by Leia Stone
“The associated press received some startling information this morning.” My picture popped up on screen in the upper right hand corner, a place reserved for terrorist and murders. “There’s a cure for vampirism, a twenty-one-year-old Portland, Oregon, native, Charlene Bennett. We have confirmed blood results. We are asking for your help in finding this girl so we can work toward a cure for everyone.”
“Fuck!” Ryder’s loud curse scared me from my stupor. He never said fuck, that was my word. This was bad on a whole other level.
By the time I took a step toward him, Ryder had already hauled Lincoln up out of his chair and had him against the wall. Without missing a beat, Sasha pulled her gun, pointing it at the back of Ryder’s head.
“Stop it!” I yelled. “It wasn’t Lincoln. Think about it. Anyone could have spilled this information. Fugly might have organized for someone inside the Hive to send my blood results to the humans if he died, or if the Tessa plan didn’t work. Come on, this stinks of vampire. They want the humans’ help in finding me, and then they’ll take me out before anyone even realizes.”
Ryder took a steadying breath and set Lincoln down as Sasha removed the gun from his head. Yeah, we all had some trust issues to work on. Lincoln didn’t seem fazed though, he just started barking orders at his men, and Sasha came in closer to my side.
“We need to disguise you and you need to run.”
She was right. Lincoln would have to report to his superiors again soon. If I wasn’t still with him, it would be easier for him to skirt the truth of my whereabouts. Not to mention they’d be hitting every surveillance and CCTV footage in Portland trying to find me. The picture they’d showed on TV was from college, with my long hair, but I was still easily recognizable. The eyes were a dead giveaway.
Sasha pulled my hand and led me into the bathroom. She then retrieved a black makeup case with a skull on it, and after rummaging through she pulled out a small hoop earring the size of a dime.
I busted out laughing. “An earring? That’s your disguise? Might as well walk around naked in downtown Portland.” I hadn’t known her long, but I knew I could joke with her; she had that type of personality.
“Sometimes the best way to stay hidden is to stick out.” She messed with the earring and then slipped it between my nose like a septum ring. I sneezed as it scraped my skin, and then turned to look at the mirror. “I’m going goth?” I asked in disbelief. Jayden would shit himself. But if I was honest, this ring was kinda hot.
She smiled and nodded. “You’re going goth.”
The next fifteen minutes were spent giving me thick black eyeliner and dark purple lipstick, so dark it looked black in certain angles. Then she braided three small cornrows on one side of my hair and spiked up the back with gel.
I turned to look at myself in the mirror and gasped. Holy shit, I didn’t recognize myself! “You’re good,” I said, turning left and right to get the full view.
“We learned this in training.” She quickly changed topics. “So I wanted to ask you something … your friend Kyle…”
I gave her a half-grin. “Totally single, and he’d be so into taking you on a date,” I assured her.
“Really?” She seemed pleased with my answer.
Seemed even hottie badass chicks had moments of doubt. She had nothing to worry about. I’d seen the way Kyle looked at her.
She was lost in thought; her face went solemn. “We’re not allowed to date ash.”
I shrugged. “You don’t seem like the type to follow the rules.”
She chuckled. “You know me so well already.”
“Besides, I think rules will be changing once the vampires are gone,” I said. Her face brightened, and then we were busy finishing my new look.
After cutting the feet off of black tube socks and making them into arm warmers, Sasha put me in a miniskirt, black fishnets, a red corset, and black boots.
“You just have this shit lying around?” I asked her
She smirked. “We all carry disguises. Comes with the job. And since I’m the only chick, it seems I’m always playing ‘the hooker’ or ‘hot distraction.’ Men, they’re pigs, but I love their dumb asses.”
Right there with you, sister.
Finally Sasha and I exited the bathroom and I crossed back into the living room, where everyone slowly noticed my presence and stopped talking. Ryder was staring at me with his jaw half open, eyes a blaze of silver and lust, that made me think he wanted round two, STAT.
