September 3rd, Monday - Casey Silpetti
Casey wakes up before her alarm. She straightens up and then gets herself ready. She grabs her bag and heads over to the main drive to meet Aiden.
‘I wore this Friday’ she thinks. ‘At least he knows I did laundry yesterday. Maybe he won’t notice.’ She’s a little early so she sits on the front steps to wait, looking at the leaves already changing colors. Casey hears footsteps and sees Cadence jogging toward her.
Cadence stops and pulls the buds from her ears. “Hi Casey. What are you doing here today?”
“Oh, ummm…I forgot a couple of prints that I needed to finish my portfolio, so I came in to get them.”
“Cool.” After a beat she continues, “Waiting for a ride now?”
“Yeah, Aiden and me are gonna’ hang out and then go to the parade. Are you going?”
“I thought about it.”
Aiden pulls up and waves at the 2 of them.
“So, give me a call if you go,” Casey says. “We can try to meet up. Have a good run!”
“Thanks. See ya later.” Cadence waves at Aiden before popping in her ear buds and jogging off.
It’s a quiet ride over to the Dennison house. Casey’s not sure where to start and Aiden doesn’t want to scare her off from letting him get to know her.
“Nice car,” Casey finally says as they’re a block away from his house.
“Thanks.”
They get to Aiden’s and go into the kitchen where he has all the breakfast stuff prepped and ready to cook. Casey sits down at the bar and Aiden goes around to heat up the pans. He gets them going and turns back to her. “Look, I know this is weird, but I want to get to know you and…well…even if it’s not all sunshine and roses, it’s still your life, and I kind of like to think I’m at least a little part of it now.”
Casey blushes and looks down at her hands. She looks back up with a sad smile on her face. “It’s just hard for me to talk about.”
Aiden goes back to cooking and Casey looks around the gourmet kitchen and his ease in there. “You really like to cook don’t you?”
“Yeah I guess so. I’m pretty good at it and it helps me relax. To create a whole meal out of a few things…it’s fun.” Aiden cooks scrambled eggs with peppers and onions, hash browns, bacon and toast. He sets everything on the bar and grabs plates and silverware for each of them. “O.J. or milk?”
“O.J. please.” He pours them both some orange juice and sits down next to Casey. They eat. Not in silence, but not talking about anything important ether. Aiden finishes before Casey and she eats until she couldn’t possibly eat another bite.
“Wow, you were hungry!”
“Sorry, I just…I try to eat as much as I can when I have the chance.” Casey looks down at her hands again, embarrased and knowing how pathetic that sounds.
Aiden covers her hands with 1 of his own and tilts her chin up so she’s looking at him with the other. He sees tears waiting in the corners of her eyes. “Hey,” he says softly. “It’s ok. Do you want to go sit out by the pool? It’s relaxing…” Casey nods and they stand. Aiden doesn’t drop her hand as he leads her outisde.
They sit next to the pool, in silence. Aiden holds Casey’s hand and just watches her as she looks around at everything but him. She takes her shoes and socks off and rolls up her jeans. She drops her feet in the warm water, takes a deep breath, and finally looks at Aiden.
She starts slow, eventually reaching a normal pace. She tells Aiden a lot, not everything, but as much as she can. He listens and holds her hand while she stares out over the pool, kicking her feet every once in a while. She tells Aiden about being a foster kid since she was 10. She tells him about the father she never knew and her druggie mom who gave her the concussion that got her into foster care. She talks about the various foster homes she’s been in and the good and bad people she’s met in them. She talks about her last foster home and the “dad” who beat her and tried to rape her. She tells him she ran away after that and hasn’t gone back. She talks about her trust issues and that she has more friends right now than she ever had and she doesn’t know how to deal with that. She talks about being on scholarship and her photography. She finally stops talking with tears running down her face. She never even realized they were falling.
Aiden smiles softly at her, “But what about now? Where are you living? How do you eat, or get clothes, or film, or anything?”
“I…I can’t tell you where I’m living. I just can’t risk being caught and getting sent back there or worse. I’ve been doing this on my own for over a year…I’m pretty used to finding out where to go and how to get things. I sell my photos to make money. It’s not usually much, but it’s enough.”
“You could stay here. We have extra bedrooms.”
