Anarchy (Hive Trilogy Book 2) (8 page)

My heart was beating like crazy in my chest. What the fuck was the Quorum doing spying on my mother’s bank account? And more importantly…

“Did they find him?”

This guy was my dad and my mom loved him, so if he was alive and walking around I wanted to know what the hell he was up to.

Lucas took a sip of his blood. “We have footage of Carter Atwater boarding a private plane in Canada.”

“Holy shit!” I exclaimed. He was actually still alive.

Lucas’ normally flawless and gorgeous face was strained and wore the lines of stress. He reached over and placed a hand on mine as he leaned in to whisper in my ear.

“Even though they have not tied him to the money transfers, they now know that Carter is alive. And, well, I think the Quorum has put two and two together about his relationship to you. Despite what I’ve managed to fake in your blood work, I’m not sure how much longer I can protect you in here, Charlie. The Quorum has been meeting in secret without me, and it may only be a matter of time before they decide you’re too much of a risk to keep alive.”

My blood chilled at his declaration. He pulled back, resting easily against the couch, and patted my hand.

“Let’s take it one day at a time, okay?” he said, still whispering. “I just wanted to make sure you were aware, and if I know Ryder at all, he’s already taken steps to ensure a timely exit if it’s required.”

Lucas’s words reminded me that I needed to share this information with my enforcer team.

I nodded. “Okay, thanks for stopping by and letting me know.”

I wasn’t sure whether it was the events with Deliverance or this new threat to my existence, but something inside of me snapped. A fight-or-flight instinct was raging within me, demanding I either confront the vamp assholes or run so I never had to see them again.

I had no idea why the hell the Quorum feared the Originals so much. Why the fuck was I—one little ash female—even on their radar? It didn’t make sense, unless they knew something about Originals and the cure or some shit. If my father was alive, maybe it was in our best interest to try and find him also, get some answers before someone decided to try and kill or kidnap me again.

One thing was for sure—these weak-ass Quorum vampires clearly had no issues with killing off someone they perceived to be a threat. And I hated to admit it, but they could wipe me out no problem if they wanted to.

I missed my old life then, and Tessa especially. I ached for her smartass comments about what I was wearing and the way she always seemed to look on the bright side of every situation.

As Lucas stood to leave, things felt a little awkward between us. He politely excused himself, leaving in a silent visage of white.

In a daze I made my way to the enforcer locker room, although I managed a chuckle when I saw someone had drawn a dress over the stick figure man on the sign stuck to the door.

Trust the enforcers to brighten my day. The last twenty-four hours had sucked the big one and I needed some happy. Where was my mutha-effing happy?

As I walked in, I was really hoping to find Ryder glistening with droplets of water and half naked in a towel. Come on, I did just ask for some happy, and that was a step up to ecstatic. Instead, I saw the sexy five—minus one silent enforcer—hovering around a whiteboard Ryder was drawing on. At the top, he had the words SANCTUM and DELIVERANCE in bold and circled, with small lines branching out. On a chair in front of him was a huge fishbowl of water with tiny black microphones floating in it. Okay, WTF? The boys had finally lost their damn minds.

Noticing me, Ryder tipped his head, giving me a tight smile.

Kyle winked at me. “Come on in, Charlie. Ryder was just about to detail operation ‘Don’t fuck with the ash or we will kill you,’ aka: ‘Revenge.’”

Operation Revenge? Awesome.

My eyes shot down to the bowl again and Oliver answered this time. “Kyle scanned the room and found twelve bugs.”

Holy Shit. The enforcers’ instincts had been right; there was definitely a spy in our midst, more than one if that number of listening devices was any indication. I took a seat as Ryder drew the word
mole
underneath SANCTUM, before turning back to face us.

“First order of business … I’ve been trying for the past few weeks to politically deal with our response to the Sanctum attack. Finally, this morning, the Quorum ordered me not to retaliate against the group, and they denied my offer to sniff out who sent them to attack the Hive and steal Charlie. Not only does that make me a little angry, it makes me a lot suspicious.”

I nodded. Why the hell would the Quorum order us not to find out who had attacked their home and tried to kill me? Unless...

