The penthouse was far quieter than Cadon had ever experienced before. At least, he couldn’t remember a time when his previous home wasn’t buzzing with noise of some kind. Whether it was his parents talking and laughing or loud music coming from his sister’s room, noise always filled the space. Now, he was sitting on a foreign sofa in a room that was painted the wrong color and had no decorations on the wall, and all he could think about was whether or not any of his family members would ever be in this home with him again.
He’d decided to stop sitting in Christian’s office after a couple of hours of waiting for Jo to come back through the portal with his mom. It wasn’t that he didn’t have faith in either his sister or his mother. It was just… Ashley had told him the room was finished, and he’d needed to see it.
The angry monsters were coming at them, and Jo, Zane, Scott, and Cassidy were outnumbered at least ten to one. The chances of them being able to shoot all of the monsters dead before any of them died were slim to none.Thankfully, Cassidy didn’t have to shoot the monsters in order for her to get them out of their way. As Jo and Zane worked on shooting them, Cassidy used her powers to create a bubble around the monsters, one they couldn’t break through. Jo held her fire, afraid she might do something to mess Cassidy’s plan up. The men followed suit. The monsters were contained, but it wasn't clear how long they would stay that way, and they were still blocking the group from reaching the door, the only means of escape.For now.Cassidy directed Jo, Scott, and Zane to move behind her. “Get out
“Do you want to hold your mom’s hand?” Jamie asked Mallory as she lay on the operating table in his office. Cadon couldn’t believe how quickly everything was beginning to look like it used to. Even with the American government under collapse and citizens taking it upon themselves to hunt down Vampires and dispatch them, despite the laws that were still on the records, furniture, and other supplies were not that hard to find if one knew where to look–apparently.“Yeah, I’d like to hold her hand,” Mallory replied. She was so nervous, Cadon could see her shaking from his spot behind Jamie and slightly to the Healer’s left. Annastasia was standing on her daughter’s other side and had no problem taking her hand.“It’ll be fine,” Jamie assured her. Cadon had lost count of how many times he&
How Christian went about opening the portal, Jo wasn’t sure. It was like he cast a magic spell of some sort, though, when Scott asked him how he had done it, all Christian said was, “Science.” The next thing she knew, there was a wavering light in the wall of the black tunnel. An orange boundary grew brighter around the edges, and then inside of that, there was a moving orange light that seemed like a flickering fire in the distance. It was slightly different than the portal they’d come through, but it was close enough, and she was in a hurry to get her mother home where she belonged.Christian went through first, followed by Cadence, Cassidy, and Scott. Ryker followed him, and Zane insisted that Jo go ahead of her. But she grabbed hold of his hand to make sure that he didn’t get left behind. If he couldn’t come through the opening for some reason, she was staying, too,
Jo McReynolds brought her motorcycle to a stop outside what she could only assume was supposed to be a gas station of some sort, though by the looks of it, the establishment hadn’t been used for that purpose for at least the last few years. Trash overflowed out of the garbage receptacles on either side of the door. The lights inside flickered through dirt-covered, smudged windows, competing with lightning in the distance to illuminate the cracked asphalt parking lot and the corroded gas pumps out front. She put her kickstand down, checked her weapon was still strapped securely to her back, and swung her leg over the seat.This would’ve been easier if she had brought a Guardian with her, but most of the time, Jo preferred to work alone, especially in the last year or so when the situation with her so-called team had gone from bad to worse. It was hard to believe there had ever been a time when Vampires lurked in the shadows, and Hunters and Gu
The first bloodsucker went down easy enough with a quick blast from Jo’s Glock, which gave her hope that these were old school Vampires, the kind that died quickly with a bullet or two, not the reengineered kind that had showed up a few days after the Revealing, and certainly not the pesky Souled kind that they’d discovered the year before Jo was born. No, with any luck, all of these dirt bags would turn out to be good ol’ fashioned bloodsuckers and fall down dead like good boys and girls with a blast of her weapon. She’d find out quickly enough.A spray of ash from the first one, and a scream from a few others who were either so startled at her sudden appearance or just timid by nature, gave Jo the few seconds she needed to aim at the shadows and send a woman with long, scraggily black hair into oblivion.From her right, a thin specter rushed her, his long claws reaching for her face. Jo whirled around, raising
Even though it was late, there was a busy crossroad ahead of Jo, and she knew she was going to have to at least bring her bike to a low throttle, if not stop completely, in order to safely make her way across what used to be an Interstate Highway. Since the Vampires had basically claimed much of this part of town, most of the humans who lived here didn’t ever come to these parts, or if they did, they did so in the daylight. Still, no matter who or what was driving the cars up ahead, there were more of them than Jo had collectively seen in the last few minutes since this was a major artery that cut through the center of Denver, so she couldn’t rush into oncoming traffic despite the fact that the black SUV behind her was closing at an ungodly rate.Taking her eyes off of the asphalt ahead of her Jo looked over her shoulder. How was it the SUV was possibly closing? “Goddamnit!” She whirled back around and considered pressing even har
It was no surprise that Aunt Cassidy was already sitting in her living room by the time Brandon found a parking spot in an inconspicuous location a few blocks away from Jo’s apartment building. Cassidy had no doubt parked in Jo’s parking spot in the garage at the rear of the building whereas the three of them were forced to traipse through the streets a good distance. They’d been hampered by the fact that they had to walk like regular people, rather than the superbeings they were. Although, if anyone peeking through the windows wanted to look carefully enough, they might notice there was something different about their weapons. Not that everyone wasn’t armed these days. Humans tried to protect themselves from Vampires, since it was okay to kill them if they attacked. Vampires didn’t need guns but they often carried them anyway. And then there were people like Jo and her family who would be taken in without question the second law enforcement
Jo’s mouth gaped open, and she was certain her eyes were wide enough to resemble dinner plates. Elliott’s words hovered around her mind for a few seconds before they slowly began to sink in, and her mouth managed to connect. “Dad… he’s… back?” She shook her head, still trying to process. “How long? He never called me.”“Maybe that’s because the last time you spoke to him, you said you hated him and if he ever tried to find you, you’d pull out the special titanium bullet you’ve been saving.” Cassidy’s glare was so intense, Jo could feel it on the back of her skull.She swallowed hard, not needing her aunt’s verbal reminder of what had transpired between herself and the Guardian Leader the last time they’d spoken. Words were exchanged…. Blame was placed…. She’d thought about calling not that long afterward and apolog