“No!” Casey pulls away from Aiden. “I’m not a charity case. I don’t need you to help me. I’ve done it this long. I’m fine.” She stands up and shakes the water off her legs. She grabs her shoes and socks and goes to sit on a lounge chair to put them on.
“Wait a minute!” Aiden follows and sits on the chair next to her, taking her shoes away. “Don’t do this. You just told me more than you’ve told almost anyone, and now you’re going to pull away because I offered to help you. That doesn’t make sense, Case!”
“It may not make sense to you, but I don’t need your help. I don’t want your help. I don’t want anyone’s help!”
“Fine, forget I offered…but know that you can always ask me for anything Casey. I’ll do what I can. Will you still go to the parade with me? We should probably get going…”
“Can I have my shoes back?” Aiden hands them to her and leans forward to kiss her. He waits for her to put them on and then takes her hand again, heading out to the car.
On the way to the parade, Cadence calls Casey and they figure out a good meeting place. Once they get parked, Aiden and Casey head over to hook up with Cadence. They hold hands non-stop.
The 3 of them find a good place to watch the parade and they all sit on the curb…catching the candy that comes within reach, joking, and having a good time. They finally see the float with Roni, Bianca and Senator Kane and they shout out to Veronica. She sees them and waves, throwing extra candy their way.
After her float passes, Casey and Aiden sit back down on the curb and go back to holding hands. Cadence stays standing and seems to have a blast, it doesn’t seem as though she’s been to a lot of parades before. Her actions get Aiden laughing at her, in a friendly way. She turns and tries to give him an evil look, but just ends up getting Casey laughing too, and she finally cracks a smile in return.
“Hey, ya’ll wanna go see a movie after this is over with?” He gives Casey a stern look before she can say anything. “I mean, we have to get back to the grind of school tomorrow, and I’m in no rush to have the weekend end. Come on, it’ll be fun?”
Casey looks over at Cadence for support. “Well, we’re not far from the end of the parade. We could head down there and see if Veronica w… or Bianca, wants to come.” She pulls out her cellphone and starts texting rapidly.
“There, see, now you have to go,” Aiden whispers in her ear. When she turns toward him he takes his opportunity and kisses her softly. “Come on, it’ll be fun. Hang out a little bit with your friends, sit way back in the theater…” he waggles his eyebrows at her again.
“Ok, I guess,” she gives in, trying not to grin.
He stands and holds out his hand to pull her up to him. Cadence’s phone beeps, and she smiles as she drops it back into one of her cargo pockets. “Veronica is in, if ya’ll don’t mind. They’re wrapping things up, by the time we get there they should be done. She said Fetch will give us a ride back to your car, Aiden.” She’s smiling as she says it, her hands going back and unconsciously brushing her hair back, neatening it.
They start walking down the street, Aiden and Casey holding hands again, watching Cadence practically skipping ahead of them.
The lot they walk into is full of floats, people scurrying about as the parade shuts down. The Carlson-Kane’s are easy to find, a small crowd has formed around the Senator, mostly media it looks like. Bianca and Veronica are sitting on some boxes off to the side, deep in some conversation, both smiling. Fetch stands close by with some other Secret Service men, including the stern looking guy that is their boss.
Bianca notices them walking up, and taps her sister. Veronica looks up and smiles widely, waving at them. Bianca also waves at Aiden and Casey. Veronica hugs her sister, and starts walking over. Fetch follows a few steps behind, and Casey notices a look pass between him and Bianca as he walks past her.
Then she notices the look that Veronica gives her, looking pointedly down at her and Aiden’s clasped hands, and then back up at her. She smiles and winks, none too subtly. Casey can feel her face coloring a little, and elbows Aiden when she hears him chuckle. They walk out of the lot, everyone chatting pleasantly. Casey walks along with them quietly, still unused to being with so many people that could be friends. It feels good, but strange.
Aiden notices how quiet she’s being, and gives her hand a soft squeeze. She smiles over at him, and sees the question in his eyes. She shakes her head slightly in response. They pull up short at the car, and she realizes that she’s missed part of the conversation.
“I’m sorry, what was the question?”
Veronica smiles at her. “We were trying to figure out what movie to go see. I’m guessing that our white knight here who had the idea to go see one has no clue of what we should go see?”
