Transformation: The Clandestine Saga Book 1 (9 page)

              And yet, he couldn’t help but remain next to her bed, watching her sleep, for much longer than he intended.  Just another sign that he needed to find a way to distance himself from her emotionally before it was too late.  She was perfectly still, except for the rhythmic rise and fall of her chest. She looked peaceful, even happy.   He hoped she was dreaming sweet dreams of more innocent days when Vampires were only Halloween legends and the only guarding she needed was from scrapes to the knee.  He stood and pulled the blankets up more tightly around her. As he leaned more closely to her face, he couldn’t help himself and, before he even fully realized what he was doing, he gently kissed her on the forehead. “Sweet dreams, Cadence,’ he whispered, leaving her to slumber.  When she awoke, everything would be different. And then, the real work would begin.

Chapter Seven

              Cadence had not awoken from her medicated slumber in twenty-four hours as Jamie had initially predicted.  In fact, it had taken over thirty-six hours for her to finally start to come around, and even with that it took another two hours before she could fully open her eyes or communicate.  When she found out that it was Saturday afternoon, rather than Friday evening, she was stunned.  But Jamie assured her that she was fine, everything had gone according to plan, and she was just unlike any patient he had ever Transformed so she reacted slightly differently.

              She had stayed at her grandmothers that Saturday night, Jamie and Eliza both keeping an eye on her to ensure everything was going as expected. She had not seen Aaron since he injected her with the medication, and she was hesitant to ask where he might be. She was aware that he was extremely busy and knew he would likely show up when she least expected it. Still, she soon realized that she was beginning to miss him.

              Aaron had been checking on her, however.  Though it wasn’t necessary for him to question his team as to her progress, he could simply observe through their eyes when they were in her room attending to her.  He noted that Jamie tended to spend a considerable amount of time in her room watching her sleep, which he found a bit odd, but at the same time he didn’t mind because if Jamie was there, he was virtually there himself. Still, he intended to leave some distance between himself and Cadence and allowed her to heal without his interference. He knew that he would be seeing her quite a bit once she began her formal training in the weeks to come.

Early Sunday morning, Cadence hugged her grandmother good-bye.  “Thank you so much for everything,” she said, holding back tears.

Janette squeezed her granddaughter tightly. “You be careful, now” she said.  The part of her heart that had always hoped Cadence would never Transform began to activate parts of her mind that ran through all of the possibilities of what might happen to her sweet granddaughter now that she would be hunting Vampires for a living.             

“I will be,” she said, wiping away her grandma’s tears.  “Don’t worry about me.”

“I’ll try not to,” Janette nodded, knowing it would be difficult. “Listen, Cadence, I have just one piece of advice for you. Listen carefully, when you are conflicted, listen first to that still, small voice inside you, the one that led you straight to Drew. If you put that voice first, beyond any voice in your head, you can’t go wrong.”

Cadence pondered this advice, nodding, but not quite sure she understood.  When her grandmother said “any” voice inside of her head, did she mean her own conscience or chatter on the eye implant she would soon receive? Though she wasn’t certain, she was pretty sure she actually meant both.

“Alright,” she replied. Giving her one last quick hug, Cadence slid into the Aventador, she waved good-bye one last time and Eliza pulled out of the driveway and began her fast and furious drive back to Shenandoah.

“How is it that you can drive so quickly? Aren’t you worried about tickets?” she asked.

Eliza smiled. “Nope.  IAC catches police chatter, too. I know exactly where every police vehicle is within at least a 100 mile radius.”

“What about other cars?” Cadence asked as they flew up on a much slower going vehicle.

“My reflexes are at least ten times faster than the most high performing humans,” she explained.  “And, I’m trained to anticipate exactly what a human will do under specific traffic conditions—or any conditions for that matter—ninety-nine percent of the time. You’ll see,” she added.

