“Well?”
The sound of Zane’s voice brought Jo back to the Jeep. She glanced at the clock on the dashboard. It had only been about ten minutes since they’d left Eliza and Lucas’s house, but it seemed like she’d been lost in her thoughts forever. The conversation she’d had with Eliza, after the official meeting was over, had revealed much more about the situation than the few minutes of discussion she’d had with the couple in the living room. She thought there was a good chance they’d agree to help her team find Holland, but she wasn’t sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing.
“Well--what?” Rather than just blurt all of that out to Zane, she decided to give him a chance to pull it out, piece by piece, like a dentist in the 1800s trying to extract a shattered molar. That’s how Jo tended to do things.
“What do you think?” He had on
The bed next to her was empty when Jo woke up the next morning. She shouldn’t have been surprised; as much as she’d wanted to jump Zane the second they’d walked into the room, to take the passion he’d displayed when he’d kissed her in the Jeep to the next level and let all of her emotions out in one fast, furious fuck, she’d realized that it would be a mistake. He didn’t deserve to be objectified in that way, even if she was beginning to realize her feelings for him were still alive, just buried deep, and he wouldn’t have minded the abuse--on the surface. Eventually, when he saw that it hadn’t meant the same thing to her, he’d begin to regret it, and she didn’t want there to be anything else between them, not if she ever planned on attempting to salvage this relationship. For the first time in months, she was beginning to realize she wanted to.She looked around the room and saw that she w
Hardly a living soul was visible as Jo and Zane walked down the streets of Magadan. The wind was blowing at a sharp clip, sending the snow from the ground swirling and biting into their skin. It didn’t bother either of them, but a human would’ve found it quite unpleasant.Jo was glad for the solace of it. They made their way down the deserted streets, away from the hotel and the mostly closed up shops toward what used to be a city park. Now, the plants had taken over much of the area, the high grass visible above the snow, the tree branches clearly needing a good trim, and the play area rusted, many of the attractions missing key parts. It looked exactly how she would expect a park abandoned after an apocalypse to look, which made her feel quite welcome.A large pond took up the far western quarter of the park. Jo headed there. Her keen eyesight cut through the distance so that she could see the surface long before she arriv
The drive back out to the compound was relatively silent. Jo hated that her relationship with Zane was currently strained. Since she’d arrived in this hell-hole of a mission, he’d been the only one she could consistently rely upon to keep her moving forward. She needed someone like that, someone who believed in her even when she couldn’t see past the fact that she had never been anything but a mess up. The situation needed to be fixed, but if she was any good at correcting her mistakes, she wouldn’t feel like a screw up all the time to begin with.This time, when they arrived outside of the gate, Lucas’s band of Souled Vampires were already waiting for them. Not only were there far fewer Vampires escorting them in, the ones that were there had their weapons slung against their backs, not at the ready as they had been the night before. It was clear something had changed. Whether or not that should make Jo feel better or not r
“A few of your associates?” Jo repeated, her feet not budging from the hallway as she continued to stare into what could only be described as a library or office full of Souled Vampires. Every single one of them was looking at her, amber eyes shining, as they took her in. Just as her intestines were on fire as the enemy sent her bloodstream ablaze, their natural reaction was to see her as the enemy, someone they needed to destroy.“Yes,” Lucas said, his forehead crinkling as he looked at her, gauging her reaction. “Didn’t Eliza tell you that?”“Uh… if she did, I didn’t process it correctly,” Jo stammered.“No, I didn’t tell her that you wanted her to meet with a dozen of your strongest, scariest Vampire henchmen--and women,” Eliza replied, coming up behind them. Jo didn’t dare take her eyes off of the room of Vampires to address
The hotel near the next X the team had decided needed to be addressed was only slightly better than the first hotel they’d stayed in almost a week ago when they’d first entered the area. Zane pulled into a parking space in a nearly empty gravel lot, and Jo hopped out, glad to be out of the Jeep.They’d hardly spoken at all on the way back. She’d done her best to spend her time wisely, checking in with her teammates, including a long conversation with Elliott about how much it sucked to be stuck in Turkey, which is where his team was currently dealing with transportation issues, and an update on the situation in the US where the Australian Army was amassing near the southern border, and President Crimson still wasn’t willing to budge. It looked like the situation there was about to get ugly, and she was honestly glad she wasn’t having to deal with that mess, even if the challenges that lay in front of her were not exact
The informant ended up being quite useful, allowing Jo’s team to get into position so that they would be able to ambush the group from an overpass as their bus left a suburb of Moscow. They’d had to hurry to get into position, but then, Stasha had told them the bus was taking its time, stopping frequently, occasionally to pick up more pathetic humans who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and found themselves chained, gagged, probably drugged, and sitting in a vehicle on the highway to hell.They wouldn’t have a lot of time to act, assuming the bus was going full speed when it arrived, but Jo felt confident about the assignments she’d given. Their plan was to shoot the tires out, which would force the bus to stop. She doubted there’d be much chance of any of the humans inside surviving, except for maybe Ryker and any others who were working alongside the Vampires and might be able to brace for impact with th
Coughing and spewing, Jo pulled herself up off of the ground and peered through the thick smoke billowing from what had been the door to the bus. She hadn’t been standing that close, but the explosion had knocked her backward at least ten feet into a snowbank. Around her, she saw several members of her team beginning to reanimate, pulling themselves up off of the ground, shaking their heads to clear them.Remembering that Cadon had been within inches of the door when the explosion had rocked them all away from the vehicle, Jo searched the ground frantically, looking for her twin. Not a trace of him anywhere, she spun around, trying to locate him. Where could he have flown to? Surely, the explosion wasn’t so intense it had torn him apart?When she spotted him, standing on top of the overpass, at least forty feet above her head, she couldn’t help but let her mouth drop open. He looked perfectly fine, like he didn’t
“We need a better place to meet,” Jo stated as the entire team crowded into their hotel room. There were simply too many people to hunker around a coffee table in a shabby hotel in the frigid tundra of northern Russia. “It’s too bad the log cabin isn’t closer to the mines.”“It’s too bad we are even in Russia to begin with, but it is what it is,” her brother retorted, his arms folded across his chest as he sat staring at her from a chair across from where Jo perched on the armrest of the couch.“Did I mention how thankful I am that Aunt Cass saved you?” she said dryly. Cadon only shook his head slightly, his eyes narrowed. “What have you got on our next target, Dr. Ryan?” Jo asked. She’d deployed a team, headed by Cale, to gather as much information as possible about the mine in question, which was about fifteen miles from where they were gathered.