Don't hate me.
I love you all.
I will spread more love at the end of this chapter.
But for now.
Here we go.
(Look I'm even doing a recap for you that's how sorry I am. You guys know I hate doing recaps)
Last time, on Return of the Cahills...
Dan was bored, bored, bored.
...
Reagan just smiled and lifted her sword. "En guard."
...
Ned checked his watch. 6:30. The concert began at 8:00, and Ned didn't even have a way of getting in. And he had a prickling feeling that something was going to happen tonight.
...
The sound system started up, and Jonah swaggered onto the stage, smiling.
...
Ian glanced nervously at the window, then pulled Amy back a step so they couldn't be seen from inside of the ice cream parlor.
"When Dan started yelling," he said in a low voice, still holding her arm, "everyone inside looked up. Except one man, sitting in the corner."
...
The Surveyor paused. "No, I would believe it." Looking at the girl, the Surveyor said, "The older two. Follow the older two."
...
And when Sinead saw the silver glint of the gun, she was already running.
...
Dan didn't want to let Amy go alone—not so much because of Ian anymore, but mostly because of the possibility that there was a Vesper following her.
...
She pushed through the front doors and said, "Ian..." Then she stopped. The man was gone.
And so was Ian.
...
Sinead felt her eyes slowly close.
Ka-thump...Ka-thump...
I will not panic, I will not panic.
Amy was panicking.
She looked around wildly, her eyes scanning the people walking up and down the street. None of them was a middle-aged, light brown-haired man with a slight limp, and none of them was a seventeen-year-old boy with jet black hair and amber eyes.
Not caring whether she was still being watched or not, Amy pulled out her cell phone and punched in the Crusher's number. No answer. She stomped the ground in frustration. Then she dialed Hamilton's number.
"Amy?"
"Hamilton! Where are you?"
"Me, Mr. Crusher, and a few other guys are on our way to pick you, Ian, and your stalker up. Where are you?"
"Hamilton, Ian and the man are both gone."
"Gone? What? Hang on, here's Mr. Crushen."
Amy cast a quick look around the street again as the Tomas man's voice boomed over the phone.
"AMY! What happened?"
Amy tried not to hyperventilate as she quickly told the Crusher what had happened.
The Crusher was silent for a moment. "We'll come pick you up," he finally said.
"But what about Ian?"
"Amy, we're coming to pick you up."
"We have to find him!"
"We'll do what we can. Wait inside the store for us to pick you up."
"You're just giving up on him, aren't you?" Amy said angrily. She would never have the nerve to talk this way to Mr. Crushen if they were face to face. "You think they took him, don't you?"
"I said we'll do the best we can!" the Crusher barked. "But we have nothing to go on—absolutely nothing! Our agents lost Vacardez and Carter, and for all we know, they could've skipped the country! So right now, the least of our worries is a teenage boy who's been missing for five minutes! Now wait where you are and we'll be right there!" The phone beeped as the man cut the connection.
Amy stabbed at the END button, angry that Mr. Crushen wasn't going to do anything to find Ian.
She looked down at her phone, then did something that she should've done the minute she realized that Ian was MIA; she called his cell phone.
You have reached the voicemail of Ian Kabra...
Ian never turned his phone off. Never.
Amy shut her phone, an angry sob escaping from her lips.
Ian, where are you?
Why had she done it?
Jonah was sitting in the waiting room of the hospital with his father, his elbows on his knees, his head in his hands. Besides him, Broderick Wizard snored softly, having fallen asleep an hour before. They had been in the waiting room for two hours, waiting for any news about Sinead.
Why had she done it?
Everything was a blur to Jonah. He remembered seeing the man lift the gun, hearing the screams of terror as he dropped his microphone, unable to move. Then, suddenly, a flash of auburn hair as Sinead jumped in front of him, taking the bullet that was meant for him.
Why had she done it?
Someone had called an ambulance. Sinead was lifted onto a gurney and rushed off of the stage, into the ambulance.
Jonah had jumped in the back with her before his father could protest. The ambulance blared its way to the hospital as the paramedics tried desperately to stop the flow of blood from the wound in Sinead's stomach.
When the ambulance reached the hospital, two paramedics wheeled the gurney down a long hall. Jonah started to follow, but a third paramedic stopped him and pointed him towards the waiting room, ignoring Jonah's protests and "do you know who I am?" lines.
So Jonah was forced to the waiting room. Fifteen minutes later, his father joined him.