Cadence nodded. She was beginning to see what Eliza was talking about.  It seemed to her that the other cars were moving much differently than they were.  While their movement was extremely precise and accurate, the other cars seemed to meander.  The other drivers’ turns and corrections were much slower than Eliza’s.  As her view of the world began to change, she became fascinated with her new perspective.  It was almost as if she could slow down or speed up movement on demand, depending upon how much attention she gave the item or person in motion. It was really quite exhilarating.

“How are you feeling?” Eliza asked as she continued to weave in and out of traffic.  Most of the other drivers didn’t even seem to notice she had been there as she made her way by.  No one seemed angry, no one flipped her the bird. They just kept on driving without truly taking notice of the blur flying past their windows.

Cadence considered the question for a moment.  “Honestly, I feel about the same,” she admitted.  “I mean, other than this weird sense of perspective, you know, like motion looking different than before, I really don’t feel like much has changed.”

Eliza nodded.  “That’s good. Considering that we didn’t change anything in your body, we just activated something that was already there, you really wouldn’t expect to feel too different.  Just wait until you run for the first time, though. Or swim. Or have sex.” The last one made Cadence’s eyebrows go up. “Trust me,” Eliza said.  “You don’t know what you don’t know.”

“Okay,” Cadence said, letting it go at that.  “When will I start my training?” Cadence asked.

“Well, Aaron wanted you to have some time with your family, and do you realize that Drew’s funeral is tomorrow?”

She nodded her head. Jamie had mentioned it.

So, he thought you would want tomorrow off as well.  Possibly Tuesday although it might be Wednesday.  You know you’re going to need to go shopping, right?”

The thought had honestly not occurred to her. “Where?  Black Leather Is Us?”

Eliza chuckled, “Oh, girl. Don’t you worry. I’ve got this covered. Besides, you’re not a Guardian.  You’re not required to wear black. Though I don’t know why anyone would ever choose to wear any other color.”

Cadence was a bit nervous as black had never been her color. Perhaps there was some other hue she could wrap her mind around that Eliza would feel would be appropriate. “Alright then,” she said, going back over the calendar in her mind. “So, how many weeks of training will it take before I am ready to kick Holland’s ass?”

              Eliza pondered the question for a moment.  “Well, everyone is different.  Aaron usually doesn’t want anyone to go out into the field as an active until they’ve had at least a months worth of intense training. He has some pretty rigorous requirements and assessments you will have to pass. I’m not sure who has assigned to train you either,” she added.

              Cadence looked at her inquisitively.  “What do you mean?” she asked. “I thought Aaron was training me.”

              Eliza laughed again and this time it came out as a snort. “Aaron doesn’t actually train anyone,” she said.

“He doesn’t?” Cadence asked, surprise. “But I asked him specifically if he would be training me and he said yes.”

              “Well, he used to train people but that was a long time ago. He usually just checks in with the training supervisors. He’s so busy; I don’t know how he even has time to do that. And as much time as he spent not working this past week, well, he’s probably got a shitload to get caught up on, that’s for sure.”

              Cadence crossed her arms and sat back in her chair, feeling a bit betrayed again.  She had asked specific questions before her Transformation in hopes to alleviate any of these surprises.  “Well, can you just ask him who he planning on having train me?”

              “I can,” Eliza said, wondering why she was making such a big deal out who her trainer would be. “I will, if you want.”

              “Okay,” Cadence nodded.  “Are you?”

              “Now? Oh, no. My IAC’s not even on right now,” Eliza explained.

              “What?” Cadence was really shocked now.  “What do you mean? You can urn that thing off?”

              “Well, yeah,” Eliza said, taking her eyes off of the road for a second to glance across the seat at her friend. “How else are we going to do, you know, bodily functions.  We do still have to go to the bathroom occasionally, you know?”

              “Oh,” Cadence hadn’t realized there was a way to turn it off.  She just assumed everyone got used to seeing what everyone else was doing all the time.

              “Christian will go over all of that with you when you get to LIGHTS,” she continued.

              “And what does LIGHTS stand for again?”

              “Lincoln International Guardian and Hunter Training Station.”

              Cadence found herself confused once more.  “But I thought it was in Missouri, not Nebraska?”

