Exactly how much time had passed, Brandon wasn’t sure, but it seemed liked they’d been trapped in this hellish black cave for hours. Dax was still pacing back and forth, crying, Jamie and Alex had ventured a few steps away, down the tunnel, and even though Brandon could still see them, if they took a few more steps, their silhouettes would disappear into the darkness. Brandon was usually the one pacing in situations like this, but Dax was freaking out enough for both of them, and Brandon was trying to come up with some explanation for what had happened.
“It just doesn’t make any sense...” Dax was muttering. “Why are we here? Why?”
“Dax....” Brandon didn’t get a chance to finish the sentence, probably because he had no idea what to say.
“I shouldn’t have followed you....”
“I know.” They’d been over this. He wished his friend hadn’t jumped down the rabbit hole when he’d seen Brandon and Jamie disappear. If Alex hadn’t been with him, he probably wouldn’t have, but Alex seemed to think they were duty bound to follow their “lost comrades” and had encouraged Dax to go along, rather than running for help. That’s what he should’ve done—run far, far away, and get help.
“Tara’s gonna kill me....”
“Tara’s not going to kill you, Dax. That doesn’t even make sense. Why would she kill you?”
“You don’t understand!” His friend whirled around and looked at him, pulling at his bangs from the roots. “She didn’t even want me to come. I only came because Aaron said these are good operations to get experience from. And I only need another observation after this to be done. But now... now if I ever get out of here, I’m going back to California.”
“I’ll join you,” Brandon said, only half joking. While he had no desire to go that far west, the thought of putting this all behind him and going off to college somewhere as a normal human being sounded appealing.
“It’s got to be a portal,” Alex was saying as he and Jamie came back. Brandon pushed up a little against the jagged rocks and cut his hand. He winced and looked down to see a puncture wound in his palm. Without even taking his eyes off of Alex, Jamie sent a blue light his direction, and the pain in Brandon’s hand subsided. At least the Healer’s powers still worked wherever the hell they were.
“You think it’s a portal?” Dax asked, his voice somehow even more frantic.
“Having been through one before, I have to say, yes, I do,” Alex nodded. “Only it’s certainly not of the Blue Moon variety.”
“Alex thinks it’s some sort of a Blood Moon Portal,” Jamie exclaimed. “We know Aaron had Christian look into the possibility of something like this existing, and Christian didn’t think it did, but it wouldn’t be the first time he was wrong.”
“That son of a bitch,” Dax muttered, and Brandon didn’t disagree with him even though he found it highly unlikely Christian would’ve overlooked something like this on purpose.
Carefully pushing off of the ground where it was slightly smoother, Brandon stood. “So if it is a portal, there’s got to be a way to open it, right?”
“I would say so,” Alex confirmed, “but I have no idea how one might go about it.”
“We wanted to go off and look around a little bit, but I think we need to stay together,” Jamie said. Without Aaron or Hannah here, he was in charge, even if Alex was a hundred years older than him.
“At least we’ll have your torch hands to light the way,” Brandon joked. It was all he could do to break the tension.
“Why do you think we’re here?” Dax asked, tears springing to his eyes again. “Why would anyone do this?”
“I don’t know why you’re here,” Jamie admitted. “Maybe because you and Alex tried to do the right thing and help us, but I’m pretty sure I’m here because Holland wants me out of the way. Whether she wanted Brandon or not, I can’t say.”
“But why the two of you and not someone like Aaron?” Dax continued. “Why isn’t he here?”
“How do we know he isn’t?” Alex asked. Off in the distance, they heard another howl, similar to the ones Brandon had been hearing since he became aware of his surroundings. It was almost as if in response to Alex’s statement, and Brandon’s stomach rolled over. What if Cass was in here, too? While it would be wonderful to know he wouldn’t be trapped without her, the idea that she could also be stuck in this paradox was very unsettling.
“Let’s be careful and stick together,” Jamie suggested. “If there’s anyone else in here, we’ll probably run into them. But whatever is making that howling sound, and that hissing noise Alex and I heard further up that way, let’s try to avoid that stuff if we can, all right?”
