“I guess he had enough experience with portals to figure it out,” Christian replied with a shrug.
“How do you know it’s a portal?” Cass’s voice sounded a little jagged, and Cadence increased her grip on her sister’s shoulder.
“I mean... I think it’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?” Christian replied, still seeming a little too nonchalant for Cadence’s liking. “Clearly, the Blood Moon Portal exists after all, and they just walked into it.”
“What do you mean after all?” Cassidy sounded even more aggressive this time as she took a step forward, and Cadence stretched out her arm to keep light contact with her sister.
Christian’s eyes flickered back and forth from Cadence to Cassidy, and she could see an uneasiness in his disposition. This was the Christian she’d become more familiar with of recent—unfortunately. The sketchy one. “Nothing. I just mean... we didn’t think there was such a thing. But I guess there is.”
Cassidy continued to stare at him for a few moments as the teammates behind Cadence began a discussion about what it was Elliott stepped on. However, before anyone even reached the logical conclusion Cadence had already come to, that it had to be the cracked mirror, Cassidy hissed more loudly than Cadence had ever heard her and launched herself at Christian, slipping out of Cadence’s grasp and colliding with his chair. The seat flipped backward onto the floor, and Cass grabbed him by the neck, dragging him out of it, slashing at his face with her claws. “You son of a bitch!” she screamed as blood splattered up into the air.
Cadence lunged for her sister, grabbing her by the waist as she continued to screech and shred Christian’s exposed flesh with her talons. “You knew about this! I see it! I see it in your head!”
With the help of Job and Oswald, Cadence was able to get Cassidy off of the Guardian and a few feet away. They continued to hold her as Cadence positioned herself between Cassidy and Christian. “Calm down, Cass!” she ordered, looking her sister in the eyes.
Cassidy’s fangs were fully exposed, and she was taking deep breaths, but it was clear she wasn’t done yet. If they let her go, she’d be back on top of Christian in an instant.
“What the hell?” he was screaming behind her. Cadence glanced over her shoulder to see him wiping at the blood from his cheek. There was more bone and muscle exposed than there was flesh on the left side of his face, and his neck was open as well. Lisa and Trina were trying to help him, but it was bad. “What the hell is wrong with you, you psycho bitch?”
Cassidy bucked up again, and this time it took Hannah’s help as well to hold her back.
“She’s a Vampire?” Lisa asked, her hands caked in blood and dripping, red paper towels.
“No, she’s a Hybrid,” Cadence clarified.
“What the hell is a Hybrid?” Trina wanted to know.
“The sort of monstrous bitch who will rip your face off if you lie about goddamn Blood Moon Portals that can eat her boyfriend!” Cassidy roared.
“Trina, go find Keith. See if he can put Christian’s face back together,” Job said, and Cadence assumed Keith must be a Healer. She thought Christian would be wishing he’d have warned Jamie this was a possibility right about now. “Cadence, what do we do with your sister?”
“Hannah?” She looked to the councilor for help since she had no answer herself.
“I’m trying,” Hannah admitted. “But she’s really pissed off. Whatever she saw in Christian’s head must be really, really bad.”
Cadence turned and looked at the Guardian on the floor, but he wouldn’t look at her, and she knew he’d done something on purpose—she just didn’t know the extent of it yet. But Cass did. “Where’s Ashley?” she asked, thinking perhaps Cassidy’s friend could help calm her down.
“She’s downstairs with the Vampires,” Job answered.
“All right. Let’s take Cass down there, get Christian cleaned up, and I’ll see what the hell is going on.” She turned and glared at him again, and this time he noticed. He held her gaze for a second but then looked away, confirming her suspicions.
The three Guardians started moving Cassidy toward the door, and Cadence moved with them, praying she’d calm down. But before she was even in the hallway, she shouted, “I’m going to kill you, Christian Henry! And you know I can!”
“Go to hell, Vampire bitch!” he shouted back, causing Cassidy to rare up again.
“Seriously?” Cadence screamed at Christian who actually had a smirk on what was left of his face. It faded quickly, and when Cadence turned and looked at Hannah, who was now technically Christian’s boss, she thought she understood why. She must’ve told him something through his IAC. Hopefully, he’d take her threat seriously because Hannah was not one to mess with when she was mad.
The further away from Christian Cassidy got, the more civil she became. Once she was on the elevator headed to the basement, most of the others were able to loosen their grip, though no one let go of her completely. Cadence kept her hands on her sister.
Job led them down a long, dark hallway, and up ahead of her, Cadence could see holding cells similar to the ones where Laura and Sam had been kept. But there were only three and they were small. The Vampires inside of them had chairs and cots to sit on; none of them looked happy.
