Chapter 80

Waking to the sounds of screaming was nothing new, and yet, every time it happened, Jo McReynolds felt her heart leap into her throat. Like every other night for the past few weeks, she tossed the blankets off of her legs and headed for the door, wishing she could do something to help but knowing that she was running to her aunt’s aid not because she could actually be of use but because she was obligated to do so. That and because, whenever Cassidy started screaming like this, it scared the bejesus out of everyone, including Jo.
Her legs carried her down the hallway of the house they’d borrowed from Lucas’s Souled Vampire friend, Adrian, who wasn’t even there to sleep in his own bed. He had volunteered to track Holland’s car when it left the castle in Poland during the last attack. Now, they had a good idea where the Vampire queen was hiding, but their best weapon was still on the fritz, and even though Heather McBride assured them that things were getting better, this was night twelve in a row where Cassidy woke all the Hunters with her screaming and sent all of the Guardians who weren’t related to her outdoors to get some peace in the snowy Russian night air.
By the time she reached the room, the screams had died down. The door was open, probably left that way by Zane, Jo’s ex who maybe wasn’t her ex anymore, who was standing across from Cassidy’s bed toward the back of the room, out of the way. He wasn’t related to Cassidy, but he always came when she screamed, the only Guardian who didn’t look for an escape route, other than Cassidy’s husband, Brandon Keen, and his dad, Elliott Sanderson, who were both leaning over the Hybrid now. The other woman in the room, Heather, who was also a Hybrid, half-Hunter/half-Vampire, was leaning over Cassidy’s shaking body whispering to her quietly.
“I want to go home!” Cassidy screamed. “Leave me the fuck alone! I want my mom and dad!”
Jo went to stand by Zane, waiting to see what happened next. Most of the time, one of the Healers would come into the room and give Cassidy a sedative, but no one had called for one of them yet, and neither Scott nor Cale were quick to administer the heavy medication if they didn't have to. It seemed like every time Cassidy took a step forward, the next night, she’d take two steps back. One day last week, she remembered Brandon for a few minutes and even knew her own name. Then, that was gone, and she thought she was in high school, late for an exam. Whatever it was Holland had done to her mind when she sent her into that wall in the castle, she’d done a hell of a lot of damage, and while Heather was certain she could piece it all back together, it wasn’t happening quickly. Not quickly enough, anyway.
Without bothering to ask how she was doing, Jo took up her usual post at the foot of the bed near Zane, as Cassidy’s husband tried to reason with her. “Cass, baby, come on. Don’t you recognize me? We’ve been married for over twenty years.”
“Get away from me, you monster!” Cassidy shouted, clearly not recognizing Brandon or anyone else. “I said I want my mom! I’m too young to be married, you bastard. Where’s Cadence? Cadence!”
Jo braced herself, her hands automatically making fists so tight her nails dug into her palms. This was always the part that was the most painful for her to watch, when Cassidy couldn’t remember that Cadence Findley McReynolds, her older sister, Jo’s mother, wasn’t there. Whether she was dead or had just been missing for the last ten years, no one knew for sure, and that’s what Jo had been trying to find out from Holland when she’d thrown Cassidy against the wall, knocking her senseless. Now, she had to listen to Brandon and Elliott try to remind Cassidy that Cadence, “wasn’t there right now,” but that she was safe, and she was going to be fine.
The next person to enter the room was Cadon, Jo’s older brother by a few minutes. The two of them hadn’t gotten along for years, not since Jo had had a falling out with their father, Aaron, and said a lot of things she now regretted. Though they had been working on their relationship a little at a time recently, neither of them were too excited to see one another. Still, Cassidy was an aunt to both of them, so when he heard the screaming, he usually came, too.
“Where are we tonight?” he asked, standing next to Jo, a solemn expression on his handsome face. He looked a lot like their dad. Everyone said so.
“High school, I think,” Jo said. “I’m really not sure. She just keeps asking for her parents and Mom.”
Cadon sucked in a deep breath at that last word, and Jo knew that the pain was real for him, too, even though he often tried not to show it. “Can we do anything to help?”
“I’m going to go ahead and call Scott in,” she said. “This isn’t going to resolve itself on its own.”
Cadon nodded in agreement, so Jo utilized her IAC, or Intelligence Assistance Communicator, a small computer all of them had embedded in their eye, and sent a message to Scott. “Can you please come and sedate her?”
Sometimes, he asked for her to wait, not because he liked the idea of torturing Cassidy, but because he was hopeful a real breakthrough would only happen after a significant amount of this sort of behavior, but since it was apparent that this wasn’t working either, and he was probably tired of arguing, he said, “Yes. Be right there.”
“Thank you,” Jo said and turned the conversation off. To the others in the room she said, “Scott is coming,” also using the IAC since she wasn’t sure anyone would hear her if she spoke aloud over Cassidy’s thrashing noises.
“Well, he better fucking hurry,” Brandon replied, “because she is hella strong, and I feel like I’m about to have my eyes scratched out.”
Jo wasn’t sure how to respond to that. There wasn’t anything she could do to make Scott come faster, nor was there anything she could do to help him since Cassidy already had three adult bodies trying to hold her down. When Scott came into the room, he was practically flying, he was moving so quickly, and within milliseconds, the shot was administered.
Of course, it took a moment to work. Brandon, Elliott, and Heather continued to wrestle with Cassidy until her movements got slower and slower, and then she stopped fighting them, her curses becoming slurred as she slowly fell to sleep.
Jo had no idea how potent the sedative they were giving her aunt must be for it to work so well, but she imagined it was akin to something given to rhinoceroses on the open range in order to transport them from one savannah to another. Most drugs didn’t work very well on their kind. Jo could drink an entire case of beer and feel no different than she had when she started, which was unfortunate because getting drunk off of her ass had been something she’d enjoyed back in her human days, when she was a young teen. It had also been one of the ways she rebelled against her perfect mother and her perfectionist father. Now, the only way she could get a similar thrill was through a near death experience or killing Vampires.