Queen Catcher E-Book

Johnson ID

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

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2021

Beschreibung

Killing Vampire queens is all in a day’s work for Jo McReynolds....
Now that she's got Holland trapped in a cave, killing her shouldn't be too much trouble. There's just one problem. Scott is convinced his dad and the other captured Healers are about to be killed. In order to save them, Jo and the others will have to take a huge detour back to the the States. Jo doesn't know if they have time to do that or if Lucas will continue to keep an eye on Holland while they're gone.
Not to mention, is she capable of taking on President Crimson and his entire force of Vampires in order to break Jamie and the other Healers out of the Capitol Building?
Maybe she'll get some unexpected help from the inside the portals.... Or maybe she'll have to do it on her own.
Either way, Jo needs to accomplish both missions and figure out whether or not Holland knows where her mother is because time is running out for her to find Cadence Findley alive.
And by the time this mission is over, one important LIGHTS team member will be dead.
This new series, Blood of the Vampire Hunter, continues the story from The Clandestine Saga with some brand new characters you’re sure to love and some familiar faces from the previous series. You do not need to have read The Clandestine Saga to love Blood of the Vampire Hunter.
Blood of the Vampire Hunter is darker than the previous series with more intense language, gore, and some steamy scenes.
Book four, Mother Hunter is also finished and will be available soon.

Leseprobe

Queen Catcher

Blood of a Vampire Hunter Book 3

ID Johnson

Copyright © 2021 by ID Johnson

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Created with Vellum

For Teddy

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

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

A Note From the Author

Also by ID Johnson

Chapter 1

Waking to the sounds of screaming was nothing new, and yet, every time it happened, Jo McReynolds felt her heart leap into her throat. Like every other night for the past few weeks, she tossed the blankets off of her legs and headed for the door, wishing she could do something to help but knowing that she was running to her aunt’s aid not because she could actually be of use but because she was obligated to do so. That and because, whenever Cassidy started screaming like this, it scared the bejesus out of everyone, including Jo.

Her legs carried her down the hallway of the house they’d borrowed from Lucas’s Souled Vampire friend, Adrian, who wasn’t even there to sleep in his own bed. He had volunteered to track Holland’s car when it left the castle in Poland during the last attack. Now, they had a good idea where the Vampire queen was hiding, but their best weapon was still on the fritz, and even though Heather McBride assured them that things were getting better, this was night twelve in a row where Cassidy woke all the Hunters with her screaming and sent all of the Guardians who weren’t related to her outdoors to get some peace in the snowy Russian night air.

By the time she reached the room, the screams had died down. The door was open, probably left that way by Zane, Jo’s ex who maybe wasn’t her ex anymore, who was standing across from Cassidy’s bed toward the back of the room, out of the way. He wasn’t related to Cassidy, but he always came when she screamed, the only Guardian who didn’t look for an escape route, other than Cassidy’s husband, Brandon Keen, and his dad, Elliott Sanderson, who were both leaning over the Hybrid now. The other woman in the room, Heather, who was also a Hybrid, half-Hunter/half-Vampire, was leaning over Cassidy’s shaking body whispering to her quietly.

“I want to go home!” Cassidy screamed. “Leave me the fuck alone! I want my mom and dad!”

Jo went to stand by Zane, waiting to see what happened next. Most of the time, one of the Healers would come into the room and give Cassidy a sedative, but no one had called for one of them yet, and neither Scott nor Cale were quick to administer the heavy medication if they didn't have to. It seemed like every time Cassidy took a step forward, the next night, she’d take two steps back. One day last week, she remembered Brandon for a few minutes and even knew her own name. Then, that was gone, and she thought she was in high school, late for an exam. Whatever it was Holland had done to her mind when she sent her into that wall in the castle, she’d done a hell of a lot of damage, and while Heather was certain she could piece it all back together, it wasn’t happening quickly. Not quickly enough, anyway.

