Absolution: The Clandestine Saga Book 4 E-Book

Johnson ID

• Herausgeber: ID Johnson
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2019

Beschreibung

Nothing can absolve her from this burden….
Death changes everything, something Cadence Findley knows all too well, and this time she holds herself personally responsible for the mistakes that cost her team dearly.
Following the death of her friend at the hands of rogue Vampire Hunters, Cadence and her team must find the leader of the renegades and bring him to justice. Only then will she begin to forgive herself for surviving the surprise attack that took someone they can never replace.
In the meantime, Giovani, the Vampire Cadence holds responsible for the death of her ex-boyfriend, is hatching a diabolical scheme of his own. Can he concoct a plan that will enable him to take Cadence out once and for all? Or will the LIGHTS team find a way to rid the world of Giovani and his maniacal group of Vampires?
The Clandestine Saga follows the story of Cadence Findley, Vampire Hunter extraordinaire, as she embarks on a quest to rid the world of Vampires. She is part of an elite team of Hunters and Guardians know as LIGHTS whose sole purpose is to protect humans from the creatures that lurk in the shadows.

Leseprobe

Absolution

The Clandestine Saga Book 4

ID Johnson

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. Copyright ID Johnson, 2016. All rights reserved.

Cover by Sparrow Book Cover Designs

Created with Vellum

Newsletter

Get several of my books for free when you sign up for my newsletter here:

https://books.bookfunnel.com/idjohnsonnewslettersignup

For Ella, the sparkliest ray of sunshine I know

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

A Note From the Author

Chapter 1

Inhale. Exhale. One foot and then the other. The pounding of the pavement, the beat of the music—nothing else mattered. Out here on the trail, there was no judgment, no criticism. No demanding professors or annoying roommates. Out here, she could be herself, alone with her thoughts with nothing to worry about in the world.

Jasmin Brown ran the same four-mile stretch of Boxer’s Trail every evening. It gave her the opportunity to clear her mind and get ready for the next day. She loved to go out in the afternoon so that, by the time she returned to the apartment she shared with two other sophomores at Drexel University where she studied accounting, her roommates were already out partying or holed up in their rooms. She didn’t get along with either of them, and even though the semester had just started, she was seriously considering relocating, or if things continued to get worse, maybe even moving back home and taking public transportation to school each morning.

But she couldn’t think about those problems right now, not while she was on her run. This was her time to free her mind and let the pavement reassure her that she was all that she should be. As she turned a corner near a copse of trees, a mother pushing a stroller caught her eye, and she smiled, absently wiping the sweat from her upper lip onto her wristband. Two more miles to go, and she was really getting into a rhythm now.

Her mind drifted to her mother. She had worked so hard to make sure Jasmin and her older brother, Damon, had the opportunity to go to college. Two jobs—a waitress in a café by day, a custodian in an office building by night—meant not a lot of quality time with her children. But that didn’t mean she loved them any less. In a lot of ways, it was solid proof to Jasmin just how loved she was. Her mother’s sacrifice meant that she would be able to fulfill her dream of becoming an accountant one day.

A giggle escaped her lips as she thought of her mother. Always the worrier! She was constantly warning her about something. Had she heard about that restaurant downtown that gave all those people food poisoning? Was she careful to look behind her before she unlocked the door to her apartment at night? Just the other day, she’d called to tell her to be careful when she was out running. “You’re not jogging the same path every night, now are you, honey? That’s a good way to let someone know your habits,” she’d advised.

Jasmin had rolled her eyes, glad her mother couldn’t see her expression on the other side of the phone. “No, Mama,” she promised. “I’m mixing it up, I promise,” she’d lied.

“Good,” Michelle Brown replied, with a sigh. “’Cause you know there are plenty of crazy people in this world, and there’s a couple girls’ bodies already been found dead around here the last few weeks.”

“I’ll be fine, Mama,” she assured her doting mother. “Don’t worry about me. Any fool tries to put his hands on me, he’ll be tasting pepper spray for the rest of his life.”

“That’s a good girl,” her mother had said, “but keep your eyes and ears open, honey. If something happened to you, I don’t know what I’d do. You’re my world, girl. You’re my whole wide world.”

Jasmin couldn’t help but smile at those last words. She always said that—she was her world, her whole wide world. While she knew it was human nature for her mother to worry, Jasmin was strong, fast, and always carried pepper spray next to her iPhone on her waist. There was no way any hoodlum was going to assault her.

Mile three down, one more to go. Just a few more turns through the most heavily wooded area of Boxer’s Trail. The sun was fading on the horizon, not another soul in sight. Kanya streaming through her earbuds; life was good. She was young. She was free. The world and all of its possibilities lay before her.

Jasmin didn’t hear or see anything unusual, yet—suddenly--her body was being ratcheted to the side, a strong arm around her chest and arms, another clamped over her mouth. She tried to scream, but she couldn’t get anything out. A black-gloved hand restricted her breathing as well, and though she tried to pull away, her assailant was clearly much stronger than she. She attempted to dig the heels of her pink Nikes into the dirt, to keep him from dragging her, but she couldn’t get a grip on the slippery pinecone covered earth.

He must have pulled her a good twenty yards off of the trail into the deep shrubbery before he said anything at all. Finally, she heard a gruff, sharp whisper in her ear. “Shut up!” he growled. “You shut your mouth, dirty whore!”