I cleared my throat and they all went back to what they were doing. Sasha slipped outside to get something and Kyle and Ryder walked over to me.
“You’re fulfilling a fantasy for me,” Ryder said.
I laughed. “Really, gothic?”
He just nodded, eyeing my dark lipstick, no doubt imagining it staining his body.
Kyle meanwhile was staring out the door Sasha had just exited through. I lowered my voice so no one would hear: “If you ask her out, she’ll say yes.”
He jerked his head back round to face me. “What … who?”
I gave him a look, one which called him on his bullshit. His eyes flicked back to the door but he didn’t say anything. He was intrigued, I could tell.
Ryder put a hand on Kyle’s shoulder, clearly seeing the same thing I had. “Great news, buddy. News which you can act on after we take out an entire race of vampires. Right now we need to focus on keeping my girlfriend alive for the next couple of days.”
Kyle was attentive again. “Right.”
The bromance was back on track. I was so happy to see these two had worked out their differences. Kyle had been pretty mad at Ryder when we first showed up here, but clearly a few life and death situations had smoothed that all over.
Lincoln joined us then. “I’m receiving intelligence that the vampires are leaking all information they have on you. Including the fact that you were working with us last night. People are going to start sniffing around soon, looking for you. You’re welcome to stay here, but…”
Ryder clapped Lincoln on the back. “You’ve been more than enough help. We need to rendezvous with the rest of our group to execute the plan. Just be ready to help when we call.”
Lincoln nodded and then looked at me. “Thank you, Charlie. I owe you one.”
I didn’t take that lightly. I knew he meant it, and that it must have been hard to say.
“We can’t take Tessa with us. She’s human now and—”
Lincoln cut me off: “I’ll keep her safe. Protect her as though she were my own.”
A fifty-pound weight lifted off my shoulders. Thank God I wouldn’t have to worry about her while trying to save my own ass from the legion of greedy humans that were about to go Charlie hunting.
I ducked back into her room, and Tessa, who was laid out on her bed reading a magazine, let out an almighty shriek. “Holy shit, Charlie. You’re goth … hot as heck goth, but still … you have on black lipstick. If I hadn’t known your cute ass my entire life I doubt I’d have recognized you.”
I laughed. “That’s the entire point. The humans are gunning for me now. They know I’m the cure. I need to stay incognito for at least another couple of days, until the plan goes into place.”
Tessa swung her legs off the side of the bed and slumped forward. She looked pale, frail, and worn out, almost like her skin was a few layers lighter than it used to be.
“I’m guessing this little visit means you’re taking off again and leaving me behind.”
I took another step and dropped down beside her, my arm sliding across her shoulders. “Yep, but hopefully this time it’s only going to be for a short while, and then the world will be a different place.”
I felt some strength come back into her body as she finally straightened and turned toward me. “Stay safe, best friend. I’ll do everything I can to help out here and make sure we get the house with the joined backyards. I’ll be waiting for you, so you better come back to me alive and minus the bull ring i
n your nose.”
I snorted. “Who has a tramp stamp now, bitch?”
She went even paler. “Fucking Valarie! That bitch is the worst influence ever.”
We both laughed, and in that moment everything was okay with us. One last hug, both of us unsuccessfully fighting tears, and then it was time to go. Turning back at the doorway I blew a kiss to my oldest friend and she returned the gesture. She looked different now, the sunlight pouring in around her. Older. More grown up.
I had been waiting a long time to see the strength of Tessa shine through. For too long she’d let her poor little rich girl life dictate who she was, but finally now, after everything that had happened, she had actually grown up. And while I hoped the fun, frivolous side of her wasn’t completely gone, it was nice to see some personal growth. Damn, was I becoming an adult? Ugh. Totally overrated.
Stepping back into the living room, Ryder and Kyle were waiting with our bags at their feet. Both of the guys were dressed very casually, none of their usual badass enforcer gear in sight. All of us were undercover now, and it looked like it was time to jet.