Without bothering to ask how she was doing, Jo took up her usual post at the foot of the bed near Zane, as Cassidy’s husband tried to reason with her. “Cass, baby, come on. Don’t you recognize me? We’ve been married for over twenty years.”

“Get away from me, you monster!” Cassidy shouted, clearly not recognizing Brandon or anyone else. “I said I want my mom! I’m too young to be married, you bastard. Where’s Cadence? Cadence!”

Jo braced herself, her hands automatically making fists so tight her nails dug into her palms. This was always the part that was the most painful for her to watch, when Cassidy couldn’t remember that Cadence Findley McReynolds, her older sister, Jo’s mother, wasn’t there. Whether she was dead or had just been missing for the last ten years, no one knew for sure, and that’s what Jo had been trying to find out from Holland when she’d thrown Cassidy against the wall, knocking her senseless. Now, she had to listen to Brandon and Elliott try to remind Cassidy that Cadence, “wasn’t there right now,” but that she was safe, and she was going to be fine.

The next person to enter the room was Cadon, Jo’s older brother by a few minutes. The two of them hadn’t gotten along for years, not since Jo had had a falling out with their father, Aaron, and said a lot of things she now regretted. Though they had been working on their relationship a little at a time recently, neither of them were too excited to see one another. Still, Cassidy was an aunt to both of them, so when he heard the screaming, he usually came, too.

“Where are we tonight?” he asked, standing next to Jo, a solemn expression on his handsome face. He looked a lot like their dad. Everyone said so.

“High school, I think,” Jo said. “I’m really not sure. She just keeps asking for her parents and Mom.”

Cadon sucked in a deep breath at that last word, and Jo knew that the pain was real for him, too, even though he often tried not to show it. “Can we do anything to help?”

“I’m going to go ahead and call Scott in,” she said. “This isn’t going to resolve itself on its own.”

Cadon nodded in agreement, so Jo utilized her IAC, or Intelligence Assistance Communicator, a small computer all of them had embedded in their eye, and sent a message to Scott. “Can you please come and sedate her?”

Sometimes, he asked for her to wait, not because he liked the idea of torturing Cassidy, but because he was hopeful a real breakthrough would only happen after a significant amount of this sort of behavior, but since it was apparent that this wasn’t working either, and he was probably tired of arguing, he said, “Yes. Be right there.”

“Thank you,” Jo said and turned the conversation off. To the others in the room she said, “Scott is coming,” also using the IAC since she wasn’t sure anyone would hear her if she spoke aloud over Cassidy’s thrashing noises.

“Well, he better fucking hurry,” Brandon replied, “because she is hella strong, and I feel like I’m about to have my eyes scratched out.”

Jo wasn’t sure how to respond to that. There wasn’t anything she could do to make Scott come faster, nor was there anything she could do to help him since Cassidy already had three adult bodies trying to hold her down. When Scott came into the room, he was practically flying, he was moving so quickly, and within milliseconds, the shot was administered.

Of course, it took a moment to work. Brandon, Elliott, and Heather continued to wrestle with Cassidy until her movements got slower and slower, and then she stopped fighting them, her curses becoming slurred as she slowly fell to sleep.

Jo had no idea how potent the sedative they were giving her aunt must be for it to work so well, but she imagined it was akin to something given to rhinoceroses on the open range in order to transport them from one savannah to another. Most drugs didn’t work very well on their kind. Jo could drink an entire case of beer and feel no different than she had when she started, which was unfortunate because getting drunk off of her ass had been something she’d enjoyed back in her human days, when she was a young teen. It had also been one of the ways she rebelled against her perfect mother and her perfectionist father. Now, the only way she could get a similar thrill was through a near death experience or killing Vampires.

By the time Cassidy settled down and others were able to release her, Elliott was breathing pretty hard and had sweat dotting his forehead. “Man. I ain’t as young as I used to be. This shit is gettin’ old.” The others were not exactly calm, but they were not as worked up as he was.

