Shane and Meagan had recovered from the spray of glass, and as Henry took off running, he ran right by all three of them. “Aren’t you going to chase him?” Cadence asked Shane.

“No, I told you, this isn’t my hunt. We are all three just observing.”

“But, he’s getting away,” Cadence pleaded. This was a Vampire who had killed children. How could Shane just stand there and watch him escape?

Henry was almost through the nearly empty parking lot when Cadence’s instincts kicked in. Without thinking of the consequences, she began to give chase. She heard Shane’s voice echoing behind her to stop and thought perhaps Shane even chased her a few steps. To her left she saw a flash and somehow knew it was Finn. But she was faster and got ahead of him. As she made it through the parking lot, she was keenly aware that Aaron was screaming at her to “stand down immediately.” But at this point, she physically could not stop her legs from moving.

Henry caught the traffic light just right and made it across the intersection while Cadence and Finn, who was close behind her, had to stop.

“What the hell are you doing?” he spat at her.

She didn’t have time to answer. She saw Henry weaving in and out among the shadows near the apartment buildings. Despite the fact that there was oncoming traffic, Cadence began a game of Frogger and started to dodge the cars. She was able to make it through safely, but Finn was not so lucky. There was a screech and the sound of an impact. She didn’t stop to see if he was okay. She was pretty sure a car couldn’t kill him.

* * *

Aaron was stationed atop the building directly behind the bar, to the left of the parking lot. He stopped giving orders to the team through his IAC now and was screaming at Cadence to stop only on her own frequency. He had a feeling, however, that nothing he could say was going to stop her, so he was also moving. He had one tool that Cadence didn’t know how to use yet and that was infrared. If he could pick up on where Henry was, perhaps he could at least protect her that way. He just didn’t know if he was fast enough to catch up to them.

* * *

Henry had to make another choice. He turned and looked at her discovering she was fast on his heels. He looked off in the direction of the field but must’ve known that, if he decided to go that direction, there was a good chance she would reach him before he could find a good hiding spot. His other option, however, was to enter the apartment building and try to find a place to hide there, or at least something to make a bargain with.

If he had made his decision one second more quickly, perhaps Cadence wouldn’t have seen which fire escape ladder he jumped up and grabbed ahold of. However, she came around the corner just in time to see him pulling himself up onto the ladder connected to building four. Even though she was no longer listening to the chatter on the IAC, she decided she should let everyone know where he was, so she passed that information along as she sprinted for the ladder he had climbed.

As she sprinted to the ladder, she caught a visual of Aaron climbing on the motorcycle he had parked at the foot of the fire escape on the building he had been stationed on. For some reason, the idea that he was coming to help stilled her a bit, even though the fleeting idea that he would be livid when this was over also crossed her mind. A few hurried words caught her attention as she came to a screeching halt beneath the ladder, and none of them were promising. “Dangerous… monster... furious… disobeyed my orders.”

Cadence could still see Henry clambering up the ladder from her vantage point directly below him. Taking a lesson from her training, she was easily able to jump from the ground to the first platform without even using the lowest ladder. Henry must have glanced down just in time to see that and realize she could catch him in just two or three leaps, so he shattered the window next to the landing he was currently standing on and leapt inside. In the distance, Cadence heard an approaching motorcycle and hoped its engine noise wouldn't wake any slumbering humans.

Cadence cleared the rest of the stairs in just a few seconds. “He’s in the apartment at the back of building four on the sixth floor,” she reported, wondering if anyone else was even anywhere near her location. She cautiously pulled herself inside through the shattered window and found herself standing in the living room of a small apartment. Wherever Henry was, he couldn’t have gone far. Instinctively, she pulled the gun out of her waistband and began to peer through the darkness.

She heard a noise from the back of the apartment and realized it was a baby whimpering. Afraid he might harm the child, she rushed to the room where the noise was coming from. There, she saw a horrific sight. Henry stood next to a bassinet, holding a baby girl by her throat with one hand, the claw-like fingernails from his other hand outstretched, threatening to scratch, bite, or ring the neck of the baby.

Though the baby was crying, the young, exhausted mother had yet to realize it, and she was still sleeping on the bed between Cadence and Henry. There was a window just to Henry’s right, and the way he was looking at it made Cadence increasingly nervous.

“Put the baby down,” she said as calmly as she could muster. At the sound of her speaking, the mother stirred.

“Now, why would I do that?” he asked, his voice just as ghoulish as his appearance. “Unless, of course, you mean, put it down there,” he said, gesturing toward the window.

The mother was awake now, and she appeared to be frozen with fear. She was staring right at Cadence, and if Henry realized that she could also be used as a shield, Cadence’s challenge would be a lot more difficult. “Ma’am, I know you have no idea who I am or what’s going on, but please, get over here behind me, right now,” she said, leaving the gun trained on Henry.

Perhaps motivated by fear of the weapon, or perhaps because she was not fully awake and thought she might still be dreaming, the woman complied and ran across the room to where Cadence was standing. It was only when she turned around that the horrific scene Cadence had been staring at for several seconds unfolded itself to her. “My baby!” she shrieked.

"I need you to stay calm, and stay right here,” Cadence said, reaching her arm out to the woman as a reassurance that she should not move back toward the child.

“Why, you’re nothing but a little kitten, are you?” Henry was saying to Cadence now, trying to get into her head. “Not even a full-grown pussy.” His greasy, thinning hair blew in the wind, and Cadence noticed he was swaying.

“Put the baby down.” Cadence stated again. She remembered what Aaron had said about shooting this gun, and she wondered how much trouble she was in already. Would it be worth it to take the shot? Then there was the possibility that she might miss and hit the baby, in which case her game was over before it even began.

“You know, every small child dreams of flying.” He took a step toward the window.

The mother began to weep louder now, and Cadence was afraid she might try to save her child, putting her directly into her line of fire and potentially causing Henry to harm the baby or possibly infect the child with his DNA, transforming her into a Vampire.

“Henry,” Cadence began, “put that baby down, and you can walk out of this building. I promise, I won’t shoot you.”

He began to chuckle, “And what of the rest of your forces, hmm? The old cowboy? The black lady? The hippy? Will they be so kind as you, kitten?” As he spoke, he reached with his free hand over to the window and slowly pulled up the glass.

The mother was frantic now. Henry seemed to know he had little chance of escaping unharmed. “You know, I’m toying with the idea of tossing this child out the window, just for shits and giggles.” He began to laugh maniacally and Cadence felt sick to her stomach, but she didn’t respond. What could she say that she hadn’t already?

She wasn’t sure if she could take the shot in time and dive across the room, catching the baby before the little one fell.

As Henry held the child closer to the cold night air, she began to wail even louder. The noise was making it increasingly difficult for Cadence to think. Just then, she heard Aaron’s voice come over the IAC. His orders were clear, and she trusted that he could see the situation as she did.

“If you’ve got the shot, take it.”

Henry was still swaying back and forth. In order to save the baby from becoming contaminated, she needed a straight shot right into his heart. Otherwise, he might have time to hurt the child before she could kill him. When he swayed to the right, his right arm provided enough cover to prevent her from trusting her aim. But, when he swayed to the left, he opened up just a bit more and she thought she had a clean shot to his heart. It had to be clean.

She pondered the idea of giving him one more opportunity to put the baby down, but she knew he was not going to comply, no matter what she said. He was driveling on again now, something about cats, but she wasn’t listening. She was using every ounce of her concentration to time her shot.

To the right, to the left. Fire.