Chapter 439
It really didn’t matter what I wanted, though. I knew if Alex had the chance to die, he’d take it. Which sounds morbid, but he never asked to be brought back from the dead in the first place, and that was over two hundred years ago.... He was tired of living, and he’d done an awful lot of it.
I took in a deep breath and headed off to Ashley’s room, messaging Tara back at the same time. Rather than repeating everything to each of them, I just told Tara to hold on a second, and I’d give her visuals once I was in Ashley’s room.
Ashley was smiling for the first time since she’d gotten Jamie’s last message. She was sitting on her bed, cradling her phone, wearing one of Jamie’s lab coats, which I thought was really weird. “Hey—why... does Jamie bring that with him?”
“Huh?” She looked down, like she’d forgotten she’d put it on. “Oh.” Her face went a little pink. “He brings all of his medical stuff—scrubs, stuff for surgery, just in case. I don’t know why I put it on....”
“No, I don’t blame you. I had Brandon’s shirt on all day, until I got blood on it.”
“Blood?” Tara chimed in in my head. “Whose blood?”
“Christian’s,” I said, hoping she wouldn’t ask a lot of questions.
“Why was Christian bleeding?”
“There was an incident.” To Ashley, I said, “Tara’s in my head. Do you mind?”
“No, not at all. I’ll turn her on, too.”
That would make it easier so I didn’t have to repeat everything Tara said to Ashley. “So Brandon says they’re in some sort of a tunnel, kind of like a cave. It doesn’t sound pleasant at all.”
“Right, Jamie said the same thing. But the good news is the portal is opening every six hours,” Ashley said. “So I’m going to tell him to just jump out next time.”
“I think they would’ve done that if they could,” Tara said. “Dax said sometimes it opens in some pretty dangerous positions, like into outer space.”
“Brandon said the same thing. But they’re working to figure out how to tell where it’s going to open next. I think, now that Ward has the book and can start to read it, maybe we’ll be able to figure out when it’s going to open somewhere safely, and then they can get out.” I suddenly remembered what Brandon said about the one left behind rule. “Only....”
“Only what?” Ashley asked me, the smile fading away.
“Only... he said he doesn’t think they’ll all be able to get out.” I sat down next to Ash on the bed. “There’s a girl in there. Some of the guys have said she’s a Vampire, but I think she’s a Hybrid. Her name is Heather, and Mina told me there was a girl like me named Heather. Anyway, she said that the portal won’t ever let everyone go. They have to leave one person behind.”
They were both quiet for a while, absorbing that. I decided, with that sort of reaction to the portal, I wasn’t going to tell them about the demons, unless one of them brought it up. I had a pretty good idea that Jamie would not have told Ashley that, even to save his life, and if Dax was thinking straight—which maybe he wasn’t if he’d been crying—he wouldn’t tell Tara either.
“So... what do you think they’ll do?” Ashley finally asked, her voice a whisper. “Draw straws or something?”
“Actually, no. That’s not what I think at all.”
Before I could tell them my theory, Tara said, “The older guys will make sure Dax gets out, right? I mean, there’s no way they’d leave him in there alone. Would they?”
“I’m sure they wouldn’t. I think Brandon and Dax will be the first ones out.”
“Then they can just leave that Heather girl,” Ashley said. “Who cares?”
I didn’t want to get into all of the reasons why I cared. “It seemed to me like Aaron has basically said if she helps them get out, they’ll make sure she gets out, too.”
“Well, then he can just stay behind!” Ashley’s emotions were no longer in check.
“I think he will.” I couldn’t bear to think about what that would mean for my sister. But I was determined to make it so it wasn’t an issue. “We need to figure out a way so that none of them have to stay behind.”
“But you just said one of them has to,” Tara reminded me.
“I said somebody has to stay behind. I didn’t say it had to be one of them. I’m sure my sister will come up with something. But I have a few ideas of who we could throw in there.” I bit my lip, trying not to say anything too ugly, even though I was definitely thinking it.
They didn’t ask, not specifically. Ashley said, “So you think we can toss someone else in there as they’re coming out?”
“I hope so.” I was eager to get back to headquarters and see what Ward had discovered. But first, we had some Vampires to kill—probably. If they showed up.
I stayed on Ash’s bed and we chatted for several hours. Tara didn’t stay the whole time because she was working on something for Hannah. I didn’t ask specifics but I knew it had to do with tracking Holland’s planes, in case they took off. Both of us sent texts back to the guys so that they’d get them the next time the portal opened.
We decided to go ahead and take the luggage down to the car so it would be ready to go before we got distracted. Ashley had a hard time taking Jamie’s coat off, but she did it with only a few tears, and then we came back inside to her room. She said at least her own shirt smelled like him now.
Ashley and I ate the snacks she’d brought and reminisced. It was nice to tell stories about our boyfriends, like they were just gone for a little while and would be back in a few hours. I prayed that was the case.
My sister finally blinked on my IAC around 11:00. I wondered if she’d been sleeping the whole time or if she’d been taking care of other business before she decided to let me know she was available. I thought I’d heard footsteps on the stairs a few minutes before, but Ashley was telling a really funny story about a cooking incident where she’d left the cardboard on the bottom of a frozen pizza, and Jamie discovered his blue healing powers don’t work on supreme pizza, so I wasn’t sure if it was Cadence on the stairs or my imagination. I thought she might be taking her luggage out to the car, along with Aaron’s. I hoped she’d gotten a text from him this time but didn’t want to ask in case she hadn’t.
I stayed for another hour-ish but left a little after midnight, well before we’d be expecting the next round of texts. I figured there wasn’t much else to say at this point anyway, and if there was any new information in Brandon’s text, I could pass it along through an IAC message. I needed to see how my sister was doing, and we needed to get ready in case Holland’s people did show up.
She was sitting cross-legged on the bed, staring at her phone, which is unusual for my sister. “How’s it going?”
Cadence let out a loud sigh but smiled. “Okay. You get your text?”
“Yep. Did you?”
She nodded. “Sounds like they’re making good progress. And the fact that the portal opens every few hours is also promising.”
“Yeah.” I sat down in the same chair I’d been in before, wondering exactly what Aaron had told her. “You, uh, know what they’re up against?”
“You mean the creatures? Yeah, I know. As much as I miss him, I’m really glad Jamie’s in there.”
“Me, too.” I would’ve never said that to Ashley. I decided not to mention the one left behind rule to Cadence. She had enough to worry about right now. “I guess they found Heather.”
“Isn’t that crazy? All this time you’ve been looking for her, she was in a portal.” She shook her head but didn’t say anything else. We were both on our phones again for a while until it was almost time for the portal to open again. That anxious feeling was mounting in my stomach. It occurred to me that I still hadn’t called my mother or found time to take a shower. My clothes were in the SUV now, and I thought my mom would probably have to be asleep by now. At least she wouldn’t scare the crap out of me with another ill-timed text.
