“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 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

“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.

A steady stream of Vampires poured out of the trees, firing off round after round at her unsuspecting teammates as they stood outside of the cave, waiting for any sign of life from her aunt who was trapped inside. Unable to put any more attention on what was going on with Cassidy, now that they were being assaulted from behind, Jo turned and shouted at the others to open fire on the Vampires.Shrieks and screams around her let her know that some of the LIGHTS personnel had already been hit. The Healers got busy, sending wave after wave of blue light across the opening, but the bullets were coming faster than the Healers could work, and Jo couldn’t even keep track of who all was hit. It became clear that these Vampires were using scandium bullets as it wasn’t just the Hunters that were falling. Guardians were being affected, too.Jo spun her Beretta around and began firing as quickly as she could, aiming at the lead Vampires

Jo hated crying almost as much as she hated Vampires, so she didn’t let herself do it for very long. The tears that fell were for Ping, for her parents, and for the fact that she had failed. As much as Cadon thought he knew her, that he had recognized the fact that she wasn't trying and that’s why she hadn’t been able to pull this off, it simply wasn’t true. Jo had wanted to complete the task her dad had assigned to her, to be successful. But it was clear now that she wasn’t the person for the job. As soon as they finished their exploration of the cave, they’d head back to the hotel, and she’d tell them that she was recommending someone else take charge. Who that might be, she wouldn’t hazard a guess at saying--Cassidy, Brandon, or Cadon would all do a better job than she had. Mila or Mikali could do it, too, for that matter. Basically, anyone could’ve managed to do what she had, which was next to nothing, other than g