Chapter 315
Knowing what the enemy was doing was all fine and good, but it didn’t solve the problem. We were all silent for a moment, trying to figure out how to handle it. Elliott was the first to put the question to the table. “Terrific. So what the heck do we do about it?”
An answer popped into my head, a thought that hadn’t occurred to me before. Holland’s telepathy was strong, I knew that for certain. But I had a feeling mine was just as strong, maybe stronger. I had been able to get into her head, after all. I’d been in Paul’s head, too, and he wasn’t a Vampire. I’d even sent and received a message from Aaron the night before during the raid. I heard Christian say something in response to Elliott’s question, and caught the end of it, “I’ll have to go back and see if I can….”
Certain we were on the same wavelength, I said, “Go. Change the frequency. Do it now.” He looked at me like I was crazy, and maybe at the moment I was. “Put it back to what it’s supposed to be.” I needed to see if I could do this, if I could block her, before I lost my resolve.
I could tell Christian wanted to argue with me, but Aaron told him to go, so he went, and I closed my eyes tightly.
“Cassidy, are you okay?” Brandon whispered to me, but I was too busy to acknowledge him with more than a nod of my head. I wasn’t putting myself into a trance, but I did need to concentrate. I felt out into the universe, searching for the signal that Holland was sending. I can’t explain exactly how I was doing it or how I’d know if I found it, but I knew I would.
“Can we go ahead with…” Cadence asked quietly, like she didn’t want to disturb me.
Without looking at her, I said, “Yes,” and continued with my task.
They were discussing sending a team to Melbourne, I knew that much, but I wasn’t listening as Aaron talked about how he and Cadence would select the team. I was starting to get something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but there was a pulsating thought traveling through the air, and the more I concentrated my thinking on the trackers, the more it came into focus, like a laser beam fired from across the ocean, spreading out all over the world, masking the beeps from the trackers and stopping them from reaching us. I just needed to figure out how to interject my own thoughts into it in order to block it.
I heard Elliott say he didn’t think I would be able to do everything they were asking me to do and still block Holland, but I wasn’t offended. He was trying to keep them from overloading me. He qualified his statement by saying, “Even if she is…” and I inserted, “Savage,” getting a few chuckles as Elliott debated what that meant before he concurred. “Savage.”
Aaron agreed with Elliott, saying he didn’t want to overload me either, and then I let their conversation go again and sank my mind as far into the darkness as I could while using Brandon’s hand as an anchor to the real world. I could tell that Christian didn’t have the frequency right yet because the beeps from the tags were all over the place. I would’ve expected them to all be beeping together if they were going to the same place, but just as I was contemplating what I could do about it, something shifted, and the beeps switched so they were all in unison. He’d done his part, now I could do mine.
With everything I had left, I envisioned myself stepping between the laser beam and the receptors. I imagined it coming out of Melbourne, which made it easier to block. It took all my mental strength, but I could see it working when the laser flickered a few times and then stopped. It was like it was burning into my back, but I was able to keep it from hitting the Vampires. I was intercepting it, at least for the moment.
“Holy crap, Cass! You did it!” I heard Aaron’s exclamation, but I didn’t let up. Only he and Cadence would have the capacity to see the trackers through their IACs.
I opened one eye and looked at him. “It worked?” I shifted my gaze to Cadence.
“Yeah, it’s working!” Cadence patted me on the shoulder. “You really are….”
“Savage.” Aaron finished her thought and everyone started chuckling because it just didn’t fit his personality to say such a thing.
I couldn’t help but smile. “I can’t hold her off forever, but I can do it every once in a while.” Even as I was speaking the laser’s intensity seemed to build up, and I could feel myself slipping out of the way.
“That’s fine. I’ve got photos now of where they are at this moment. If you can just show me every hour or so, that will be helpful.” He was smiling at me confidently, and I was happy I was able to contribute something, especially after the huge mistake I’d made with Bonnie. I let go of my hold on the interference, and even though I couldn’t see what the Leaders could see, I was pretty sure Holland’s signal was back in place, making it so the trackers were no longer readable by our programs.
Christian came flying back into the room. “Well?”
“That did it,” Aaron confirmed. “Cassidy was able to get it working again.”
“Cool. I didn’t stay to look at the monitor.” I didn’t know whether he actually appreciated what I’d done or not. I imagined it would be hard for him to admit I was able to do something he couldn’t, but this didn’t have to do with technology savvy. This was purely brain power.
“Here are the snapshots,” Aaron said, sending the information to Christian through his IAC. “She’ll intercept Holland’s signal every hour so we can track them.”
“Manually?” Christian asked, his annoyance obvious.
“We don’t need pinpoints right now. We just need trends,” Aaron explained to him. Christian looked slightly appeased. “So back to the rescue mission.” I hadn’t heard much of what they were saying earlier, so I needed to tune in now. I assumed I’d be going. They’d need me to find Paul. “Now that we can monitor the trackers, Christian, I think you need to stay here. Help Hannah with command should the attack happen while the few of us who are going are gone.” Christian seemed to accept that, and I was surprised. I was fairly certain there’d be no attack while we were gone. They weren’t organized, and Holland was hesitant because the last effort hadn’t worked.