And so they had waited for two hours. As a clock somewhere in the hospital struck one, Jonah felt like he had been waiting forever.
Suddenly, the door to the waiting room opened. A plump nurse poked her head inside. "Mr. Wizard?" she asked.
Jonah turned, about to shake his dad awake, when he realized that the nurse was addressing him. "Uh, yeah? That's me."
The nurse smiled. "Your cousin is in stable condition right now," she said, "but she's still unconscious. Would you like to see her?"
Jonah didn't see the point in seeing Sinead if she was still unconscious, but something made him stand up and say, "Yeah. I mean, yes, please."
The nurse led him out of the waiting room and down the hallway. Jonah quickly snatched his hat off of his head and clutched it in his hands. This felt like the kind of place that you should take your hat off to be in.
They reached a room near the end of the hall. The nurse opened the door for Jonah, and he stepped inside.
A bed sat in the middle of the room. Lots of scary-looking machines surrounded the bed, their lights pulsing softly. A heart-rate monitor beeped softly in the corner. The curtains were closed on the window to Jonah's right.
The nurse walked over to a rolling cart that was sitting by the bed. "I'll be going, now," she said. "Feel free to stay as long as you like."
Jonah stayed by the door. "Uh...thanks."
The nurse smiled at him, the wheeled the cart out the door. On her way out, she turned to Jonah and patted his hand. "Don't lose hope, dear," she said. "Things will turn out okay." The nurse left the room, leaving Jonah alone.
The young pop star stayed by the door. He wasn't sure whether he wanted to see Sinead in the state she was in. Finally, though, he forced himself to walk across the room and stand by the bed.
It wasn't as bad as he had expected. There was no visible blood. Sinead was lying peacefully under a sheet, her head resting on a pillow, her long, auburn hair spread out on the pillow. She could have just been sleeping, if she didn't have an oxygen tube right under her nose, or a pulse monitor strapped to her wrist.
Jonah found a chair sitting in a corner of the room and dragged it over to the side of the bed. He sat down, resting his elbows on his knees. He bent his head, thinking. Then he looked up and said, "I'm going to say this now...I don't know if you can hear me or not, but it's going to be easier for me to say now than when you're wide awake and looking at me.
"Can you imagine? Me, with stage fright. Who knew?"
Jonah took a deep breath and continued:
"I don't understand why you did what you did. That is, why you risked your own life to save mine. That bullet was for me.
"They didn't catch the guy, Sinead. He got away, surprisingly enough. Dad called Fiske, and told him what happened. Your brothers'll be here tomorrow.
"He must have been a Vesper. It only makes sense. What doesn't make sense, though, was how they knew I'm a Cahill. And what're they playing at now? Are they gonna try to knock off every Cahill on the planet?"
Jonah snorted.
"Yeah, I wish them luck with that. It's impossible. There's just too many.
"But how did they know about me? And how the heck did that guy sneak that gun past security?"
Jonah paused.
"Y'know, if their goal tonight was to kill off a Cahill, preferably me, they'd probably be more successful if they had actually killed you."
Jonah glanced nervously at the heart monitor, hoping he hadn't jinxed himself. The pulse line was a steady motion of up and down lines. All was good.
He continued:
"You're worth ten of me. You can fix anything, solve anything. You never let anything get in your way."
Jonah smiled, hearing Sinead's voice in his head, protesting to the compliments; Yeah, right. So not true. I can't fix everything. Just...most things.
Jonah sighed, the grin disappearing from his face. "Me? What am I good for? Sure, if I die, thousands of fans will be heartbroken. For, like, a week. Maybe two.
"It's because no one really knows me. Those fans would mourn me because of my singing, and," Jonah grinned self-consciously, "my extremely good looks."
You keep telling yourself that, Jonah, Sinead's voice said drily in his head.
Jonah's face grew serious again. "If you die...well, maybe not as many people will miss you as they will me. But the amount of sorrow—from your brothers, your parents, Alistair Oh, Amy, Dan, Ian, Natalie, the Holts—that everyone who knows you would feel, would be ten times greater than the sorrow of the thousands of fans who don't even know the real me."
Sinead's voice was silent.
Jonah straightened. "So you can't die," he said, his voice wavering a little. He reached down, gently cupping Sinead's hand in his. "You can't die for me. I'm not worth it."
He wasn't sure if he imagined it, but Jonah thought he felt Sinead's fingers curl a little against his hand.
And her voice in his head scoffed, I'm not going die for you, idiot. I'm not dying. Not today.
