Cadence did another turn around the table to see ashen faces and wide eyes on nearly everyone, but Christian was actually chuckling. “There’s no way she could figure that out so quickly. Hines can’t possibly know as much about genetics and our DNA makeup as Dr. Morrow, and it’s taken him decades to get this far.”
“Why can’t he know?” Cassidy asked, her tone dripping with teenage venom.
“Because Dr. Morrow is at the top of his field. He’s a genius. Hines is a quack,” Christian countered, still smirking.
“And… Holland can read minds, you moron!” Cassidy spat, nearly out of her seat now. Brandon pushed her back down. “What makes you think she couldn’t just go for a little stroll around Morrow’s head—or yours—and come up with whatever information she needed?”
The chuckling stopped, but Christian was shaking his head. “We’d know.”
“We wouldn’t know,” Aaron countered, and no one could argue with that. Holland had set up shop in his mind for weeks, and he’d never suspected. Christian could argue that Dr. Morrow was more intelligent or that he knew everything there was to know about genetics until he was blue in the face, but he couldn’t argue he would be any more aware of his own subconscious than the Guardian Leader.
“Would it be possible for Hines to do that?” Jamie asked Cassidy. “Could he get into someone’s head and figure out what we know?”
Cassidy shrugged, and when she answered, her voice was more even, probably because she liked and respected the person asking her the question. “I don’t see why not. I think all Vampires can do it. They just don’t all care to.”
“All right, we’ll have to be particularly careful when Paul’s team moves in, make sure he knows the risks. If anyone will understand that, it’s him,” Aaron said, looking unsure of himself, a subtle shifting in his eyes that Cadence hoped everyone else didn’t notice, though those who knew him best likely also picked up on it.
“Maybe they should wait,” Elliott offered. “Maybe we should get ourselves back over there first.”
“Holland could be back any moment,” Cadence reminded them. “It would be better for Paul to go before she returns.”
“Do we know where she is or why?” Aurora asked, her expression still grim.
“We know she’s somewhere near Linz, or at least that’s where her planes still are. What she’s doing there, we have no idea, though we were hoping maybe Alex could provide some insight,” Aaron said, eying the soldier directly across the expansive table from him.
At the mention of his name, Mr. Hamilton perked up a bit. “Me?” he asked. “While I am flattered, I’m not sure why you may think that. I’ve hardly any dealings in that part of Europe.”
“We were hoping maybe some legend, some legacy would come to you,” Cadence explained. She glanced at Christian, who was used to having the role of storyteller and could see he was pissed that someone else was being asked instead of him. She figured if he knew anything at all, he’d chime in.
“I’m afraid I won’t be of much use to you,” Alex said with a sigh. “But there is someone who might be able to help.” He pushed back his chair and hopped to his feet as if he was going to find said person right away.
Cadence glanced at Aaron to see if he was going to let him go or ask him to wait. “Who might that be?” he asked, seemingly just as surprised as she was that Alex was up.
“Fellow by the name of Schmitz,” he said with a nod. “Older than me. Gentle soul. Grew up near the Austrian border. I’ll fetch him.”
Whether Alex didn’t feel comfortable in their meeting, or he honestly felt that Schmitz would be of more use, Aaron let him go, and she could see her fiancé mentally trying to decide what topic to go to next while they all waited for Schmitz to join them. There were almost too many to choose from, but he settled on what she thought was likely the most critical one of all. “Cadence and I are going to go ahead and let the other areas move out and destroy those pockets Holland was organizing around the eight largest headquarters. We will be treating Melbourne separately, considering the stakes there, but the other eight will be left in the hands of the Area Leaders. They have all been heavily reinforced with Guardians from Roatan, and thanks to Cassidy’s surveillance and the eyes we have on the ground, mostly Independent Hunters and Guardians, we have enough information available for our teams to move in and destroy them. We are asking that those who can coordinate in similar time zones do so since it should be more difficult for Holland to control that way.”
“And it will be harder for her to strengthen everyone at the same time,” Cadence added.
Aaron nodded. “So they have permission to attack whenever they feel ready.”
“And us?” Meagan asked. She had been quiet up until then, but that wasn’t uncommon for her.
“And we will be moving forward as well. There are four pockets of concern to us, now that Spittle and his men have been taken out. Something else we need to decide in this meeting is how to go about attacking all of them at the same time.”
“We’ve got a few ideas,” Cadence picked up for Aaron. “But we wanted to run it by all of you first.”
“The other topic we need to discuss is who else, if anyone, is going to go through the process Elliott and Cadence just underwent.” Aaron kept his voice low, as if it was somehow a secret.
“I am,” Christian said as if it weren’t a matter of him gaining permission. “I worked a long time on the Retransformation serum, so I figure I’ve earned an enhancement.”
Cadence literally bit her tongue and was glad she didn’t have fangs like Cass because chances were they would’ve drawn blood. The only reason they knew that doubling up Transformation serum had this effect was because of Christian’s stupid ass mistake.
“That’s fine with me,” Aaron said, his tone much nicer than Cadence’s would’ve been. “But we’ll need to schedule it quickly so that you don’t miss the attack, assuming you want to be a part of that.”
“Of course I do,” Christian replied. “I’m ready when Jamie is.”