With a violent shove, Jasmin felt her body hit the ground, hard, her head slamming into the trunk of a tall pine tree. Before she could even contemplate getting up and sprinting away, he was on top of her. She tried to roll over, to get a glimpse of her assailant, to see if maybe she recognized him, maybe he was someone she knew, but the pressure from his black-gloved hand was pressing on her head now, his fingers tangled in her short black hair as he kept her face in the dirt. She opened her mouth to scream, to beg for mercy, but all that came out was a soft whimper.

“I told you, you’d never get away with it,” he spat at her, the saliva dripping out of his angry mouth and splashing against the side of her face, mixing with the tears that began to dampen her cheeks. “Now, it’s time to pay the price, bitch.”

“Please, Jesus, help me,” Jasmin managed to whisper, praying it would all be over quickly. A sharp pain in her throat took her breath away, and she began to choke, sputtering out drops of blood with each cough. She closed her eyes, pressing them tightly against the pain, the inexplicable horror, the shock that this was actually happening to her, and concentrated on the face of her mother, remembering the hug and smile she’d left her with the last time she’d seen her, a few days ago. As the world began to fade away, Jasmin Brown muttered two last words, softly: “Sorry, Mama.”

Vacuuming carpets and dusting desks was mundane, but it wasn’t the worst job Cowboy Sam, a.k.a. Danny Yokes, had performed in his centuries long life. Still, as he ran the old Hoover WindTunnel over the faded navy blue flooring of Mrs. Lawrence’s fifth grade classroom, he couldn’t help but wonder what might be next for him. He needed to find a way to move on from here, to make contact with Alex or any of the other Hunters who might be willing to help him in some way. He knew there were thousands of Hunters and Guardians who wanted him dead, and though he felt he was fully capable of living by himself in the rustic state he now existed in for as long as he needed to, it was getting rather monotonous and boring. Not to mention, he had never been one to stomach failure. Maybe there was a way he could go back and finish the job….

As he contemplated the possibilities for the umpteenth time that night, the cord of the vacuum sweeper caught on the leg of Mrs. Lawrence’s desk. He gave it a yank, but it wouldn’t budge. “Gall darn it,” he mumbled in his husky voice, as he bent over and gave it another tug. As he did so, his belt caught on a stack of papers, rulers, and other teaching paraphernalia on the counter behind him, knocking it all on the floor. “Son of a….” Leaving the vacuum running, he turned and picked up the stacks of various items the best he could and scooped them back onto the shelf before turning back to the cord, and pulling it one more time, this effort not as human-like as the last, though he had to be careful not to fray the sheathing at the same time. Once it was finally free, he stood back up, noticing there were still a few things on the ground. Rather than going back down for them, he gave them a quick shove with his foot, sending them sprawling under the counter.

Still grumbling, he finished up Mrs. Lawrence’s room and went on his way, thinking someone else could come and clean up the rest of the avalanche. After all, if she didn’t insist on stacking so much crap to the ceiling, maybe it wouldn’t fall over all the time. He turned the lights off, locked the door, and moved to the next room, leaving two rulers, a pair of scissors, four spelling tests, and a cell phone laying on the floor beneath the counter near Mrs. Lawrence’s desk.

Cadence Findley took a deep breath and clicked the after-market safety to the off position on her Glock. Even though she had been working with the Kansas City team again for over three months now, she still got a little nervous going into a hunt. It wasn’t that memories of the Sierraville Incident clouded her judgment, though it would have been understandable if that were the case, nor was it that she had to readjust to working with more than just a few Hunters; it was mostly that she wasn’t used to being covered by a Guardian at all, except for Aaron, who was usually overseeing the operations from afar rather than participating directly in the hunt, and even though she had tried to stick exclusively to working with Jamie because she trusted him more than anyone else on the team, the chemistry was still just a bit off. Most of the time, she either found herself running away from him in her haste to make the kill—rendering his presence pointless—or she lagged behind waiting to figure out what his intentions were while the others moved in on the mark. They had been working on it, however, in the simulator. And, as the Vampire in question, a thin middle-aged male by the name of Skyler came into view, she steadied herself, hopeful that their practice would pay off.

“You ready?” Jamie, the team’s Healer, asked over the IAC, the implant the team used to talk to each other, which every Guardian and Hunter had installed in his or her eye.

Cadence nodded and stepped carefully around the corner. They usually tried to be more discreet when taking out a bloodsucker, but this time they found themselves in downtown Carthage, Missouri, near the legendary marble courthouse. Though it was a public place, it was nearly 2:00 AM, and most of the humans had retired long ago. This was when Skyler liked to make his presence known, feeding off of unsuspecting street cleaners, people stopped at red lights, or the occasional convenience store patron. He was young and clearly had not been taught the rules of being a Compliant Vampire; sadly for him, there would be no second chances. Skyler’s reign of terror would end tonight.

He stepped out of the shadows in a narrow alleyway between two buildings, looking over his shoulder quickly as he began to walk out into the street, his hands shoved deep into his unzipped gray hoody. It was a bit chilly for an early October evening, but Vampires weren’t really affected by the temperature anyway. They were, however, deeply affected by silver bullets, and Cadence intended to give him cause to cease his miserable existence momentarily.