Hamilton was the first one out of the car. He ran over to Amy, who was sitting on the curb.
He kneeled down next to her. "What happened?" he asked.
Amy told him.
Hamilton's face was furious. "They made a big mistake," he said.
"So you think it was the Vespers?" Amy's voice was soft, but it had a steely edge to it that caused Hamilton to lean away from her a bit. Amy looked like she was about to murder somebody, and Hamilton didn't want to be that somebody.
Hamilton shrugged. "I doubt he went off to that makeup store over there."
"What if they kill him?" Amy whispered.
Hamilton shook his head. "They won't do that," he said. "They'll want to keep him alive for ransom...or information."
Amy looked pained. "But he wouldn't tell them anything."
"I know." Hamilton attempted a smile. "Hey, this is Ian we're talking about. The Vespers don't know what they're getting into."
"Hello, Ian."
Ian winced, blinking in the sudden light. He was sitting in a metal chair. The figure in front of him was blurry, his head was throbbing, and his mouth was parched. He coughed, and tried to stand.
Then he realized his hands were tied behind him.
Everything came rushing back to him; following the man down the street, turning the corner, seeing the van, getting grabbed and knocked out.
It occured to him that no one knew where he was. He had left Amy at the...
Amy! Had they captured her too? Was she hurt? Ian struggled to free himself, then realized it was hopeless. His wrists were securely tied to the chair. He tried to move his feet, and realized that his ankles were bound, too.
"Shh," said the figure. "Here. Drink." Ian felt a plastic cup being pressed to his mouth, and felt the water on his dry lips. It took all his willpower to yank his head away, knocking the cup and some of its contents over the figure.
The figure, who Ian was now able to identify as a woman, drew in a breath, and then, to Ian's surprise, laughed out loud.
"Very good," she said. "But I promise you, it's just water. See?" She took a sip from the cup, then again lifted the cup to Ian's lips.
This time, he drank the water. It was the best water he ever drank, although that might have been just because he was so thirsty.
"There," said the woman. Ian looked up at her as things came into focus.
She was probably in her mid-thirties, with a long brown braid going down her back. Her eyes were light blue, and she was wearing a dark blue business suit. A small two-way radio was attached to her skirt.
Ian tried to speak, but his voice was raspy. The woman gave him more water, and he was finally able to speak.
"Where am I?"
The woman smiled. "That's classified," she said.
Ian glared at her.
"How are you feeling?"
"That's classified," Ian replied coldly.
The woman laughed again. "Very good," she said, approvingly.
Ian looked around. They were in a small room with white walls. By one wall sat a small folding cot. There was a sink in one corner, and Ian saw a door across the room.
Ian pulled at his bonds again.
"Now, Ian," the woman said, "be sensible."
"Who are you?" Ian demanded.
The woman smiled. "My name is Rose Faust. I'm in charge of this unit."
"Unit?"
Rose ignored him. She unclipped the radio from her skirt and spoke into it, "He's awake. Repeat, Ian Kabra is awake."
There was a burst of static, then a familiar voice spoke, sending shivers up Ian's spine, "Good. I'll be right there."
It couldn't be...
A minute later, the door opened.
"Hello, Ian," purred Isabel Kabra.
Dan had experience in many dangerous situations; snake-infested pits, ninja battles, Amy without a book to read, to name a few.
But he deeply hoped that he would never again have to be anywhere within a mile radius of Natalie Kabra when she found out that her brother was missing.
"GONE?" she shrieked. "What do you mean, he's GONE?"
Amy looked miserable. "I went inside for two minutes. When I came out, he was just...gone."
"Did you try his cell phone?" Dan asked. He still had some ice cream on his chin, but the ice cream parlor seemed like a hundred years ago to Amy.
His sister nodded. "It went straight to voicemail."
"And the stalker dude was gone, too?" Hamilton asked. He and his sisters were seated at the table with Dan, Amy, Natalie, David, and Mr. Crushen.
Amy nodded again.
Natalie looked furious. She glared at Mr. Crushen. "Well? Aren't you going to do something? Send out your agents to look for him! Send us out to look for him!" She stood up from the table. "In fact, I'm leaving. Right now." She headed for the door.
It was Reagan who jumped up to stop her. "Natalie, wait," she said, grabbing the Lucian girl's arm. "If the Vespers wanted Ian, they probably want you, too, if not all of us."
"It's not safe," David finished.
"Please, Natalie," Reagan begged.
Natalie glared at her. Then her shoulders sagged a bit. "I...I just don't know what to do," she murmured.
