The room was a little more spinny than it probably should’ve been, so Cadence decided now was as good a time as ever to go ahead and disconnect herself from Tara. Jamie was out, had been for probably close to ten minutes, and Tara was so still, Cadence had put her hand on her chest twice to make sure she was still breathing.
“Do you need help?” Cassidy asked, leaning over her friend and steadying Cadence’s arm as she pulled the needle out. Cass took the tube and held it up so that the blood that was still in it wouldn’t spill on the floor as Cadence grabbed a cotton ball out of the supplies Jamie had brought and held it against her arm.
“I don’t know if we’re supposed to take it out or leave it in,” Cadence said, eyeing the needle in Tara’s arm.
“Why wouldn’t we take it out?”
“What if they need a line or something later?”
Cassidy shrugged, still holding up the
“Cassidy unjammed it, whatever it was. Maybe she can walk you through it so you can make sure it doesn’t happen again.” Cadence’s sister glanced up briefly but then returned her attention to her friend who appeared to be sleeping again.“I’m sure I can figure it out,” Christian replied, obviously unwilling to admit he might need help at all, much less from a sixteen-year-old girl. “Anyway, Jamie said once we administered the serum, we could move her over to the operating room. How long do you think it’ll take?”“Me?” Cadence asked, not sure what he meant. “How long do I think it’ll take to work? I have no idea. For Aaron, it was overnight. But… he died first. So… there’s that.”“Yeah, Jamie said he hoped he was awake before that happened so he could keep it under wraps.” He looked at the two teenagers in the room suspiciously, as if it was ju
Paul Larkin had been the Area Leader of Melbourne for almost half a century now, having been appointed by Jordan Findley in the mid-60s. The fact that he was related to Jordan’s wife shouldn’t have made any difference since Paul had proven himself in the field time and again before the appointment, but as he stared out at a sea of stars and wondered which one was Janette looking down on him now, he questioned his abilities ever so slightly.Something was amiss, he was sure of it. He’d been talking to Aaron frequently over the last few days. High numbers of missing persons were one thing, but when trackers stopped working and nearly all activity came to a standstill, it didn’t sit well with Paul or the rest of his team.Around him, six members of his crew, three Hunters and three Guardians, loaded up a van. It was the first time they’d be going out into the field in about five days, which was unheard of. Everything around here had been dead
Research had told them there were only three theaters here. Originally, there had just been one screen, but over the years, before the economy tanked and the cinema closed down altogether, two more had been added. Becky and Tanner walked through the first empty space, stepping over broken red, plush seats and the occasional pile of trash, sweeping their weapons out in front of them, making sure the room was clear.Neither of the other teams had discovered anything. The only creatures in the basement had been rats, which while vile and potentially deadly under the right circumstances, were not Vampires. “We’ll head up and check the equipment rooms,” Steph said, sounding slightly squeamish from her time with the rodents. She wasn’t a fan of such critters.“Moving to theater number two,” Becky informed the team as she and Tanner continued on to the next large room.This one, like the last, showed no sign of being inhabited, excep
Standing in a makeshift hospital room surrounded by twenty-some-odd Guardians whose bodies were struggling to put themselves back together, Cadence tried to concentrate on what the doctor was explaining to her, but too many distractions filled her mind, and she ended up just nodding along.It should’ve helped that Dr. Cale Ryan was the second hottest guy that she’d ever met in real life. With his wavy blond hair and light blue eyes, he was tall and dreamy. And his British accent was to die for. When they’d first met the year before, she’d fallen for him almost immediately. Her anger at Aaron had driven her on a self-discovery tour that eventually took her to Cale’s territory—Nevada—and while their relationship had been short-lived thanks to the ambush and tragedy at Sierraville, she still counted the doctor as a friend. So paying attention to him shouldn’t have been this difficult. When Aaron had asked him to catch a plane the n
Biting her nails was a bad habit Cassidy had picked up from watching her sister, but right now, she was sitting in a room listening to Tara’s heart monitor beep every twenty or thirty seconds, waiting to see if each blip might be the last, the noise only offset slightly by Jamie’s even breathing on the bed next to her; Cassidy wasn’t willing to give up the vice.It’d only been about five minute since Dax had left to go find a snack, but it seemed like an eternity. It was amazing just how many independent, disturbing thoughts could flicker through her mind’s eye in just those few minutes. The most disturbing of all involved the little girl who’d begun all of this mayhem, and Cassidy was still baffled at how she’d missed the true intent behind Mina’s plea to take care of her little girl. How had she been so easily tricked?Asking that question was sort of pointless, though, because Cassidy already knew the answer. Mina had
Jumping up out of her chair, Cassidy leapt over Dax’s long legs and took off. “Brandon!” she shouted, hoping not to wake Jamie but not giving it too much thought as she chased after her boyfriend. “Brandon, wait!” The fact that she was sprinting while he was walking in an angry stomp allowed her to close the distance, though she stopped midway down the hallway when she realized he hadn’t yet pushed the door open but stood instead with his hands resting on it, staring at his Converse.From this angle, she couldn’t tell if he was angry or exasperated. She gave him a moment and tried to read his heavy sighs. With his back to her, he said, “I had a feeling something like this would happen as soon as you got here, though, I have to admit, I thought it’d be someone older than me, someone flashier.”Confused, Cassidy took a few steps forward. “What’s that?” she asked. “Brandon, what are you ta
Brandon’s eyes widened. “Why do you say that?”“Because… I hissed at Shane yesterday in training, and I almost lost my shit on Christian last night.”A cocky smirk pulled at the corner of his mouth. “Well, in fairness, they’re both a couple of douchebags.”Smiling in return, she said, “Nevertheless, I probably shouldn’t try to kill them. I might just be able to.”“Of course you can. You’re a Hunter. You could crush my skull right now.”She rolled her eyes, knowing she’d have to overpower him in order to do that—if she wanted to. Which she didn’t. Anymore. “I’m being serious.”“I know. I’m sorry. It does sound like something we need to deal with, but I know it’s not something you can’t handle, Cass. You didn’t kill either one of them, even if they deserved it.”His words did
The scent of mildew mixed with the taste of aluminum and stale vomit, and Paul felt his stomach lurch as a searing pain shot through his head, centered around his brainstem and his right eye. He fought to open his eyes even a crack, scraping off the pain in order to try to focus long enough to remember where he was, what had happened. The last thing he could remember, the team was loading into the van, ready to go on a hunt. After that, everything was… hazy, just like his vision.His left eye felt swollen and puffy. He pried it open just a slit, but his right eye stung so badly it refused to budge out of a tight squint, opening only enough for tears to pour down his cheek. Everything looked foreign. A bare light bulb flickered, swaying on a chain a good three feet in front of him, casting shadows around what appeared to be a small room made entirely of concrete. Trying to lift his arm to wipe at his eye was futile, and he realized he was chained to the wall. His biceps