Across the street, coming in from the west, Cadence could see two other team members, Aurora and Hannah. They would cover him from that direction. Aaron was positioned on the top of the courthouse, and Christian and Meagan were a little farther behind Cadence and Jamie, just in case he somehow managed to bust through their perimeter. That wasn’t going to happen.

She took another step, and this time the movement caught his attention. He hesitated for a second, as if he wasn’t sure if she were a human, a Hunter, or something else. And then, a look of panic on his face, he glanced back over his shoulder, as if he were about to bolt.

Though she was still a good hundred yards from his location, Cadence closed the distance quickly, leaving Jamie behind. As she flew at him, Skyler turned to run, but he only made it a few steps before she knocked him to the ground, his face hitting the pavement hard.

He attempted to push himself up to standing, but she held him down to the ground firmly. “What the hell?” he sputtered as she stuck her Glock in the waistband of her black leather pants and began to put her hands in position to decapitate him. “What are you?” he asked.

Cadence hesitated for a moment; it was as if he didn’t even know what she was, that Hunters existed, that what he had been doing wasn’t okay. She pushed the thought aside, however. At this point, it didn’t matter. He had done too much damage to be brought in and be rehabilitated. “I’m the Angel of Justice,” she replied in a whisper, and then, placing her hands on either side of his head, she gave a sharp twist, severing his head from his neck in one fluid motion. As usual, there was a loud shriek from the dying beast, and then, within seconds, his body turned to ash, leaving Cadence kneeling over a pile of dust, her hands hourglasses sputtering their contents onto the roadway.

“Nice job,” Aaron’s voice came over the IAC. “Paxton, let’s get the Exstracto 9000 down there, and take care of our mess before he blows away.”

Paxton, one of the less reliable members of the team, had recently been given sweeper duty, and as Cadence stood and dusted her hands off on her pants, she reflected on what a fitting position that was for him, though a fleeting thought of the Guardian who had fulfilled that duty for decades before crossed her mind momentarily. She pushed it aside, just in time to come face to face with what could only be described as an angry Jamie. “What?” she asked, confusion crinkling her pretty face.

“What?” Jamie repeated, his hands in the air. “I thought… I thought you were going to take the shot.”

Jamie was a few inches shorter than her, even though his spikey hair gave the illusion that they were equals, and Cadence took a step back so she wouldn’t appear to be towering over him as she explained. “I was,” she admitted, “but instinct kicked in. You know it’s much more satisfying to rip their heads off than to shoot them.”

“How did you know he wasn’t armed?” he asked, following her as she began to cross the lawn in front of the courthouse.

Paxton and Aaron had made their descent, and as the designated clean up crew member made his way to the remains, she smiled at the handsome face of her fiancé, who returned the sentiment. Though she was tempted to ignore Jamie’s question and continue toward her destination, she stopped and turned back to face her partner. “I don’t know, Jamie,” she admitted. “I guess I could tell by the way he had his hands in his pockets. And the fact that he’s never been seen with a gun before. And most Vampires aren’t packing. So, I decided to go for it. I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to throw you off or confuse you. I just did what my instinct told me to do.”

By then Aaron had caught up with them and pulled her in, her arms wrapping around his waist beneath his black leather jacket. “Nice job,” he said giving her a squeeze.

“Thank you,” she replied. “But that one was pretty easy.”

Jamie was clearly still not happy, and he kicked his foot into the grass, his hands on his hips, before he finally said, “Look, maybe… maybe this isn’t going to work out.”

Aaron’s piercing blue eyes studied his face carefully before he asked, “What do you mean, Jamie? I thought it went pretty well.”

Shaking his head furiously, the Healer replied, “No, no it didn’t. Look, Aaron, I just can’t keep up with her. I can’t anticipate what she’s doing. I just… I’m afraid something is going to happen, Cadence, and I’m not going to be there to prevent it.”

Aaron put a hand on his friend’s shoulder to steady him. By now, the rest of the team had joined them, and both Aurora and Hannah were standing nearby with confused expressions on their faces while Paxton stood smiling, his captured Vampire held carefully in the device in his hands. “All right, Jamie,” Aaron began. “I know you have some concerns. Let’s head back to headquarters, and we’ll do a debrief of this hunt to see if we can come up with some better solutions for the future. It’ll take us about two hours to get back, so that will give us all plenty of time to think about any changes we’d like to make. In the meantime, this was textbook, in my opinion, and I’m really proud of how well all of you worked together. Now, let’s load up and head home.”

The trip from Carthage back to LIGHTS Headquarters was about 150 miles, but the teammates were able to cover that distance much more quickly than human drivers obeying the speed limit. Cadence watched the primarily empty farmland fly by, Aaron’s hand on hers serving as her only anchor to the vehicle she occupied. The rest of the team was also relatively quiet in the back of the SUV, or at least, if they were talking, it was through IAC, and those conversations were private.

Upon pulling into the gated area where the home base for LIGHTS was headquartered, they all piled out and entered the building where they typically held debriefs, only incidental chatter amongst them. Cadence paused on the sidewalk, took a deep breath, and then, when she felt a small nudge on her shoulder from her fiancé, followed the others into the building. Silence said everything, and she felt they were in for an uncomfortable conversation.

