Despite having such a small window of time to return for debrief, every single member of the team was punctual. No one dared be late when Aaron was this angry. The three Independent Hunters were noticeably missing, however. Cadence’s IAC was still tuned to the rest of the teams, and Elliott mentioned that the Independents were extremely angry at both Cadence and Aaron and had been mumbling about seeking vengeance. The Leader said nothing in response to that comment, and Cadence wondered if it was something she should be worried about.

Right now, she had other concerns. Aaron stood at the front of the room with his arms crossed for a few minutes before he began. The same visual supports that were up earlier were up now, a reminder of the mistakes they had made. This mission had been a disaster from the very second they walked out the door, and while Cadence was certainly to blame for taking them off protocol, she wasn’t the only one at fault. She wondered if any of that would come to light as they spoke or if everyone would be focused on her. Finally, after a few minutes Aaron began, saying, “All right guys, let’s start at the beginning.”

By now, some of the team members had assumed they should turn Cadence’s vision off, and they had done so. But she could still see from Aaron’s perspective and from Christian’s, so she decided to observe from the latter’s trying to see if she could ascertain whether or not she should just pack up and leave right now or if there was a possibility she might get one more chance.

Aaron crossed over to the map of the bar. “Our first problem, in my opinion, started right here.” He gestured at the map and waited to see if anyone said anything. The room was silent. “What is wrong with this picture?” When no one volunteered any comments, he looked directly at Shane and waited.

Shane cleared his throat. “I had the restroom windows marked incorrectly on the map,” he finally admitted.

“That’s exactly right,” Aaron said, taking out a marker. “You had the bathrooms marked on this side of the building, not over here where they should have been. So, our cut-off, Paxton, who was supposed to be watching the bathroom windows, was on the wrong side of the building. Which leads us to another problem. Guys, if you’re supposed to be watching something—a window, a door, a car, a building—and you can’t see it, you’ve got to take responsibility for letting me know so I can help reposition you.” He waited to see if anyone was going to say anything, but though they were all nodding, no one did. “Paxton, did you notice that you were not in front of the bathroom windows? The windows on that side of the building were small, and there was no way a full-grown man was going to be able to escape through them.”

Paxton looked at Aaron nervously. When he finally spoke, it was just above a whisper. “I was confused. I saw that Smith was on the same side of the building as me. We talked about which one of us was out of position, but we didn’t get it settled before everything went down.”

Aaron nodded his head slowly. “All right, that’s a start. So, if you are ever in a similar situation again, what do you think you should do?”

Paxton looked at Smith who was staring at the floor. After another long pause, he said, “We should let you know, and if we don’t have time we should just make a decision.”

“There you go.” He opened his mouth as if he might make another comment to the Guardian, but stopped himself as if deciding spending any more time on those two was pretty worthless. “Then, we had another issue. Shane, I could not get ahold of you on the IAC. I knew there was a problem. I was trying to get you to fix it, and you were not answering. What in the world were you doing?”

“I’m not exactly sure, to be honest,” he said, scratching his head. “Cadence kept yelling at me about something, and it made it really hard for me to hear anything else.”

“Really?” Aaron asked a sarcastic look on his face. She hoped that meant he couldn’t believe Shane was trying to pin this particular problem on her. “That’s what happened? Are you sure about that? Because I have the recording. We can go over it.”

Shane seemed to think for a second to see if he could come up with a better answer. “Well, she was trying to tell me something. I don’t know what. And I was trying to listen to what was going on in the building and relay the information to Meagan because she didn’t have access to the IACs in the bar, and I wanted her to know what was going on.”

“You don’t know what Cadence was trying to tell you?” Aaron asked, giving Shane one more chance to come completely clean.

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Shane shook his head no, hoping Aaron would just let it go. But it wasn’t Aaron who had to call him on it. “She was telling you about the bathroom windows, remember?” Meagan chimed in. Shane looked at her like he wanted to strangle her, but she kept on talking. “She said that she thought someone was out of position and that the windows were on the wrong side of the map. Don’t you remember that?”

“Thank you, Meagan,” Aaron said.

She smiled. “Happy I could help.”

Aaron moved back to Shane. “What did you say to Cadence when she told you that you had made a mistake?”

Cadence wondered if Shane’s first instinct would be to lie and try to cover his own ass again, but he must have realized that, if he did so, Meagan would throw him right back under the bus. “I didn’t say anything,” he admitted. “I just ignored her.”

