Anarchy (Hive Trilogy Book 2) (19 page)

Ryder gave me a look—you know the one men get when they’re torn between exasperation and annoyance. It was a look Ryder had down to a fine art. “Charlie, I admire your spirit … but that’s a stupid plan.”

My mouth popped open. Did he just say … did he call me stupid? Anger fired my blood and I opened my mouth to rip him a new one, but before I could speak his hand came up to stop me.

“What will you do about the guards at her door?”

Great. Twenty questions time. I crossed my arms. “Knock them over the head!”

He chuckled. The man actually chuckled at me.

“What about her nanny that most likely sleeps in the apartment with her?” Markus added.

I didn’t have a reply.

“How exactly will you force her to take your blood?” asked Kyle. “What if she goes crazy, as new vampires are known to, and drinks too much and you pass out?”

My face was beginning to redden as they teamed up on me. Dammit, it wasn’t just Ryder. All of these sexy bastards had beauty and brains.

I suppose I had jumped in with little to no thought, but I seriously needed her safe. It was keeping me up at night. “Fine, assholes, you design the rescue mission, but this is happening, and soon, because I can’t sleep knowing this girl could be killed.”

All of their faces softened then and it surprised me when Sam spoke: “You’re good for us, Charlie. We’ve been doing this so long, watched too many cullings, seen too much death. We’ve become desensitized to the evil of the vampires.”

A silence settled over our small rooftop group. What Sam just said had struck a chord and rang true. Something within me shifted. It had been slowly chipping away for the last few months, but finally the last iota of my long-held belief that the ash were evil by association with the vampires was gone.

I could see now that the vampires had created a perfect little society with ash as their slaves, brainwashed them into killing, made them feel less powerful and more dependent on the Hive for survival. Rage boiled up inside of me. This was not okay!

I met Sam’s eyes, which were blazing with almost equal parts silver to black. “I will bring down this Hive if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll bring down all of them.”

Kyle nodded. “Now we’re talking.”

But when I turned to Ryder, something in his face made me falter—a shade of vulnerability. He didn’t like that we were going to take on the powerful vamps. I had no doubt he would back me and his boys all the way, but I guess the responsibility of our lives weighed heavily on him. I reached out and took his hand.

“We’re all adults here.” My gaze flicked across to Jared, who was laid back with his mouth open, asleep and lightly snoring. “Okay, most of us are adults here, and we make these decisions knowing full well what the consequences could be. You don’t carry this alone. You don’t have to shoulder the burden of our choices.”

He was all fierce now. “You guys are my family, and I will tear down anyone who tries to mess with that. It is my responsibility. I know we have no options left. The vampires are going to act soon. My clearance level is practically gone. The information I had available to me is no longer there. The Quorum is gunning for Charlie, and even though I only have theories on what their end plan is, we can never let them get their hands on her. She will be gone, and they have the money and resources to keep her gone forever.”

I actually shivered at that thought. Definitely couldn’t let that happen. I would not want to find myself at the mercy of creatures who demonstrated daily that they had no mercy.

Speaking of…

“Have we heard anything about Deliverance?”

The news on them had been pretty much non-existent since we’d commandeered all their money and had a major street fight that was somehow covered up and didn’t even make the local news program. Which was probably to do with SWAT and their interest in the religious group. At least it was nice to see reports of the charities who received the money. They’d been overjoyed by their windfalls and it made my heart happy to see some of the work which was already in place through the generosity of those Bible bashers.

“Gone underground,” Markus said. “They have to regroup, and I heard there was a mass call put out for donations, but the human population is getting a little tired of their hate mongering.”

Which hopefully meant it would take them many years to rebuild. Still, they would always find someone with too much money and hate in their soul. I had no doubts they would eventually be back.

Sam shifted then, his fingers flying over the keyboard. He’d been practically buried in his laptop the last few days. It was one of the few we had left which was completely safe. “I think I’ve found a place to stash the little girl when Charlie cures her,” he said, his voice very quiet. “There are pockets of humans who are sympathetic to ash. They have reserves scattered around the world, offering short-term safe passage to ash if they decide to run from the Hives. Human law enforcement check in on them, so there is no way ash can stay long term, but that won’t be an issue once the little girl is human.”