She took her spot next to Aaron at the head of the table. As the newly appointed Hunter Leader, she was now in charge of every single Vampire Hunter in the world, active and inactive, loyal or rogue, and part of her duties included offering feedback as to how the team operated during hunts where she was present. While she felt that her team of Hunters had performed very well, clearly there was an issue with the Guardians, and Aaron would be relying on her to offer some insight into her own performance to help manage his team.

Jamie was sitting directly across from her, running his hand through his spiky hair. The other teammates had filled in around the table, and most of them looked supportive, but nervous, as if they weren’t quite sure how this conversation might go down. Cadence folded her hands in her lap atop her black leather pants, and waited for Aaron to start the discussion.

Utilizing the equipment in the room, the Guardian Leader pulled up a picture of Skyler, the recently deceased Vampire. “I don’t want to keep you guys too long,” he began, his hands on his hips as he stood behind the chair next to Cadence. “I think things went really well. We went in, did our job, and got out without a mess and with no witnesses. However, I am aware that there are some concerns, so if any of you have anything you’d like to discuss, let’s go ahead and get it out on the table now.”

There was a moment of complete silence while Jamie continued to run his hand through his hair. Every eye in the room fixated on him, and when he finally looked up, it was quite obvious they were waiting for him to speak. With a deep sigh, he said, “I… I just don’t know. I mean, Cadence, I am doing my best. I just have no idea what you’re doing.”

“I know…” the Hunter began before Jamie cut her off.

“I mean, we even talked about it before the hunt this time. You said you’d take the shot, that you weren’t going to close in….”

“I said I wasn’t planning on closing in,” she corrected, leaning forward in her chair a bit.

“Okay—but you did. And I had no idea it was coming,” Jamie continued. “If I had known, maybe.... Well, no. Even if I had known,” he corrected midsentence, “I still would have had no idea what you were doing. I’m sorry. I just don’t think I’m the best guy for this job. I just cannot seem to anticipate what you’re doing or how you’re going to do it.”

“Maybe with a little bit more practice….” Aurora offered from her seat near the other end of the table.

“We’ve been practicing,” Jamie reminded them all. “It’s not a big deal as long as you don’t get yourself killed, Cadence, but I can’t guarantee we’re always going to be facing brand new Vampires who are unarmed and have no idea what you are or how to kill you.”

Cadence sighed, shaking her head so that her brown hair danced around her shoulders. “I know,” she replied quietly. “It isn’t your fault, Jamie,” she assured him. “You’ve done everything you can. Maybe I…”

Her pause was lengthy, and eventually Aaron asked the question everyone was wondering. “Maybe you what?”

Running her hand through her hair, she quietly replied, “Maybe I should just start directing, instead of actually taking part in the hunts, like Aaron does.”

Once again the room was silent for a moment before everyone answered almost simultaneously in the negative. “You can’t do that,” Hannah’s voice broke through the others. “We absolutely need you on the field. No one else can do what you do.”

“I guess,” Cadence shrugged, “but I don’t know what else to do.”

“Maybe I should come down and start protecting you myself,” Aaron offered. “Hannah can direct. I trust her to do that.” His blue eyes were on Hannah, who happened to be his second in command now that Elliott was no longer with them, and the strawberry-blonde woman’s face scrunched up a bit as if she were considering the proposition.

Cadence cradled her face in her hands, elbows on the table. “I don’t know. I just wish I could learn to work well with others.”

“It’s not that,” Jamie assured her. “I understand that you just follow your gut, and it really doesn’t matter what plans we make ahead of time; you can’t stick to them. I get it. But you’re kinda irreplaceable, and if something should happen to you, I just don’t want that on my shoulders, you know?”

“It wouldn’t be,” Aaron reminded him. “We’re a team, and we take care of each other. All right, from now on, when we go out, I’ll stay with Cadence, and Hannah you’ll direct from above.”

“Oh, Aaron, I don’t know,” Cadence began, dropping her hands on the table. “I trust Hannah, but you’ve got to be able to do your job.”

“Keeping you safe is my job,” he replied, his hand on her arm. “We’ll continue to look for a Guardian capable of keeping up with you, but in the meantime, this is the new plan. Everyone okay with that?” he asked. “Jamie? Hannah?” Both of the Guardians nodded slowly in agreement. “All right then, let’s call it a night. We’ve had a huge stir up since Sierraville, and if we don’t stay vigilant, we’re going to have a much bigger problem on our hands. We’ve got to continue to stay on all of these infant Vampires before they really learn their trade and start an epidemic.”

As the rest of the team filed out, Cadence lingered at the table, her own IAC catching her attention. It was ablaze non-stop now, just as Aaron’s had always been, and she paused for a moment to reassure the Hunters in the field around the world that she was with them in spirit and appreciated the updates.

Aaron’s words were true; with the incident in Sierraville, Vampires had grown brave. Knowing the LIGHTS team was distracted had allowed a lot of borderline Rogues to take the full plunge, preying on Innocents around the world. Now, months after the team had killed off Camille and Finn, and captured Laura, newborns were continuing to spring up everywhere. It was all they could do to keep a lid on it in the United States, and there were places around the world where things were certainly getting out of control.

Glancing over at Aaron, she could see her own exhaustion in his expression. He was sitting next to her now, the only two remaining in the room, and she couldn’t tell if he was on the IAC or if he was just taking a second to catch his breath. After a moment, he smiled at her weakly and gave her arm a squeeze. “You okay?” he asked.

