Jamie started with Brandon, and as the first shot went in, the teenager drew in a hot breath through clenched teeth. His eyes immediately began to water, and Cadence thought that Cassidy might start to cry. She didn’t, though. She was whispering the same thing over and over again, “You’re all right. You’re all right.” Cadence had heard the same words from their mother every time she’d hurt herself as a young child, and she hoped it served Brandon well, though by the looks of it, he was close to screeching. His dad stepped forward and put his hand on Brandon’s leg, and Jamie put in the second dose. That’s when the violent shaking began, and both Cassidy and Elliott moved to try to still him, but it was doing no good.
“Great,” Aurora muttered, but Cadence didn’t get to see what happened next on that end of the room because Meagan began to scream bloody murder the second the first shot went into her arm, and Shane got up from his bed to attempt to calm her, but she was thrashing around so much, between Dr. Morrow and Shane, it looked like she still couldn’t be controlled. Cadence moved in, too, taking hold of her legs and keeping her on the bed as Ashley began to wail behind her. A glance over her shoulder let Cadence know she wasn’t completely coming unglued like Meag, but she was not doing well.
Hannah hadn’t made a peep, and as Dr. Morrow announced he needed to put the other shot in, Aaron left his post and came to take the doctor’s place to hold Meagan down. The Hunter was shouting a string of obscenities now, begging for them to kill her, and the doctor was having a hard time getting her arm still despite the three other unbelievably strong people holding her down. He eventually managed and stuck the second needle in. Meagan began to shake so violently the bed bucked back and forth. Cadence moved to one end to hold it down while Aaron, Shane, and the doctor held Meagan to it while trying to keep it up right. The rest of the team froze, waiting to see if any more help was needed.
“Meagan, you’re okay,” Shane kept saying, though Cadence decided the girl couldn’t hear him through her screams. Ashley’s crying got louder, too, and Cadence imagined Kathy was forced to administer her second shot, despite keeping an eye on Meagan. The screaming and convulsing lasted for at least a full three minutes before Meagan’s strength began to leave her, and the shouting turned to whimpers.
Cadence continued to keep both hands on the bed, even though it was no longer in danger of toppling over. She looked around the room and shook her head. Brandon was out. Aurora was crying, and Elliott was holding her hand. Jamie stood at the end of her bed, but he was facing Ashley, who was shaking now, but no longer making a sound.
Christian was sobbing, and for a moment, the sound almost made Cadence laugh. He was so sure he was fine… now he sounded like a little boy who’d dropped his ice cream cone. He wasn’t shaking yet, so she wondered if Sicilia had given him the second shot.
Hannah and Dax were both out, and Cadence was proud of the new recruit as she hadn’t heard a sound out of him. Tara was holding his hand while Lucy was standing with her back against the wall about twenty feet from all of them.
Meagan finally became still, and if Cadence couldn’t see her chest rising and falling, she might’ve thought she’d gotten her frantic wish and died. She let go of the bed and turned her attention to Shane, who was panting from exertion. “Well, now, Mr. Talbertson, are you ready?” Dr. Morrow asked, and Cadence silently wondered how the table hadn’t been knocked over.
Shane answered with a nod of his head and laid back down on his gurney as Christian began to buck up and down on his table like his hand was trapped under the rope on the back of a bronco. Everyone left standing exchanged glances, and Aaron finally went over to his table and made sure he didn’t fall off while Cadence turned her attention to Mickey. By now, Martin had the first shot in the Guardian’s arm, and he had tears running down his face, but he didn’t make a sound, so she thought he might be okay. Aurora was trembling under Elliott’s hands but she wasn’t rocking the entire bed like Christian was.
As soon as Dr. Morrow got the first shot in Shane’s arm, the Guardian pulled back violently, shrieking and shoving the doctor across the room. Luckily, Jamie was able to move fast enough to catch the other physician, but Shane was sitting up with an ugly scowl on his face, as if he’d lost his mind and turned into the Incredible Hulk. Cadence charged him from behind and threw her arms around his waist as he started to get up. She was able to pull him back to the bed, but it took Aaron pushing him from the other side to keep him in place. “And this is just after one shot,” the Guardian Leader muttered.
Practically everyone who was still awake converged on Shane’s bed, except for Sicilia who stayed with Christian and Martin who was administering Mickey’s second shot. Jamie grabbed the second needle since Dr. Morrow was a little shaken up and moved in on Shane’s bulging bicep. “I can’t see where the vein is,” he said. Ona took hold of Shane’s wrist and pulled it straight down while Kathy flattened out the center of his arm, but even with so many hands holding him down, Shane was fighting.
“You’ll have to give it to him, soon,” Dr. Morrow reminded Jamie from across the room. “Or it might not work. And who knows what might happen.”
“I know,” Jamie replied, still trying to see where to inject it.
“I think it’s right here,” Ona said.
“I don’t see it,” Jamie answered.
“Here!”
Jamie handed Ona the needle, and the other Healer stuck the needle into the spot on the Guardian’s arm where she thought the vein would be, pressing down on the plunger. “Oh, nope,” she muttered, looking at Jamie with her mouth hanging open.
“Son of a bitch,” he whispered, though he didn’t necessarily look mad at his trainee. Shane began to roar, struggling against all of them. It seemed as if the second shot had made him even stronger, and he pulled his arm out of Cadence’s grasp, thrashing out and connecting with her right eye. She went flying across the room, crashing into the wall.
She heard Aaron shouting her name but didn’t have time to react to the pain shooting through the side of her face and her back. She shot to her feet and sprinted across the room as she saw Jamie taking off his gloves, which meant he’d be doing what he could to ease Shane’s pain and hopefully put him to sleep. They didn’t know what might happen if the Healer interfered, and there was a huge amount of concern since the needle didn’t go in correctly, but the second Jamie’s bare hands connected with Shane, he slowly began to calm. It took several minutes for the Guardian to stop fighting. Eventually, his thrashing turned to spasms and then he was still.
There was a collective sigh of relief as everyone let go of him, and then Cadence realized how much pain she was in herself. A Guardian couldn’t kill a Hunter without a titanium bullet, but he could sure the hell mess her face up. Her eye was beginning to swell closed.
“Let me see,” Martin said, and she gladly let him take his gloves off and fix her face. A few seconds later, all of the pain was gone, and she was able to see again.
Exactly what she saw didn’t register at first, and then she realized what she was hearing as well.
It was her sister, and she was quietly calling for Jamie. She was lying on the cot next to Brandon, one hand pressed against her arm, as tears streamed down her face. “You have got to be freaking kidding me!” Cadence mumbled, pushing past Martin and shooting across the room.