Aiden starts to answer, but Casey’s attention is drawn away again, this time to Cadence. Her forehead is furrowed, and her eyes are flicking back and forth over something in the distance. A sudden grim look falls over her face, and she steps forward and grabs Aiden’s arm tightly.
“Aiden, get Casey back to your car, now.” She turns before he can say anything. “Fetch, get V in the car.”
He’s moving before she finishes, grabbing Veronica by the arm as his hand goes to the gun on his belt. Cadence turns back to see Casey and Aiden staring at her with open jaws. “Damnit, something bad is about to happen here because of me, and I don’t want you-”
She doesn’t get to finish. Casey hears a loud hissing, as though an air hose was cut loose. Out of the corner of her eye she sees a white trail streak down and slam into Veronica’s car. Then her world explodes.
There’s a loud “whoomp!”, and a flash of light and heat slams into them. A split moment later a wave of pressure crashes into her, throwing her back up against a wall and taking her breath away.
It takes her a long moment before she can even realize what’s going on around her. All she can hear is a loud ringing in her ears, her skin burns like a bad sunburn. Her body aches dully, and she glances around to see a scene right out of a war-zone surrounding her. The car is in pieces, flame and smoke pouring from it. People in the streets are either running and screaming, or trying to hide behind anything they can.
Fetch stands from where he landed on top of Veronica, shielding her from the blast. His suit is blackened and smoking, and his face is covered in scratches and cuts. His pistol is out in his right hand, and suddenly he fires three quick shots. The sound of them cuts through the ringing in her ears, and she hears someone close by scream in fright in response.
Cadence grabs her arm and squeezes, trying to comfort her. Part of Casey’s brain realizes the strangeness that the only two people moving like this is normal are Fetch and Cadence. The entire time they’ve both seemed to have kept their heads, something no one else around them has been able to do.
A loud burst of automatic gunfire echoes across the street, and Fetch goes down hard, the back of his coat torn to shreds from the bullets. Veronica screams and goes down to her knees next to him.
Casey feels Aiden’s arms around her, and hears Cadence curse next to her, “Shit, they’re not here for me.”
She grabs Casey, forcing her attention to her. “Casey, Casey! Grab your camera. Take pictures of them, of everything. The cops are going to need them.”
She looks over Casey’s shoulder. “Aiden, keep her safe.” She turns, her hand suddenly filled with the cold steel of a dagger. Casey snaps off photos in a daze…not really seeing anything.
Some guy with a weird vest - something like a SWAT guy would wear - is busy trying to pull Veronica away from Fetch, but she’s screaming and fighting him with everything she’s got. Suddenly a cop runs into view, and pulls his pistol. “Freeze!”
The badguy brings his rifle up and lets loose a short burst that rips into the cop, blood spraying up everywhere as the hammer sounds of the gunshots echo about them.
Cadence runs up to him at a breakneck speed, lashing out with a swift kick to catch the side of his knee. There’s a loud snap, and the guy curses loudly.
He starts to turn, and Cadence brings the knife she has down the back of his right hand savagely, shredding it and causing a spray of red to fill the air. His gun drops from his useless hand, and Cadence uses that time to slam the knife into his side, angling it underneath the vest he’s wearing. She sticks her left leg in front of his one remaining good leg, and trips him, slamming his face against the newspaper box next to them.
“Veronica, run! Run, don’t look back!”
Veronica takes her words to heart, and starts hauling ass down the street. Aiden pulls Casey further back into a doorway, and they see more men dressed like the badguy on the street. One is close to where Veronica is running, and moves to cut her off.
Cadence pulls the pistol from her badguy’s drop-leg holster, and lets go four quick shots. The guy goes down hard, but is still moving on the ground. Cadence stands and goes to a two handed grip on the pistol, aiming at the guy. She doesn’t get the chance to fire it.
One of the other guys runs up behind her, his hand swinging down at her, filled with one of the collapsable batons that cops normally carry. He brings it down in three quick, hard blows. The first catches her right shoulder, and the gun drops from her hand as her arm goes numb. The second catches her hip, bringing her down to her knees. The third she shifts to catch more across her back then side, but Casey can see her lose her breath as she drops to the ground.