There was no problem getting an agreement there, and with cautious steps, Brandon fell in behind Jamie and Alex, anxious to see who or what they might find.
* * *
Cassidy was sitting in the cold, metal chair next to Ashley, her legs folded, and her eyes closed, but the sound of Ashley sobbing next to her was distracting. Cassidy had tried to console her for several minutes and gotten nowhere. Now, an older looking woman, who might actually be a human, Cass couldn’t quite tell without probing in her mind, was sitting on the other side of her friend, and the two of them were talking quietly. With other members of the team going in and out of the Vampire holding cells and the Vampires themselves protesting loudly, concentrating was going to be difficult, but Cassidy had to try.
She needed to find Dr. Stewart before he got too far away. It had crossed her mind that she might be able to contact some of the other area teams herself and send them after him if she could pinpoint his location, but Holland had to be masking him somehow. Even with his name and enough about him that she could picture him from his former students’ minds, she wasn’t able to find him anywhere.
Nor could she locate Holland or Hines. At this point, she knew it had to be a matter of time before both of them came after her and Cadence. Otherwise, there was no point in locking up the Guardians. Who she would send, or how she would go about it, Cassidy wasn’t sure, but she’d throw everything she had at it, and Holland wouldn’t be able to avoid the fray herself.
Cassidy could see the book Christian had found in the archives in his memories, could see his perspective, but couldn’t read the text. The language was ancient, and probably not even English, though she didn’t know what it was. He needed to fix this, sooner rather than later.
Her cell phone rang, but she ignored it. The only people who would contact her that way were humans, and none of them could help her right now. She adjusted in her chair, tilted her head back and forth a few more times, and jumped into Ty Duke’s head. Up until a few days ago, he’d been a starting guard for his college hockey team. Now, he was in holding, screaming about how unfair it was that he was still here. But in his head, she could see how Dr. Stewart had lured him into his office late one afternoon, the curtain over the door closed, and changed his whole world forever. It wasn’t right—nor was it fair for the other five people Stewart had taken advantage of. They were all sitting here now, four guys and two girls. Both slim brunettes with similar builds to hers and Cadence to make it easier on Holland to mask, she supposed, and all of them were upset and angry about the entire affair.
Cassidy had gotten just about everything she could find out of all of them. None of them knew anything about Holland. Each new Vampire had simply had a task to perform, and none of them had signed on to do it, which meant that Holland had used her powers to make them comply without them even knowing she existed. She was stronger than Cassidy had been giving her credit for. Maybe sitting over in Europe doing nothing for these past six months or so had made her powers grow stronger. Maybe Daunator was actually behind this, though she couldn’t imagine he would’ve wanted to get involved in Holland’s scheme. Cassidy had spent enough time in the queen’s head after she’d found Daunator to know how angry he had been about the entire mess.
Stewart—she had to find him. Cassidy envisioned where she was on a map. Math wasn’t her strong point, but she figured if he left Shepherdstown at about 4:00 AM, and he had a car that could average 150 miles per hour like the ones the LIGHTS team drove, that meant the furthest away he could be was about five hundred miles. That wasn’t likely—unless he took another form of transportation. She drew a circle on a map in her head and looked at every place within that radius. It was huge, heavily populated, and full of places to hide. No, she wouldn’t be able to just stumble upon Hamish Stewart. There’d have to be another way. Maybe she could draw him out.... He wouldn’t be stupid enough to take a plane, would he? They’d certainly find him if he did.
Her phone rang again, and it didn’t stop. Frustrated, she pulled it out of her pocket and opened one eye. When she saw who it was, her breath caught in her throat. Amanda Keen, Brandon’s mom. And she’d left four voice mail messages in the last few minutes. With a deep breath, Cassidy listened to each of them. Amanda sounded panicked. She’d tried calling Brandon and hadn’t gotten anything at all, not even an option to leave a voicemail. Cassidy had tried the same thing herself, so she understood. And then Elliott and Aaron hadn’t answered either. Was everything okay?
A million questions swirled around Cassidy’s mind, but Amanda’s was one she could certainly answer. No... everything was not okay. Not by a long shot.