“Yep, as long as she is hidden from the Hive’s prying eyes, so they don’t come looking for whomever cured her,” Ryder agreed.

Whoa! I had not known about those reserves and ash sympathizers. I mean, I knew ash were not hated on the same scale as vampires. Just the fact that we needed to eat and could be in the sun, they didn’t see us as quite so alien.

I leaned forward. “Why can’t we use those reserves when we escape? We could go between them, stay for a short time…”

Sam nixed my idea immediately. “No, we’re a well-known and large group of ash. The vamps would hear about us very quickly.”

Markus nodded. “The Hive will make a token effort to search for the girl, but if there’s no trail of carnage they’ll just think she’s dead. They won’t expend much of their resources looking for her. Children are liabilities they do not want to deal with. Us on the other hand … they’re going to be beyond pissed. They will hunt for us. Charlie especially.”

Okay, all good points. I liked that the enforcers had not dismissed my need to cure the little girl. They knew it was important to me, and it was starting to look like it was important to them too. I had to do it; I could feel it in my very cellular makeup. Before I arrived with my magical unicorn Nutella-flavored blood, there had been no cure for the virus, despite millions of dollars spent every year by the humans. But somehow nature found a way. I was that way.

Jared cleared his throat, leaning forward to join the conversation. He was awake now and apparently following along no worries. Something told me the Australian enforcer had only been dozing. None of these guys let their guard down for very long.

“We better get our arses into gear. If we plan on busting out of here next Friday, that only gives us five days to sort our shit here.”

The others all nodded, so it looked like Friday was the day.

Five days … could I convince Tessa to leave with us in that time? I freakin’ hoped so.

We dispersed after about an hour on the roof. With the increase in surveillance on us, spending too much time in a group was a bad idea. No doubt it hadn’t escaped the vampires’ notice that we were using the sunlit rooftop a lot, even if we did leave random enforcers—Oliver today—in the control room with some of the other non-sexy-six enforcers. You know, keeping up appearances. Still, it was unfortunately true that while the vamps were evil, they weren’t stupid.

I was restless for the rest of the afternoon, pacing my apartment to the amusement of Markus and Kyle, who were on Charlie duty. Eventually, after dinner, I had reached the end of my patience. It was almost time to leave to meet Tessa.

“Is it midnight yet?” I asked for the zillionth time in the past hour.

“It’s a quarter to midnight.” Markus was generally patient and kind, but at the moment he sort of looked like he wanted to strangle me.

“Where’s Ryder?” I was about to haul ass and leave without him. I couldn’t miss this meeting with Tessa.

“He’ll be here, Charlie, and he’s not going to be happy if we let you meet a newly-turned vampire on the roof without him.”

Well, I gave zero fucks right about now. Ryder had two more minutes or he was going to have to hear the story from us later. The door flew open then and I jumped to my feet, but it was only Jayden strolling in with Oliver.

As my face fell, my BAFF gave a shout of laughter. “Bitch, you better be happy to see me. I’ve been slaving away at the feeding center—you know, doing stuff.” He raised his eyebrows up and down, and I knew he was talking about all the crates of blood he’d been ferreting away for us. We were going to need a decent supply when we ran, and Jayden was in the perfect position to facilitate that.

I managed a smile for him. It was not his fault I was a stressed out hot mess. In fact, if it hadn’t been for his never-ending smartass humor, I’d be rocking in the corner right now.

Pushing down my impatience, I bounced over and threw myself at him. He hauled me up into his strong arms. “There’s my BAFF. Come on, girl, it’s going to be okay.”

“I leave for two minutes and you’re already stepping in on my woman.” Ryder’s amused voice washed over us, and I realized he’d walked through the doorway which had been left open by Oliver and Jayden.

I wrinkled my nose at him as I stepped out of Jayden’s arms. All of the enforcers had taken to giving us crap about our make out session in the filing room. They all thought it was hilarious. “You’ve actually been gone for four hours,” I said. “But hey, who’s counting.” I tried to be pissed, but the way he called me his woman was totally hot.