              “It is, princess. It’s named after Abraham Lincoln, too, for obvious reasons.”

              “What?” Cadence said, stunned.  “Sweet Baby Jesus, you’ve got to be kidding me?”

              “Nope. Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction.”

              “Unbelievable,” Cadence muttered.  Who would have thought it? Abraham Lincoln really was a Vampire Hunter. “Next thing you know, I’ll be seeing flying monkeys and horses that change color.”

              “Possibly,” Eliza nodded.  “Possibly.”

              They were almost to her house now and Cadence was growing anxious to see her parents and her younger sister.  She had originally planned on a nice relaxing week with her family.  She had no idea the twists and turns her journey would make in this single, solitary life and something told her, based on this conversation, the surprises were not yet over.

              As Eliza brought the car to a stop in front of her house, Cadence could hardly keep herself from leaping out of the vehicle and sprinting to the door. She wanted to be polite and thank Eliza for all she had done, but she also could not wait to see her parents.

              As if reading her mind, Eliza said simply, “Go!  Get out of here! I’ll see you soon!”

              Cadence nodded. She gave Eliza’s arm a little squeeze before pulling her overnight bag out of the back and running to the door.  She was not used to this speed, however, that was for sure, and she had so much trouble stopping, she almost ran into the door. “Woe!” she said aloud.  “Got to get these brakes checked!”

              Her parents had heard the car out front and were waiting for her. Her father flung open the door. “Cadence!” he exclaimed, giving her a hug.  She heard her mom yell for Cassidy to come downstairs before she, too, embraced their first-born.

              “Oh, Cadence! We are so glad you’re home,” her mother exclaimed, leading her in to the living room. “How are you honey?” she asked, motioning for her to join her on the couch. “Do you need anything, darling? Water? Soda?”

              “No, I’m fine,” Cadence assure them.  “I’m really fine, Mom, I promise.”

              “Well, you look good, kiddo,” her dad exclaimed, sitting down in his recliner next to the couch.  “You look like you’ve had a nice long nap.  You look refreshed.”

              Cadence couldn’t help but smile at her father’s attempt at humor. “I guess you could call it a nap,” she said, “But I don’t think it was that refreshing. More like recovering from surgery, I guess.”

              “Now, was it painful?” her mother asked. “Because, we had always heard that Transformation was extremely painful, but now I guess they have some new method or something, and it’s not so bad? Is that right or was Aaron just trying to make us feel better?”

              Just then, Cadence’s sister Cassidy walked down the stairs and entered the room, preventing Cadence from asking the question burning in her mind—when had her parents talked to Aaron?

              Cassidy was fifteen and looked very much like her sister, though she wasn’t as tall and she was a bit less muscular. The girls had always been close, and seeing Cadence go off to college had been hard on her younger sister.  Cadence stood, too, and threw her arms around her.  “Hey, Cass! How are you?”

              “Good,” she said in her shy and reserved manner. “Are you feeling okay?”

              Cadence wasn’t sure what Cassidy had been told but this remark made her think, perhaps, she knew everything.  She looked questioningly at her parents.

              Her mother spoke up, “Cadence is feeling much better, Cass.  You’re so sweet to ask.  Cadence, we explained that you needed some time away from town to process your friend’s passing, and so you went to stay with Grandma for a few days.”

              Cadence was nodding along. “Yes, that’s right. I just needed some time. But I’ll be fine.  Thanks, Sis.”

              As much as Cadence wanted to spend time with her sister, the questions she wanted to ask her parents were mounting, and she needed time without Cassidy in the room so that she could do so.  Her father seemed to realize this as well and he said quietly, “Cass, honey, we’re going to talk to Cadence a little more about what happened that night when she was out with her friends. I really think its best if you just join us for dinner in a bit, alright, honey?”

              Cassidy was always extremely obedient. She nodded her head in understanding. “Alright. I’ll see you later, Sis,” she said to Cadence.

              “For sure," she replied, sitting back down on the couch next to her mother.