He stands and turns, catching sight of Casey with her camera, where she crouches in Aiden’s arms. He closes up the baton and holsters it on his belt, before starting to walk towards them. Aiden stands and gets in front of her, and she sees the badguy reach down to pull his pistol. Her stomach drops with fear, and she reaches out to hold Aiden from behind.
A sudden pistol shot rings out, and she flinches. She sees the badguy stagger, and sees Cadence sitting up behind him, the pistol in her left hand.
Aiden takes her hand and pulls her along with him as he starts to run. She hears a second shot behind her, and turns her head to look over her shoulder as she runs with him.
She sees the guy turn, and he fires in turn. There’s a spray of red, and Cadence falls back to the ground. Behind her, she sees one of the guys scoop up Veronica on the run.
The badguy who shot Cadence turns back to the doorway that Aiden and Casey just fled from, and continues to turn until he sees them running down the street. He holsters his pistol and lifts up his companion that Cadence first attacked. Then Aiden and Casey turn the corner, and see nothing else. Her lungs burning, they pull up short and stop, hiding in another doorway.
Casey hunkers down against the wall, her eyes watering from fear and the burning smoke filling the air. The same smoke burns her lungs as well, and she muffles another choking cough. She feels the slow drip of blood sliding down her cheek, and looks down in time to see it fall and add to the small stains on her pants leg.
A disconnected part of her brain starts fussing insanely, bringing up that her outfit is completely ruined, and it’s not like she has enough of them to go around. It makes her want to gibber with laughter, but she holds it all down, holding on to the parts of her that feel like flying in all different directions.
The gunshots have stopped. That’s good. Most of the screaming has stopped as well, everyone else hiding under cars or behind anything they can squeeze behind, hoping to draw no attention to themselves. Casey holds her camera in a grip tight enough to almost crack it, but she remembers Cadence’s last words to her, “Get pictures of them, of everything. Cops will need them!”
How did she get here, in this warzone? The day certainly started quietly enough, with no hint that her life might end before the day was done. In fact, it had been a pretty good day up to now: bright, sunny, cheerful.
“Are you ok? Casey? Are you ok?” Aiden is looking down at her, his eyes full of worry. His face is dark with soot, and a few cuts on his forehead have caused blood to stain the side of his face. He takes her face in his hands softly, wiping tears from her eyes. “Are you ok?”
“Cadence. We have to go check on Cadence. He shot her! Why… they took Veronica!”
“Ok, ok! But we need to be careful, they could still be out there. Ok?”
She nods, feeling slowly coming back to her numb extremities. It feels like she’s been drug under cold water, and is just coming up for air. (This is what shock feels like,) she thinks to herself.
They sneak back to the corner, and cautiously peer around it. The streets are empty, except for the clouds of smoke still billowing up from the destroyed car. Silence has fallen, except for the sirens wailing in the distance and the pops and tinks coming from the fire.
Casey breaks out into a run, and drops to her knees next to Cadence. The bottom of her shirt is soaked through with blood, her hands covered in it where they are clasped around the hole in her stomach. She smiles up at Casey wanly. “Hey Case… I think I’m kinda shot.” Her eyes glance over towards Aiden. “Aiden, be a dear. Look in my bag, there should be a bandage.” Her voice is quiet and pained, and Casey notices that her skin is much paler than normal, and she’s starting to shake. Casey puts her hands over Cadences’, and murmurs comforting words, not even aware of what’s she’s saying.
“What the hell?” She turns to look over at Aiden, who’s pulling a military style sealed bandage out of Cadence’s bag. He rips it open and moves over next to her.
“Ok, you gotta press it down hard, and keep pressure on it. I’m probably gonna be passing out here, just keep pressure…. Did Veronica get away?”
Casey shakes her head no. Cadence closes her eyes, and licks her lips. She looks up at Casey, a fierce intensity in her eyes. “Don’t let them take any pictures of me, please. And don’t tell them what I did, if you can help it. Call my mom, she’ll know what to do. But no pictures, please? Get your film to the police. Have to help find V.”
Aiden moves her hands out the way and lifts her shirt while she’s talking. There’s a neat hole about three inches to the left of her belly button, and blood is pooling out of it. Casey notices the bandage is covered on one side in some kind of powder right before Aiden presses it against her, and uses both his hands to press down on it.