"I'll send out a few agents to look for him," Mr. Crushen said, "but the best thing we can do right now is to wait to see if his captors contact us."
Natalie stared at him for a long moment. Then she turned on her heel and stalked out the door.
Reagan started to follow her, but Mr. Crushen called her back. "Let her go," he said. "She can't leave the stronghold without my permission. She just needs to cool off a bit."
Amy bit her tongue to suppress the urge to yell at the Tomas man. He made it seem like Natalie had no reason to be so upset.
The Crusher folded his hands on the table. "On another topic," he said calmly, "we haven't yet located Vacardez and Carter, but we have reason to believe that they have taken an airplane to London."
"London?" Dan exclaimed. "They're going to London? Why would they go to London? What do they want in London?" He looked at Amy. "Will you give me a dollar for every time I say London?"
Amy rubbed her face. She knew Dan was trying to lighten the mood, but she could tell that even her younger brother, usually so lighthearted, was feeling the stress that was on everyone else.
Dan shrugged at her negative reaction. "It was worth a try."
Mr. Crushen answered Dan's questions in the order they were asked, "Yes. We think so. We don't know. We don't know."
Madison looked confused. "What were the original questions again?"
Mr. Crushen sighed. "Never mind. The point is, I'm sending you all to...to notify certain sources and rally the necessary forces."
"That rhymes!" Dan and Reagan said together. They looked at each other.
"Wait, wait, wait," Madison said. "You're sending us to London?"
The Crusher nodded.
"What about Ian?" asked Hamilton. "Shouldn't at least one of us stay here in case we hear word of him?"
Mr. Crushen pushed back from the table. "Perhaps," he said. "I have something that I've been thinking about for awhile..." He paused, lost in thought.
"Grandpa?" David asked. "Am I going, too?"
The Crusher looked over at his grandson. "Uh...no, David, I don't think so."
"But, Grandpa..."
"You need to stay here. And train." Mr. Crushen crossed his arms. "That's my final decision."
David scowled. "You never let me do anything!" he burst out. He stood up from the table and dashed out of the room.
"David!" the Crusher bellowed, standing up. A door slammed in the distance, and Mr. Crushen sat back down heavily in his chair.
"Go pack your things now," he said. "You'll depart as soon as you're ready to go."
The kids stood up and headed for the door.
"Reagan."
Reagan turned and looked at the man as the others left the room. "Yes, sir?"
Madison paused at the door, waiting for her sister.
"I need to talk to you for a moment," the Crusher said. "Privately."
Reagan turned to her sister. "Go 'head, Madi. I'll meet you back at the room."
Madison hesitated, then nodded. She left the room.
Mr. Crushen motioned to a chair. "Sit, Reagan."
Reagan eased herself into a chair across from the man.
The Crusher was silent for a minute, lost in thought. Reagan figeted nervously.
Finally, Mr. Crushen spoke, "Reagan, you've shown potential to be a very good fencer."
"Thank you, sir."
"With a little more training, who knows what else you could accomplish?"
Reagan wasn't sure where this was going. "Sir?"
The Crusher smiled at her. "Reagan, I would like you to stay here while the others go to London."
Reagan sat up abruptly. "What? Why?"
Mr. Crushen folded his hands on the table. "Several reasons. One, because I think it will be good for you to stay here and train some more."
"But my family needs me!"
"I agree," the Crusher said. "Your family needs you. Here. To train to be the best you can be."
"But—"
"There's another reason, Reagan."
Reagan shut her mouth."
Mr. Crusher sighed, and sat back in his chair. "I'm getting old," he said plainly. He looked at Reagan expectantly.
Reagan wasn't sure why he had paused. Then she realized what he was waiting for, and said quickly, "What? You? You're not getting old!"
The Crusher waved her comments away with one hand. "No, it's true. I'll be retiring in a few years, and I'll need someone to take over my position of the Tomas branch."
Reagan furrowed her brow. "What exactly is your position, sir?"
Mr. Crushen puffed out his chest proudly. "Well, it's not the head of the branch," he said modestly. "I'm sort of the, how can I put this? Vice-head, you could say. I'm in charge of anything the head needs me to do."
"Oh."
"Anyway," the Crusher continued, "although the election of the head of the Tomas is usually achieved through competition, the positions of vice-head is normally passed down through immediate families. Not always, but normally. My father was vice-head before me, and his father before him, and so on."
