Free Cassidy Jones and the Luminous (Cassidy Jones Adventures Book 4) by Elise Stokes Page A

the mathematical odds of their success.”
    “Which I don’t understand. Who doesn’t enjoy probability theory?” Emery shook his head as though dumfounded, and then patted the medical exam table. “Come, Cassidy. Let’s settle the question that has been eating at Jared’s mind these last seven months: What exactly is Cassidy doing at the Phillips’s house?”
    My jaw dropped. Emery was in rare form.
    “You have my permission to deck him, Jared,” Gavin said.
    “Do I?” I managed a smirk.
    Emery grinned at my crimson cheeks. “You haven’t asked permission before. Jared, if you only knew what I deal with.”
    “I’ve got a good idea,” Jared joined in.
    “What is this? The ‘Harassing Cassidy’ hour?” I tried to sound playful. Serena, with her usual tact, utterly defeated my attempt.
    “You’ve embarrassed Cassidy,” she reprimanded the boys. “Take note of the widening blood vessels in her cheek tissue.”
    “Noted,” Emery goaded.
    I shoved him with my shoulder.
    “Jared, it was nice when he couldn’t be himself around you,” I retorted as I hoisted my backside onto the exam table.
    “I like this version better,” Jared joked. At least, I think it was a joke.
    “It’s my preferred version, too.” Emery tied a tourniquet around my arm.
    “You have so many,” I quipped. “How do you keep track?”
    “Jared, get used to this,” Gavin contributed. “Cassidy is like the sister Emery never had.”
    I noticed how he emphasized “sister.” Then I noticed the tightness of Jared’s smile.
    “Yeah, he is almost as annoying as Nate,” I added hastily to further derail Jared’s thoughts from the track they were on. He was obviously reading more into our bantering than he should. “How’s the remodeling coming along, Gavin?”
    As he felt around my elbow joint for a juicy vein, Emery let his grin subside.
    “The crew is making progress,” Gavin answered, congenially and vaguely.
    “Oh,” I said, unsure why he didn’t want to share more details in front of Jared. Jared knew Gavin was a CIA operative, Emery was a genius, and I was a mutant, after all. Why would the future Batcave be a secret, then?
    Emery inserted the needle. Blood flowed into the syringe.
    “How often do you draw her blood?” Jared asked, watching with fascination.
    “Whenever ordered.” Emery jerked his head toward his mom. He was acting really strangely.
    After the blood draw, Serena conducted her usual examination, which Jared watched with fascination, too, peppering her with questions about the virus. She answered him in excruciating detail, obviously not sharing Gavin’s and Emery’s reluctance.
    “Oh, Jared, this reminds me,” I said as Serena flashed the beam from her ophthalmoscope into my eyes. “Did you notice my eye color changed?”
    Jared stared at them with confusion. “When?”
    “Like, over two months ago. I just woke up one morning and they were this jade color. Can’t you see the difference?”
    He narrowed his eyes on mine. Serena examined my ears.
    “They look the same to me,” Jared said a moment later.
    For some reason, his not seeing the difference disappointed me.
    “Why did they change color?” he addressed Serena.
    “We don’t know,” Emery butted in. He sat behind his mother’s laptop at the opposite end of the lab table, inputting data from her notes. “She’ll ask you about the freckles next. I can tell you why those vanished.”
    I motioned at my nose to show Jared where the spray of freckles had been.
    Jared smiled. “You don’t need to,” he told Emery. “Rapid cell regeneration.” His smile flipped into a frown as he studied my nose. I could see on his face the very moment he remembered my freckles. “How did I miss the freckles?” he asked himself.
    “Way to go, Sherlock,” Emery jeered.
    “Don’t be rude!” I rebuked him. I was sick of his attitude.
    Emery’s head jerked up in surprise. I glared at him.
    “I didn’t mean to be ru—” Jared cut