She nodded, her expression not showing confidence in her response. “I’m just not sure what we are going to do.”

“I take it from your tone you don’t mean Jamie?”

Shaking her head, she said, “There’s just so many of them now, and they’re really getting out of hand.”

“I know,” he agreed.

“I think…” she hesitated for a moment, not really sure if she should say the words she was thinking, but then realizing they needed to be said, she continued, “I think we need to give Eliza a second chance.” She glanced at him, saw his eyebrows rise. “I mean… I know as well as anyone why she was sent to Siberia, but she’s got experience. We need to put her in Europe, Czech Republic or some place we can’t get a handle on. Otherwise, we may lose it. And then it will just start to spread… like a cancer we can’t control.”

After a moment of staring at her wide-eyed with no words, he finally began to nod his head. “Okay,” he replied, quietly. “That does make sense. I just don’t think we can trust her.”

“I know we can’t trust her,” Cadence agreed adamantly. “But I think we are about out of alternatives.”

Again, Aaron signaled his agreement. “And what about Laney? Should we pull her out of Africa?”

Cadence hesitated. Laney had done a fabulous job of shutting down her uncle’s titanium mine, the one being used to create bullets that allowed a Hunter to kill another Hunter, and, as they discovered with Camille, also allowed a Guardian to kill a Hunter, but it might be a job for a Hunter with lesser skills. She nodded, but then added, “If she feels she’s ready to go. I don’t think it’s wise to put Laney and Eliza in the same region, though.”

“No,” Aaron affirmed. “We’ll find some place else for her. In the meantime, we’ll keep recruiting. There are some promising Hunters and Guardians going through the program now, and some will be ready to graduate before too much longer.”

“That’s true,” Cadence replied, leaning back in her chair. “No one spectacular yet, though,” she reminded him.

“No, not yet,” he admitted. “We’ll just have to keep looking. Who knows? Maybe the next super Guardian will show up at our door any day now.”

Cadence chuckled. Wouldn’t that be nice? “I’m exhausted,” she finally said, standing and stretching. “Unlike some people, I still require a few hours of sleep.”

“Let’s head home then,” he replied. “Hopefully, nothing too exciting will happen tomorrow, and you can get some rest.”

That would also be nice, Cadence thought as she followed Aaron out of the building. What she wouldn’t give for a day with no excitement!

Chapter 2

Tyler Jones was a pretty stout young man. At five-seven, two-hundred-twenty pounds, he made most of the other fifth graders in Ms. Lawrence's class look like first graders. Despite his crooked grin and the charm he often layered on thick, Tyler spent his fair share of time sitting in the principal's office thinking about his choices. As he shuffled down the hallway toward class, his backpack thrown over one shoulder, his lunchbox grasped firmly in his fist, he tried to push the unpleasantness of that morning out of his mind. Perhaps if his father drank a little less in the evenings, he'd be more inclined to get up and take Tyler to school in the morning, maybe even make it to work himself. But Tyler had learned a long time ago most teachers didn't really care what happened to you at home so long as you left it at the doorstep and became "proactive" the second you walked into their classrooms. Ms. Lawrence was a little different than most of Tyler's other teachers, though. She could usually tell when his day had started off out-of-sorts. And he was hoping today she would have a special job for him, like she often did when he was upset, something that would take his mind off of home and give him the opportunity to start his day fresh.

Ms. Lawrence would have been short even if Tyler wasn't so tall, but it didn't matter; she stood by her door with a smile on her face, her blond hair perfectly pulled up in a loose ponytail, her outstretched hand waiting for his. "There's my guy! How are you doing Tyler?" she asked in a voice that indicated she was definitely a morning person.

Tyler couldn't help but smile in response as he shook her tiny hand. "I'm good, Ms. Lawrence," he replied, suddenly feeling much more optimistic. "Do you have a job for me today?"

Ms. Lawrence looked around the classroom as if she wasn't prepared for the question. After a moment, however, inspiration hit her. "Yes, Tyler, I do! Can you see all of those papers and things laying on the floor behind my desk?"

Tyler glanced into the classroom, his head bobbing to and fro as he attempted to see around other students. "Yes, ma'am," he finally nodded.

"I think they may have gotten knocked off while the custodian was vacuuming. Would you mind picking all of that stuff up and setting it back on the counter for me, my friend?"

"No problem, Ms. Lawrence," Tyler beamed, proud to think of himself as friends with what must surely be the best fifth grade teacher in the universe.

"Perfect!" she called as he crossed the room. "I knew I could count on you, Tyler!"

Tyler was still grinning from ear to ear as he tossed his backpack and lunchbox into his seat. He'd worry about putting those away later. Right now, Ms. Lawrence had given him a very important job, and he needed to tend to it right away. Stooping down wasn't always the easiest for him, so Tyler dropped down on his knees, scooping up the offending items as quickly as possible. Once he was sure he hadn't missed anything, he struggled back up to his feet, placing the objects on the counter. He paused for a moment to survey his work; he had done quite an efficient job of picking up this mess, after all. He was puzzled to see that one of the items was a cell phone. Glancing over his shoulder, he saw Ms. Lawrence's familiar iPhone on her desk. He had seen her use it lots of times before, so he knew this older model smartphone in a black case definitely wasn't hers. Tyler had always wanted a smartphone. He'd asked for one for his birthday and Christmas both of the last two years, but he never got one. In fact, his mom had made it pretty clear she wasn't planning on getting him a phone at all anytime soon. Holding the object of his desire in his hand, he eyed Ms. Lawrence carefully, and then glanced back at the phone. It wasn’t hers. She probably wouldn’t even know if he took it. Despite the nagging in the back of his head that he was slipping back into his old ways, Tyler shoved the phone into his pocket, straightened up the rest of the items he’d rescued from the floor, and went over to his desk to get his backpack and lunchbox, hopeful that no one had seen him take the phone.

