Chapter 426
The three Guardians who had ahold of me started moving me toward the door, but the further away from Christian I got, the more I wanted to come back for round two. I was so close to using my levitational powers to see if they could free me, but in the back of my mind, I thought I could end up hurting someone who didn’t deserve it, and I didn’t want Christian to turn me into that kind of monster.
Nevertheless, if I could break free of my own accord, I was going to do it. I twisted and turned, picked my feet up off of the ground and kicked, shouting, “I’m going to kill you, Christian Henry! And you know I can!”
If he was smart, he would’ve kept his mouth shut, but instead he told me where I could go and called me a nasty name.
“Seriously?” Cadence asked, taking her eyes off of me for a second to look at him.
Christian had a smirk on what was left of his face, but then his expression changed really quickly, and I could only assume he’d gotten an IAC message from someone to knock it off. If it wasn’t Cadence, it had to have been Hannah, who was technically his boss at the moment. Hannah might seem all nice and gentle most of the time, but when she’s mad, you’ll know it.
By then, I was out in the hall, and they were dragging me to an elevator. Once I couldn’t see Christian anymore, I began to calm down. I still wanted to murder him, but that would have to wait till later. I stopped trying to break free, and by the time we reached the basement, the grips on my arms had loosened, though no one let go of me completely.
The elevator doors opened, and Job led us down a long, dark hallway. Up ahead of us, there were three holding cells, similar to the place where Sam and Laura had been kept, though a little nicer, and there were windows in the doors so we could see them. The Vampires inside looked upset or bored. They were sitting on beds or cots. Some of them were pacing inside of the small space. None of them looked happy.
A line of chairs was set up across from the cells, and people with clipboards were taking notes. What they were doing exactly, I had no idea, but Ashley was one of them. I was glad to see her, even if I might have to explain to her that I’d just torn the face off of one of our teammates.
I pulled away from the Guardians as soon as Ash saw me. She stood up and I wrapped my arms around her. It was just nice to see someone who knew exactly how I felt. I was sure she’d be just as angry as I was at Christian when she found out what he’d done. Ash wouldn’t tear his face off, though. She’s not as impulsive as I am. I was starting to feel a little childish.
Ashley pulled back a bit to look at me. “You look as awful as I feel.” The sound of her laughing made me feel slightly better for a moment until she said, “Oh, no! Are you bleeding?”
She had me by the wrist, and for the first time, I noticed how bloody my hands were. I even had sprinkles of blood on my clothes. “No,” I assured her. “But Christian is. A lot.”
Her mouth dropped open for a few seconds before she asked, “What happened?”
My sister interrupted. “I’m sure Cass will be happy to fill you in. I need to go talk to Christian, though. Can Cass hang out with you for a while?”
Ashley’s smile changed to alarm quickly, and I wondered if my sister had messaged her something. Still, she said, “Sure. I guess that means you haven’t heard anything from anyone?”
I glanced at my sister and could see that she was as confused as I was. “What do you mean?” Cadence asked. “Are you talking about the Guardians who disappeared?”
“Yeah, the guys that are missing,” Ashley confirmed, nodding. She pulled her cell phone out of her pocket. “I’ve tried calling Jamie’s cell a thousand times, but I keep getting an out of range message. I thought maybe if they disabled their IACs, they wouldn’t think to check phones, but I guess they did.”
“They who?” my sister asked, but she didn’t remember Ashley had missed out on that whole enlightening conversation we’d just had upstairs. Sure, we’d both been suspecting a portal before Christian confirmed it for us, but Ashley was still back about five moves behind where the rest of us were now.
“Ash, they weren’t taken by Vampires,” I said as gently as I could. “They’re in a portal.” Now it was my turn to reach out and comfort her.
Her pretty face went ugly. “What?” I thought she might throw up all over me, but I held my ground.
I continued, “Yeah, a Blood Moon Portal. We weren’t sure until a few minutes ago when Christian showed us footage of them just disappearing, but we’ve kind of suspected that’s what happened since we found those artifacts.”
“A portal?” Ashley sank down onto her chair, her face pale. “A portal? I didn’t think those really existed.”
It seemed like a silly thing to say, considering Elliott and Alex had both come through one, but I didn’t see the need to point that out. “They do. Apparently, more than one. And now we have to figure out how to get them back.”
“A portal?” She sounded like a broken record—whatever that means. The lady next to Ashley gave up her chair for me, and I thanked her and sat down next to her, keeping one hand on her, though I was afraid I might get her all bloody.
Hannah whispered something to my sister, and then Cadence said, “Cass, I’m going to go see exactly what Major Henry knows. Stay with Ash. Try to calm her down. I know how angry you are. I am, too, but we can’t rip the throats out of our own teammates, all right?”
“He’s lucky I didn’t kill him.” I gave her a pointed look so she’d understand I meant business.
“You don’t want his blood on your hands.” She looked down at my bloodstains. “Not all of it anyway.” She gave me another exasperated look and then turned and headed back to the elevator, her entourage in tow.
Once my sister was gone, I decided I needed to let her deal with Christian and focus on something else. I needed to find Hamish Stewart or Holland. I was frustrated that I couldn’t break through. Using her IAC, Cadence told me to try to help Ashley, but I didn’t know how I could do that. Right now, she was staring off in the distance, catatonic.