He strode across and dropped a kiss on my lips, and like magic all of my pissed-off-ness just floated away. Sneaky ash bastards, using their good looks and animal charisma to cloud a lady’s senses.

He pulled back, silver eyes pulsing at me. His emotions were as heightened as mine. “Sorry I’m late, Charlie. We ended up with a call out. I had to detain and bring in a new ash. He’ll be in the next round of culling.”

My mouth popped open. “There’s another culling? I thought we were full?”

Ryder’s face hardened. “The ash that Deliverance killed opened up some spots.”

WTF! “So why doesn’t the Quorum just give the next five spots away? Why build up the numbers of ash and then make them fight for it?” My fists were balled. This was total bullshit. The more I stopped to look around, the more I felt this entire ash/vampire system was royally fucked and needed a complete overhaul.

Ryder leaned in to me. “The Quorum gives nothing away,” he whispered.

The vampires were the stronger race, and yet they sat in their penthouse apartments drinking blood wine and doing God knows what while we were fighting for our lives. But they had weaknesses we didn’t, weaknesses which could be utilized if there was ever a chance to take those bastards down.

“It’s two minutes to midnight, better move your asses,” Markus said, and I was on point again. I couldn’t dwell on this culling shit anyway. I wouldn’t be here to see it this time. But just like everything else on my bring-down-the-vampires list, I would give my all to end that barbaric practice.

As I left, Ryder and Kyle stuck close to me, the three of us silent as we took the lift up to the roof. We had to be careful at this time of night; there were vampires everywhere, and they often used the jogging track for their nighttime outdoor activities.

As soon as we were on the right level, I strode quickly, an enforcer on either side of me. I liked to think I could handle myself now. I had my weapon and the constant training—aka beat down on Charlie—was starting to pay off. But still there was something inside of me which felt safe being sandwiched between these two ash.

The fresh air was a relief, and besides a few groups of creepy suckers scattered around, the top level was fairly deserted. I swiveled my head, looking for Tessa, but there was no flash of her signature blond curls. We strode further across, and I was getting the creepy feeling that someone was watching us.

My breathing started to increase, the fear in my body catching up before the fear in my brain. Ryder and Kyle reacted in an instant. Both of them drew their weapons and fell in back to back on either side of me. The three of us were silent as we observed the area around us. We weren’t out in the open, we’d stuck close to the walls as we searched for Tessa, but something was stalking our footsteps.

Lucas popped out of the shadows then and Ryder nearly took him down. At the last second, he pulled back.

Lucas’ face was pinched in anxiety. “Charlie,” he whispered, his voice husky. “I’ve been voted off the Quorum. They no longer trust me, but I overheard them. Your mom, they’re going to take her.”

I sagged against Ryder’s side, the air knocked out of me.

Kyle had to speak for me because I was at a loss for words. “Who is going for her mom and when?”

Chattering reached me and I noticed a group of vampires coming over to us. In the center was Tessa. She was beaming smiles and entertaining, being a social butterfly as usual.

“Vampires. Working for the Quorum. It’s all going down right now. At her work … at the hospital,” Lucas murmured before turning away from us and crossing to the advancing group of vampires. He intercepted them before they could reach us. “Enjoying our little Tessa?” I heard him say. “She’s a doll, isn’t she?” He was using his best weapon to distract that group from us. His charm.

My friend finally noticed me then. She’d been a little busy laughing and sucking face with Blake. Asshole. My heart pulled in two directions as Tessa waved me over.

I shook my head at her, before turning away. “Let’s go,” I told my boys, and a quick glance back had Tessa staring after me, a frown marring her pretty face.

Not up to dealing with her pain, I turned away and practically raced off the rooftop.

“Charlie!” Tessa called, and it tore my insides to leave her. But some motherfuckers were after my mom and that was the final piece of information I needed to snap. It was like I was back in the culling again, seeing red, hell bent on murder.

We didn’t have time to get the other boys or try to communicate with them. We had to assume every move we made was being watched and listened to. We moved as fast as possible without arousing suspicion. Ryder led the way, right into the locker room. Inside, Sam was on one of the weight machines, but he dropped it and jumped up when he saw our faces.