Chapter 85

“I need a plane,” Jo said for about the hundredth time. Lucas was nodding. He understood her concerns, but he couldn’t help her. The man could produce a lot of things, including an army of Souled Vampires and this beautiful mansion in the middle of the frozen tundra, but he couldn’t seem to come up with a plane, and the ones they’d used to get there in the first place were long gone.
“I’d like to help you, Jo, I really would,” Lucas said, shrugging. “But I told you. I can’t get you a plane. There are no planes here. You’re going to have to go to another country to get one.”
“But we don’t have time!” Jo sighed in exasperation, running her hands through her hair. A few strands came out between her fingers. “Why didn’t you mention this to me earlier when I was telling you my plan for going back to the US?”
“I thought you must have already secured transport, or else you wouldn’t be talking about it,” Lucas explained.
“My mom says they can send a plane,” Scott said, a phone in his hand because his mother, Ashley, wouldn’t be able to use her IAC in the US. The Vampires had blocked most of their abilities to communicate with one another a long time ago. IAC communication was spotty there at best, and since Ashley was close to the capital, it would be even worse for her. “But it will take it a couple of days to get here, and then, we’ll have to fly all the way back, and that just won’t work.” He sighed in frustration. Jo felt the same way.
“Ugh! What are we going to do?” Jo said, rubbing her face. Zane put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, but this wasn’t something he could fix for her.
“What’s going on?” Ryker asked entering the room like he wasn’t a fragile human who could be destroyed by any of them at any second.
“We can’t find a plane to take us home,” Jo told him, wondering why she was even bothering to fill him in when he was probably just going to laugh at her.
He didn’t, though. He stared at her for a few seconds and then turned to Scott. “Can I borrow your phone?”
“Why? So you can call your Vampire friends and tell them our location?” Cadon growled from across the room.
Jo narrowed her eyes at her brother. “Do you think you can help us?” she asked Ryker, not thinking it was possible.
“I won’t know unless I can borrow someone’s goddamn phone, and if I wanted to call in a herd of Vampires, I would’ve done it a long time ago. I have my ways.” He glared at Cadon who was still scowling at him.
Scott handed over his phone, and Ryker dialed a long phone number. When whoever was on the other side picked up, he started speaking in a language Jo didn’t recognize. He was talking so fast, it was hard to say, but she didn’t think it was Russian. She didn’t bother to turn on her IAC translator because she’d already missed so much of the conversation, it wouldn’t matter now.
After about two minutes, he hung up. “We need to get moving to get on this plane, or else it’ll leave without us. It’s normally a two hour drive to where we’re headed, but we need to be there in an hour.”
“All right,” Jo said, totally unprepared to be pulling out so soon. “Grab your necessities, and I’ll go let the rest of the team know.”
“You're leaving right now?” Lucas asked, stunned.
“Apparently,” Jo told him, already walking toward the door to the hallway. He followed. “Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
“But I’m not prepared,” he argued.
“Sure you are,” she countered. “Your team is already in place to follow Holland if she moves, right?” Adrian had been leading that campaign, keeping his Vampire buddies where they could watch Holland’s last known location in case she decided to make another run for it.
Lucas looked even more pale than usual, but Jo didn’t have time to sit around and figure out why this was bothering him. “We’ll be back as soon as we can get here,” she told him, heading out the door to find the rest of the people she needed to take with her. No one was going to like the lack of notice, but she didn’t really have any choice. They needed to go now if they were going to make the plan Ryker had found for them.
“Will you be taking most of the supplies with you?” Lucas asked, on her heels.
Jo knocked on the door where Cassidy had been sleeping for the last few weeks. Brandon pulled it open. “We’re leaving. Pack up what you need, quick.”
He nodded, and the other three people in the room--Heather, Cassidy, and Elliott--jumped to it. Jo returned her attention to Lucas. “I won’t have time to take most of it. We’ve got to go. You heard Ryker.” That seemed to make Lucas feel a bit better. “Why? Do you need more supplies?” She figured the Australians had plenty of anything they might need. Maybe after they worked together to get Jamie and the others out, Margie would consider coming over here and helping them get Holland. She would be a great asset by herself, let alone the rest of her team and supplies.
“No. I’m just… I don’t like this situation, that’s all. Souled Vampires are meant to work in tandem with LIGHTS when attacking other Vampires, not independently.”
“We’re still working in tandem, Lucas. I’m leaving some of my people here. You’ll be fine.” She patted his shoulder and then headed back to her own room to get what she needed. She wanted to travel as light as possible, but she’d be taking a few changes of clothes, all the ammo she had available to her. Everything she wanted to take with her would fit in a backpack. The rest, she’d come back for, assuming she didn’t end up dead.
Once Lucas had accepted the idea that she was leaving, he seemed to settle down a bit. Jo headed back to the front of the house. Ryker was there, wearing his poofy coat. She almost laughed but decided it wasn’t worth pissing him off when he’d been the one to secure the plane. In a matter of minutes, the others that were going on the mission had assembled. She looked around, considering what she had to work with and liked her odds. Two Hybrids in Heather and Cassidy. Elliott, who couldn’t die. Zane, Brandon and Cadon were all good shots and had plenty of experience. And Scott was a Healer. “All right, let’s go.”
“Wait!”
Jo stopped with her foot in the air and turned back around. It was Cale Ryan, another Healer.
“I’m coming, too.”
She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off.
“I’ve known Jamie a hell of a lot longer than most of you, and I’m going with you. Don’t try to talk me out of it.”
While she didn’t like the idea of leaving the rest of the team with so few Healers, she understood what the doctor was saying. “All right then. Let’s go.” They headed out into the freshly fallen snow, their feet crunching across the ice, on their way to the vehicles that would take them to the airport and back to the US. Jo just hoped they weren’t too late to save the man who had saved all of them more times than she could count.