Mr. Crusher grimaced. "I'm certainly not passing this honor down to my son-in-law, and my daughter made it very clear that she wanted nothing more to do with the Tomas." He winced, as if just the thought of his daughter's abandonment hurt him. Then he continued, "Of course, there's always David, but David...well, David doesn't really have enough patience to be vice-head."
Reagan thought back to David's outburst a few minutes earlier, ending with his running out of the room. Um, yeah. Not really.
The Crusher looked Reagan straight in the eyes. "But now I think I've finally found someone."
Reagan stared at him. "What? Who?" Her eyes widened. "No way. Nuh-uh. You don't mean...um, with all due respect, Mr. Crushen, I love my brother, but I really don't think he's branch vice-head material..."
"I meant you, Reagan."
Reagan's jaw dropped. "Me? Are you joking?"
"Hardly."
Reagan laughed awkwardly. "Me? Branch vice-head? I'm only fourteen!" Her voice rose to a shriller pitch.
Mr. Crushen chuckled. "I'm not that old, Reagan. I won't be retiring for several years. You could be twenty or twenty-one by that time. Plenty of time for you to grow up and train." He smiled. "If you work hard, you could even be branch head someday."
Reagan was speechless.
The Crusher pushed back his chair and stood. "I'll give you some time to think about it. If you're going to stay, though, you'll need to decide quickly." He headed for the door.
Reagan finally found her voice. "But...why me?" she squeaked.
Mr. Crushen turned, his eyes unusually soft for his intimidating stature. "You have something, Reagan," he said. "Some would call it a spark. An aura. You have the potential to be a great leader, someday. You already are."
And with that, Mr. Crushen left the room, leaving Reagan alone.
I love you guys.
Really, I do.
I've often seen people who don't update their fic for maybe 2, 3 months, and they get a ton of hate and abuse from their readers. And then there's me, who hasn't updated for six months, and all I get are positive reviews, and people politely messaging me, telling me how much they love this story and if I could please update soon.
You don't understand how much that means to me. It gives me a warm fuzzy feeling that my readers are such amazing people (death threats aside...I'm pretty sure you guys were joking about those...right?)
But seriously, thank you so much for staying with this story. I promise you, no matter how long it takes, I will continue updating this story until it's over. I swear on Grace Cahill's grave.
Response to Reviews:
-Goth Bookworm: Your theories can be neither confirmed nor denied. Wait and see, young grasshopper.
-AmianNatan4ever: I don't dance, but I recognize that ballerinas are freaking hardcore. I have a friend who does ballet and she tells me how difficult it is. And good for you for kicking that jerk in the head.
-Phantomhive Cahill: Am I ever going to write Jamy? How can I put this gently...no.
-Cutiekate8: I remember listening to The Reason by Hoobastank back when I first read your review. I agree, great Amian song.
-ChicaKabra: I'm not really on the Message Board. I usually just lurk on the Message Board. And as much as I would love to collab on a story with you, as well as all the other people who've asked me this before, but I think I take long enough just updating this story though, don't you?
-HPJ-kittycat: Okay.
Frequently Asked Questions:
-Are you Rick Riordan? I wish.
-Are you excited for Day of Doom? See below.
-WHERE IS THE AMIAN KISS? I dunno, ask Amy and Ian.
-Is this Jonead? I dunno, as Sinead and Jonah. (In all seriousness, though, I don't know where that's going. Right now, they're just friends.)
-Make this Deagan! I–
-Don't make this Deagan! ...
-Was the Reagan fencing thing based on Percy and Luke's spar in The Lightning Thief? Shhh...
-Please update soon! Yeah...sorry 'bout that.
As usual, thanks to everyone who reviewed. I love every single on of you, and I wish I had the time to reply to every review. If you have any questions or anything you really want me to reply to, you can always message me, and I'll get back to you as soon as I can!
Okay, so real quick. Day of Doom. Don't even get me started. (SPOILERS AHEAD) In a word, I hated it. I don't want to insult anyone who loved it, but in an attempt to keep this brief, I felt like the majority if not all of the characters were out of character, Amy and Jake's romance was horribly forced and Evan and Natalie's deaths were unecessary (especially Evan's, even though I was more sad about Natalie's, just because the only reason for his death was to free Amy up for Jake). There were a hundred other things I hated about DoD, but I won't waste your time talking about them now.
On the bright side, though, Jude Watson is writing the first book for Unstoppable, and I have faith in her. So we'll see how that goes.
So like I said before, this fic will get updated. I promise.
I love you all. xoxo
-KT