Cadence had taken a nap after she returned from Drew’s house. She had visited with her family and watched some television with her sister. Now, she was sitting on her bed, dressed in comfy pants and a long-sleeved T-shirt, perusing Facebook on her phone and waiting for Aaron to arrive. He had sent her a text earlier that he was still planning on coming over but that his trip to Nevada had been a bit longer than he expected, so it might be a little later than he had hoped. Hopefully, by now, he was at least in the air on his way back to Shenandoah

She knew that it was very unprofessional and risky to have a crush on her boss. In fact, she really wished that she could find a way to completely erase any friendly conversation that had ever taken place between them. She remembered that, just last week, she was completely convinced that he was an ass, and she didn’t want to have anything to do with him. But then, everything else in her life had changed drastically since that time, so why not her feelings toward Aaron as well?

At about ten past ten, she got a text from him. “Are you dressed?”

“Yes”

“Do you mind if I enter your room now?”

“No, go ahead.”

“Via the window.”

“That’s fine.”

“The same one I used last time?”

“YES!”

“Okay—just so we are clear. I’m coming into your room now, through the window, the one I used last time. In your room.

“OKAY!”

As he climbed through the window, she couldn’t help but say, “All right, smartass, I get it. I made a big deal out of the fact that you broke into my home while I was naked in the shower. So sorry!”

“Well, someone is in a touchy mood this evening,” he commented as he entered the room. He glanced at her where she sat on the bed. A step forward indicated to Cadence that he was possibly considering joining her, but he stopped and took a step back. Even though Cadence wouldn’t have protested if he had sat down next to her, she was aware that his way was better.

While she had made a decision that she was not going to pursue this relationship romantically, once he entered the room, she found the act of standing and crossing over to the chairs a little more difficult. Luckily for her, he seemed steadfast in his resolve to stay on the far side of the room, so she mustered all of her strength and pulled herself up off of the bed, careful to walk directly to the chair and not within his vicinity lest she find herself inclined to throw herself upon him.

She sat down in the same chair she had been sitting in the night before, and he sat in the other. There were a few moments of silence again, but this time it did not seem as awkward. She was just happy to see him and finally talk to him in person. He seemed glad to have a long day over.

“How was your day?” she asked. “Did you get everything resolved in Nevada?”

He shook his head. “Not exactly. I don’t think we’ll ever get everything resolved in Nevada, but we were able to locate the Rogue we were looking for.”

“Oh, that’s good,” she responded.

“Yeah, but those ghost towns out there are full of them. It’s just a never-ending battle.”

“What do they do in the ghost towns to make them Rogue?” she asked. “There aren’t any humans out that far are there?”

“No,” he explained, “but they’ll go into one of the larger towns on a Friday or Saturday night, wreak some havoc, and then disappear back out into the ghost towns or the caves. Even when we have a tracker embedded in them, it’s still hard to chase them down out there when there’s so many places to hide.”

“You use trackers on Vampires?” she asked.

“Yes, in fact, every Vampire is required to come to us to get a tracker within the first six months of conversion, and any Vampire who creates another Vampire must report it to us immediately and help us ensure that the new Vampire reports to us to get their tracker implanted.”

“Well, if that’s the case, why is hunting them down so difficult? Shouldn’t we just be able to GPS all of them?”

“If they all reported it wouldn’t be so hard, but a lot of times the ones that end up going Rogue are the ones who never cared about following the rules in the first place. Or they’ll rip out their trackers.”

“Yuck,” Cadence exclaimed, visions of Rogue Vampires slicing their arms open and digging out little silicon chips filling her head.

“It’s not that painful for them. They have a pretty high tolerance for pain, as you will see. It’s just that it leaves a pretty nasty scar on their foreheads, and it’s kind of a dead giveaway to any of us that something is going on.”

“On their heads? Gross.” Cadence stated, the visions becoming even more grotesque. “Who has to put those in?”

“You do,” he teased.

“Say what?” she said, though she could tell from his tone that he was kidding. “I ain’t puttin’ no tracker in no Vampire’s forehead, no way. Not happening.”

He smiled at her for a long moment. “Your sense of humor is quite unlike anyone else’s I’ve ever met,” he said quietly before responding to her statement. “We have a sub-team who is responsible for that,” he replied.

She wasn't sure how to respond to his first remark, though she assumed he must have met a lot of people in his day. Instead, she focused on his second comment. “Well, don’t put me on that team,” she said sternly. “Because I will be quitting!”

“Okay. Duly noted.”