Of course, Tyler couldn’t get off that easily. “Hey, what’s that you’re sticking into your pocket?” Max Morris asked as he plopped himself down in the chair next to Tyler’s.

“Nothing,” Tyler shrugged, hoisting his backpack over the back of his seat and approaching his appointed hanger. Max pushed his glasses up on his nose, staring after his neighbor. He was the kind of guy Tyler would normally want to punch in the face, but since Ms. Lawrence talked so much about everyone being friends, he’d been a little nicer to Max. Still, as he crossed back over to grab his lunchbox and stick it in the basket by the door, Max’s insistence that he “saw somethin’” was beginning to get on his last nerve.

As Tyler threw himself into his seat and pulled out his journal to begin his morning work, he couldn’t help but notice Max was still staring at him intently, like he was about to find out some important information. With a heavy sigh, Tyler whispered, “My mom got me a new cell phone, all right? But it’s just for emergencies. I don’t wanna put it in my backpack, so just be quiet about it, and maybe Ms. Lawrence won’t know it’s in my pocket, okay?”

Max pushed his long brown bangs up on top of his forehead. “You didn’t find it on the ground over there by Ms. Lawrence’s desk?” he asked suspiciously.

“No! Tyler shot back, his annoyance about to boil over now. “I had it in my pocket, all right? Geeze. Now, leave me alone, and get to work on your journal assignment.” Tyler gave him a stare that was a warning to Max that he had better back off or face the consequences.

“Whatever,” Max finally acquiesced. “Probably just a piece of junk that doesn’t work anyhow,” he added.

Tyler dropped his pencil, his head flying up from his work. What if he was right? What if he’d finally gotten a smartphone, and the lousy piece of junk didn’t even work? His hand shot up into the air, gaining Ms. Lawrence’s attention as she was crossing back over to her desk, a look of tragic importance scowling up his forehead.

“What is it, Tyler?” Ms. Lawrence asked, her voice teetering on concern.

“Can I go to the bathroom?” he asked, hoping she could hear the urgency in his tone.

Ms. Lawrence sighed, and Tyler was pretty sure she was going to ask what any other teacher would ask; why hadn’t he gone before class. But she didn’t. “Of course,” she replied. And that was why Ms. Lawrence was the best fifth grade teacher in the universe. Tyler pulled himself out of his desk and made his way as quickly as possible to the bathroom, his hand placed carefully over the outside of his pocket.

Tyler was the kind of kid who didn’t have to say anything to get the bathroom to clear out as soon as he opened the door. In this case, there were just a couple of second graders admiring themselves in the mirrors. One stern look from the hulky fifth grader and they left pretty quickly. Tyler ducked into the closest stall, locking the door behind him. With an anxious sigh, he pulled the stolen device out of his pocket. “You’d better work!” he mumbled quietly, hoping he could threaten the cell phone to do his bidding much the way he had other students at recess or lunch. He pushed the home button on the bottom of the screen, hoping it would instantly bounce to life. It didn’t. He muttered a swear word he’d heard his dad say lots of times but one he wasn’t allowed to say. He tried shaking it, but that didn’t work. He held it up to his ear. No dice. Turning it over and over again in his hands, he noticed a button on the top of the phone. He thought he had seen his mom press this button on her phone once or twice when she was angry with it, so he decided to give it a try. He pressed it. Nothing happened. Aggravated, he pressed it again, this time a little harder. “Work, you stupid piece of….” Before he could even finish his insult, a light came on, and he could feel a warmth emanating from the device. He turned it over to look at the screen and could see an apple coming to life in the center. “Yes!” he whispered, a congratulatory fist pump marking his victory. He waited just a few more seconds to make sure it came all the way to life before he heard a noise at the door and realized he needed to get back to class. Pressing that top button again, and holding it down, he waited for the phone to go back to sleep before shoving it into his pocket and rushing past a startled third grader on his way back to class.

When he returned, Ms. Lawrence was giving directions to the class, but she smiled at him sweetly, welcoming him back to class. He slid into his seat and glared at Max Morris. As soon as his teacher was done speaking, he threw an elbow into Max’s scrawny ribcage. “Shows what you know. My phone does too work!” he whispered.

Max grimaced and put his hand on his side, but he didn’t say anything. He knew the old Tyler well enough not to tattle on him. He wasn’t buying this new goody-two-shoes Tyler. He’d find another way to make sure Tyler got what he had coming to him.

Cadence bolted upright in bed, not sure if she’d heard a knock on her door or if the zombie apocalypse she’d been dreaming about had infiltrated her bedroom. She wiped the drool from her mouth and glanced at the clock. If that was the door, and someone was actually knocking on it at 8:30 AM the morning after a hunt, this better be pretty damn important. Another banging noise let her know that it was, in fact, the door. “Stupid non-sleeping, non-human Guardians,” she mumbled as she pulled on her robe and clambered out of bed. Her IAC wasn’t on, and since no one could force it on, not even Aaron, the only way anyone could contact her was through normal methods--a phone call, a text, beating her door down. She glanced through the peephole and sighed, throwing back the locks. “Christian, what do you want this time of morning?” she asked before the door was even completely open.

