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 someplace 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!