Brandon’s leg was shattered, of that much he was sure. He’d done his best to break his fall, lurching for the side of the Colosseum as he fell, but he’d collided with several layers of travertine on his way to the ground, and he was pretty sure he’d scraped off plenty of skin as well. When he finally made contact with the earth, his leg buckled beneath him, and he screamed in agony, thankful Cassidy wasn’t there to see him crying.
Except she was. She was in his head and had been for the entire painful plummet. As soon as he realized she could hear him, he sucked in the scream and willed himself to focus on anything else—like the fact that gunfire encircled them, and he had no idea where Dax was.
Heather was bleeding from a cut on her head, but other than that, she seemed unharmed. “Are you okay?” she asked before she climbed off of him and took a look at his leg. “Holy hell! The whole bone’s stickin’ plumb out!”
“Ya think?” he asked looking at his femur protruding from the shredded skin. He thought about trying to shove it back in himself, but the idea made him want to vomit. He glanced around, trying to tell what was happening, how they happened to land in the middle of a war zone, wondering if he should draw his Glock or just sit tight and take in the situation.
He spotted Dax then, way up above him, holding onto the side of the Colosseum. Carefully, the former forest ranger began to scale down the side of the structure, and Brandon hoped neither one of them had done any permanent damage to the ancient relic. It looked like Dax had a pretty good grasp of what he was doing, and Brandon held back his jealousy over the fact that he might’ve been able to control his own landing better if he wasn’t carrying Heather.
She had Alex’s musket from behind her back now and was taking careful aim as figures neared them. “Be careful,” Brandon warned her. “I’m guessing some of these people are on our side?”
“Brandon, you need to accept visuals from Lex,” Cassidy said, which wasn’t quite what he’d expected her to say first, but he realized from her tone, it was urgent. “He’s trying to get in contact with you. They’re on their way to you.”
“Okay,” he said, doing as instructed. He saw Lex’s name in the corner of his eye and allowed visuals for the tall, Italian with the strong nose and equally masculine chin structure. Returning his attention to his girlfriend, he asked Cassidy, “Hey, baby. How’s it going?” knowing the full on cheese would calm her down a little bit.
“Just great,” she said back in a sarcastic whisper. “Listen, I’m gonna let you concentrate on not getting caught in the crossfire, babe, okay? I love you.”
“I love you so much.”
Through Lex’s visuals, Brandon could see many more black uniforms than Vampires, but the bloodsuckers were vicious, coming at Hunters and Guardians alike with no fear. Lex was doing his best to direct his troops to keep the Vampires from reaching where Brandon and Heather were pinned, but despite the numbers being on his side, the Vampires were closer and moving in.
Heather wasn’t taking any chances, and Brandon couldn’t blame her. She’d been duped before by these creatures of the night. As a woman with long red hair stepped out of the tall grass alongside a crumbling wall, Heather opened fire, shooting her several times before she stumbled forward, colliding with the Hybrid. “You’re going to need a silver knife,” Brandon managed, drawing one out of his pocket and tossing it to Heather. She caught it and plunged it into the Vampire’s throat. Brandon realized immediately that the reason Lex’s people were struggling was because these weren’t ordinary Vampires. They were Holland infused—they had the backing of the Vampire Queen influencing them.
Before another Vampire could head their direction, Brandon reached up and grabbed the sleeve of Heather’s shirt and pulled her back to him. “Listen, you need to set up a shield.”
“A what?” she asked, her forehead crinkling. Across from them, about a hundred yards away, another Vampire stepped through a hole in the Colosseum wall and bounded toward them.
“A shield,” Brandon said again. “Cass does it all the time, so I bet you can, too. You just need to use all of your energy and concentrate on blocking any signals coming in from Holland. I don’t know exactly how Cass does it, but she does it with her mind.”
“With my mind? You think I can set up some sort of protection from some damn Vampire I ain’t never heard of with my mind?”
“Yes, I do,” Brandon assured her. The Vampire was almost on top of them now. He aimed his Glock in its direction and slowed it down, but even the titanium bullets weren’t enough to stop it. “Just... try Heather. Concentrate!”
“But that damn thing’s comin’ right at us!”
“Yeah, and they’ll continue to do so unless you can set up a shield!”
The bloodsucker was within ten feet when Dax launched himself off of the lowest rung of the amphitheater and landed on its back. His knife was already in his hand, and he used it to saw through what used to be an older man’s neck. It took him a few moments, but he finally managed to break it loose. The creature burst into ash, and Dax dropped to the ground.
“We need to get you out of here,” he said to Brandon.
“I can’t walk.”
“That’s all right. I can carry you.” Dax leaned down and attempted to scoop the larger Guardian up, but the second he moved his leg, Brandon screamed in pain, and Dax set him back on the ground.
“Sorry,” Brandon said, stopping short of grabbing his leg. “It’s not gonna work. If Heather can block Holland, we should be able to mow them down.”