Ashley had a clipboard and was sitting in a small room facing all three cells. There were a couple of others with her, Hunters and Guardians Cadence didn’t recognize. When the blonde turned to look at them, Cadence noticed she had bags under her eyes. It was the worst she’d ever looked in all of the months Cadence had known her, and yet she was still strikingly beautiful.
As soon as Job opened the door, Cassidy yanked away from them, and Ashley stood to wrap her friend in her arms. The two embraced for a long time before Ashley pushed back and stroked Cassidy’s hair. “You look as awful as I feel,” she laughed. She reached for Cassidy’s hand and then said, “Oh, my God. Are you bleeding?”
“No, but Christian is. A lot.”
Ashley’s mouth hung open as she looked from Cassidy to Cadence before she asked, “What happened?”
Rubbing her forehead, Cadence replied, “I’m sure Cass will be happy to fill you in. I need to go talk to Christian, though. Can Cass hang out with you for a while?” Before Ashley had a chance to answer, Cadence added through her IAC, “And that means she does not leave this room for any reason.”
“Sure...” Ashley replied, smiling slightly but with a questioning look in her eyes. “I guess this means you haven’t heard anything from... anyone.”
Now it was Cadence’s turned to be confused. “What do you mean? Are you talking about the Guardians who disappeared?”
“Yeah, the guys that are missing. I’ve tried calling Jamie’s cell a thousand times, but I keep getting an out of range message. I thought maybe if they disabled their IACs, they wouldn’t think to check phones, but I guess they did.”
“They who?” Cadence asked, wondering if she was the only one unsure of whatever it was Ashley was confused about.
“Ash, they weren’t taken by the Vampires,” Cassidy said, her voice slow and as calm as she could make it. “They’re in a portal.”
“What?” Ashley’s face went completely pale, and for a moment, Cadence thought the girl might be sick.
“Yeah, a Blood Moon Portal. We weren’t sure until a few minutes ago when Christian showed us footage of them just disappearing, but we’ve kind of suspected that’s what happened since we found those artifacts.”
“A portal?” Ashley repeated, sinking down onto her chair. “A portal? I didn’t think those really existed.”
Cadence opened her mouth to ask a sarcastic question about Elliott, but Hannah pulled on her shoulder, and she kept her thoughts to herself.
“They do. Apparently, more than one.” Cassidy sat down on a chair next to Ashley, one another woman gave up for her. “And... now we have to figure out how to get them back.”
“A portal?” Ashley asked again, and for the first time in a long time, Cadence actually felt slightly sorry for her. It was too bad the thought had never occurred to Ashley. It would be a difficult concept to swallow all of a sudden like that.
“You wanna go talk to Christian?” Hannah asked in Cadence’s ear, just loud enough for her to hear.
Nodding, Cadence said, “Cass, I’m going to go see exactly what Major Henry knows. Stay with Ash. Try to calm down. I know how angry you are. I am, too, but we can’t rip the throats out of our own teammates, all right?”
Cassidy turned to look at her, inhaling sharply through her nose. “He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.”
“You don’t want his blood on your hands.” She glanced down at her sister’s stained palms. “Not all of it, anyway.” Shaking her head, she turned and headed back to the elevator.
Once she was headed up to the next level, along with Oswald, Hannah, and Job, she asked, “Is there a room I can use up here to talk to Christian alone? I think I’ll have better results if I can chat with him one on one.”
“You aren’t going to rip the rest of his throat out are you?” Job asked, and Cadence couldn’t blame him.
“No. I’m not quite as savage as my little sister.”
“How did she even know?” Oswald asked, and Cadence took it to mean how did Cassidy know that Christian had information he had withheld from Aaron.
“She can read minds,” Cadence replied as the elevator opened and they all stepped off. “She has to have certain parameters, like she has to know where to look, but once she’s in, it’s really hard to keep anything from her.”
“Great,” he muttered. “I will try to keep her on my good side.”
“Good idea,” Cadence said, all joking aside.
“You can use the office across the hall,” Job said, once he seemed certain Cadence wasn’t going to be ripping anyone a new one.
By the time they reached the conference room, Christian was in a chair, and his face was basically back to normal, though this Healer hadn’t done quite as nice a job as Jamie, or even Martin, would’ve done. It was obvious where the scratches had been as jagged scars crisscrossed his face, particularly on the left side. Someone who resembled a custodian was cleaning up the floor, but Christian’s white collar was still soaked in blood, as was the front of him, all the way down to the black leather pants he’d worn for the hunt. His scowl showed his consternation.
“Major Henry, if you’re done getting patched up, I’d like to have a word with you, alone,” Cadence said, hoping he understood she meant business.
With a nod, Christian took a deep breath and pulled himself out of the chair, following Cadence across the hall. She waited until he’d had a seat and then closed and locked the door behind him.
