We arrived at the front desk, and the pile of ashes near the rolling chair caught my attention. That had been a very sweet woman who would’ve done anything to help anyone in need a few hours ago. Now, it was something a Guardian would sweep up later, and Lena would exist only in the memories of those of us who had known her and appreciated her. I pushed aside the guilt I felt and had a seat in her chair.
I wiggled the mouse, and the screen came alive as Dax picked up the receiver on the phone next to me. He hammered the numbers with his shaking hand, messed up, hung up, swore under his breath, tried again. The second time was just as unsuccessful, so I reached out and grabbed his hand to steady him and dialed for him. “It’s okay.” I caught his eyes and he nodded, but I could tell he didn’t believe me.
He thanked me, and when Aurora picked up on the first or second ring, he repeated Jamie’s message word for word. I turned my back to him and clicked on what I had seen Spittle do on a similar computer downstairs. In a few seconds, I was in the security interface. I had to close my eyes every once in a while to see what he had done step-by-step, but it wasn’t that hard, and before I knew it, I was deep into the security system, despite the fact that Spittle had sensed me poking around in his brain and was doing his best to try to block me. He was on the run and didn’t have time or effort to shake me off.
“You seem to know what you’re doing.” I glanced over my shoulder to see Dax standing right behind me, following each step.
“No, I’m watching Spittle do it, and trying to reverse engineer it,” I admitted. It was nice to have him here, even though I doubted he had any idea what I was talking about.
“Oookay,” Dax replied, and I knew he was lost. He couldn’t understand how I could look into someone else’s mind and see what they had done an hour or so ago, but that’s okay because, if I’m honest, neither could I.
“Here it is.” I found the program I’d been looking for, inside the security system, and now all I had to do was figure out how to turn it back on.
Before I could click on the correct icons, I heard the intake door open and realized instantly it was Brandon. I could feel him. Dax didn’t have any idea who had entered, though, and he turned with his Glock up as Brandon said, “Just me.” I heard something else in his tone, though. It wasn’t just curiosity at what was going on, but there was tinge of jealousy as he asked, “What are you two doing?”
I was trying my best to see what Spittle had clicked on so I didn’t answer. Dax did his best to explain. “Cassidy is trying to reverse engineer the jamming of the IACs.” He lowered his gun but kept it in his hand. I could tell he was jumpy, but I was pretty sure he couldn’t actually hurt Brandon even if he did accidentally shoot him, unless that gun happened to have titanium bullets in it, and I couldn’t imagine that was the case. Aaron had forbidden anyone from using them since our first trip to Philadelphia.
“You know how to do that?” Brandon asked me, leaning through the same window I’d backflipped through earlier when all of this started.
My answer was a resounding, “No.” But I clicked on an icon that said “Run alarm self-check” and waited to see what the lines of code I couldn’t read came up with. I saw the same thing in Spittle’s mind and thought I was on the right track.
Dax continued with his explanation. “She’s, uh, watching what some guy named Spittle did and doing the opposite or something.” He seemed to question each of his words.
As the system continued to run the self-check I turned and looked at Brandon for the first time, jealous that he hardly had any blood on his clothes. I figured what he had on him was from when he’d hugged me earlier, which meant it was mostly Tara’s and Faye’s. He looked on-edge but not tired like the rest of us. “How are the other areas?”
“So far so good,” he assured me. “Cale said Aaron had already warned them all.”
That meant Aaron had to have gone outside the building, at least for a while. “Any sign of him or your dad?” I wished there was a way to let them know where the last Vampire still on campus was hiding, but without our IACs, I wouldn’t be able to do it. I felt out for the Vampire, a man named Vern, and still found him cowering behind some boxes in the basement.
“No. I heard some shouting and some running over by the perimeter fence, but I didn’t investigate.”
I figured that had to be a false alarm because all of the Vampires were miles away from here now except for Vern. I turned to check the progress bar and saw it was only forty-five percent. Letting out a deep sigh, I looked at the door behind Brandon. I really wanted an update on Tara, but I didn’t want to leave what I was working on either. “Could you go see how Tara is doing?” I asked him.
He looked a little surprised and then turned his attention to Dax. Immediately, I realized I should’ve asked the new Guardian to do that and asked my boyfriend to stay, but Brandon was on the other side of the counter where he could easily access the same door we had been going through, and I didn’t think Dax needed another assignment just yet. Brandon looked a little disappointed but said, “Sure,” and I tried my best to conjure up a smile of thankfulness, though I don’t know if it translated. He disappeared, and I turned back to the computer.