“The Quorum wants me dead,” I said in a resigned sort of manner. I really wasn’t even surprised at this point.

Ryder’s eyebrows furrowed and he and the rest of the enforcers turned to face me. I was startled to realize that it felt incomplete in here without Sam. These guys had quickly become friends and family to me, and now they were caught up in this bullshit because vamps were assholes.

The five were still staring at me, and I could see that they were waiting for me to expand on my previous statement. Without hesitation, I quickly caught them up on what Lucas had told me this morning. No one said anything during my story, but pissed-off-faces were being flashed all over the room. Once I finished with my speech, there was silence for like thirty seconds before the enforcers kind of exploded into action.

Ryder was the first to make himself heard: “We should just leave now. I don’t want Charlie hurt. I have plans in place, safe houses and cash stashed around. I haven’t figured out the blood thing yet, but I will.” It shocked me at how casual he was about giving up his entire life here, his job—everything really—for my safety.

Kyle interjected: “Look, none of us want to see Charlie hurt, bro, but hear me out. We have an opportunity here to find out the bigger picture, to gather intel on the Quorum and to not only find out who sent the Sanctum but also what Deliverance is up to. I don’t like not knowing what my enemies want, and I have a feeling this is bigger than just Charlie. If they knew one hundred percent what she is, she would be dead by now. I think we still have time.”

Markus nodded. “Besides, we can’t leave without Sam, and we need time to stash blood or figure out how we will survive. I say we stay friendly with the Quorum, and the second we catch wind of harm coming Charlie’s way, we’re out of here.”

None of this was sitting right with me. So much sacrifice for one stupid chick. Okay, I wasn’t a complete waste of space, but I always thought it was ridiculous in romance novels when all of these people just gave up their lives to save the damsel in distress. Now, in this situation, I see that this is what honorable males do to protect ones they care about. And while I would do the same for them, all of them, in a heartbeat, I still wanted to object.

“You guys, I feel bad about you having to leave because of me. Maybe we can just transfer to another hive. I’ve always loved Colorado.”

Jared put an arm around my shoulders. “You’re family now, we stick together. Plus, I reckon this fear of our beautiful unicorn goes deep and has spread to all Hives. That’s the word on the street anyhow.”

Even with his Australian accent prettying up that sentiment, it still wasn’t nice to hear. I groaned. What was wrong with being different? Oh yeah, I was the cure to the one thing that gave them power and strength. I would fear me too. But we still had no indication this was about my cure, no way to know if they had this knowledge yet. Shit,
we
hadn’t even known what I was when the Sanctum attacked.

Ryder touched his stomach then, those gorgeous silver eyes crinkling. I wondered if he was thinking about being shot up. “Okay, I think Kyle has a point. If we run, we would be completely in the dark, and knowledge is power. New plan is this: we lock down our intel, we have no more meetings unless we’re out in the open or have scanned for listening devices. We stay on Charlie’s ass—she’s to have two escorts at all times—and I will tell all of you individually the escape plans if shit goes down.” His eyes flashed to almost pure silver then. “And lastly, the Sanctum might be officially off our list to investigate, but the Quorum said nothing about Deliverance.” The gleam in his eye gave me chills. “You don’t try to kill me and my friends and get away with it. It’s time for Deliverance to learn a thing or two about ash.”

Kyle raised his hand. “Before you go Terminator on this one, I have a suggestion.”

Ryder glared at his best friend. “I want them to hurt. Charlie was there with us. A lot of ash died. They had one of us wired to a fucking cross.”

Uh oh, Ryder wasn’t much for cursing. I was genuinely scared.

Kyle’s relaxed features hardened right up, making him look less the fun-loving joker and more the scary-ass-sociopath. “Oh, don’t you worry, they will hurt, but do you think it’s a good idea to openly come at them? Last thing we need on top of our Quorum problems is the humans getting all pissy and freaking out on us.”

Good point. More enemies was not what any of us needed. As Kyle continued, some of the fun-loving was back on his face. Actually, he kind of looked like a kid in a candy shop. “Remember when Sam and I built that computer virus that took a couple cents out of a few thousand bank accounts to get us through that rough patch?”

