Cadence was silent as they walked from the office building back to the apartments. Aaron didn’t ask her anything, and she was glad, because she really didn’t know what to say. Ever since she’d awoken in the middle of the day with those horrible images in her head, she hadn’t been able to think of anything else. Seeing that she hadn’t invented the creatures in her own mind was even more terrifying than believing she just had a warped imagination.They reached the apartment building and headed for the elevator. Lots of friendly faces greeted them, and it was evident everyone they bumped into wanted to stop and chat, but the McReynolds were on a mission. Cadence hadn’t bothered to contact her sister to see if she was home, and as the elevator climbed to Cassidy’s floor, she hoped she was because she wanted to talk to her quickly and then head back over to the office building so that they could get to the bottom of this—not that she

They all took seats around the conference table in their usual positions, except Christian’s chair was empty, and so was the one next to Cassidy, where Brandon would be sitting if he were there. Cadence regretted excluding him now. Aurora wasn’t there yet, which would give them each a few minutes to get their thoughts together. “Anyone else want coffee?” Elliott asked, standing and heading back out to reception where Mrs. Carminati always had a fresh pot and plenty of K cups.“I’ll take a cup, if you don’t mind,” Hannah chimed in. She was the only one, and as she reminded Elliott how she took it, Aaron got up to grab a stack of papers off of the printer she imagined he must’ve sent there while they were still in Cassidy’s apartment, it was so thick.“Sorry I’m late,” Aurora said, rushing through the door and taking her seat. “I got hung up. New recruit with lots of questions caught me.&

“Is the database something we can look through and see if we can determine if these lead Vampires, or whatever you want to call them, are recently turned or have been around a while?” Aurora asked.“Yeah, we can do that. But it’s not very intuitive, and without Christian here, whoever takes that task on might be here a while,” Aaron explained, getting disappointed looks from everyone.“Who’s Eliza’s team after next? Is it someone whose head you can get into, Cassidy?” Hannah asked, leaning forward in her chair. “Maybe you can find out if he’s been dormant all this time like Daunator or if he’s new.”“It’s a guy named Sylvester,” Cassidy replied. “I can try.”Elliott sighed. “Why would Daunator be giving these people up so quickly if they’ve been part of his clan for so long?”“What do you mean?” Cadence asked, no

Cadence couldn’t sleep. Whether it was because she was still on Fiji time, had slept a little on the plane, or was still leery of having another dream like the one she’d had the other day--that hadn’t been a dream--she couldn’t quite tell, but rather than attempting to sleep anyway, she was sitting on the couch, drinking a glass of wine, and going over what they knew and what they didn’t know with Aaron.“So this silver nitrate bomb is implanted under the skin, and when it explodes, it’s supposed to ignite the Vampire from the inside out. That sounds pretty deadly to me,” Aaron said, holding up the design blueprint they’d gotten earlier from Cadence’s dad.“I agree. But I don’t understand why Christian would leave in the middle of production. And Dad said that they’d made fifty so far.”“And yet we could only locate forty-five.” Aaron was shaking his head. “He w

Cassidy was growing frustrated with Christian. He’d been in that hole so long now, his brain had to be turning to mush. Even after he’d told her about the attack, how he’d tried to blow Daunator up with one of his grenades, and it hadn’t done a thing to the monster, he still refused to let her tell anyone he was down there.She decided to try again. It had been a couple of hours since she’d contacted him. She’d spent a lot of that time talking to Eliza, but since the Guardian said she didn’t want her help anymore, now that Aaron and Cadence were back and might be upset about the entire situation, the hunt had fallen through. The team hadn’t been able to find the mark and had gone back to regroup.Despite her decision to leave Cassidy out of it from now on, Eliza had been very chatty, and Cassidy had had to cut her off so that she could work on the other assignments Aaron had given her. She was used to having the bulk of t