The sound of sheets stirring had Cassidy sitting up straight. At first, she thought maybe it was just Jamie, but then she remembered Cale had never turned the monitor back on, and though daring to pray that Tara was back with them seemed unreasonable at first, it only took a second for her to realize that her friend was moving.
Immediately, Cassidy and Dax flew out of their seats. “Cale!” she shouted to the only conscious doctor who happened to be across the room doing something doctorish. “She’s waking up!”
“What’s that?” he called as he rushed over. “She’s… alive?” He reached over and turned the monitor back on, and the faint sound of beeping filled the room.
It was unsteady, with long pauses between, but eventually, it began to speed up. By the time it started to sound normal, Jamie was sitting up on the edge of his bed, his spiky hair disheveled, and Cadence and Aaron had entered the ro
The stinging in his ribcage on the left increased as Paul fought his way back to consciousness. His mind pleaded with him to just fade away, back to oblivion, back to where the pain was just a distant annoyance, like the itch of a mosquito bite, but determination to look his assailants in the eyes was winning out, and the closer he came to the shores of awareness, the more the pain intensified. Even though he had some powers as a Healer, nothing he was capable of could fix this.It wasn’t just his ribcage that burned. He was missing several digits on both hands, the excruciating pain in his abdomen served as a reminder of the drilling sound he’d heard just before he passed out the last time, and he was fairly certain he was missing his left kneecap. The agony came from all directions as sweat poured down his face, clouding his vision out of his one working eye, and Paul did his best not to scream as he felt the doctor’s fingers slide something hard beneath h
The answer Cassidy received wasn’t in the form of words, but she knew he hadn’t been taken far from where he’d been captured. It was evident whatever was happening to him, he was in an unbearable amount of pain, and she got the impression that it was the sort of pain that wouldn’t end him, which meant their only hope for putting him out of this agony was to rescue him. Unable to stand the excruciating sensation any longer, she had to pull away, knowing he was not going to be able to communicate with her directly anyway while he was suffering so.She stayed in the same vein, however, reaching out in the darkness that ebbed and flowed around her cousin. Cadence had told her about the IAC message, and Cassidy had immediately concurred it was a fake. But who was capable of this? How had it been done? She concentrated on that aspect of the enigma. What was it allowing their signals to be crossed and distorted? In the tracking center, they’d used the a
Vanishing into thin air was one of the few things Becky had yet to see anyone do. And yet, as her colleagues continued to search the area around the theater, it seemed as if that was precisely what Paul had done.Every single member of the Melbourne team was called out, armed to the teeth, methodically crawling there way from building to building, checking every room, every cellar, every attic, every square inch for any sign of Paul at all. But now, hours after they’d started, there was not so much as a hair from the top of his head to be found.About an hour ago, she’d decided to expand the search. Some of the area they were covering was residential. Luckily, she had a Guardian on her team capable of running interference, and by now, any civilian they’d come into contact with thought they were participants in a special boot camp for people interested in joining the armed forces. It was nice to have someone like Tanner on the team who was so very capa
Asteria ran a hand through her long red hair and studied him for a moment, trying to choose her words wisely. There were times in the past when they’d fought each other so violently that they may have killed each other, if that were even possible. Spending hundreds of years with the same person wasn’t always easy, and occasionally, they’d have to separate for a decade or two in order to remember how much they meant to each other. In fact, the scheme that had gotten him destroyed in the first place had been completely against her wishes. She’d told him then it was a foolish plan, one that may well end him. Since he’d come back, she’d fought the urge to remind him that she’d been right. Having been overjoyed to be reunited, she had chosen not to ruin the mood by bringing up his own demise. Now, having just found him again a few weeks ago, it was hard to believe he’d managed to annoy the hell out of her so quickly, but as he stood staring
Fumes were her only fuel. By the time her sister came back from her solitary confinement to report her findings, Cadence was mere moments from dropping like a fly. Now would’ve been one of those times when a taste for coffee probably would’ve been helpful since her hot chocolate just wasn’t cutting it pep wise. Cassidy came in carrying a bottle of Dr. Pepper, and Cadence envied her sister’s more caffeinated choice as Brandon pulled out his girlfriend’s chair like a true gentleman.“How did it go?” Aaron’s voice seemed calm, but the fact that he was tapping his pen on the table let Cadence know he was just as eager to hear what Cassidy had to say as she was. The rest of the assembled team members, Hannah, Christian, Elliott, Aurora, and Jamie sat in silence, holding a collective breath.Cassidy looked around the table for a moment before she quietly stated, “I saw him. He’s not in very good shape. They’re
“Cassidy,” Aaron said, exasperated, “do you have any idea how Holland is doing this? How she’s disrupting our IACs and the trackers? If we can’t stop her from doing that… this is going to be that much harder.”Cassidy cleared her throat and stared at the table again. “I know it’s her telepathy, that she can mimic, that she can tap into our systems. She can send messages to one person from another without the other person or anyone else on the team even knowing it. She sent that message allegedly from Paul earlier, the one you forwarded to me,” she looked at Cadence then, “but she only sent it to the two of you and Becky. She can basically do whatever she wants to in order to disrupt our communication.”“You say she used the alarm system in the tracking center for this, right?” Aurora asked.“Yes, so I think, in order to communicate with so many people at such a great dista
“How do we know which one it is?” Cadence asked.“It doesn’t matter,” he replied. “Either way, we can’t engage with her right now. We have to get Paul first.”“Why is that?” Aurora asked.He ran a hand through his hair. “Because we aren’t prepared for her yet either.”Cadence’s forehead crinkled. “What else can we do?”Before he could answer, a flicker in her IAC caught her attention. There was a short beeping noise, then nothing for a split second before, all at once thousands of trackers began to emit their frequencies all at the same time, and the map of where those tagged Vampires were currently located came to life.“Holy hell, Cass. You did it!” Aaron exclaimed. He would be the only other one with access to the program, and Cadence was relieved that he was seeing the same thing she was. The chances that Holland would try to throw
That only left those of them who would be traveling to the land of koalas and kangaroos. At least, that’s about all Cadence knew about Australia. “Christian seemed a little disgruntled.” Brandon smoothed back his girlfriend’s hair, making the understatement of the year.“I don’t know what you’re talking about. He seemed perfectly gruntled to me.” Elliott folded his arms like he didn’t really give a damn, and Cadence assumed that was because he didn’t.“He’ll get over it,” Aaron replied. “You guys, we’re about to undergo an extremely dangerous mission. You know they’re going to throw everything they have at us. The Melbourne team is good, but they’re not up to the caliber of what we’re used to working with. We have got to be extra diligent and not veer from the plan, especially since, as Cassidy noted, we’ll be going into this with no communication system.&r