Chapter 41

Flying into the campsite they’d left only about an hour ago, Jo spotted Ryker sitting by the blaze, smoking a cigarette, a habit she had no idea he even partook in, a calm expression on his face. At her approach, he didn’t wince, raise a weapon, anything. How had he known she wasn’t a Vampire?
She suspected she knew how. “You told them, didn’t you?”
Without looking up from the spot on the ground he’d been studying since she arrived, he asked, “Told who what?”
“The Vampires! They knew what mine we were coming to next because you tipped them off.”
His shoulders jerked up and down with a laugh, his enormous fur coat moving like the beast who’d given up the pelt. “No, I didn’t tell the bloodsuckers anything.” His eyes raised to meet hers then. “When would I have done that? Before you kidnapped me, I didn’t know where you were going. Now that I’m here, well I haven’t been alone until you left. I’d say that wouldn’t be enough notice. Besides, what makes you think I’d help them?”
Anger continued to course through her veins as she had to assume he was lying. How else would they have known? “I have no fucking idea why you’d help them, but you clearly have in the past. Otherwise, why would you know about reserve de sange?”
He stared at her for a long moment, his eyes cloudy, or maybe it was the smoke from the fire or his cigarette. Without a word, he slowly shook his head in disbelief.
“He didn’t tell them.” Cassidy’s voice sounded over her shoulder a second before her aunt came to stand beside her. “I didn’t have to dig too deeply to find that out.”
“Stay the fuck out of my head, you witch!” Ryker shouted at her. He stood then, turned, walked a few paces, stopped, and growled.
With her mouth hanging open in surprise, Jo turned to her aunt. “Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. They must have just had several locations on the ready. He didn’t tell them.”
Letting out a deep breath through her nose, Jo pondered whether or not she should apologize to the bastard. Would he say he was sorry to her under the circumstances? Definitely not. “Maybe it is time we let you go,” she said. “See how you can handle the big bad world out there now that the monsters know you’re a nark.”
“I’d gladly take my chances with them as opposed to spending one more minute with you!” He turned to look at her as he spoke, the venom in his eyes more evident than any poison a Vampire could infuse in its prey.
“We’re headed to Moscow,” Emma said, leading a pack of teammates back from the woods. “You can come with us.”
“Who is we?” Jo asked. She’d told Emma to do what she needed to do, but who was she planning to take with her?
“Well, I was hoping you’d give me Mikali since he knows the area better than anyone else. Or Mila. Or--”
“Fine,” Jo said, not wanting to listen to anymore. “Take Mikali. And this asshole, if he wants to go.”
“Sign me up,” Ryker said, still glaring at her.
Jo had no idea what she’d done to make him so unbelievably mad. It wasn’t the accusation that he was working with the Vampires. He’d already been angry at her before that. All she’d ever done was try to keep him from getting killed.
“All right then. Take my SUV?” Mikali asked, sounding relieved to have a reprieve for a few moments.
“Sure,” Emma said.
Jo assumed he was actually asking her, but she didn’t care what the hell he took, as long as he took Ryker. She stared at him for one more moment and then turned away, praying she never saw that man again.
“Can I talk to you for a second?” Cassidy asked.
Grumbling beneath her breath, Jo walked away from the others with her aunt, wondering what in the world she was about to be yelled at for now. Being the leader of this operation sure didn’t keep her from getting her ass handed to her.
Cassidy stopped under cover of a few trees closer to the woods that surrounded the clearing. She folded her arms and said, “Your to-do list is just going to keep getting longer if you don’t go back in there.”
Confused, Jo studied her face, her own forehead crinkling as she stared at Cassidy. “In the cave? How can I go back in there when I didn’t get a chance to go in in the first place?”
“In there as in back in the fray.” Cassidy sighed and ran a hand through her long dark hair, as if she couldn’t stand to speak to Jo anymore either. “Listen, you’ve got a lot to do, little missy, and walking away from here with a cave full of angry Vampires isn’t going to help matters. You’ve gotta go talk to Eliza and Lucas because you’re the only one they’ll listen to, except for your dad, which isn’t an option, figure out how far along these scandium bullets are and how to stop them, look out for hunter assassins, track down the queen, kill her, oh, and maybe figure out what happened to your mom. Not to mention, Elliott’s team is on their way back here because they also failed, which means, you’re probably going to have to take a break in there at some point and help me find Heather. Sounds to me like you’ve already got a full plate. So let’s go take these assholes out while we can.”
Jo studied her aunt for a moment. She had been aware of all of those tasks, but having them rattled off at her at such high velocity was intimidating, to say the least. How in the world was she going to do any of those things, let alone all of them? “How… how am I going to… defeat these Vampires?” It was the only question she could ask without sounding like a complete and utter failure.
Cassidy shrugged. “We know my shield works. We know the silver nitrate works. I bet we have more explosives available than you’re aware of. I’m assuming nobody showed up here without bringing their own shit. Let’s see what we can put together. If we can create a bomb that will both bring down the cave ceiling by the entryway and melt any Vampires that it touches, I call that a win.”
“But won’t they just dig their way out?”
“Probably, those that survive, but it will take time, and we could potentially bring down their operation, at least for a little while, which means this cave of horrors won’t be making any more bullets for a couple of days. We may as well give it a whirl.”
This sounded like a dangerous situation, one Jo wasn’t sure she was ready to hurdle herself into, not that she’d ever let a little danger stop her before. The idea that Cadon would be left to finish that list of things that had to be done if something happened to her made her think twice. “Are you sure those new bullets can’t hurt you?” she asked.
Rolling her eyes, Cassidy pulled the black leather top she was wearing away from her skin and stuck her finger through a hole that would’ve been right above her heart, had the fabric been lying flat. “Yeah. It bounced. Nothing can kill me. Come on.”
The words, “Must be nice,” danced on her tongue, but Jo bit the proclamation back. She didn’t actually think it would be nice--to never be able to die, to know you were stuck in this shithole of a world forever, no matter what. No thanks. “Fine,” she said instead, and walked with her aunt back to where the rest of the team was congregated, talking about what had happened, what they thought should happen next, and how the hell they were going to get out of a situation where the Guardians could no longer protect the Hunters. It was going to be yet another very long night.