall studying the weapon she’d inherited from Alex. She had a solemn expression on her face, and Brandon couldn’t tell if that meant he should leave her alone or if she just always looked like sour grapes.
The Clandestine Saga Mina
Heather sat up and turned her head again, her eyes wide with wonder as she stared at Brandon through the darkness. “You know Mina?”“I did. I’m pretty sure I told you earlier that we met someone who mentioned you to my girlfriend, right? She said her name was Mina, and Cass got the impression she was related to you somehow. Was she?”Heather didn’t say anything for a long time, but when she did, her voice broke slightly. “She was my sister.”He nodded. Cass had gotten the impression they were related one way or another, though she wasn’t exactly sure how.“I’d seen ’em in the woods, a few weeks earlier. Told my folks. They didn’t believe me. You see, my pa said he never believed in none of that mumbo jumbo. He got mad at my ma for even talkin’ to anyone about it. Back when we lived in Virginia, even before I was born, up until we moved west, my ma had sidled up to a neighb
The Clandestine Saga Nothing
Cadence had set her alarm for a few minutes before noon, but when it went off, she was already staring at the ceiling, trying to piece things together in her mind. She’d been asleep long enough to have a dream—not a pleasant one either. But then, most of her dreams had been unpleasant since she’d killed Jack. With time, visions of him chasing her had dissipated some. Now, he wasn’t the one in pursuit in her mind when she fell asleep. It was someone else, something else. She couldn’t see its face, but she knew it was to be feared.She’d awoken with beads of sweat on her forehead and the idea that she probably shouldn’t sleep again until everything was right with the world, though what she’d said to Cassidy before was true. They needed to get some sleep if they were going to be of any use to anyone. Still, not sleeping meant not dreaming, and that was a positive as well.Her phone buzzed and she reached for it, flipping the
The Clandestine Saga Locations
“Well, we began by using the lat/long of the sites we thought we could identify to try to determine if this list was in a specific order. Turns out it is. These points on the map are in order from west to east around the globe.” Ward pointed to a translated list of names Hannah had written down from the book“Okay—so the portal opens in directional order?” Cadence asked.“No,” Ward said, shaking his head. “At first we thought so. But then clever Christian here thought of something remarkable that never entered my mind at all until he suggested it.”Cadence wasn’t surprised to hear Christian had come up with something, though the fact that he’d told other people was a new development. “What is it?”“I pulled the cell phone records from Dax’s phone and pinpointed the initial contact between his texts and a cell tower, and I think we can trace a general idea of where th
The Clandestine Saga Out of Range
Brandon spent a good five minutes trying everything he could to get his phone to cooperate, but after turning it off and back on several times, pressing every button he could think of, handing it over to Dax who did the same thing, and even shaking it up and down for several seconds, they had to accept the fact that their message hadn’t gone through, and they hadn’t received any new ones.“That really sucks,” Elliott muttered, pacing back and forth in front of where the rest of the group was huddled near the entrance to the tunnel they’d occupied for at least six hours, or so it seemed by the way the portal was opening. “I don’t like this. I don’t like this one bit.”“There’s likely a logical explanation,” Aaron said, his voice calmer than anyone else’s but still starting to crinkle around the edges. “I’m shocked it’s worked at all.”“We must be out of ran
Latest chapter
