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Chapter 23
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2024-10-29 19:42:56The sky above her was clear, a thousand foreign stars winking down at her. “Russian stars look a lot like American and Canadian stars, don’t they?”
She knew it was Scott behind her before she turned her head. In fact, she’d known he was the one who’d come out even before he spoke. She couldn’t read minds like her aunt could, but she did sometimes get a sixth sense about things.
It was odd how he’d been glaring at her earlier and hadn’t spoken a word to her until she needed someone to help her out with starting the meeting, someone the others would follow. Sure, Zane could’ve stepped up, but they didn’t know him any better than they knew her, and with a last name like his, chances were they wouldn’t trust him until he proved himself to them either.
But Scott was here now, wanting to talk. Jo sank down on a roughly hewn log bench, and he sat at the other e
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Somehow, Jo had ended up getting stuck with the Jeep riddled with bullet holes. After a big fuss where some of the team members yelled at others over who got to take the vehicle they’d rode to the cabin in together, she’d finally settled it by drawing straws. She was still shaking her head about it two hours later as Zane drove them deeper into the snow and ice, closer to the mountains. If all of their team members always acted like this, like kindergartners fighting over a toy, it was no wonder her dad always seemed to be on his last nerve.Ping and Leo sat in the back seat, neither of them saying much of anything. Jo knew now would be a great time to get to know them. It was important for her to be familiar with anyone who might have her life in their hands, after all, but they weren’t voluntarily speaking up, and she didn’t see the point in forcing them. Zane had tried earlier, asking a few questions about where they’d gr
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The table in front of him was littered with poker chips and cards, coins from various European countries and a smattering of bills in the middle. The man in black ripped all of the money toward him, a grin pulling at one corner of his mouth as he wished his rivals a good day. The others tossed down cards, their cries of anger or disappointment evident even though Jo didn’t speak a lick of Russian and didn’t care to use her translator on matters that didn’t make a difference to her.Some of the others departed as she approached, either out of the game or leery of a woman dressed in black leather carrying more weapons than a gladiator. A few stuck around, possibly hoping for a show. Jo ignored them and waited for the American to look up from the cards he was shuffling, his winnings shoved safely into a pouch that hung around his waist.He was ignoring her. That much was certain. It didn’t take anyone that long to s
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The village faded out the back glass as Jo tried to pry her eyes away from the rearview mirror. Night was falling fast, and it wasn’t long until the tips of the rooftops vanished. But it wasn’t the town her eyes were drawn to; it was the strange man sitting behind her, his hood still pulled up around his ears as he huddled in the back seat, his uneasiness pervasive enough to fill the entire vehicle.They hadn’t gone far when he ordered Zane to stop the car. He turned from one side to the other, carefully looking through the darkness for any signs that they weren’t alone. When he was satisfied, he opened the car door and got out.Jo looked at the others, unsure of exactly what was going on. Zane gestured for her to get out as well. The American was standing in front of the Jeep, his hands in his pockets as he waited, the falling snow catching the headlights as it swirled around him. With a deep breath, she pushed
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At dusk, Zane pulled the Jeep to a stop near the spot in the winding overgrown road where Jo had spoken to Ryker the evening before. They couldn’t see the tavern from here, but she imagined the lower the sun sank in the sky, the more scurrying figures could be seen rushing to their homes from the gathering place, their heads down but shifting so that they could check their backs with the corners of their eyes. What a miserable way to exist.“Do you think he’ll show?” Leo asked from the back seat, the skepticism obvious in his tone.“Yes.” One word was all Jo could bother with. After a day of wandering around the frozen Siberian tundra, visiting a few other villages, and getting nowhere. She wasn’t in the mood to explain herself. Checking with the other teams hadn’t given her anything to grow excited about either, though Cass had finally reached the town where Eliza and Lucas lived, not tha
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Sitting on what appeared to be a handmade quilt at least a few decades older than her, draped across a mattress that may have been in the old lodge two villages over, the first one that had had an empty room, since Jo’s father was born, she listened to the rest of her team discussing their options, keeping her mouth shut. Ryker had spent the entire drive cussing them out over how much trouble they’d gotten him into, and even when Jo had handed over twice the cash she’d originally promised him, the man hadn’t shut up. He was downstairs in the bar now, likely spending a chunk of the money he’d just earned trying to forget their predicament, a luxury Jo couldn’t afford. He’d insisted on keeping his bags with him, too, saying he didn’t trust them not to go through them.“I say we leave him here,” Leo was saying, sitting in an old recliner near a fire they’d lit for their human companion when t
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Voices awoke her well before Jo was ready to open her eyes. The sounds of men’s voices discussing something in hushed whispers across the room mingled with another voice, another male, a familiar one, emanating from her own mind, and she realized she’d fallen asleep with her IAC on. That didn’t happen often. By the time she realized it was her Uncle Elliott trying to get her attention, Jo’s eyes were open, and Leo and Zane were looking at her, wearing matching worried expressions.Rather than attempting to explain to them that she hadn’t heard a damn word they’d said, she pulled the blankets over her face and focused on her uncle. “What’s up?” she asked, certain the grogginess in her voice wouldn’t be his only clue that he’d woken her. He’d likely figured that out when calling her name eighty-two times had gotten him nowhere.“Well, if it ain&rsqu