“I have arranged for a car,” Lincoln announced as he stepped in from the back entrance. “It’s not going to be your usual luxury model, so prepare yourself. You’re going incognito.”
I wasn’t sure what to expect as we followed him out into the huge back garage again. Some old clunker with spray paint on the side maybe.
When the body of our transport finally came into view, I heard the low groan from Kyle and Ryder. Neither of them very happy with our wheels. “At least Markus isn’t here,” I said with a laugh. “He’d flat out refuse to get in that car.”
The Scottish lad loved his stuff shiny and fast, and we were about to go traveling in the retirement special.
The sedan was beige, like for real the color of bleh. Square and boxy, the exact sort of car that early-retired couples used. Of course, this did make better sense than the old painted clunker. This would blend in. No one would even look twice at this POS.
Ryder opened the back door for me, and even the inside was beige. Everything was the exact same color, and I wondered if I was going to get carsick. Oh well, vomit would blend right into that carpet. No problem.
“The back windows are heavily tinted, which will afford Charlie some privacy. It’s filled with gas, and I’ve left a bunch of cash in the center console just in case you don’t have access to funds.” Lincoln was still talking and it was clear he’d done everything he could to help us with this. Off the books.
We had ways of getting money undetected. Sam was our boy after all. But it was good to know we were set for some time. The next few days were going to rely big-time on stealth. Ryder and Kyle settled into the front seats, and I spread myself out in all the beige luxuriousness of the back. The engine was surprisingly smooth, very silent compared to our usual ride, and it was with great middle-aged speed we exited the garage, Lincoln and a few of his men waving us off.
“So what’s the plan now?” I leaned forward. For some reason my nerves settled down whenever we went over the plan. Like I could just take one step at a time and we’d eventually get there.
Ryder lifted his head and our eyes met in rearview mirror. He looked tired, and worried. “Right now we’re heading for Idaho. We have to get out of Portland straight away. The guys contacted us last night. Cure is in the bottles and trucks are ready to go. The warehouse is in Idaho, so we’ll meet them there and pick up our truck.”
Great to know that Sanctum was on board so far.
Ryder continued: “International shipments have already gone out and will be arriving to the Sanctum spies soon. Cali and Texas are going to be a little more difficult. They don’t take postal shipments, it’s all hand delivered. Plus, I agree with you about overseeing as much as we can, so we’ll split up and drop the cure-filled bottles off in person to those locations.”
I nodded a few times. I was glad the Cellway base was in Idaho because everyone would expect to find me in my home town. It was good to get out of Portland.
“Okay, so the international stuff is covered.” Hopefully. We were putting a lot of faith in Sanctum and whatever delivery service they were using. “And we’ll be posing as delivery people and dropping off the cure bottles to the hospitals. Sanctum will add the blood and make sure they’re distributed to the Hives?”
Kyle nodded, shifting around to see me better. “Yep, Sam got on the secure line last night when you were asleep. He ran through everything with me. Now we’re just waiting to hear from Sanctum’s international ash that the cure is in place.”
I dropped back against the seat. So many things could go wrong with this plan. So many. It was widespread, and had people all over the place involved. Just one slip-up and everything would fall to shit. Unease began to gnaw at my belly. Maybe we had done this ass backwards. The humans were key to our plan. Maybe we should have told them first? Now they were gunning for me in hopes of getting the cure, but completely ignorant to the fact that we were already working on it. I ran my hand through my freshly shorn hair. Fuck, I really hoped I survived this. Ryder’s eyes met mine in the rearview mirror as if he’d heard that thought. They burned with intensity and I knew that if I died, Ryder would die too, because he wasn’t going to let anything happen to me while he was still breathing and on this Earth. That thought should have comforted me, but it only served to make me sink deeper into depression.