Cadence stiffens, her breath hissing between closed lips. Her eyes drift closed again, and it seems she falls unconscious.
The sirens are coming closer and closer, and Casey looks up into Aiden’s eyes. “Damn, my film! She said no pictures of her, but I’m sure she’s in some of them!”
He digs in his pocket with one bloody hand, and hands her his keys. “Take my car, go develop them. Bring the ones you can to the police station. I’ll tell them I told you to run when the shooting started. I’ll see you at the police station, ok?” He pulls her to him for a quick kiss, and she stands to leave.
“Wait, take this too. I don’t think she’ll want them to find it.” He hands her the dagger that Cadence had, squeezes her hand, then turns back to Cadence.
Casey hesitates, “I…I’ve only driven with Harmony a couple times…wh…what if I wreck your car?”
“It’ll be ok, just go Case. Get the pictures done and bring them to the police station. Be careful.” Casey goes to Aiden’s car, her hands shaking so badly she has trouble getting the keys in the ignition. She takes a deep breath and heads off, getting out of the area just before the cops put up roadblocks.
She doesn’t know Ms. Connor’s phone number, so Casey stops to fill her in about Cadence’s situation before she goes to the darkroom. Casey processes the film, risking damage by blow drying it to get it done faster. She prints all the photos without Cadence and crops her out of a few others as fast as she can. Start to finish, it takes her about 3 hours. She locks Cadence’s dagger in her locker and then heads to the police station, still covered in grime and blood.
Casey parks about 4 blocks from the police station, it’s the closest she can get. She sneaks through the media circus outside, only to enter the zoo inside. So many police, secret service and, she thinks, even FBI agents running every which way. She looks for Aiden but doesn’t see him. She does see Senator Kane, Sandy and Bianca, surrounded by secret service, talking to police. She heads toward them, and in the chaos no one stops her.
Senator Kane is busy trying to force officers and agents to do something about finding her daughter. Sandy sees Casey, and all the blood and dirt, “Casey, are you ok? You were at the parade, weren’t you?”
“I’m fine, and yes I was there. I have some photos that might help. I went to develop them, I thought the police might need them.” She hands them to Sandy and he passes them onto a secret service agent who rushes off with them to another room. Sandy sits Casey down next to Bianca, who has stopped crying, but still has tear tracks running down her face. Casey pats her hand and Bianca almost smiles at her.
“Casey, you’re going to have to give a witness statement before you go,” Sandy tells her. “Are you sure you’re ok?”
“Yes, I’m fine…really.” She looks around again, “Have you seen Aiden or heard anything about Cadence? And Fetch…is he…???”
“Fetch is in serious condition, but he should make it through ok. He was wearing military grade body armor under his coat, and it looks like it saved his life.”
“I saw Aiden get in the ambulance with Cadence. Her phone rang, he answered it and talked to whoever it was then went with her,” Bianca volunteers.
“It was probably her mom. I stopped to tell her what happened before I did the pictures.”
“Cadence is in surgery,” Sandy says. ”That’s all we know.”
One of the police officers stops at their group and asks to speak to the girl who brought in the pictures. Casey tentatively raises her hand and the cop asks her to follow him. Casey hesitates, “Can’t I…can’t we just talk here?”
“I’m sorry, miss. Please come with me.”
Casey slowly stands up and follows the officer. She gives her statement about what she saw, leaving out what Cadence actually did. Anytime they ask about it, she just says she must not have been looking that way at that time, it was all a blur. They finally finish the questioning and Casey is released to go and is thanked for the photos.
On her way out, she stops to say good-bye to Sandy and Bianca, Senator Kane is still wrapped up with the officers. Casey asks if they know anything else about Veronica, but there is no new news. Sandy offers to have one of their secret service agents take her to the hospital, but Casey declines, since she has Aiden’s car. He sends an agent to follow her and make sure she gets to the hospital ok anyway.
Casey makes it to the hospital and asks in the ER about Cadence. She is asked if she’s hurt and tells the nurse she’s fine. The nurse doesn’t seem to believe her, but points out how to get to the waiting room for surgery.
Casey finds Aiden, Ms. Connor and a couple police officers waiting to talk to Cadence in the waiting room. Aiden rushes over and hugs her. “How are you?”
