The Stelter City Saga: Ultranatural (14 page)

Lee nodded. He was right; everything
would change tomorrow when they boarded that plane. Questions would
be answered, bonds would be formed and broken... Lee just didn't
know it at the time. With an even wider smile, Lee took his hand
and he lifted her into his arms. After all, she had promised him a
dance.

Chapter 4 One Step Closer

~Flash. “One step closer to Hawaii!”
sang Cassie then giggled obnoxiously as her camera screen revealed
the newest picture of Ammon and Larissa.

Ammon sat up and blinked the stars out
of his eyes. It was roughly four o’clock in the morning. Through
the enormous wall of glass along the waiting area of the airport,
he could only see the distant lights of Tarrillian City glittering
through the muggy blackness. That and the blinking tail lights of
airplanes arriving and departing. “Warn me next time you take a
picture, Cassandra.” He grumbled then nestled once more beside
Larissa, who hadn’t stirred since they had decided to make their
hard plastic seats their napping zones.

Cassie ignored him then turned her new
DiAchi-Stelter camera around. She made a silly duck face and again
the camera flashed. “One step closer!” she sang.

“
You sing like a pig.” Josh
grumbled throwing the hood of his jacket over his eyes.

“
You are a pig!” she spat
then snapped a picture of him just as he cranked up the volume in
his headphones. When Josh’s picture appeared on the screen, Cassie
clicked on the search setting and looked up pig stickers. After
finding the sticker of a pig nose, Cassie dragged the image over
Josh’s nose.

“
Ta-da!” Cassie sang
flipping the screen around for him to see, but every single one of
her comrades was fast asleep. Sometimes being a morning person
sucked. “Fine.” She spat standing up and tucking the camera into
her shoulder bag. “Guess I’ll just go on a coffee run.” She huffed
before evacuating the drab but spacious waiting room.

A couple steps down the mostly vacant
hall and she had found herself in an overwhelming dome space, right
at the heart of the airport. Shops ranged from book stores to
rent-a-car dealerships to souvenir shops, but each of them lined
the walls and laired several floors up. To Cassie it looked like
the inside of a beehive but in ways it was similar to Millennium
Mall. Except, there were only handfuls of people scurrying from
store to store and Millennium was multiple times bigger and never
empty.

To find the nearest coffee joint, all
Cassie had to do was follow her nose. Right beside the elevator sat
a small coffee shop. No lines accompanied the store and with one
cappuccino later, Cassie found herself wondering from store to
store. She slurped on the last of the cinnamon sprinkled foam and
glanced at a variety of magazines on a shelf by a water fountain.
Celebrities, politics, celebrities, business, more celebrities- oh,
but that was Caring Diaz! She had every single one of their albums
downloaded to her phone.

She snatched up the neon yellow
magazine and adored the cover. Michael Caster stood with half of
the buttons of his shirt undone so that his Australian tanned torso
was exposed. A patch of bright red hair mixed in with his dark
curls as a set of earphones were tied around it like a crown. In
the picture, he punched the sky with one hand as the other held the
mic-stand into the lips of Lotus Stelter.

Behind the pair stood the rest of
Caring Diaz. August Mathews the gorgeous African-Australian bass
player rocked the same unbuttoned look as the lead singer. Cassie
squealed. There were many people that listened to Caring Diaz
because they thought Michael was the hottest stud around. But
Cassie had always fancied August. He was taller than Michael and
built rather than lean. His short coarse hair grew so close to his
scalp, he practically looked bald and having a lack of distraction
only brought out the pale green in his eyes. He was absolutely
gorgeous. Mocha colored skin, dark hair, mint colored eyes, and an
Australian accent? There was nothing finer.

The other band members-
Kellin Mullins on drums and Vic Carlile on guitar were just average
Joes. They both had the typical surfer boy look, curly blond hair,
blue- she wasn’t sure- eyes and Australian tribal tattoos on their
exposed arms. Cassie hardly even paid them any attention. She
stared at the image of August holding out his instrument expertly
and considered thumbing through the pages for a poster of him, but
something else caught her eye.
Bass player
raps in new album?

