"Wow... I can't believe they bought it," Finn was saying as they all sat around the same laminate-topped table in the cheap hotel outside of Alleghany, California.
"We're not home free yet," Laura reminded them, absently rubbing at her eye again. "We've got to be ready for anything. Don't expect them to just let us waltz in there with our own weapons, no questions asked. "
"We've got to make sure 'Giovani' is still with us, too," Camilla reminded them, adding the air quotes.
Sam nodded. "He's with us. I've known this guy, Travis, for a long time. That bastard's got a chance to be part of something huge, and I've granted him amnesty. He won't let us down--he'll do his part. We'll have our fake Giovani; that I'm sure of."
"As for the guns," Laura replied, speaking slowly as she thought out loud, "what if we hit the location tomorrow? That will give us a chance to do some prep work in case they decide to do something sneaky, like take away our weapons."
"That is genius," Finn agreed. "God, they're not even going to know what hit them."
"Out there in the middle of nowhere. It's perfect. And when we take out Jamie, they won't have a Healer, so none of them will have a chance to recover," Laura nodded, mentally patting herself on the back.
"He's going to regret ever saving your life," Sam laughed.
"I don't think we should get overly confident here," Camilla cautioned. "We're dealing with some pretty talented people. It's quite possible this could blow up in our faces."
"Bite your tongue, woman," Finn warned. "In just a couple of days, we will finally have the revenge we've been seeking for longer than I can remember. This is going to change the face of the Ternion forever, and we are going to be the ones to make it happen."
While everyone else laughed and enjoyed a moment, Camilla sat quietly, wondering how she had ended up a villain, and why her teammates didn't realize that villains never win. Never.
* * *
The mood on the airplane to California was somber to say the least. After a day or so of hanging out with friends she had been missing for months, Cadence was facing the reality of one of the toughest hunts she'd ever been on. She certainly had her reservations--things just weren't adding up--but she was confident in her team. It wasn't Giovani she was afraid of. It was Laura and her team of un-trustables.
She hadn't slept since the night Aaron spent with her, but she was okay now, having finally caught up on some sleep. Rather than even trying to rest, she had spent the night before hanging out with Elliott, Jamie, Hannah, and Aurora playing board games and eating way too much sugar. She had finally told Elliott that Aaron had kissed her--again--and he just smiled, as if to say, "I told you so."
Cadence wasn't convinced. She had done her best to smooth things over with Cale and was hopeful she would get a chance to see him at the end of the hunt. His helicopters would play a pretty important role, if everything went as planned, but he would be coordinating them from Reno, not participating. It was just as well; no need to invite confusion into her life without cause. She was resolute in her determination to make things work with Cale, so much so, in fact, that she had avoided Aaron almost completely, except for mandatory meetings. As much as she was drawn to him, he had left a gaping hole in her heart, and it hadn't healed. Not yet.
"You okay, kid?" Elliott asked. He had chosen her over Aaron--selecting the seat next to her, rather than making his way to the back of the plane to sit in the seat he always sat in, right next to the boss.
"I'm fine," she replied, smiling, and squeezing his hand. "I just keep going over everything again and again, trying to figure out if we are missing anything."
"I think we're good," he assured her.
She nodded, but then shook her head. "I just have a really bad feeling about this," she admitted.
"It's gonna be fine," he said, confidently. "Everything's going to work out just like it should."
Cadence nodded again, this time more confidently. Still, there was a nagging voice inside of her mind telling her this was not right.
* * *
It was ten o'clock when the team met with Laura and her renegades at a truck stop near Graegel, population 700 something. Rather than clue Laura in that something was off, Aaron decided to go ahead and let Eliza think she was running the show until they were all in place; then he planned to fill her in that she was no longer on the mission. She simply wasn't capable of coordinating such a complex operation. But for now, Eliza got the two sides together. Laura produced a hand-drawn map of what they were calling location A, an old barn in a wooded area near the even smaller town of Sierraville. If everything went well, there would be no location B.
Cadence stood between Aaron and Elliott as Laura spread the map out on top of the hood of the Enclave she had stolen from LIGHTS in February, it's license plate different, worse for the wear. Even approaching Laura, she had become nauseated. She was glad to have Elliott's had on her shoulder. She had no idea what she would do without him.
"This is the location Zabrina has indicated as their hideout. We dropped by last night to make sure, and it seemed pretty evident that at least two Vampires are living there," Laura began to explain, her eye watering out of control.
"How do you know?" Elliott barked at her, questioning everything.
"Intuition," she smirked back. "There's only one major road that leads in to the property. The house is quite a ways away, over here," she pointed to the far side of the map, "and no one lives there. It looks like it's been abandoned for quite some time. "
"All right," Aaron confirmed. "So we only have one road to cover, but they could take off into these trees and be lost for days."
"Right," Laura confirmed. "That's one of the reasons we wanted such a large team. I felt that it would be best if Cadence, Aaron, and I move in from this direction," she explained to everyone, again gesturing at the map, "while everyone else sets up a perimeter." The Guardian Leader was nodding, so she continued. "You can help with placement of your people, of course," she conceded, "but I want Sam here, toward the southeast end, so that he can cover the driveway. I'll put Finn over here on the southwest corner where the woods are the thickest, and set Camilla up in the due south sector."