Wait, what? How long had these guys been together? Damn. How many laws did they break? I wanted to tie Ryder up and make him tell me sexy-six stories for hours. Well, I wanted to tie Ryder up period. The stories would just be an awesome added bonus.

Ryder nodded. “But if you suggest stealing a few cents from Deliverance, I’m going to punch you. They nearly killed Markus. They did kill our ash brothers.”

Ummm, and they almost killed you!
I wanted to shout, but I managed to hold it together.

Kyle’s smile was crazy big now. “Deliverance is backed by the richest church organization in the world. They have billions to fund their ash-vampire smear campaigns. I say we wipe them clean, make them hurt where they care the most.”

Ryder was smiling now too. “Bankrupt Deliverance? That’s the best thing you’ve said all day. They’ll go mental. So much of their power is in their money. It’s what allows them to develop weapons against us and recruit all of these braindead humans who are looking for some sort of purpose.”

Kyle shrugged. “It’s not going to be easy. I’m sure they have security like you wouldn’t believe, but we all know that there’s not a computer program made which Sam cannot hack.”

What, Sam was a genius hacker too? Geez, he was that kid I always hated in school, good at everything, hot as hell, and a complete enigma. Was I a little jealous? Hells yeah I was. I was the awkward girl who found most of my classes boring and had on occasion fallen asleep during math.

Markus shifted forward in his seat and I noticed he was moving gingerly, even though he looked completely healed. I guessed there was still some tenderness. “I like it. Where will we put the money?”

My hand shot up and I legit felt like I was in kindergarten. “We spread it out in even donations across the world’s ten neediest charities.”

Ryder’s eyes met mine and there was a moment—a “maybe he’s falling in love with me too” moment. I swallowed hard.

Kyle nudged me. “Aww, our little rookie unicorn is a Robin Hood.”

I rolled my eyes, but everyone nodded their agreement.

“We steal from the psycho ash murderers and give to people in need,” Ryder declared and we all did a fist bump.

“Maaaaate, Sam better get his arse back here, he’s missing all the fun,” Jared declared, drawling out the word mate, which sounded all kinds of hot in that accent. “Not to mention that we need him to double-check the virus before we send it out into the computer world.”

Ryder nodded. “He contacted me this morning. Somehow he heard about the Deliverance attack. Said he was having trouble catching fish anyway, so he’s coming back early.”

How long had he even been in Alaska? Forty-eight hours? I don’t know why, but this whole Sam thing was really on my mind. He was such a quiet guy and I felt like he was hiding something. Running off to fish in the winter … the things he said to me before he left—all of that stuff had every red flag going off in my mind. But he was part of the inner circle of the sexy six, which made me feel as if I had to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Only time would tell. For now I’d take Ryder’s lead on this.

The next few days sped by quickly, and it totally took me by surprise when Jayden mentioned it was only three days until Thanksgiving. Holy crap, I’d been in the Hive for a couple of months. It was pretty amazing how quickly one can adjust to a completely new world.

I guess we had been busy focusing on all of the people who hated me, and the list seemed to be growing. Thankfully, there had been no additional drama since our last locker-room meeting. We were laying low, doing our thing. I spent most of my time training and researching. Call-outs were at a minimum, which gave the enforcers and me plenty of time to try and search out our dirty-little-rodent mole, trace the paper trails of the Sanctum hit—behind the Quorum’s back—and also try and destroy the financial backing of Deliverance.

Sam had arrived back yesterday. Despite my constant barrage of questions, he was pretty much mute about his fishing trip. Yeah, I might have been trying to catch him out in a lie, but when a dude never says anything there’s no need for lies. Plus, I couldn’t badger him too much, he was being very helpful as he systematically catalogued the zillion and one bank accounts that Jermaine Winifred, the sneaky oil billionaire bastard leader of Deliverance, had funneled away everywhere. The guys wanted to make sure they hit all his accounts in one go. That way he had no time to stash any funds. No funds would make regrouping that much harder.

Nothing of investigative or revenge nature was done within Hive walls now. We’d taken to using encrypted computers up on the roof. Sunlight hated vamps, so it was our best weapon against the mole. For some reason we were all sure it was a vampire. Probably one on the Quorum, because they had the most money and power. More than enough to tempt Sanctum.