Christian, who was the tech expert of the team, stood before her dressed in a similar outfit to the one he had worn on the hunt the night before, just a few hours ago. He had a goofy grin on his handsome face, and Cadence was tempted to see how many times she had to slap him to wipe it off. “It pinged!” he exclaimed, practically jumping up and down in the hallway. “Can you believe it? After all of these months, we actually got a ping!”

“What the crap are you talking about?” Cadence asked, shaking her head. She fumbled with the tie of her pink silk robe. “What pinged? I ought to ping you for waking me up.”

“Is Aaron here?” Christian asked, leaning over her shoulder to look into her apartment, clearly ignoring her question and subsequent insult.

“No, he’s not here. He doesn’t live here,” she reminded him, leaving out that he did stay over at her place most nights, at least until she fell asleep. “You mean you haven’t shared your great pinging news with him yet?”

But Christian had already made his way over to Aaron’s door, and as he began his knocking again, he replied over his shoulder, “No, I wanted to tell you both at the same time.”

Cadence followed the few steps down the hall, leaving her apartment door open, hoping she would be climbing back into her own bed in just a moment. “What are you talking about, Christian?” she repeated.

He didn’t answer her, however. As a clearly wide-awake, well put together Aaron, pulled open his door, Christian proclaimed, “It pinged!”

“You’re kidding!” Aaron replied, a look of shock and excitement on his face. “That’s fabulous! Where?”

“Some little town in Texas, near Dallas,” Christian explained. “I’ve got the coordinates. We should be able to be there in a couple of hours if we fly.”

“That’s incredible. Let’s just hope that it’s our man,” Aaron said, slapping Christian on the back.

“What the hell are you talking about?” Cadence repeated, taking a few steps closer. “What pinged, and who’s our man?”

Aaron looked at her for the first time, and Cadence tried to ignore the shocked expression at her messy hair and disheveled appearance that briefly crossed his face as he formulated his response. “Sam,” he finally explained. “His phone--it pinged.”

Realization set in pretty quickly for Cadence once she had this pertinent information. “Oh! That pinged!” she remarked. “Well, why didn’t you say so? That is important!”

“I know,” Christian replied, already on his way back to the elevator. “I’ll contact our people in the area and get things moving.”

“Not Alex,” Aaron warned. Sam had a good relationship with one of the Hunters in the Dallas region, so it was important to make sure that he was not tipped off.

“Right,” Christian confirmed. “I’ll try to avoid that at all costs. You mobilize the team here?” he clarified as he stepped into the elevator, holding the button to keep the doors open as he waited for a response.

“Already on it,” Aaron replied. “Meet you at the hanger in twenty?”

“I’m there,” Christian stated as he let go of the elevator button and disappeared from sight.

“Twenty minutes?” Cadence asked, remembering that she had just climbed out of bed.

“You’re right. Better make it fifteen,” Aaron replied as he opened his apartment door.

“No,” Cadence replied. “I’m not sure I can be ready for a hunt of this proportion in twenty minutes.”

“Cadence,” Aaron said, turning to look at her, “this is Sam. If we can finally get him, after all of these months of looking… this is huge.”

Nodding, Cadence said, “Okay. I understand that, but--what are the chances this is actually him? Who keeps a cell phone that can be tracked?”

“Old people,” Aaron replied, realizing this had more to do with her fear of failure than her appearance. “Maybe it’s not him, but we’ve got to find out. If we can finally get vengeance on the person who….”

He hesitated, and Cadence nodded, assuring him that he didn’t have to finish the sentence. Sam had killed Elliott, and even if there was just a slight chance that they could actually find him based on this ping and bring justice for their friend, she knew it was worth it. “I’ll be there in fifteen minutes,” she confirmed.

He nodded, disappearing into his apartment as she did the same, her mind finally wrapping around the significance of this moment. As she threw on an appropriate hunting outfit, she couldn’t help but wonder--given the opportunity, would she take Sam out or bring him in? She wasn’t sure, but she was hopeful that she would find out shortly.

Sam had procured much better accommodations in the last few months since he had been working steadily at the local school district. Rather than hovelling in a burned out trailer home, as he had started his new life, he now lived in an abandoned shotgun a few miles outside of town. It was apparent when he moved in that the last squatters did not care about the property nearly as much as he did, and while he didn’t concern himself with the modern conveniences of the twenty-first century, he did appreciate that there were no holes in the roof and the fireplace worked.

Like most Hunters, he didn’t sleep much, but other than working on the house and yard, he didn’t have too much to do to keep himself amused, so most nights he did spend a few hours on the dusty old bed in what was likely the previous owner’s master bedroom. His shift at the school didn’t start until 2:00 PM, but most mornings he was up and at ‘em near the crack of dawn. This morning was different, however. He had been up late working on the house and it was late into the morning before the old cowboy stretched and pulled himself out of bed, finally ready to start a new day as Danny Yokes, custodian. Glancing at his watch, he could see it was almost ten o’clock. Four hours of tinkering around the old place before he’d have to be off to work.

