“Uh, Melbourne,” Cadence replied.
Cassidy settled back in her chair a bit. “Did you hear that, Jamie? Not Perth. She’s okay.”
There was a flicker of recognition in his expression, and Cassidy seemed satisfied that Jamie was no longer alarmed.
Still confused, Cadence asked, “Who’s okay?” As far as she knew, Jamie wasn’t dating anyone.
The sigh Cassidy expelled could only be produced by a teenage girl. “Margie, Cadence. He was worried about Margie.”
“Oh.” Cadence nodded, trying to remember who that was. She thought that might be the Area Guardian Leader for Perth, and from what Cassidy said to Jamie, that would make sense. But that still didn’t explain why Jamie would care. She hoped her expression didn’t betray her ignorance.
The sound of Elliott’s rich chuckle told her that she wasn’t fooling anyone. “Damn, Cadence. It’s like you
The Vampires who had escaped the holding cells seemed more powerful than usual, but nothing compared to Bonnie. Whatever was happening had given them enough strength to temporarily overpower the Guardians on duty down there, though there were only a couple, and then they’d come up the stairs. Bonnie had been waiting for them in the hallway, and she had been the one to tear the necks out of most of the Guardians they encountered in the hallway. Another Vampire, a big brutish man named Hal who had been here for decades seemed more powerful than the rest of them and he got a few shots in himself. When Cassidy entered the building, the rest of them had fled while Bonnie headed straight for Faye, taking out a few Guardians along the way, including the one who’d accidentally shot Lena before Bonnie chased him down the hall and left him in a pool of his own blood.Aaron shook his head and ran his hand along his throat, thinking about what it had been like to come around
While this revelation was a bit unsettling, particularly in light of what had happened with Bonnie, Aaron knew Cadence was right. He didn’t want to put Cassidy in danger, but even leaving her back at headquarters didn’t seem particularly safe. “All right. Let Cadence and I chat, and we’ll see what we think personnel wise, but Hannah, I’m thinking I might want you to stay here and oversee things while we’re gone.”The Guardian nodded. “I can most certainly do that.” It was hard to say whether or not she was happy with that assignment, but Aaron knew she’d do whatever he asked of her. At this point, he was tempted to leave Christian here as well, but he thought the IAC situation might’ve been resolved more quickly last night if he’d been with them. Something told him taking Elliott and Christian was a surefire way to set themselves up for problems, though. There was no way the two of them would be able to g
“Hey, this is Paul. I’m really sorry for taking off like that, but something came up. I wanted you to know that I’m okay. I’ll… I’ll be in touch in a day or two, but… I just had to go. Don’t worry about me. I’m fine.”“Paul, where the hell are you?” Aaron asked, shocked to have heard from the Melbourne Area Leader at all. “We’ve been worried sick.”“Are you all right?” Cadence asked.“Yeah, I’m fine. But my IAC isn’t working right. I’m going to switch it off. Just… wait for me to call, okay?”“Paul, I need to know where you are.”“I’m on my way to take care of a family problem. It’s fine. Really. Talk to you in a few days.”“Paul? Paul!” Aaron’s cries went unanswered as the other
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