“I’m sorry,” Heather said, shaking her head. “It’s just not workin’ as fast as I’d hoped it would. I can keep tryin’. I just really wish… I could do somethin’ to reach her quicker.”

“I wish my dad was here,” Scott muttered. “He might be able to do something to help.”

The thought that Jamie, the most powerful Healer the world had ever known, might be able to do something different to help Cassidy had occurred to Jo more than once, but he was currently a hostage being held by the US government, and even though the entire nation of Australia, led by his sister, Margie, and their military, was on their way to try to break him and the other LIGHTS teams members being held hostage free, but it was still a long way off. For now, the only thing they could do to help Cassidy was what they were doing. And moving forward against Holland without her was a risk Jo wasn’t willing to take, not even with Heather on their side.

“Thanks for your help, Jo,” Brandon said.

“Sure thing. I didn’t do much, though.”

“It just helps that you’re here.” Elliott clapped her on the shoulder, and Jo managed to give him a smile. They thanked Cadon, Scott, and Zane as well and then the party broke up, all of them heading out the door except for Brandon and Heather.

Once they were in the hallway, Elliott muttered. “They say I can’t die again. But… this. Is. Killing. Me.”

Jo rested her hand on his arm, wishing there was something she could say or do to help the situation, but as it stood, she was just as helpless as everyone else.

“Jo, we need to talk. Do you have a minute?” Scott was standing behind her, a few feet down the hallway, closer to the main living area of the large house.

All Jo really wanted to do was go back to sleep, but that was the problem with working with all of these Guardians who never needed to sleep. “Of course,” she said, dragging herself in his direction. As soon as she got over to him, she asked, “What’s going on?”

He gave her a half smile but then took off walking to a more secluded part of the house. Jo followed because he clearly wanted her to. Before she followed him around the corner, she turned and glanced at Zane who shrugged and gave her a sympathetic look. It wouldn’t be polite to ask her more recent ex-boyfriend, whom she currently happened to be sleeping with, to accompany her to discuss something private with her less recent ex, so Jo didn’t bother to ask the question, just followed Scott and hoped that whatever he wanted to talk about, it wasn’t personal.

She followed him into one of the smaller rooms that was either an office or a library, she couldn’t quite tell, though the fact that there was a much larger library elsewhere in the house made her think that this room with a desk and walls lined with bookshelves was probably a more private space where Adrian had done whatever work he used to do before he became a Vampire. Scott leaned against the desk, his arms folded, and Jo closed the door before stepping over to him.

He took a few deep breaths, and Jo held hers, waiting for him to say whatever it was he was struggling to get out. Plenty of potentially awkward conversation starters came to mind. She prayed it was none of those.

When Scott finally did speak, his voice was so quiet, she almost didn’t understand him. “I think I need to go back to the States.”

Startled, it took Jo a moment to process what he’d said. “You… do?” she asked. “Oh. Okay. Uh… why is that?” It wasn’t like Scott to give up on a mission before it was finished, so she knew he had to have a good reason.

He cleared his voice again before he said, “I spoke to my mom a little while ago. She’s with Aunt Margie, in Georgie. Their forces are moving closer and closer to the capital all the time, but… they don’t think there’s any chance President Crimson is actually going to let the hostages be rescued. They think they will kill them before that can happen.”

Jo froze for a moment, not sure how to respond to that. This wasn’t a new concern. In fact, the team had discussed the possibility of this happening before. They just hoped it wouldn’t come to this. With the Australian Army invading the southern United States, it only made sense that the president would do what he could to appease the enemy and release the prisoners. But Crimson Crotch was too full of himself for anything like that.

“Fine, Scott,” she said, weighing all of the important missions she had in front of her in her mind. “If you’re going to try to save your dad, we’ll go with you.”

Scott’s eyes widened. “Are you serious?”