“
What?” she gasped as she
gawked at the tile.
Read more on page
34
. So she did.

On the cover of the article,
Cassie was astounded to see a picture of August blown up on the
first page rather than Michael. But she was even more astounded
when she saw that August was rocking Caster's signature
headphones-around-his-head look. Right below his smug smile in rock
star font were the words:
New Lead
Singer?

Cassie remembered hearing something
about this on TV a while ago and she stood there examining the page
full of words debating on reading the article. But Cassie's reading
level was that of a second graders so she knew she wouldn’t finish
reading before her plane took off. Besides, she needed something to
entertain her in the six hour flight. She rolled up the magazine,
shoved it in her pocket before fishing out a couple dollar
bills.

"Keep the change." she told the cashier
then glanced at her wrist. There was still at least twenty-five
minutes left to kill and a Tarrillian City souvenir shop just
passed the coffee shop seemed entertaining enough.

Several t-shirts, magnets and shot
glasses later, Cassie was already getting bored. She was just about
to leave the store when two men walked in. Cassie would have
thought nothing of it if it wasn’t for the fact that they spoke
with hushed Australian accents. With Caring Diaz still fresh in her
mind, Cassie glanced up and nearly let a shot glass slip from her
hand and shatter on the ground. However, her jaw did hit the floor
as she felt her eyes open wider than they had ever gone because
what stood before her was the epitome of serendipity.

Even with a cap on, street clothes, and
enormous shades, August Matthews and Michael Caster stood out like
a sore thumb.

"Oh… my…!” she gasped then ducked down
behind a rack of shirts before they could look up.

As she crouched on the floor
with her heart racing at a million miles an hour, she reached into
her back pocket. Her stumbling fingers couldn't unfold the magazine
fast enough. How crazy was that?! She gawked at the cover. It was
undeniable. Michael Caster and August Matthews were
right there!!
Cassie
wasn't normally a buyer of magazines but she couldn't fathom how
bazaar it was that she just bought a magazine with them on the
cover... And there they were! Maybe they would sign it!

She glanced back up. Though they stood
across the store, Cassie had made such a ruckus when she saw them
that and August had taken off his shades to stare at her with those
amazing eyes.

Cassie flushed, "Yuhh shh...
hot."

Michael turned to the bass player and
whispered quietly, “What did she say?”

"She thinks I'm hot." replied August
with a smile.

Cassie's knees buckled and
she stood up all the way. Caring Diaz was right there. Repeat,
Caring Diaz was
right there!!!
She had never met any celebrities before. If
someone had told her she was going to run into the biggest rock
sensation that day, she would have told them to go to a crazy
house.

"You can't be hotter than me, mate,"
Michael snickered as he turned to face August. "I'm Michael
Caster."

August shook his head but kept his eyes
on Cassie. "You want a picture?"

Cassie plucked her jaw off the floor
and walked on rubber legs to the rock stars. It seemed odd that the
stars were so able to keep a collected composure wile Cassie tried
everything to keep her heart under control.

"What's your name?" August asked as
Cassie came closer. She was so close she could smell their
expensive cologne!

"Cassie Roswell," she answered finding
her voice. "Oh, my gosh your Caring Diaz!"

"We are." replied August
casually.

"I have every single one of your
albums! I'm a huge fan! You guys are amazing! Is Lotus with you?
Where are you going? Oh- sorry. I'll bet you get crazy fans all the
time!"

"No worries, mate." said
August and Cassie flustered. He called her
mate!

"You want us to sign that too?" asked
Caster pointing to the magazine still clutched in her sweating
palms.

"Yes!" she trusted the magazine in his
direction and he pulled out a sharpie. It must have been quite
often that they ran into fans.

