Transformation: The Clandestine Saga Book 1 (16 page)

              “And that was twelve seconds,” Aaron said as she attempted to catch her breath.

              “Really?” she asked, panting.

              “Yes, want to see?”

              She shook her head.  She’d take his word for it.

              “Ready to try again?”

              She took one more gulp of air and nodded.  She was even more tired now than she was before but she decided to try and dig deeper this time and maybe come back down backwards. He gave the signal for her to go and she climbed back up as quickly as she could, running back down the slope backwards.  By the time she reached the bottom, her legs were burning so badly she almost thought she needed Jamie to come and heal her.

              “Well, that’s better,” Aaron admitted, “But it was still ten seconds.”

              Cadence was too out of breath to say anything, but she was royally pissed. She raised her arms above her head in an attempt to open her chest cavity

              “You go when you’re ready,” he said implying that he was, in fact, ready and that she needed to get it together.

              She shook her head. This seemed impossible. But if Aaron told her to do it in six second then, she assumed that must be what everyone else was doing, and she needed to be able to do it, too. She assumed the position and took off up the hill.  This time, however, she realized she didn’t need to run back down if she just jumped.  She wasn’t sure how he would feel about that, but she decided to try it. When she reached the top, she jumped halfway back down the hill and then to the floor.

              Aaron was impressed with her technique but he said nothing, other than, “We’re getting there. Eight seconds.”

              “What?” Cadence asked.  She could think of nothing else to alter. She had given it everything within her.  How was she possibly supposed to get up that hill and get back down in only six seconds?

              And then she realized what he had said.  She felt like an idiot. “Okay, I’m ready, “ she said.  He gave the signal and this time, rather than running up the hill, she simply leaped.  She couldn’t quite make it in one spring but she was close and she made it to the top on her second jump.  She used the same technique to come back down. It seemed much faster this way, and she silently swore that, if he said anything more than six seconds she was going to take his stopwatch and stomp it into a million pieces.

              “What do you think?” he asked.

              She was still busy catching her breath, and she was afraid to find out.  “Not sure,” she admitted.

              “Look at the stopwatch,” he said, holding it out for her to see.

              “Four?” she asked, making sure she was reading it correctly. “Does that say four seconds?”

              “Yes, it does,” Aaron said smiling. “You cut your initial time by eight seconds and you beat the goal I set for you. Now, why do you think that is?”

              She had just about brought her heartbeat back down. One other thing she noticed about this new body is that it recovered much more quickly.  “Well, the first few times I didn’t think about exactly what you said. I just assumed you meant run. But you said ‘get.’  That could mean by any possible method.  So, when I really stopped to think about the fastest way to get up there, I realized that I can jump a lot faster than I can run.”

              “Alright, so this exercise wasn’t necessarily about speed and endurance, it was more about creatively using our resources to our advantage.  Don’t be afraid to try something different, even if it goes against the norm. And, I was also trying to see how carefully you listened to exactly what I told you.”

              “Well, I guess I failed that,” she muttered under her breath.

“Nah,” he said shaking his head, “It usually takes me about four times to get people to understand my directions.”

              “If that were the case, there’d be a lot more dead Hunters, I think. You’re just being nice.”

              “Well, I think it’s about time I was nice to you. You’ve worked really hard and I’ve been extremely impressed with your ability to follow my instructions, do what I ask of you, and give me everything you’ve got every single time. Nice work, Cadence.”

              She was very proud of herself, but she didn’t know exactly how to accept his compliment so she just smiled. Her face was already red from exertion so she was hopeful he wouldn’t be able to tell she was also blushing, although she assumed he could ascertain that information using his secret power if he wanted to.

              “Alright, it’s 6:30. I’m going to assume you will want to take a shower and eat something before Jamie takes you over to meet with Christian. What time do you want me to tell him to come by?”

              He was leading her over to the door closest to her building and she followed.  “Is 8:00 alright?” she asked.

              “Sure, that should work fine. Christian knows you’re his first priority tonight.”

              They were standing near a propped door now and the cool December breeze was pouring through. Cadence instantly felt ten times better.  “Okay,” she said.  She was a little anxious about this procedure considering that last one had not been at all what she was expecting.  “Aaron, will you tell me the truth. Is this going to hurt? I mean, I know I have to do it anyway, but I want to be prepared.”

              He vacillated for a moment, not wanting to scare her but also not wanting to lie. “It probably will hurt a bit, mine didn’t but I think most of them do. It’ll be alright though. Jamie will be there and he can heal it pretty quickly if it gets to be too much, okay?”

              She could accept that. She felt like he was being completely honest with her now.  “What about your Transformation?” she asked. “Did that hurt?”

              “Oh, God, yes,” he said. Even though it had been over 150 years ago, he could still remember it like it was yesterday.  “We had no assistance back then and with my gene pool, even though it wasn’t an instantaneous serum Transformation like yours, it was basically like working out everyday with a similar level of pain of what you were experiencing the other day, although it probably wasn’t quite as severe as yours or else I probably wouldn’t have made it. But, yes, it was not pleasant.”

              “I’m sorry,” she said, “I didn’t mean to bring back bad memories or anything, I was just trying to gage if the level of one’s pain during Transformation had any correlation to the pain from IAC implant but I guess not.”