“Of course. Jamie has saved almost all of us at one time or another. Hell, I would’ve never been born if it wasn’t for your dad. Getting Holland is important, but saving your dad is more important. We’ll leave Lucas’s guys here to keep an eye on her, let her think the heat’s off for a while, and we’ll go on a rescue mission.” She knew this was exactly what her dad would’ve wanted her to do, so she didn’t hesitate to make the decision.

Before she knew what was happening, Scott threw his arms around her and hugged her tight. It was the first time she’d been in his arms for a long time, and it felt different. It was more like hugging her brother than an ex. But she could tell how much he meant it when he said, “Thank you, Jo.”

“You’re welcome, Scott,” she said, and she meant it. Now she just had to convince their cooperating Vampires that this was a good idea.

Chapter 2

“I just don’t think this is a good idea,” Lucas was saying when Jo sat down with him to talk about her plan to take most of her squad back to the United States for a mission to save Jamie Joplin and the other Guardians being held captive by President Crimson Crotch and his asshole lackeys.

“Why is that?” Jo asked. “I’ve already told you how important this is. We can’t let him execute our people.”

“No, I understand that, believe me. I do. I know this Jamie you speak of. He was a friend to Eliza when few others were.” Lucas’s eyes went to Elliott. It was no secret that Elliott and Eliza had never gotten along, but then Lucas’s wife rarely got along with anyone. He refocused on Jo. Elliott didn’t say a word. He certainly wouldn’t deny that he didn’t get along with Eliza. In fact, he’d probably happily list off for Lucas all of the reasons he thought his wife was a horrific bitch, but now wasn’t the time, and if her uncle had learned one thing in all of his years it was not to piss off the help when you needed a favor. He’d told Jo that a million times since she was a little girl.

“Then you know we have to do whatever we can to rescue him and the others,” Scott said for Jo. She hadn’t brought her whole team in with her to meet with Lucas and a few of his higher ranking Vampires, but she’d brought Scott, her brother, Cadon, Elliott, and Zane. She thought the five of them should be able to convince the Souled Vampire if anyone could.

“It’s not that I don’t understand,” Lucas said, running a hand through his hair. “It’s only, I don't want to miss an opportunity to complete the primary mission while you are away, and it’s a possibility Holland could show herself at any time. We get new intel from Adrian every day. What if she moves while you’re away?”

Jo shrugged. “Then you follow her. You keep an eye on her, and we’ll be back soon enough so we can take her out.”

“But you didn’t partner with us to be reconnaissance for your team, remember? You asked us to help you defeat her forces, not follow her around like… secret agent spies.”

Jo bit back a laugh at his English. She couldn’t laugh when someone messed something up a little in her own language when she only spoke one. Besides, she got the gist of what he was saying. “I know this isn’t what you signed up for, Lucas, but if you can do this for us, it’ll be much easier to get her when we get back. I won’t be taking my whole squad with me, either. I’ll leave you some people, so if you need to pull out, then they can jump in, as soon as you tell them what you know.” She realized it probably would’ve been a good idea to put at least some of her own people on this to begin with. It just hadn’t shaken down that way.

Lucas still looked unconvinced. “Say I do agree to this plan of yours. What about the American? What will we do with him?”

“Shit,” Jo muttered. She’d forgotten all about Ryker. How had that happened? How did she let such a colossal pain in her ass slip her mind?

His voice cut through her thoughts. She didn’t know he was around, but when he spoke, she turned to look at him. “Simple enough. I’ll go with you.”

“What?” Jo exclaimed at the same time as half of her teammates at least. “You’ll go with us? Are you insane?”

“Clearly,” he said, which was what she would’ve answered, given the opportunity. “But that’s beside the point. Come on, you know you can use me. No one hates Crimson Crotch as much as I do.”

She had to think that was true, though he still hadn’t told her why. She’d learned that Ryker had had a run in in the past with Vampires that might’ve cost him his family, but she wasn’t exactly sure, and until she heard the words from his mouth, she wasn’t going to speculate.

