Chapter 9

It didn’t take too long before someone wanted an explanation, one Jo wasn’t willing to give. So the questions went directly to Zane. It wasn’t a surprise at all that it was her dear brother asking the questions.

“So… Zane… are you related to Kian O’Braonian?” Cadon asked once they were about twenty-five miles outside of the Denver city limits, and they’d pulled over so Elliott could drive, something he almost always insisted on. Jo and Zane were sitting in the way back now, Brandon and Cass in the middle, and her brother had to swivel almost completely around in a semi-circle from the front passenger seat to direct his question to the Guardian in the back row.

“I am,” Zane said, a questioning lilt to his voice. “He was my grandfather.”

“Interesting,” Cadon said, and Elliott looked away from the road long enough to give his so-called nephew a stern look.

Cadon ignored it. “Did your father Transform?”

“Yes….” Cadon said slowly. “He never worked as part of a LIGHTS team, though. I don’t know why. I never did either. When I Transformed, a few years before the Revelation, he and my mother trained me at home. She was also a Guardian.”

“Did you know about this?” Cadon asked Elliott sort of under his breath, but loud enough for them all to hear.

“Know about what?” Zane asked, looking from Cadon to Jo, who pretended to be looking out the window, then back to the front seat. “Look, clearly there’s something about my grandfather that’s making all of you uncomfortable. I never met the man. My parents were pretty old when I was born. My grandfather was a Hunter, so he died years before I was even a thought in the back of my mom’s head. If he did something wrong….”

“No, not exactly,” Jo said, finally joining the conversation. Cadon made a choking noise in the back of his throat, and Elliott popped him in the bicep, hard enough to get his attention. It seemed they were still tiptoeing around her. “Your grandfather and our dad were friends, back in Ireland. They Transformed at the same time. Both of their wives were also turned--into Vampires. Our dad killed your grandfather’s first wife, and then Kian never forgave him.” She shrugged like it was just that simple.

“Yeah, that’s all that happened,” Cadon said, rolling his eyes. “Just go ahead and leave out the part where dad had to kill his own wife because Kian O’Braonian didn’t have the balls for it.”

“If that’s supposed to rile me up or something, it doesn’t,” Zane said, appearing to be just as calm and relaxed as Jo expected him to, even though she knew he was pissed at her on the inside for not telling him sooner. “I’m sorry my granddad did that to your family, Cadon, but I never met the guy. He’s not even the same species as me, so…. I’m not gonna get into it over something that happened hundreds of years ago.”

Cadon narrowed his eyes and then turned around, folding his arms and staring out the window, and Jo remembered one of the reasons why she liked Zane so much. It took a lot to shake him.

“Who was your grandmother?” Cassidy asked, speaking for the first time since they’d made their getaway from the cops. “She must’ve been a Guardian.”

“Yeah. Her name was Victory Spellsby. She moved to Roatan after my grandfather died and took part in one of the extinctions. Same on my mom’s side--both of my grandparents took part in the extinctions as well. So… I never knew any of them.”

Cassidy gave him a sympathetic smile. “Where are your parents?”

“Traz,” he said, his voice still even. Jo wanted to reach over and take his hand, to let him know she understood how hard it was for him to speak about what the Vamps had done to his mom and dad. “They were taken in the first round up.”

Somehow, Cassidy’s face took on an even more solemn expression, something Jo couldn’t remember seeing in years. “Wow. Sorry about that.”

“We lost a lot of friends in the first round up, too,” Brandon said, turning to join in the conversation for the first time. “And the second.”

“And the third,” Cadon said, still staring out the window.

“If there’s ever a fourth… there won’t be any of us left.” Zane chuckled slightly, as if he were trying to make a joke, but they all knew it was the truth. The more the government raided the alleged safe houses where LIGHTS team members had gone to hide, the worse their chances were of ever reclaiming what they’d once kept in balance. And as bad as it was in the US, Jo knew there were other countries where it was far worse. How humans could be so stupid was beyond her. They’d given all the power over to the race of beings that wanted to extinguish them.

“Where’d those cops come from?” Jo asked, shouting over her aunt and uncle toward the driver, wanting to change the subject. She didn’t need to think about all of their friends that were being held prisoner on New Alcatraz--or Traz as they called it--and she didn’t want to think about how long it had been since she’d managed to sneak her way in to visit any of them, even her old trainer, Aurora Howe, Roar for short.

“Hell if I know,” Elliott said with a shrug, like it didn’t make any difference now. “Must’ve gotten a tip from somewhere. I think we should switch it up. Start wearin’ less distinguishable outfits--like brown leather.”

Cassidy snickered and Brandon actually laughed, but Jo wasn’t in the mood for jokes--not even Elliott’s. She turned her attention back toward the window, wishing the SUV could somehow go even faster. Quebec seemed like a million miles away, and even though she wasn’t looking forward to seeing her dad once she arrived, even that would beat the hell out of sitting in the van with these people who were just as thrilled to have her company as she was to have theirs.

Jo closed her eyes and rested her head back against the seat. If she could ever find the ability to fall asleep, now would be a pretty damn good time to do it.