Aaron was nodding his head again. “And you ignored me.”

Shane said nothing more, looking at the floor.

“All right, from that point forward, we were in an Emergency Procedure. Clearly, we did not plan for Cadence to attempt to chase the Rogue down. I will be speaking to her shortly and determining the consequences for her actions.” He surveyed the room and saw that everyone was staring at the floor, so he continued. “As far as how the rest of you handled the EP situation, I have no complaints. Meagan and Shane, you held your positions as instructed. Paxton and Smith, you took care of the people at the bar. Christian and Elliott, you both moved into strategic positions quickly and handled clean up protocol. Everyone else did what was expected, held the perimeter, ready if called. Our three friends who decided they didn’t need to come to this meeting broke protocol as well. I will handle that separately. Are there any questions?”

“I have a question,” Christian said, raising one finger in the air.

“Go ahead,” Aaron said folding his arms across his chest and looking unbelievably tired for someone who needed little to no sleep.

“I understand that Cadence broke protocol and disobeyed directives; I get that. I know what she did was impulsive and dangerous, perhaps a little insane. But, does she get any credit at all for actually killing the Vampire?”

Aaron checked the room again. A few heads nodding in agreement. Most of them stopped when they saw him looking directly at them.

“You know, that’s something that Cadence and I are going to have to discuss.” His tone conveyed that this was not a topic he wished to say more about.

Christian wasn’t done, however. “Good,” he said, nodding his head, “because, I just feel like, maybe if we were utilizing our people better…”

“All right Christian, you made your point….” Aaron asserted.

“I mean, maybe we should have let her participate in the first place, and then she wouldn’t have had to break protocol.”

“Yes, I understand what you are saying. All I can say to you is that, sometimes there are circumstances that you don’t understand that require certain procedures.” Clearly, Aaron was ready for this conversation to be over, but another member of the team had finally found his voice as well.

“Man, that’s just... that’s just screwed up,” Elliot was saying shaking his head at Christian.

“What?” Christian said, gesturing wildly.

“You’re going to sit here in a debrief and try to call Aaron out on something you know nothing about?” Elliott continued.

Aaron waved him off, “Elliott, it’s all right. Just let it go.”

“She’s not even here. She’s not even here to defend herself,” Christian said, his frustration starting to show in his face.

“She doesn’t need to be here,” Elliott yelled. “At all! Anymore!”

Now, Aaron looked like he was starting to lose his cool. Both Elliott and Christian suddenly leaned back, and although Cadence had no way of knowing exactly what Aaron might have said to them over the IAC, it must’ve been stern. Aloud, Aaron said, “All right, we’re done. Go home. Everyone needs to review Set-Up Protocols. Leave.”

The majority of the team members left as quickly as possible. Christian lingered for a second and Cadence wondered if it was because he thought Aaron might want to say something to him privately or if he was waiting for her. He must have known he overstepped his bounds, but clearly, he didn’t feel like the situation was handled correctly at all. He seemed frustrated at Aaron’s inflexibility when it came to following protocols. Cadence couldn’t blame him for wanting to get the conversation over if Aaron had anything else he wanted to say about it. Aaron did not look in his direction, though, so he finally headed to the exit. He did pause by the door and look in the direction of the room he knew Cadence was being kept in thanks to her own IAC visuals, and the sympathetic look on his face made her feel slightly better--momentarily.

Elliott was the only remaining team member in the room with Aaron. “I’m sorry, man,” he said.

“You should be,” Aaron stated with all seriousness. “If I tell you to let something go, you’ve got to let it go.”

“I know, but man, I told you this was going to happen.”

“No, no, this had nothing to do with that,” Aaron said adamantly.

“You know it did. She thought you’d let her get away with it because she thinks she’s your girlfriend. And look what happened. All the information Henry had, all gone, down the tubes.” Cadence tried not to shudder at his word choice.

Aaron said nothing at first, just shook his head. “I know nothing I can say will change your mind, but you’re wrong.”

Cadence felt anger rising up inside of her. She had no idea exactly what Elliott was talking about, but she knew she was not Aaron’s girlfriend, and nothing that had happened tonight had anything at all to do with her feelings for the leader. Who was Elliott to stick his nose in anyway?

“All right, brother,” Elliott was saying, patting him on the shoulder as he walked to the door. “Good luck. Man, you’re gonna need it.”