"What’s a huge fan of ours doing alone
in a port?" asked August.

But before Cassie could respond,
Michael gasped. "They're already blabbing about this?!" he
exclaimed jabbing a finger to the heading. "One interview and this
is what I get? I can’t believe..!"

"Wait, so you guys are seriously
rapping in your new album?" asked Cassie.

"I'm not rapping. My tongue would get
all twisted." Michael answered handing the magazine to his band
mate. "But this bloke is."

"What about Lotus?" Cassie asked as
August scribbled his name, "She featured you in just about every
one of her singles."

Michael let out one of the most
sarcastic and slightly irritated laughs in history. Oddly enough it
was one of the most unattractive things Cassie had ever heard. "Ha!
Oh, Lozey, Lozey, Loze." He muttered to himself while shaking his
head.

August leaned in toward Cassie and
explained, "She broke up with him right after he asked her to marry
him."

"Shut your face, Auz!" Snapped Michael.
"Told you not to bring it up!"

Cassie's fingers were shaking. She had
just walked into some celebrity drama and she kept her mouth closed
in hopes that they would say more, and Michael did.

"I mean, I have never opened
myself up to
anyone
like I have with her! If you were dating me,” Michael said and
Cassie’s heart did a little flutter in her chest. Who wouldn’t want
to date a celebrity? “And I finally tell you everything there is to
know about me. All the good, all the bad- I even explained to her
that I’ve been living a second life as-” He stopped abruptly and
stared at Cassie blankly with his thick brown lashes. "Almost let
the cat out, didn't I?"

August turned to his friend with a
bewildered and irritated expression. “Yes, you did.”

The rock star chewed on his nail with a
glare. "Yeah, well..." he accidentally ripped out a nail, cursed,
then sucked on the blood. “Don't you want a picture?" he asked
turning back to Cassie. When he pulled his finger out, Cassie
noticed that the blood was already gone.

"Oh, yes!" Cassie exclaimed.
She glanced at the magazine just in time to notice August had
written
Have a safe flight!:)
With haste, she jammed the magazine back in her
pocket and whipped out her camera.

"It's the new Stelter one?" August
asked as Cassie snuggled between the boys.

"Yeah," she beamed, "check this out."
she rotated the screen around so she could see what she was taking
a picture of then held it out. With a hum, the camera began to
automatically adjust the lighting and angel so they could fit in
the screen. Cassie didn't even have to press the button for the
camera automatically took picture. "Cool huh?" she
asked.

"Well, that is pretty nifty." August
replied. "It was nice meeting you… Cassie?"

She beamed. They still remembered her
name!

"Right, well it was nice to meet you.
But Michael is having a meltdown, and our flight is leaving in a
few."

Cassie glanced down at her own watch.
"Oh my gosh!" she exclaimed then shoved her camera back. "My flight
leaves in five minutes!"

"Run!" Michael exclaimed and Cassie
did.

She booked it, her footsteps echoing
off the vacant hall. When she reached the waiting area, she was
heated to see that her comrades were gone and none of them had
bothered to take her carry on.

Filled with agitation, Cassie snatched
up the bag, swung it over her shoulder and burst into the gate. A
flight attendant nearly tripped her when she held out her hand for
the plane ticket.

"First class down the hall and to the
left." said the attendant with her bright lipstick smile and Cassie
bolted.

From the comfortable first class seats,
an attendant had just handed Ammon a cup of coffee. He took it and
saved another for Larissa even though she was passed out with her
head against the window. From in front of him, Josh poked his head
over the leather headrest to ask, “Do you think we should call
her?”

Ammon opened his mouth to respond, but
he heard the pounding of heavy footsteps coming their way just as
Josh looked up.

"She's alive!" Josh cried as Cassie
slid into the wide comfortable chair beside him. Before he could
ask her where she had been, she had taken the magazine and smashed
it against his thick chest. Though she meant it out of spite, she
also wanted to brag about her run-in with the singers.