It was roughly a six-and-a-half-hour drive to Boise, Idaho, but we had to stop a few times to stash me in the trunk because there were border checks that were uncharacteristic to this part of the country. Thankfully, they weren’t at a level yet to actually open trunks or look inside of luggage, but even the fact they were stopping vehicles was a little scary. Once we finally passed through the last check, Ryder pulled over and let me out.
“I don’t like it. They’re looking for you everywhere already,” he said, as he ushered me into the back seat and then took his place at the wheel.
Even with my gothic getup, we weren’t risking it with cops. Better just to have two guys in the car; they were clearly on the lookout for a woman. It was lucky, too, that the boys had their contacts in and glasses on. All ash were going to be treated as suspicious.
Kyle was frowning. “Let’s turn on the radio. Maybe something has changed.”
He fiddled with a few knobs. After finding a news station, we sat with rapt attention as Ryder crept back out onto the road. A nasally male voice came through the speaker mid-sentence: “—bring families back together. This could change the way we live our lives forever. If there’s a cure, there’s no fear of getting the virus. There would be a way to bring back our family members that have been affected. But we need that girl. Tests need to be done. It’s going to take time to figure out exactly how to replicate the curative components of her blood. We also need to meet with the leaders of the Hives to talk about how to administer the cures.”
I snorted. “HAH! They’re delusional. The humans actually think the vampires will voluntarily take the cure?”
The radio announcer continued with his nasally speech: “Multiple ash equality and rights groups have sprung up, arguing that the girl should be able to choose if she wants to offer the cure willingly.”
“Thank you!” I said loudly from the backseat.
“But even more privately funded groups have come forward offering millions, and in one case, over a billion dollars, for the girl’s capture—”
The announcer’s voice cut off as Ryder smashed the power button, leaving us all to sit in an uncomfortable silence. Fuck. A billion dollars for my “capture.” I shrank into the seat, staring at the open road ahead of us. This was an epic Charlie screw up. Now I was running from a billion-dollar manhunt. People go crazy and kill for fifty bucks nowadays. I couldn’t imagine what they were going to do for that sort of paycheck.
I stretched myself out onto the back seat so that I was lying fully prone. Depression settl
ed into my bones as I realized I most likely wouldn’t make it out of this alive. That was the last thought I had before I dozed off.
I awoke to muffled talking; the back window was rolled down a few inches and my heart lifted at the sound of my Australian enforcer’s deep baritones.
“Is Charlie in the trunk? Who’s the hooker?” I tilted my head back to see Jared gesturing to me sprawled out in the back seat. My skirt had lifted, showing my fishnet covered ass. I popped my head up and glared at him.
“Who you calling a hooker, jackass?” I shot back, and Jared looked shocked.
“Holy shit, Charlie. I didn’t recognize you.”
I just grinned, flinging the door open and flying into his outstretched arms. Sam, Markus, and Oliver were all here too. I gave them each a big, long hug. We were together again; we were going to finish this. I hadn’t forgotten my last morose realization of my impending death, but for some reason, back with my boys I was confident again.
I saw now that the car had been pulled out into a thick cornfield and we were completely hidden from view. My eyes lingered on each of the enforcers, their familiar faces so precious to me. I couldn’t believe it had only been a couple months that I had known these guys. We had been through hell and back together, and now we were going to end this. Sam was giving me a look I couldn’t interpret. The man with a thousand plans, the man who was always calculating, always planning the next step.
“The disguise is good, but not good enough,” he finally commented.
Ryder clapped him on the back. “I know what you’re thinking, brother, but she deserves to see this through.”
My eyes narrowed at Sam. “I don’t know what he’s thinking! Tell me, Sam, what are you thinking?”
He pulled a syringe out of his pocket. “AT20 you and stash you with a friend until this is over.”
I stiffened. Fucking Sam. Always trying to knock me out and hide me! The only reason I wasn’t pulling my gun out now and shooting him in the knee was that I knew he suggested it because he loved me; he wanted to make sure he saw my face next week. I approached him.