Chapter 53

Aaron could see Holland and Giovani now, though they were at a distance, and it seemed like they were aware of the Hunters, too. Morris had reported that he was certain they had known his team was there several times and had made no move to leave or attack. They had simply found a way to disappear at the end of the night before he could move in. Tonight seemed different, however. Holland was looking around, as if she was looking for someone in particular. And then her eyes stopped; she was looking right at him.
They’d met a few times before. Aaron had been called in to help out in France where the redheaded woman originated and preferred to spend her time. Despite her odd name, she was a former Frenchwoman and she didn’t take kindly to having LIGHTS members on her turf. She’d been with her longtime beau, Carter, every other time he’d come into contact with her, and since he hadn’t been running the operation, there hadn’t been much he could do to prevent her escape. Tonight, he would do everything he could to make sure that was different.
“What is she looking at?” Morris asked.
“Me. She’s looking at me,” Aaron replied. “We need to move.”
Holland and Giovani took off, but it wasn’t for an exit. Instead, they began weaving in and out of the crowd, wreaking havoc and chaos wherever they went. They were moving quickly, and the humans had no way of knowing what was going on. They would only feel a bump or a splash of liquid as a drink hit them. The effect was a whirlwind of motion.
Not only was it confusing to the people on the dance floor, Aaron realized his team was also becoming rapidly confused. His teammates began to call out locations, talking over each other, and acting irrationally. It was as if Holland was sending out some sort of a scramble signal that was clouding their judgment and preventing them from doing their jobs. The only people he knew for sure were still with him were Hannah, who had her own emotional powers, Elliott, who seemed to be out of her range, and Jamie who could also fight her off. Even Christian began to make incoherent statements that made little sense.
“Laura?” Aaron called, hoping he could get her to stay with him since she had yet to say anything, not even announce that she’d arrived on location.
“I said I’d let you know when I’m in position!” she shouted back.
“Where is she?” Hannah asked, moving out of position. “I don’t see her.”
“She’s headed to the front door, towards Laura’s position,” Aaron responded. Hannah was nowhere near there. She couldn’t get there in time. Neither could Jamie. “Laura?”
“I’m there, okay! I am in position!” she shouted, so that everyone could hear her.
The rest of the team was sending so many irrelevant, nonsensical statements now, it was hard for Aaron to communicate at all. “I’m the pretty princess. Look at my sparkly dress,” Morris said.
“Who’s the turkey now? I repeat, who is the turkey now!” Nelly demanded.
Another New York team member added, “Four. Four foot six.”
“What the hell is she doing?” Elliott asked.
Elliott could see what Aaron could see through the IAC, but it was different than being there, and Aaron had no answer for him anyway. The IACs were relatively new; he’d never had one in when facing Holland before. Somehow, she’d managed to infiltrate their system. At first, he thought perhaps she was sending the signals herself, making it seem like they were coming from the team members, but when he saw Christian’s lips move along with the message, “I’m a funny little monkey,” he realized the problem was more than just a glitch in the technology.
“Laura, she’s headed your way.”
“Okay,” Laura said. She had not sent any bizarre messages, so he was confident Laura was still functioning.
Holland and Giovani continued to spin up trouble as they weaved to the front entrance, laughing and holding hands, stopping for the occasional kiss, which seemed highly inappropriate since Giovani referred to her as his “mother,” but Vampires were weird that way. Aaron gave the order for all team members to close in, and Hannah and Jamie dropped their positions and made their way as quickly as they could, but at this rate, they would never reach her in time. It was up to Laura now.
“Laura! Stop her!” Aaron shouted as Holland drew even closer to the Hunter.
“Damn it, Aaron,” Laura shouted, “shut up and let me do my job! I’ve got this.”
However, even as she made the statement, the two Vampires slid right past her and out the door, into the night. “Son of a bitch!” Aaron said, watching it happen and realizing ordering Laura to give chase would have little consequence. She was continuing to rant about how he needed to trust her more, and he decided it would be best to turn her feed off completely.
