Voices from the balcony caught Cadence’s attention as her eyes opened to a bright, early-afternoon sun. She recognized them immediately. Aaron was trying to keep the volume down, probably because he didn’t want to wake her. Elliott sounded pissed about something, and his deep voice reverberated through the air like a bass drum.

Checking the time on her IAC, she saw that it was almost 1:00 in the afternoon. She had several missed messages, mostly from Aurora, which seemed odd at first, but then she realized if Elliott was here and angry, the two issues might be related. She also had some messages from her sister who was still upset...