Turning back to Lucas, she said, “That solves that problem.”

“Are you kidding?” Cadon asked. “You can’t really think we can take him. He’s a liability!”

“How is he a liability?” Jo asked, turning to give her brother a look that should’ve told him she thought he was an idiot.

“He’s a human! A fragile human! He’ll get killed!” Cadon shouted back.

“And so what if he does?” Jo said, pretending like that wouldn’t bother her at all, when in actuality she knew that it would. “That’s his choice, not ours.”

“Thanks for that, gorgeous,” Ryker said, winking at her. He’d come around to stand in front of where her team was assembled on a large sofa. “I’ll take the risk. Beats hanging out here.”

Lucas stroked his chin thoughtfully. “You’re forgetting that you have another complication. What about your aunt? I can’t keep an eye on her, and I have to assume you will take your other Hybrid with you. What then?”

Jo swallowed hard. She hadn’t thought about that either. “I guess… we’ll have to take her with us.”

Elliott interjected. “We can’t. There’s no way. Not in her current state.”

Jo turned to Scott. “How many days do we have before we absolutely have to leave here?”

He thought for a second, probably calculating how long it would take to get there and said, “Three days, tops.”

Turning back to Lucas, Jo said, “We’ll fix her. And we’ll take her.”

Lucas’s eyes widened. “How are you going to do that?”

“I don’t know,” Jo admitted. “But we’ll figure it out. If we can do that, will you work with us to keep an eye on Holland while we’re gone?”

Lucas nodded. “Sure. But I don’t think you can do it.”

Jo didn’t either. “Watch us.” She extended her hand, and Lucas shook it. “Deal.”

Chapter 3

“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?”

Chapter 4

“Holy shit! She remembers!” Elliott said, drawing Cassidy’s eyes to him.

“What’s happening?” Cassidy asked. “Why am I tied to this bed?”

“Cassidy, do you… do you really know who I am?” Brandon asked, startled.

“Yeah, of course I do. You’re my husband. What is happening?”

They all turned their attention to Heather who wasn’t talking yet. It was clear that whatever she’d done to get Cassidy back, it had all but drained Heather completely. “Is it safe to untie her, Heather?” Elliott asked.

Heather slowly nodded, and all three of the others moved to untie Cassidy who sat up all the way and rubbed at her wrists. “What happened to me?” she asked again.

“Holland,” Jo said. “She hit you with some sort of magical beam of light, and it knocked you through a wall. You lost all of your memories. You didn’t remember who or what you were.”

“Are you shitting me?” Cassidy asked, her mouth hanging open for a moment. Brandon untied her hands, and Cassidy absently rubbed her wrists. “Damn. That seems like something a person would remember.”

“You literally didn’t remember anything, though,” Elliott reminded her. “Heather’s been trying to figure out how to put your memories back in your head together for weeks.”

Cassidy turned to stare at Heather who looked slightly more energized. “Heather!” she exclaimed. “What are you doing here?” She flung herself over to the blonde and wrapped her arms around her. “I’ve missed you so much.”

Heather’s arms came up around Cassidy, too, but her grip was a lot weaker than her counterpart. “I’m glad to see you, too, sweet pea,” Heather managed.

Cassidy let go of her. “Thank you for coming to find me.”

Heather’s smile widened. “I couldn’t let you linger in there where no one else could find ya, honey.”

“How did you do it, Heather?” Elliott asked. “What was different about today than all of the other tries?”

“Well,” Heather said with a loud sigh. “I tried a different tactic. This whole damn time, I’ve been workin’ so hard to find each little thread and tie it all back together. Well, this time I went in there like a hornet and started orderin’ things around, makin’ things happen. I wasn’t takin’ no for an answer!”

“So you ordered her memories to come back to the surface?” Brandon asked, confused. The others exchanged confused glances as well as Heather nodded.

“I guess you could say that.”