              “I don’t think so,” he said. “I’ve never been able to establish anything anyway.”

              “Alright. One more question,” she said as she stepped out of the door.  “What is the record on The Hill? Next time, I want to break it.”

              He smiled at her determination.  “The current record is four seconds,” he replied.

              She looked at him inquisitively. “But that’s my time,” she said.

              “Yes it is.”

              “So, did I tie with someone?”

              “No, that would be a stand alone record.”

              She was puzzled.  “So, I broke the old record?”

              “Yes, yes you did.”

              “Well, why didn’t you tell me?” she said surprised.

              “I’m sorry.  I guess it didn’t occur to me.  Cadence, you broke all of the records today.  All of them.”

              “What?  No I didn’t.”

              “Oh, yes. You did. All of them. Speed, agility, endurance, everything. Shattered.  The only person whose records you can improve upon now are your own.”

              She didn’t know what to say. She had never thought of herself as much of an athlete, but now, she was actually impressed with herself.  “Well, what was the record on The Hill before I broke it?”

              “Fifteen seconds. And I know that to be a fact because it was my record that you shattered, thank you very much.”

              “But, I went faster than that the first time, when I ran!”

              “What can I say, you’re incredibly talented, Cadence. Now, go take a shower. You stink.”             

                                          ***

              After Cadence’ shower and a bite to eat from the fully stocked kitchen, she felt a lot better. Even though her muscles were sore and she expected them to be so for quite some time, she still felt like her body was beginning to recover from the most arduous workout she had ever experience by far.

              She had spent most of the time trying to decide whether or not she should try to find Aaron and ask him to go with her. She felt better knowing Jamie was going to be there, but she felt a little weird about what had happened in the gym earlier in the day.  And, she honestly just wanted an excuse to spend some more time with Aaron.

              At 7:45, she decided to venture over and see if her neighbor happened to be home.  She really wished there was some way to just show up inside of his apartment, the way he snuck into her room, but she figured he had some sort of alarm system to guard against that any way.  She stood outside of his door for a few moments, afraid to knock in case he was there and didn’t want to go with her, or what if he had company.  She finally decided to just do it. If he wasn’t alone, she could make something up, and pretend she needed to borrow a cup of sugar or something ridiculous like that.

              She only knocked once when he opened the door, much to her surprise. What she didn’t realize is that he had known she was standing there the entire time. He could feel her nervousness penetrating through the door.

              “Hi,” he said smiling. “Everything okay?”

              She was literally about to knock again and was thankful she didn’t hit him. “Hi, uh, yeah. Fine everything is fine. It’s just . . ..”

              “Do you want me to come with you?” he interrupted.

              “Yes, please,” she said, thankful this time that he was able to ascertain her intention without having to ask.

              “Sure,” he said, opening the door wide enough for her to step in if she wanted to. His apartment was immaculate and looked every bit like a single man lived there--a single man with impeccably good taste.  Black leather sofas, of course.  A glass dining room table.  It appeared that he was working on his laptop, even though he had clearly worked all day, and Cadence was aware they were going on a hunt later that night. She wondered when he ever had the opportunity to do anything fun.

              “Jamie is on his way,” he said throwing on a jacket and closing the door behind him. She noticed his key system was different.  She assumed it locked and unlocked using the IAC, and her door didn’t have that yet because she wouldn’t have been able to get in or out.

              “I actually need to grab my coat,” she said a little embarrassed that she had just decided to run next door and ask him on a whim. 

              “Okay,” he said. “We may as well wait for Jamie in your apartment. He’s on the fourth floor so it will be a minute.”

              She unlocked the door and let him inside. She was determined to keep it clean so there was nothing out to feel embarrassed about, except, perhaps the
Cosmo
on the coffee table.

              “They really did a nice job in here,” he said looking around.

              “Didn’t they?” she agreed. “I mean, I didn’t see it before, but I just love it.” The coat she intended to wear was in the closet in her bedroom so she ran back to get it and then rejoined him in the living room, where he was studying the art on the walls.

              “This is one of my favorites,” he said, indicating one of Monet’s “Water Lily” paintings. 

              “Oh, I love that one, too,” she agreed. “My art teacher had that exact one in the art room at my high school.”

              “Well, not this exact one,” he replied, catching her eyes.

              “Oh, no, I mean, you know how Monet did a lot of “Water Lily” paintings? She had this one... one just like this one... in the art room. I didn’t mean she had exactly this one.”

              “I knew what you meant,” he said, “But this is an original, so I’m pretty sure, unless your high school art budget was astronomical, she probably didn’t have this one.”

              “It’s an original?” Cadence repeated.

              “Um hmm,” he said as he walked toward the door.

              “I have an original Monet hanging on my apartment wall?” she said, unable to understand how that could possibly be true.

              “Yes, they are all originals,” he said nonchalantly.

              She gasped. “All of them?” There were some pretty amazing artists represented in the collection.

              He just nodded, one hand on the doorknob, as if he knew precisely when Jamie would knock.

              “Why?” she asked.

              As Jamie’s hand came down on the door, Aaron pulled it open. “Hey, Jamie!” Aaron said.  “Hope you don’t mind, but I’m coming, too.”