Cadence stood in the shower for almost an hour, letting the warm water beat over her, hoping it would somehow bring clarity, though it didn’t seem to be helping. The ride home had also been hours of contemplation. Why had Elliott defended her to Sam and then tried to have her thrown off the team? Why would Sam be so angry about Henry’s death that he would kill a Guardian and try to wipe out their entire team? How could anyone be that angry? What would have happened if Alex had shot Jamie? If Aaron hadn’t of been able to jump clear of the airplane? And then there was the question she’d been asking most frequently for almost nine months: where the hell was Giovani?
As she turned the water off, she realized she wasn’t alone and wondered how long Aaron had been waiting for her. She pulled the shower curtain back just enough to grab her towel and wrapped it around herself, squeezing the water out of her hair before she stepped out of the shower. He was sitting on the counter between the double sinks, still and reflective, the way she had found him so many memorable times before. He looked up at her and smiled as she made her way over but didn’t say anything, and she realized this was one of the few times he’d been able to sneak up on her. Most of the time, she knew exactly where he was whether his IAC was on or not.
“Hi,” she said stopping next to him. “When did you get home?”
“Not too long ago,” he replied, shrugging. “How was your shower?”
She rested her hand on his leg. “You could have found out for yourself!” she teased.
“You seemed like you wanted to be left alone,” he replied taking her hand in his.
“And yet here you are,” she snickered. She laced her fingers between his and stepped between his knees.
Again, he shrugged his shoulders. “I still have X-ray vision, you know?”
Shaking her head, she punched him playfully in the arm. “Seriously?” she sighed. “You’re awful!” He just looked at her sheepishly, and so she returned the original question. “It was all right, I guess. I mean… I didn’t find any answers in there.”
“What sort of answers did you think might be hanging out in the shower?”
She sighed again, louder this time. “I don’t know. I guess I still don’t understand how anyone could turn their back on their team like that. And… what do you think Elliott meant by telling them to leave me alone but then coming after me so hard himself?”
Aaron leaned back against the mirror, still holding her hand. “I’m not sure what that was all about, honestly. I mean, I knew at the time what he had said to them. I assumed he was just being defensive in general--that it wasn't about you, that it was about the team. But now I’m wondering if maybe he didn’t have some ulterior motive.”
“Like what?” Cadence asked, leaning in closer, her eyes wide.
He sat up. “Well, he’d been in the field checking up on Cass. I’m sure he knew you to some degree from that. Maybe he was thinking if he could get you off of the team, Sam wouldn’t be able to come after you. I don’t know. It’s all speculation at this point.”
“But he wanted you to break up with me because he thought I would be a distraction,” Cadence reminded him.
“True. Maybe his reasoning was two-fold. It’s hard to say. Hell, half the time when Elliott explained his thinking to me, I couldn’t understand his logic.”
She snickered, knowing he was only half playing. “I guess I just might not ever know,” she finally acknowledged. “I think I’m also a little worried about all of these Hunters we are losing.”
“What do you mean?” Aaron asked, his eyebrows knit together. “You haven’t lost that many.”
“Six in the last four weeks!” Cadence reminded him. “That seems like a lot to me.”
“Is that including Alex?” Cadence nodded. “Well, I think that he hardly counts.”
“Still a Hunter,” she reminded him. “Still dead.”
“Due to his own stupidity.”
“Nevertheless…” she let go of his hand and picked up her brush off the counter next to him and began to run it through her long brown hair before it started to dry.
“Cadence, that’s really not a lot. I know it might seem like it is to you, but it really isn’t. Historically speaking, statistics for Hunter losses are way down. Before improvements in technology and weaponry, we were running at about fifty percent losses. Now, you’re way below that.”
She was listening, but she wasn’t sure she believed him. She continued to brush her hair, only glancing at him suspiciously out of the corner of her eye.
“How many Vampires have you taken out in that same amount of time?” he continued, determined to convince her.
“Last I checked, about one hundred eight.”
“See…”
“But,” she interrupted, “a lot of them were babies that sprang up when we were all out of whack during the Sierraville Incident and our subsequent trip to Ireland. So, I don’t think it would be that high if there weren’t so many new Vampires to have to hunt down.”
“Doesn’t matter,” he replied, shaking his head adamantly. “You’re taking them out quickly and efficiently. You’ve done a great job of inspiring your Hunters around the world, of providing information when they needed it, giving direction. Cadence, you’re doing an amazing job.”
He had his hand on her arm now, and so she put the brush down and returned her attention to him, wanting to believe his words were true. She exhaled deeply and nodded her head. “Thanks,” she said quietly. “I didn’t do a very good job today, though,” she reminded him.
“You did, too,” he said, the skeptical look back on his face. “You caught up to Sam.”
“Yeah, after you made him crash. I took Jamie out, almost got him killed, broke my own knee, and left before the job was finished. I did a great job!” She was flipping her arms around so adamantly, he couldn’t help but lean back. Water droplets from the ends of her hair splattered against the sink and the mirror, and with a glance at her own reflection, she realized she needed to calm down. Taking a deep breath again, she said, “A lot of things went wrong today.”