Aaron tried to relax but his shoulder still hurt like a son of a bitch, despite Martin’s ability to stop the bleeding and begin the healing process. The kid was good, but he was no Jamie.
“So… she just shot you?”
“I think she thought I was someone else. A Vampire. Apparently, Holland is concentrating all of her efforts to screw up Cadence’s IAC. I can get flickers of her from time to time, but I don’t think she can use it much at all, and she can’t hear or see anything.”
Martin nodded. “About a half an inch lower, she would’ve hit you right in the heart,” Martin said, repositioning his hands.
“I’m lucky she was still rattled from whoever she was battling then. She usually doesn’t miss.”
Martin snickered, as if he was trying to be polite, and repositioned his hands. Aaron got a quick flicker of Cadence’s IAC in the parking lot, but something didn’t make sense. She was looking at Alex, but when he switched to Alex’s IAC, he was still upstairs. “Martin, I’ve gotta go!”
With every ounce of strength he could find, he pushed up off of the office floor, past Martin and out the door. The Healer was a little stunned but he followed behind. Aaron readied his Glock as he went, but without her IAC, there was no way he could warn Cadence. That wasn’t Alex.
* * *
“Elliott! Wake up!”
The voice in his head sounded familiar, but fuzzy, and as he tried to open his eyes and found it impossible, he tried to remember where he was and identify who might be talking to him.
“He’s going to get Meagan if you don’t get up off of the damn floor! Go! Go get Sam!”
Whether it was the mention of the bastard’s name or something else—maybe realizing it was Cassidy’s voice he was hearing in his head—Elliott tried to will himself up off of the sticky, metal amusement ride floor. His eyes felt heavy, like bags of sand were keeping them closed, and as much as he struggled to move his arms, he couldn’t. In the distance, he heard someone screaming, and the sound of running feet, but he couldn’t get his body to comply enough to get up off of the floor and help.
“Where is Jamie?” He managed to string together a sentence and was proud of himself.
“Across the park, over by the rollercoaster, heavily engaged. He can’t get there in time. You’re going to have to do it, or I’m sending Brandon.”
The idea that his son might be running into Sam had Elliott struggling to pull himself to his feet again, but without the use of his hands or eyes, that would be difficult. He attempted to put all of his strength into pushing up off of the ground and got nowhere. He needed to find the power to get up off of the ground and hurry to Meagan before it was too late, but the sedative he’d been given was a heavy one, and he was certain it was meant for more than just a siesta. If he didn’t get up now, he might not be able to do so again, not until Sam and his cronies carted him off to who knows what living hell.
Elliott concentrated on opening his eyes and failed. In the distance, Meagan screamed.
* * *
“You’ve gotta go!” Cassidy shouted at Brandon who was doing his best to pace in a four by four ticket booth.
“I’m not leaving you,” he replied, though the fact that he was running his hand through his curly mane of hair let her know he was considering it.
“Then I’ll go with you.” She had been sitting on the ticket agent’s chair, if a person could even call the rusted piece of metal that anymore, but pushed herself up now. “I can help. I’m not a baby.”
“You’re observing,” he reminded her.
Cassidy snickered and lifted him up off of the floor, dropping him back down before he could even protest. “Observe that.”
He knew better than to argue with her, so he burst through the rusty door and grabbed her hand. “You have got to stay with me, the whole time. Got it?”
“Yes, sir,” she replied with a giggle as they quickly made their way across the amusement park. Off in the distance, she heard shots fired and knew that it was mostly coming from the rollercoaster where two of the Vampires were up in one of the ride carts, and Jamie was scaling the wooden beams, trying to get to them. It was pretty cool to watch him jump from one trellis to the other, especially since Cassidy knew this was one of the oldest wooden rollercoasters in the world. It would only be a matter of time before the Healer and the other Guardians closed in and took them out. She only wished some more of them had been with Elliott and Meagan. Smith was by himself over by another ride, a tilt-a-whirl, doing not much of anything, and she decided he was completely worthless; they may as well leave him there.
The funhouse loomed in front of them, macabre clown faces glowing in the moonlight. Cassidy wondered why in the world anyone would want to walk around in there in the first place, under the best circumstances, but she had no answer for that. She and Brandon stepped through a gaping clown mouth into a room full of mirrors. She knew Meagan was close by because she could see it on her IAC, and she could hear her screams. Sam had already shot her twice, once in the arm and once in the opposite leg, taunting her. Jamie was aware, but Meagan had told him she was okay for now, to finish what he was doing. The Healer turned into some sort of a spider monkey, hopping up onto the rollercoaster track, and closing in on the Vampires in the cart.
The flooring was uneven, and Cassidy tripped, falling forward. Brandon caught her, but she decided this just wouldn’t do and took to hovering over the ground a few inches instead. He shook his head at her. “Go help Meagan, and I’ll find your dad.”
“What if there are more Vampires here?”
“Then I’ll kill them.”
He shook his head but didn’t argue. She was at his eye level now, thanks to the levitating, so he leaned over and kissed her and then took off to help Meagan.
Cassidy watched Jamie open fire into the rollercoaster seat. The Vampires looked like mere children, and as the Healer shot them, they tumbled out of the cart, falling toward the ground as he finished them. A sprinkle of ashes covered the tops of the trees below, dusting the concrete where twenty years ago a crowd of onlookers would’ve watched the rollercoaster ride.
Jamie leapt the hundred feet down to the ground below, and Cassidy felt the building she was floating in shift around her when he made contact with the ground. He was perfectly fine, which brought a smile to her face. It was like she knew a superhero. She turned the corner and saw Elliott on the floor. She could be a superhero, too.
