“Cassidy!” Brandon’s voice echoed down the hallway, and she saw his eyes widen as he looked down at Aaron, who had managed somehow to pull himself up to sitting, both hands wrapped around his neck as blood spirted through his fingers. Behind him, at least ten other armed Guardians were sprinting their direction. Cadence assumed the rest of them must’ve split into other directions and taken different hallways.
Once Brandon had his arms around her sister, Cadence took off toward the sound of the gunfire. Shane, who had been in the lead of the pack following Brandon, was running alongside her.
“I sent other teams down the other hallways. What the hell’s going on?”
“No idea,” Cadence admitted. “We’re looking for Bonnie.”
“The little girl?”
“Yep.”
More shouting and shots rang out ahead of them and then a screech like nothing Cadence had ever heard befo
Cadence slid in a pool of blood as she rounded the final corner approaching the office, barely keeping her balance. The crimson substance was everywhere. Her clothes were coated with it, mostly Aaron’s she assumed, even her hair. She tried not to think about it as she glanced around and noticed two Guardians she hadn’t even seen before lying very still on the ground, their eyes closed tightly in anguish. While she wanted to stop and see if there was anything she could do, she realized the only person who could currently help either one of them was trying to save a young Hunter, and if this Tara girl looked anything like Aaron had when she first caught him in the hallway, there was no way she was going to make it.Her boots crunched on the broken glass of the office door. She opened the blood splattered door on the right where the glass was still intact and followed the bloody footprints back down the hall toward the playroom.As she entered the room, Brando
“You—guy whose name I can’t remember….” Cadence continued.“Dax.”“Right. Find a phone. Dial extension 011. You should get Aurora. Tell her to arm herself, get Meagan, and go to the trainee apartment complex. Tell her we need Ona Pierce and, uh….”“Martin Green!” Jamie shouted in a whisper.“Martin Green. As soon as possible. Tell them to be extremely careful.”“Okay. A phone….” Dax looked around. Since everyone had an IAC, there weren’t too many of them in all of headquarters.“I’ll go with you,” Cassidy said, placing her hand gently on Tara’s arm before she stood. “There’s a phone at Lena’s desk, and I think I might be able to use her computer to fix the IAC problem.”“You do?” Cadence asked, eyeing her sister suspiciously. She knew she was very techy, but this see
Cassidy eyed the pile of ash on the floor near the rolly chair for only a moment, remembering the kindhearted nurse and wishing things had gone differently. The memories of what had happened to Lena would haunt her for years, she just knew it. For now, she couldn’t think about that. She sat down at the computer and moved the mouse, bringing the machine to life.Beside her, Dax picked up the receiver and jabbed at the numbers, his hand trembling. He sighed and hit the button to hang up and start again. The second time worked no better than the first, and he growled in frustration.“It’s okay,” Cassidy said, reaching out and stilling him. She gently pulled his hand away and dialed the extension.“Thanks,” he muttered. Aurora must’ve answered quickly because she heard him repeat Cadence’s message—or Jamie’s as the case may be—and hang up.By then, she was in the security interface of the compu
Staggered footsteps outside of the doorway drew Cadence’s attention, and she realized Jamie was headed back. Since Tara seemed to have calmed a bit, she hastily jumped up and went to help him. By the time she got to the hallway, he looked like he was about to fall over. She rushed forward and put her arm around him, catching a few loose items as they fell from his hands. “I gotcha, Doc.”Once they were back in the playroom, Cadence lowered him to the floor, and Jamie took a few calming breaths. Perspiration beaded his brow, and he had a glossy look to him, like he was about to pass out. Or throw up.“Looks like I’m giving Tara her blood transfusion. With my own blood,” she said, wishing it was as easy as opening the refrigerator and pouring it down her throat like she’d seen Faye do with Bonnie only the night before.“Just give me a second,” Jamie said, blinking a few times like his eyes wouldn’t focus.
The computer wasn’t currently her friend, and Cassidy decided it was best not to randomly start punching in codes that could potentially lock it up altogether. In the distance, she could still hear the alarm that was doing its job and wished she could somehow communicate with it through telepathy.Brandon’s footsteps were discernible to her ear by now, and she heard him slow down as he approached the desk. “Jamie and Cadence are giving her the blood transfusion now,” he said, standing back a good two feet from the glass partition, his hands in his pockets. “They still don’t know if it’s going to work, but Cadence seemed to be in a good mood.”“Oh?” Cassidy asked, surprised to hear that.“Giddy, maybe. She’s probably exhausted and just doesn’t know it yet.”“Right,” Cassidy replied, definitely knowing the feeling.“I’m going to go see if Auror
Aaron’s throat burned and his neck still felt like it was hanging open, even though he was pretty sure the skin had reconnected. It would take a long time before the memory of the pain dissipated, though. Over the years, he’d sustained injuries from Vampires a few times, but this was one for the books. He’d been coming around the corner in the office, headed for the sound of Cassidy’s voice, when Bonnie had come out of nowhere. Before he could even react, she’d ripped into his neck and hurled him through the door. There was no question at this point, whatever had come through that portal, it was going to be hell sending them back to Hell.The basement was dank and smelled like mildew. Most of the lights were off, save a few blinking bare bulbs on chains, but that didn’t matter since he had X-ray vision. It cut through most everything. Elliott, who strode cautiously beside him, his Glock at the ready, didn’t have that luxury, but with
Aaron had asked Shane to take a team and gather up all of the wounded, transporting them to one of the larger rooms on the ground floor near Faye’s office. Even though they’d ridden up a couple of floors from the lowest level, that floor was still above them here, and Aaron remembered the first day he’d toured this facility with Janette and Jordan and they’d explained how it was virtually impossible to escape from. Unless, of course, your maintenance man Vampire decides to become a turncoat.“Thanks, Shane,” Aaron said, forcing himself to focus on what Vern was saying, even though he wanted to check on Cadence and see how she was doing, as well as Tara, the injured Hunter Shane had spoken of.“They just... seemed not to be thinking straight. And Spittle said he knew what to do, how to trip you up so you couldn’t talk to one another. He said he knew how to get into the apartments, that he’d been watching.&rd
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