Chapter 59
Frustrated, Jo stood back a ways and tried to use her X-ray vision to see if there was any way to tell what they were up against. From what she could see, the entire cavern they’d been standing in was cluttered with large rocks that had come down from the ceiling or the interior walls of the mountain when the explosion had gone off. Most of the side tunnels were clear, so it might be possible to tunnel around the mess to get to the back, but they didn’t know where Cassidy was. There was a chance she’d moved or been blown out of the way when the explosion had occurred. She could be in the center of the pile of rubble, or in the back. She had no way of knowing.
If only she had the ability to force her aunt’s IAC on. It was possible that Cassidy had turned it off, either on purpose or accidentally, when the wave of energy had hit her. Maybe she didn’t want Brandon to see her go through that, or maybe she had hit the ground so hard, it had been jarred off. If she was still unconscious, she wouldn’t be able to turn it on, even if she was still alive. But the only people who could force another teammate’s IAC on were her dad, her mom, and Christian, and none of those people were around at the moment. And the only person capable of reading minds was Cassidy herself….
Except for Lucas!
“Eliza!” Jo practically shouted through her IAC, praying the Guardian answered quickly.
It only took a half a minute, but it seemed like an eternity before the response came. “Hey, Jo. What’s up?”
“We just got ambushed, and things are not going well at all,” she admitted.
“Oh, no. Where are you?”
“Hell if I know. X number three. Listen, I need Lucas’s help. Is he around?”
“Yeah, he’s right here. What’s going on?” Eliza sounded genuinely concerned, which was a bit of a surprise to Jo.
“Can he see if he can make contact with Cassidy? There was a cave in, and I can’t get her IAC. Maybe he can find her thoughts, if she has any.”
“I can ask him to try,” Eliza said, her tone sounding pessimistic, “But that’s difficult to do, especially when he doesn’t know where a person is and they’re likely unconscious.”
“If you have the map, we’re at that furthest X to the southeast.” She sent a picture of the map and the coordinates through her IAC. “Does that help?”
“Let me talk to him for a second, and I’ll get back to you.”
“Thank you!” Jo held her breath, waiting for a response from Eliza. In the meantime, Brandon was still moving rocks, and a few others had begun to help him, even though Jo still thought that was a bad idea. The last thing they needed to do was bring more of the mountain down. It would be great if they could borrow some mining equipment from somewhere to see if they could dig Cassidy out….
“He’s trying,” Eliza said.
“Thanks,” Jo replied, not as hopeful as she had been when she’d first thought of the potential solution. She had a feeling Cassidy would’ve been awake enough by now to send them a signal, if she were still alive. Granted, Jamie and Christian had done experiment after experiment on tissue samples to try to find something that could kill a Hybrid and had continuously come up short, but they probably didn’t know there was a chance scandium could kill her--or who knows what other elements the Vampires might’ve put into that explosion.
Brandon was growing more desperate in his rock moving, shouting and cussing at people to come and help. A lot of the wounded were healed now, the Healers having done their best. Jo looked over her shoulder and saw Scott and Cale both kneeling next to Ping. Scott saw her staring and slowly shook his head.
“Anyone else?” she asked him through her IAC.
“No, he’s the only one,” Scott replied.
She nodded, even though she wanted to add, “And probably Cassidy.” She didn’t. That much was obvious.
Her aunt was her mother’s only sister, Cadence’s only sibling. The two of them had been about three years apart in age and had always been very close, until Cadence had joined LIGHTS and left her sister in the dark about it. Once Cassidy found out she had been lied to about what her older sister was doing, she’d started to get herself into trouble, and then she was almost kidnapped by a Vampire, had gotten scratched, and needed an emergency shot of the Transformation serum to keep from becoming a Vampire herself. That’s what had led to her becoming a Hybrid.
She was a badass. She had a reputation for being able to handle just about anyone or anything. The fact that she’d been told she couldn’t die had been a big reason for that. When Jo was little, she’d spent a lot of time with Cassidy. She was her cool aunt who let her get away with a lot of shit. She and Brandon had talked about having kids, but Cass had always been so involved in LIGHTS, she hadn’t wanted to settle down and raise any rug rats, as she put it. She just kept putting it off. Until the Revelation happened, and then she’d said why in the world would anyone want to bring children into this world? She’d just wait until this crisis had passed, thank you very much.
And now, her husband was sobbing as he moved rocks, one at a time, in a futile search for her because her stupid ass niece had led them into a boobytrapped cave and managed to get them shot up by a bunch of asshole Vampires.
Whatever the outcome of this operation, whether they found Cassidy alive or not, Jo was planning on resigning her position the second this nightmare was over. Someone else could call the shots and have them search endlessly through caves for clues as to where the Vampire Queen might be. She’d be more than happy to let someone else be the one responsible for who lived and who died.
“Any luck at all?” Jo asked Eliza, but before the Guardian could answer, there was a tiny blip on her IAC that hadn’t been there before.
“Jo… tell my husband to get the fuck out of the way. I’m coming out.”
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