The office door banged against the wall as Cadence came flying through it. Aaron didn’t even look up. She could see how busy he was, and she also realized he probably expected her, even if he had no way of knowing when she might show up. She waited for him to finish what he was doing and stood in front of his desk with her hands on her hips.
“I’ll call Juan Diego to come over and fix that,” he said in an even voice, and Cadence glanced behind her to realize she’d left a large hole in the wall where the doorknob had connected with the drywall. Clearly, she didn’t yet know her own strength.
“What the hell?” Cadence asked, not angry at him, and he must’ve known that because he only shrugged. “Sam? And Laura? Are you shitting me?” She dropped into a chair across from him but knew she wouldn’t stay there.
“Yeah. I’m not sure what they have up their sleeve, but Holland must think this will give her an upper hand somehow. I don’t quite get it….”
“I mean, really, other than the fact that they both hate us, that’s nothing. Most Vampires hate us.” She couldn’t reason through it. Why in the world would Hines come all the way to Leavenworth to spring Sam and then stop in Chillicothe to pick up Laura? It made no sense.
“The good news is we were able to identify the private plane he flew in on. And that means we can track it back.”
“Great.” It hadn’t crossed her mind that Hines would need an airplane, but she supposed it beat transforming into a bat and flapping his damn wings all the way across the ocean. They had tracked Giovani’s airplane after all. “Where’d the flight originate?”
“Not sure. Christian’s working on it. I would be shocked if it isn’t Melbourne, though. I don’t think that’s where he’s headed now.” Aaron’s voice sounded almost normal for a moment. He was definitely tired, and she could see the anxiety in the way he held his shoulders. There was no sense in thinking his problems had disappeared while she was out.
“Well, if Christian is working on it….” Cadence had no reason to think that Christian couldn’t track an airplane, but she’d lost more than a little faith in the tech guy recently. “Can you think of anywhere else he might be headed? Got any other human ex-girlfriends he might want to Resurrect?”
Aaron didn’t even smirk at her little joke. She already knew the answer to that question and also realized he didn’t want to think of Laura in that capacity. “I don’t know where he might go. We’ll track him, though. That might give us a better idea of what’s going on.”
“But we know she’s in Melbourne, right? And Cass said she thought it was some sort of an asylum in her dreams. I don’t understand why we can’t go check every run down asylum in the vicinity.”
“Because… we aren’t ready. We need to have everything in place before we try to take her out. These little pockets….”
“Aaron!” Cadence said, cutting him off and leaning forward in her seat. “Do you even hear yourself? This does not sound like you at all! Since when would you rather go after inconsequential peons than the queen mother herself?”
He blinked at her once, like he recognized she was right, but just as soon as the flicker of recognition was there, it was gone again. “Cadence, this has been the plan since we came back from Australia the first time.”
“No, this hasn’t been the plan since then. We were going to get the Guardians up from Roatan, take out the bigger pockets, like Spittle’s gang, and the others who were converging on the headquarters across the globe, and then move in on Holland. Now, we are sitting around twiddling our thumbs, taking out Vampires who are literally minding their own business. And it just doesn’t seem productive at all. Meanwhile, she’s out there growing her army, somehow making babies, and collecting all the people we’ve wronged. We have got to do something, Aaron. Do. Something.”
“We are doing something.” He ran his hand through his hair and several strands came out again. “We have to stick to the plan.”
Frustrated and angry, Cadence pulled herself out of her chair. “No, we don’t. It’s a stupid plan. And I won’t follow it anymore. I know you hate to admit it, but I am just as much in charge of this operation as you are. So I’m taking a team, and I’m going to Lexington, and I’m going to take out Spittle. Maybe that’s not a huge leap toward stopping Holland, but it’s something.”
“You’re not taking any Guardians with you!” he countered flying up out of his chair to meet her. “You may be Hunter Leader, but those are my people, and they’re not leaving here without my permission, and I do not approve of this operation.”
Both of Cadence’s eyebrows shot up. “What the hell is the matter with you? Of course I am taking whichever Guardians I want to. Seriously, you have got to get your head examined.” She bit her tongue, realizing her words were much more harsh than she’d intended.
His eyes narrowed on her. “Any Guardians who agree to go with you will immediately be transferred out of KC.”
“Oh, okay. I’ll go get myself killed then. Is that what you want?” she asked folding her arms, and staring at him. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. This situation was far more dire than she had ever imagined it might be. He was another person entirely, one she couldn’t stand in the least.
“If that’s what you need to do….”
Her mouth dropped open for a second, and Cadence turned her back to him, anger welling up inside of her, but more than that, she was hurt. Whether or not she’d even ask Elliott, Jamie, and Brandon to go with her at this point, she wasn’t sure, but one thing she did know, the person behind her was not the man she’d fallen in love with, not the man she’d agreed to marry.