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The location Ryker had given her was farther away than Jo realized. It took a few hours to get there, especially since the roads were terrible, full of potholes and covered with fallen branches. The inches of ice and snow they had to pick their way through didn’t help any either. If the vehicle they had was the high-end sort the team had instant access to in the past, they might’ve made it in half the time, but dreams of what used to be were nothing but a distraction, and Jo didn’t need any distractions at the moment.Zane brought the Jeep to a halt on the side of the road in a wooded area. The wind whipped between evergreen branches, blowing the snow off of the needles and sending it spraying up off of the ground so that it appeared to be snowing, even though it wasn’t at the moment. “This is it,” Zane said. “As close as I can get us by road.”“Where’s the actual location?&rdq
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Getting the team together was one thing; having a plan was something else. Assembling everyone from the cabin less the team that had gone with her Aunt Cassidy hadn’t taken long, but all of them wanted to know what Jo had in mind as far as the attack was concerned, and she didn’t have too many answers.She’d spent as much time as she could discussing the obstacles in front of them with Cassidy and Branden as well as Elliott. Those were the people she trusted most that she could easily access at the moment. Now would’ve been a great time for her dad to come barreling through a nearby portal opening, but that likely wasn’t going to happen, especially since she hadn’t sent him a text and Elliott had. No, if Aaron was able to make it back to help anyone, it would be the Africa team. Jo was basically on her own. And these veterans wanted answers.Mikali and Mila had volunteered to take point, with Sergio a
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How Christian went about opening the portal, Jo wasn’t sure. It was like he cast a magic spell of some sort, though, when Scott asked him how he had done it, all Christian said was, “Science.” The next thing she knew, there was a wavering light in the wall of the black tunnel. An orange boundary grew brighter around the edges, and then inside of that, there was a moving orange light that seemed like a flickering fire in the distance. It was slightly different than the portal they’d come through, but it was close enough, and she was in a hurry to get her mother home where she belonged.Christian went through first, followed by Cadence, Cassidy, and Scott. Ryker followed him, and Zane insisted that Jo go ahead of her. But she grabbed hold of his hand to make sure that he didn’t get left behind. If he couldn’t come through the opening for some reason, she was staying, too,
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The angry monsters were coming at them, and Jo, Zane, Scott, and Cassidy were outnumbered at least ten to one. The chances of them being able to shoot all of the monsters dead before any of them died were slim to none.Thankfully, Cassidy didn’t have to shoot the monsters in order for her to get them out of their way. As Jo and Zane worked on shooting them, Cassidy used her powers to create a bubble around the monsters, one they couldn’t break through. Jo held her fire, afraid she might do something to mess Cassidy’s plan up. The men followed suit. The monsters were contained, but it wasn't clear how long they would stay that way, and they were still blocking the group from reaching the door, the only means of escape.For now.Cassidy directed Jo, Scott, and Zane to move behind her. “Get out
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The penthouse was far quieter than Cadon had ever experienced before. At least, he couldn’t remember a time when his previous home wasn’t buzzing with noise of some kind. Whether it was his parents talking and laughing or loud music coming from his sister’s room, noise always filled the space. Now, he was sitting on a foreign sofa in a room that was painted the wrong color and had no decorations on the wall, and all he could think about was whether or not any of his family members would ever be in this home with him again.He’d decided to stop sitting in Christian’s office after a couple of hours of waiting for Jo to come back through the portal with his mom. It wasn’t that he didn’t have faith in either his sister or his mother. It was just… Ashley had told him the room was finished, and he’d needed to see it.
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Standing alone in the tunnel with no way of reaching the hole her mother had just disappeared through was more terrifying to Jo than she was willing to admit. Just a split second after her mother’s feet were gone through the opening, her heart started hammering in her chest, and she felt like she was going to throw up. But she took a second to assess the situation and reminded herself that she was okay. Lots of people knew where she was.That didn’t mean they’d be able to get her out.She knew her aunt could float her out, though. At least she hoped she would be able to. The thought that her powers might not work through the floor made Jo nervous. She took some deep breaths and waited.Only a few seconds had passed, but the panic was already there. “I trust you, Mom,” Jo whispered. &ldq
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Jo could hardly believe that she was walking alongside her mother. She kept wanting to quiz the being beside her to see if she really was Cadence Findley McReynolds, or if this was some sick joke played on her by the Vampires. Maybe this was a demon that happened to look like her mom. Maybe it was a Vampire that someone as powerful as Holland was able to make look like her mom. It was just… surreal.“Do you know where we’re going, honey?” Cadence asked. “I’ve been up and down this corridor lots of times.”“You have?” Jo was surprised to hear that. “Yes, I think I know how to get out.”“Yeah, for the first… I don’t know how long… I kept trying to figure out how to get out, but after a while, I just sort of gave up, I guess. H
