“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 them off at the exact same time they were trying to reset the system wasn’t very likely anyway, not to mention, by the looks of it, most of her little dots were just about into place, and there’d be no reason for her to show her hand.
“It worked?” Cassidy asked, opening one eye to look at Cadence and then at Aaron.
“Yeah, it’s working!” Cadence patted her on the shoulder. “You really are…”
“Bitchin’,” Aaron finished her thought, which had the whole table chuckling.
Cassidy smiled, clearly delighted with her work. “I can’t hold her off forever, but I can do it every once in a while.”
“That’s fine. I’ve got photos now of where they are at this moment. If you can just show me every hour or so, that will be helpful.” Aaron smiled at his soon-to-be sister-in-law, and she nodded before sitting back in her chair, relaxing from the excursion, and the beeping faded away.
A few seconds later, Christian bolted into the room. “Well?”
“That did it,” Aaron confirmed. “Cassidy was able to get it working again.”
“Cool,” he replied. “I didn’t stay to look at the monitor.”
“Here are the snapshots,” Aaron said, obviously sending them to him through his IAC. Christian could monitor the movement through his computer system, but apparently, he’d been in such a rush to get back, he hadn’t waited to see if it worked. “She’ll intercept Holland’s signal every hour so we can track them.”
“Manually?” he asked, apparently annoyed.
“We don’t need pinpoints right now. We just need trends,” Aaron explained, which seemed to appease him slightly. “So… rescue mission. Now that we can monitor the trackers, Christian, I think you need to stay here. Help Hannah with command should the attack happen while the few of us who are going are gone.” Cadence caught on to the excuse he was feeding the tech guy, but Christian seemed to buy it. He nodded.
“Aurora, you’ll be in charge of all of the Hunters while I’m gone, but you’ll ultimately answer to Hannah,” Cadence explained. “I want you to get with Ashley and Meagan and discuss the tactics and weaponry we saw work the other night and the things that didn’t.”
“Right,” Aurora nodded.
“You will also want to step up Tara’s training,” Aaron interjected. “She’s much faster and stronger than the rest of you now.”
Aurora raised an eyebrow but only bobbed her head up and down, and Cadence realized she hadn’t been in on their experiment. She’d have to explain later.
“Shane has experience with these beasts, as does Dax,” Aaron reminded Hannah and Christian, “so ready them. I’ll be sending Cale home because I don’t want to leave Reno up in the air. They’re practically surrounded as well. Morgan will need his help.” Cadence couldn’t blame Aaron for wanting to send Cale back.
“So that means, if anyone gets hurt while Jamie is with us, it’ll be up to the trainees to make sure they’re healed properly,” Cadence concluded.
“You’re taking Jamie?” Christian asked. “Don’t you think chances are we’ll need him here before you’ll need him over there?”
“I’m not taking my little sister anywhere near Holland without Jamie,” Cadence said, answering honestly.
“But all of the experiments I’ve ran have shown nothing can kill her.” Christian was looking at Cassidy, even though he was replying to Cadence.
“Something must be able to. Heather died.” Cassidy had to be talking about the blonde girl she’d seen in her visions.
“It’s possible that she died of old age, like all Hunters will if they aren’t killed by Vampires,” Jamie explained.
“It honestly doesn’t matter because Jamie is coming with us. I’m not comfortable going in there myself without him.” Cadence hoped that would be enough to shut Christian up.
But it wasn’t. “That seems selfish to me.”
Before Cadence could respond, Jamie said, “They’re ready. Sicilia, Ona, Martin. They did great the other night. You’ll be in good hands.”
Christian shook his head, his mouth a thin line. He folded his arms across his chest and leaned back in his chair. Obviously, he disagreed with the doctor’s assessment. Cadence didn’t give a damn.
“So… I’m coming, too, right?” Brandon asked, breaking the silence.
Cadence looked at his father whose eyes gave her permission before she said, “Yes, but like Cass, you will not be anywhere near the actual hunt. We need her there to show us where to go, and we need you there to protect her and to give her moral support.”
Brandon’s face lit up as he simultaneously looked relieved. “Works for me.”
“And what about you, kid? Who’s going with you?” Elliott asked, a knowing expression on his face.
“Oh, well, I’m still interviewing candidates,” she replied, winking at him.
“For some reason, she seems to think having you around is a good idea.” Aaron sighed. “I’ve been trying to talk her out of it.”
The grunt from the end of the table made it clear Christian was no longer content with staying behind. “Are we done then?”
“For now,” Aaron replied. “As long as no one has any questions.”
“When do we leave?” Jamie asked. “I need to go check on my patients one more time.”
“It’s 10:30. Can we all be ready by midnight?” Aaron surveyed the teammates who would be going.
“Can I sleep on the plane?” Cassidy asked.
“Flying to Australia is a lot like taking a steamship across the Atlantic. You’ll have plenty of time to sleep,” Jamie joked, and Cadence assumed he knew what both were like.
“We should call in your sister to help,” Cadence offered. “Perth isn’t one of the places Holland has concentrated on.”
“That’s not a bad idea, actually,” Jamie said. “I mean… not Margie. I don’t care if you bring in my sister or not. But… now that we know where the Vampires are for certain….”
“We can shift personnel.” By Aaron’s leisurely response, Cadence assumed he was already on that.
“If someone else could come up with something… just once....” the doctor replied.
“I figured out Eastern State before he did.” Christian was out of his seat and headed for the door.
“I spoon fed that to all of you!” Both Cadence and Brandon grabbed Cassidy by the arm and pulled her back into her chair. Smartly, Christian kept walking.
“I’ll get with Shane,” Hannah said as she stood. “We’ll go over inventory. I’ll need some of those titanium bullets, though.” Her voice was calm, like it wasn’t a question but a statement of fact, and Cadence was in awe when Aaron nodded at her. Hannah had a way of getting him to agree to things so easily.
“I guess I’ll go get my girls and check in on Tara. Is she still in your operating room?” Aurora asked, looking at Jamie.
“No, Dax took her to her apartment,” he replied.
“All righty. I guess she’s much better than she was the last time I saw her.”
“Thanks, Roar,” Cadence said.
“Hey, no problem. I can’t wait to talk to Ashley anyway. I heard things were a little… odd… last night. And she wasn’t even in the vicinity of killer baby Vampires.” She pulled one corner of her mouth down in a strange expression, and Cadence wanted to ask what had happened on Ashley’s date with Christian, but she’d have to save it for later. If she meant Christian had creeped Ashley out, she wouldn’t be too surprised.