He was leaning on the armrest nearest her chair, and despite the fact that she was curled up and leaning against the opposite armrest, trying to keep her distance, there was definitely some tension between them. Cadence rarely noticed such things, but she was fairly certain that Aaron felt it, too.

“How did it go this morning?” he asked somberly, stirring her out of her thoughts.

“The funeral was depressing, of course. But I managed to get through it. Other than Jack’s inquisition, everything else was okay. I mean, there’s never anything easy about any of this, but like you said earlier, we’ve all been there. We just have to keep moving forward, you know?”

He nodded in agreement. “I do know. I know very well,” he said. He looked away from her for a moment, and briefly, it was as if he was no longer there, like he was lost in a memory. Cadence had the urge to dig deeper into whatever loss had brought that sort of reaction, but she realized now was not the time or place.

“It was nice to see my friends, but everyone seemed so different now, so…” she was searching for the correct word, and the one that initially came to mind seemed so wrong, but it truly was the best word to describe the situation. “They seem naïve. Does that make any sense at all?”

“It does to me,” he concurred. “They are naïve from your perspective. You have a lot more valuable information than they do, and they will never know the things that you know. It will always be more difficult for you to speak to them, to interact with them, to relate to them, now that your eyes have been opened while theirs remain closed.”

“I understand,” she said. It actually made perfect sense. She had almost wanted to treat her friends like children at points during the day because they seemed to understand so little. Though she had attributed some of it to whatever spell it was Elliott had put them under, perhaps it was also her new perspective.

The thought of Elliott prompted her next question. “By the way,” she asked, “could Elliott come up with no better story than a rock slit her throat? ‘Cause, if not, perhaps you need a new hypnotist.”

Aaron laughed, and the sound of his laughter became infectious. Cadence couldn’t help but join in. Even though it truly wasn’t that funny, she was happy for the opportunity to laugh again; everything lately had been so somber and serious.

Upon catching his breath, Aaron stated, “It really wasn’t his fault. On the way to the hospital, your friends had been discussing what they were willing to let the police know and what they didn’t want to disclose. Basically, everything about the festival needed a cover up. Jack told the rest of your friends that you killed Drew’s murderer, so they wanted to hide that as well. They determined the only way to do that was to say that a person didn’t kill Drew, but that she fell. Well, with a gaping neck wound, that made Elliott’s job a little more difficult than usual. It worked though; everyone directly related to the incident believes it. There are plenty of other people asking the obvious questions, such as ‘where does one go rock climbing in Shenandoah,’ that sort of thing. But none of those people have anything to do with the investigation, so it doesn’t really matter.”

“And will they continue to believe this forever?”

“Most people do,” Aaron confirmed. “There are occasional situations like the one with Jack where something else triggers a memory, and they start to lose their belief in the façade Elliott has created, but for the most part they believe long enough that it just becomes part of their memory system. You know how older memories start to become fuzzier as time passes? Sort of like that.”

“How does he do it?” she asked, wondering what else she didn’t know about yet.

“Well,” he began, “if we’d told you everything about the different Passels right up front, it would’ve been even more overwhelming, so you should expect to find some things out as time goes on. But as for this, here’s the situation. Many Guardians, and a few Hunters, have specific gifts. These are usually enhancements based upon something they either really enjoyed or were especially good at in life. So, once they Transform, they become even better at that skill, and it sometimes becomes almost like a superpower.”

“So, a superpower amongst the other basic superpowers they already have?” Cadence clarified.

“Sure, you could put it that way,” Aaron agreed.

“Well, in his human life, Elliott was a used car salesman.” Aaron grinned at her, and she couldn’t help but giggle. “So, he’s very, very good at telling ridiculous stories and getting others to believe them. He really does know how to hypnotize the person he is talking to so that they will believe just about anything he says.”

“Wow!” she said, still laughing. “That’s crazy! I never would have pictured him as a used car salesman! And so, I was able to reactivate Jack somehow?”

“Yes,” Aaron nodded. “The spell was so powerful that you were able to get Jack back on track just by the power of suggestion and a few trigger words.”

“Amazing,” Cadence said, shaking her head in disbelief. “So, who else has a superpower?”

“I don’t know how much you remember from your Transformation, but Jamie was an outstanding doctor before his Transformation. He was one of the youngest doctors to ever graduate from Harvard Med. He is what we refer to as a Healer. I’ve seen a few in my time, but he is definitely the most powerful one I’m aware of. His gift is pretty incredible.”

“That’s right!” Cadence proclaimed, the memory coming back to her. “He did some sort of healing thing for me when I was in such excruciating pain!”