The Senate Office Building was a mess on the outside. Large chunks of mortar had fallen from between the bricks. That and litter from who knows where trashed the yard. Papers were strewn all over the place, as if the filing cabinets inside of the building had been left open with all the windows wide during a storm. The papers were wet and stuck to the ground and trees. It was an awful sight, but it also let Jo know that no one came around here much. No one of consequence anyway. If the Vampires were aware of this building having tunnels, surely they’d do a better job of keeping them guarded.One swift kick of a boot from Brandon, and the main door fell in, taking a chunk of rotten wood from the door jamb with it. “That was easy,” the Guardian mumbled.“It’s too bad getting into the other building isn’t that easy,” Scott

When the ten minutes were over, Jo checked in with Margie one more time. “We’re going in, unless you say otherwise,” Jo told her.“Go for it,” Margie said. “I’ve got Crimson Crotch’s attention.”Jo took a deep breath and then told Cassidy, “All right. You’re up.”Cassidy rolled her eyes. “I’m always up. I’ve been up this whole time. Who do you think is throwing the shield?”Not wanting to argue, Jo said, “All right. Well, you’re up again. Can you get us through this wall?”“Of course I can,” her aunt said.Through the IAC, Jo told Elliott and Heather. &ldqu

“Can you tell us where we’re going?” Jo asked Cassidy as they sprinted down a hallway perpendicular to the one that they were supposed to be running to.“There’s a skylight in the president’s apartment,” she explained. “Talk about a stupid design. But I guess they figured no one would ever be able to fly over and drop a bomb through it. It’s probably that bulletproof glass, but it still seems dumb to put a skylight in the president’s home.”“He doesn’t live in the White House?” Jo asked.“No. That’s a facade. His real quarters are here.”Jo agreed with Cassidy that it was stupid to put a skylight in the presidents residence, but if it was true, she was glad that was the

There was no attack. The Vampires must’ve known they’d be wasting their valuable resources trying to get the prisoners back, so they stayed put. President Crimson made an announcement to the country, telling them all about how the Australians, along with renegades from LIGHTS, had broken into the capitol and stolen away prisoners that the country had rightfully captured and charged with crimes against the state that required the death sentence. Across the nation, Vampires and their supporters rose up with outcries of injustice. It didn’t matter that most of the Vampire supporters were forced into swearing allegiance to President Crimson and his governmental thugs by threat of death. The state-owned television was full of news reports chronicling what had happened and requesting aid from other Vampire supporting nations to band together against Australia, to launch an attack on the continent while their forces were away in America. Th

Social gatherings had never been Jo’s thing. There was so much fake-ness to it. Being around a bunch of people, pretending to be happy, pretending to be interested in what they had to say, all of that was physically draining on her. It wasn’t that she was an introvert as much as she just hated other people in general, for the most part. When Jo left Ryker, she’d walked away with a growing pain in the pit of her stomach. She needed to talk to Margie about getting a plane and a pilot. It wasn’t the sort of conversation she liked to have. She didn’t like to ask for help. But she didn’t have a whole lot of choices at the moment. If she wanted to get her group back to Russia to continue to hunt down Holland, she had to have transportation. The fact that Margie had been the one to recommend the runway that wasn’t long enough wouldn’t be brought up as a reason