“I’m fine. I was at the police station, they don’t know anything else about Roni…or at least nothing they’re telling anyone. How bad is Cadence?”
“They haven’t really told us anything yet. I was lucky they let me ride in the ambulance, but once we got here they stuck me out here and haven’t come back. The nurses haven’t even told Ms. Connor anything.” He does a small double take and really looks at Casey.
“Come on, we need to get you cleaned up.”
“OK, hang on.” She goes over to Ms. Connor. “Ummm…Ms. Connor, I’m so sorry about what happened to Cadence, but you should know…ummm…she saved my life.”
Ms. Connor just nods and gives Casey a little hug. Casey follows Aiden to the single bathroom in the waiting area. They both go in and she sees her reflection. She starts laughing,”Oh my god! No wonder everyone keeps asking if I’m ok.”
Aiden wets some paper towels, “You know we can have them check you out in the ER, give you a clean bill of health.”
“Nah, don’t need it. Just need to get all the yuck washed off.” She takes the paper towels and wipes off the mess on her face, using quite a few more towels before she’s done. She has some scratches and light burns from the car blowing up. There’s a pretty long cut on her cheek, but it’s not deep and has long since stopped bleeding. She gets the grime all off her neck and arms and assesses her clothing. Her jeans are torn, bloody and full of soot and dirt. Same goes for her shirt. Her bag is in better shape, dirty, slightly bloody, but otherwise unharmed.
They go back out into the waiting room. They make small talk, and Casey sleeps a little until a doctor finally comes out to speak to Ms. Connor. They hang back, but the doctor speaks loud enough for them to hear.
“Ms. Connor, your daughter is out of surgery and resting comfortably now. She’s very lucky. It seems that the bullet was meant to penetrate armor, so it didn’t expand like most pistol bullets would have. It bounced around a little, and perforated her spleen and nicked some of the blood vessels feeding it.
“The coagulating agent on the bandage kept the bleeding controlled enough to keep her from bleeding out on the way here, it saved her life. We repaired her spleen, and are confident that we’ve stopped all her internal bleeding.
“She does have a hairline fracture of her right humerus , so we’ve immobilized that arm. Her right hip is chipped and badly bruised, but we think it should heal up on its own. She’s also got several bruised and cracked ribs, so she’s going to be in a lot of pain for a while.
“It sounds a lot worse than it is, Ms. Connor. Your daughter is very lucky that someone was there to take care of her. She should come through all of this with no lasting injury. We’re going to keep her in ICU tonight, but I think that maybe tomorrow we can downgrade her to a normal room. She’s sleeping now, but I’m sure you’d like to go see her?”
He turns to the officers. “I’ll have someone call you when she’s able to speak to you. I asked her what she remembered while we were prepping her, she said that she doesn’t remember much. Just that some guys jumped her and Veronica, and that the other girl’s bodyguard tried to fight them off. During the struggle she was shot, and that’s all she could tell me.”
“Thanks doc. I’m going to leave one of my men here. He’ll be able to get in touch with me when she wakes,” the Sgt. Says.
The doctor nods and takes Ms. Connor by the arm, and she follows the doctor to Cadence’s room.
“Come on. We can’t do anything else here. Are you hungry?”
“Not really.”
“Case, you haven’t eaten since breakfast. You need to eat something!”
“I don’t think I can, Aiden. I really don’t.”
“Then come on.”
“Where we going?”
“Home.”
Casey balks. “Ummmm…”
Aiden cuts her off, “No offense Case, but no objections. You’re staying at my house tonight. We have plenty of extra rooms and I’m not letting you stay God-knows-where by yourself!”
“But…”
“I mean it - no objections!” Aiden grabs her bag and drags her out the hospital. “Where’d you park my car?” Casey pulls the keys out of her pocket and hands them to Aiden, pointing at his car.
Aiden puts her bag in back and helps her into the car. He leans down and kisses her before he closes the door. She bites her lip and looks out the window, smiling to herself. Casey falls asleep on the way to Aiden’s. He carries her inside and takes her to his bedroom. He takes off her shoes and tucks her into his bed. He grabs an extra pillow and blanket from the guest bedroom, sets the alarm, and camps out on the floor for the night between her and the door.
