Chapter 83

“You just promised I could do somethin’ that’s damn near impossible, honey,” Heather said, her arms folded beneath her chest as she stared into Jo’s eyes, unblinking. “I can’t get Cassidy back that quickly. Hell, I’m not sure I can get her back at all.”
“I know, Heather. And I’m sorry,” Jo assured her. “But I didn’t know what else to do. We have to help Jamie, and the only way Lucas would agree to it is if we took Cassidy with us. We can’t take her with us if she still doesn’t know who she is. So… you’ve got to fix her. And fix her fast.”
Heather shook her head until her curls danced. “Nope, nope, nope. Ain’t gonna happen.”
“I believe in you, Heather,” Jo said, knowing the cowgirl would never buy it.
“Damn you, girl! Damn you to hell!” Heather stormed off, headed for Cassidy’s room, and Jo followed, knowing that she would at least try.
She opened the door quietly, even though she was obviously agitated. Cassidy lay on the bed, her hands and feet tethered down, and her brown hair, slick with sweat, fanned out around her. It had been a few weeks since Holland had wiped Cassidy’s mind clean, and Heather hadn’t been able to put many of the pieces back together, despite her best efforts, so why would she assume she could do it now?
“Is there anything you haven’t tried that you think might work?” Jo asked as they stepped into the room. Brandon looked up from where he was sitting by the bed, stroking Cassidy’s hand.
“Why, yes!” Heather exclaimed, turning to look at Jo with her hands clasped together. “I know exactly what to do to unlock her mind from this blasted spell! I’ve just been toying with all of you for the last eighteen days!” Heather rolled her eyes and turned back around just as quickly as she’d whirled on Jo. She took the seat she always sat in to try to reach Cassidy, and Jo moved to the foot of the bed.
“Sorry,” she said. “You don’t have to be so snippy.”
“What’s happening?” Brandon asked, perking up.
“We’ve got to get Cassidy mobile so that we can go break Jamie and the other LIGHTS team members out of Crimson’s evil grip. But we can’t take her with us if she doesn’t remember who she is, so I’ve inadvertently put a little bit of pressure on Heather.”
“A little bit of pressure!” Heather screeched. “You promised the moon, and I ain’t even got a cow!”
“What was that?” Jo asked, confused by her statement.
Heather had moved on, though. She was breathing deeply with her hand on Cassidy’s arm, trying to put herself into a state where she could reach into Cassidy’s mind.
“Cow… moo… moon,” Brandon explained quietly. “Jo, I don’t think we can take Cassidy with us. There’s really no way that Heather’s going to be able to reach her in the next few days, and my understanding from speaking to Scott is that we need to be headed out as soon as possible if we’re going to be able to help Jamie and the others. Isn’t Margie on her way there? Won’t she get there before we do?”
“Maybe,” Jo said, folding her arms as she leaned against the wall. “Scott asked if we could go, though, and I don’t want to let him down. If it was my dad, I know I’d want to be there.” Thoughts of what it would’ve been like if she had had a chance to save her mom came to mind, but she pushed them away. She was just a child at the time. She couldn’t have saved her mom even if she had already Transformed at the time. There were just too many Vampires and not enough Hunters.
“I would do anything I could to help Jamie, too,” Brandon said. “I just don’t know how it’s possible. We can’t leave Cassidy here with the Souled Vampires, and she isn’t ready to travel. Maybe just a few of us should go to the US.”
“If she isn’t ready to travel, then I’ll stay here with her, and the rest of the team can go,” Jo said.
“No, I’ll stay,” Brandon said. “I’m not going anywhere without her.”
“But Lucas won’t agree to that. He’ll want me to stay behind, too.”
Brandon turned around to look at his wife, his forehead crinkled in thought. They were all quiet for a long time as Heather continued her probing into Cassidy’s mind, trying to reach her.
Elliott came in after a while, quietly opening the door and closing it behind him. He studied Cass and Heather for a moment and then walked over to lean on the wall next to Jo. “You don’t have to be here, you know. She probably won’t even wake up.”
“I know,” Jo said. She wasn’t sure why she’d stayed as long as she had. There were a lot of other things she needed to be doing, particularly if they would be leaving the continent soon. But since she’d asked Heather to invest her time and effort into fixing Cassidy, she felt like the task deserved her attention as well. “I want to stay for a while.”
Elliott rubbed his jaw and ran a hand through his curly hair. He was about a hundred years old by Jo’s best estimate, based on what she knew. Maybe even older. She’d never noticed that he looked old in any way, though. Like all of them, he’d Transformed at a young age and barely aged after that. Still, studying his face now, she saw how the worry had made him look older in the last few weeks. Of course, he’d been through a lot in his career with LIGHTS. He’d even been killed, but watching his son and his daughter-in-law struggle through this had caused wrinkles and gray hairs Jo had never seen before.
Feeling her eyes on him, Elliott turned and looked at Jo. “What?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.
“Nothing,” Jo said, smiling at him. “It’s just… you’re a pretty good guy. You know that?”
A crooked grin spread across his face. “Thanks. I like to think so.” He shoved her with his shoulder.
Jo stumbled a little to the side but then corrected herself, genuinely smiling for the first time in a long time.
Both of them returned their stares to Cassidy, but Elliott added, “You’re not so bad yourself.”
“Yeah?” she asked, not looking at him.
“Well, I mean, it’s kind of not fair because your parents are so awesome. It’s like you had a head start on everyone else. But yeah, you’re pretty good at this leadership thing. And you’ve killed a few Vampires in your day, right?”
“A few,” Jo noted, not having any idea how many that meant. At last count, she had killed over two hundred, but she didn’t really keep track anymore.
“Yeah, I’d say you’re pretty good.”
“Thanks,” Jo said, feeling her face heat up a little bit. It was a compliment coming from him, that was for sure.
Silence overtook them again. Jo continued to stand there until her left leg started to fall asleep, even though there were plenty of empty chairs in the room. She ignored her IAC and focused on Cassidy, doing her best to will her to open her eyes and remember who she was, knowing it would never work because she didn’t have those kinds of superpowers.
What felt like hours passed by. Jo wasn’t keeping track of time. Then, just as she was about to call it a day, Heather opened her eyes. They were wide as she looked from Brandon to Jo and then at Elliott before returning her gaze to Cassidy.
“What is it?” Brandon asked.
Heather didn’t get a chance to speak, though, before they all noticed Cassidy was sitting up.
Her forehead was crinkled, and she pulled at her hands like she was surprised they were tied but not in an attempt to free herself. She looked at her husband and said, “What’s going on, Brandon?”