The fireplace worked perfectly for putting on a pot of coffee. It reminded him of his former life out on the range at the turn of the last century. As he waited for the percolation to begin, he returned to the bedroom and pulled on his jeans and a flannel shirt. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he slid his feet into his boots and then reached over to the nightstand for his wallet, school ID, and phone.

That’s when he realized something was terribly wrong.

At first, he was sure he had just misplaced it, but as he scanned the floor around the nightstand, under the bed, and behind the furniture, he could plainly see it was missing. He desperately grabbed at his pockets, sure it was not in there, but needing to double check. He had but one spare pair of pants, and he hurried to where they hung in the closet to make sure he hadn’t left it in there. After that turned up nothing, he proceeded to tear the house apart, undoing months of work, searching desperately for the lost cell phone, the one apparatus that could potentially lead LIGHTS right to him. It didn’t seem to be anywhere.

He flew out the door, throwing open the door to the 1964 Ford F100 he had bought for cheap and fixed up when he’d first arrived. He kept his cab immaculately clean, so it was easy to see the phone was not anywhere in plain sight. He felt beneath the seats, scoured the glove compartment, and searched anywhere and everywhere the phone might have fallen. Again, it was nowhere.

Sam sat down on the running board, his hands running through his gray hair as he desperately racked his brain trying to think of where it might possibly be. Had he gone anywhere besides work and home? No. Had anything unusual happened that may have caused him to take the phone out of his pocket? Not that he could recall. After all, he never used it for anything and only kept it as a last resort in case he needed to get ahold of Alex or someone else in an emergency. He went over the events of the day before in his mind, remembering arriving at school just before the kids left for the day, avoiding the little bastards as much as possible. He’d made his way to the janitor’s closet, checked in with the daytime janitor to see if there was anything he hadn’t gotten to during the day, and then began his daily routine. Nothing unusual had happened, nothing out of the ordinary.

And then he remembered the landslide in Mrs. Lawrence’s classroom, the pile of crap that had fallen to the floor. Was it possible that when he stooped to clean up the mess his phone had fallen out of his pocket?

“Shit,” he exclaimed quietly in his baritone voice. For the first time in a long time, he used his superhuman speed and rushed back into the house to grab his truck keys. Within seconds, he was peeling down the drive on his way back to school, cursing under his breath the entire time, desperately hoping that no one had turned on that cell phone.

He didn’t bother to pull into a parking space when he reached the elementary school, but taking some deep breaths, he resigned himself to walk into the building at the same rate he normally did when he was pretending to be Danny Yokes, human, custodian.

The receptionist was a spunky, petite brunette named Patty who always had a smile on her face. This morning was no different, and as soon as he entered the office, she jumped out of her seat to greet him. “Good morning, Mr. Danny. Are you here to help Juan move those desks off the stage for the first grade play?”

“Mornin’, Patty,” Sam replied, trying to keep his voice even. “No, ma'am. Not now anyway. I was wonderin’ if anyone might’ve turned in a cell phone this mornin’. Seems I misplaced mine, and I’m expectin’ an important call from my daughter,” he lied.

“Oh, no!” Patty exclaimed, the concern in her voice clearly genuine. “Well, no. No one has turned anything in up here. Do you want me to call it and see if we can find it that way?” she asked, already reaching for her phone.

“Well, that’s the thing,” Sam continued, his eyes darting around her desk and the rest of the office, despite her assurances. “I’m purty sure it ain’t on right now. I don’t keep it on too long ‘cause it don’t hold a charge much anymore.”

“Oh, well, that’s no good,” she replied, glancing around the room herself in case she had missed something.

“No it ain’t,” Sam continued. “You know, I was thinkin’ on my way over here, though, I remember hearing a thunk last night when I was sweepin’ up Ms. Lawrence’s room. I didn’t see nothin’ at the time, but I’m a’ wonderin’ if maybe it didn’t fall out in there. I know the kids is a tryin’ to learn right now, but do you think it might be all right if I was to go check with her right quick?”

Patty seemed to consider the request for a second before nodding her head. “Sure, I think that would be fine. Just go on back and see if she’s found it and just hasn’t had a chance to turn it in yet. I’d hate for you to miss your daughter’s call.”

Before she even finished her sentence, “Danny” was out the door and headed toward the fifth grade hallway.

The Cessna Caravan wasn’t the fastest plane in the arsenal, but when Aaron selected it for their current trip, he had good reason. He wasn’t exactly sure how close the nearest airport was, and there was a possibility catching Sam might take more complicated measures than usual. He wanted to make sure his team was prepared for anything.

That’s why he had decided to fly the plane himself.

He had selected basically the same team as had been involved in the Sierraville Incident, less the member they were trying to avenge. Cadence, Meagan, and Aurora were the only Hunters on the plane, along with Hannah, Christian, and Jamie to guard them. While he had considered increasing the numbers in order to have a better chance at being successful, he was confident that this team could take Sam out if they were able to find him. He would also have three members from the Dallas area meeting them on the ground with motorcycles, a four-wheeler, and an SUV.

As they began to near the DFW metroplex, Aaron checked the altitude, which was approximately 3000 feet, and began to address his team. “Christian, can you give us a rundown of the location?” he asked, using the IAC to make sure he was heard clearly over the sound of the engine.