As soon as Holland left the building, everyone’s ability to speak coherently returned, and most of them had no idea that anything out of the ordinary had even happened. “Where did she go?” Morris asked.
“She’s on the sidewalk out here, hailing a cab,” Elliott replied. “Want me to see if I can get her?”
Elliott was on the top of the four-story building that housed the club. He could likely jump from there, but it would be a tough fall. “Negative,” Aaron replied. It wasn’t worth the risk at this point.
“And… she’s gone.”
By then, Aaron was on the floor with Jamie and Hannah, Laura in the entryway behind them, pacing, her arms crossed.
“Well, that was weird,” Christian said as he came up behind them. “What the hell happened?”
“Let’s go,” Aaron demanded and headed out toward the vehicles they’d driven in only an hour ago. He needed to cool down before he was willing to discuss this with anyone. Especially Laura who didn’t appear to be suffering from Holland’s influence—she simply seemed unable to take direction. From him at least.
A few hours later, Aaron was seated on the balcony of his hotel room looking out at the Manhattan skyline, three fingers of whiskey in his tumbler next to a half-empty bottle, pondering how things had changed in the last hundred years. He could see the East River from here, and the Brooklyn Bridge—which he had jumped from that night so many years ago back before it was called the Brooklyn Bridge. Back then, things were so much more difficult. They didn’t have the technology or resources they had today, and yet it seemed they worked so much better together. Maybe it wasn’t the technology or the personnel. Maybe it was the leadership.
“Little early for that, isn’t it?” Elliott asked, sitting down beside him.
“I didn’t even hear you,” Aaron admitted.
“I’m stealthy, like a cat,” the other Guardian replied. “Due to my girlish figure.”
Aaron laughed, perhaps a little too loudly, and pushed the glass across the table, thinking he’d had too much. Elliott picked it up and finished it off. “See the Brooklyn Bridge over there?”
“Yep. Pretty cool.”
“I jumped off of it once.”
“No, shit?”
“I did. To kill Jack the Ripper,” Aaron reminisced.
“The Jack the Ripper—or like ‘Jack the Price Ripper, buy your new sofa here, today!’?”
Laughing again, Aaron said, “No, the Jack the Ripper. Seems like a million years ago. Guess it was.”
“Yeah,” Elliott acknowledged, just letting him talk.
“There was another pretty blonde with me that day. That’s the one I should’ve given this a try with, not… not Laura. She just… it wasn’t meant to be. You know? I forced it, I guess.”
“Laura’s a pretty girl,” Elliott offered. “But I think she needs to grow up a little bit.”
“A lot,” Aaron admitted.
“What happened to the pretty blonde on the bridge?”
“She got tired of waiting on me,” Aaron replied, leaning back in his chair. “She moved on.”
Elliott nodded. “It’s never easy to get over a relationship when you really loved the person. I mean, my wife didn’t pass away, but I did love her at one time. And then she was gone. I get it. It’s hard. But, hey man, you tried. It’s a good first step. Next time, maybe if it’s the right chick, things’ll be different.”
“Right,” Aaron agreed.
“Just try to pick someone who’s not batshit crazy.”
Chuckling, Aaron said, “I’ll try. I don’t think Laura was crazy though. I think I did that.”
“I don’t think so, bossman. I think she was already like that, and you intensified her inability to control her bitchiness.”
“Maybe,” Aaron said with a shrug.
“Speaking of batshit crazy, Christian made any headway on figuring out what the hell Holland was doing to those morons tonight?”
“He thinks so. He’s running some tests and hopes to be able to install some sort of software that will prevent it from happening again.”
“Hope so. That was some weird-ass shit.”
“I hope so, too,” Aaron replied. “I could do without another night like tonight.”
“If we ever have another night like tonight, I’m going to rough you up myself, bossman. From now on, no whiney-ass bitch girlfriends. Got it?”
“Got it,” Aaron nodded. Maybe a better plan would be no girlfriends at all. Perhaps that was the best way to ensure the events of that night never repeated themselves.