by Leia Stone
“Sam…” I placed both of my hands on his shoulders and met his gaze. “I used to jog the streets of Portland, go to Starbucks, and laugh with Tessa on the campus lawn. My only problem was what to wear to the club that night.” My face hardened. “They took that from me. They forever changed who I am. They made me a murderer. They forced me to kill, to fight for my life when I could have just been left to live out my days in peace with my mother and Tessa. Ash aren’t contagious. The vampires have designed this entire Hive world to benefit them, with ash as their slaves! Well, enough is enough! We’ve suffered enough.”
He surprised me with a hug. “Okay, Charlie.” He stashed the AT20 back in his pocket.
I turned to see Ryder looking at me with blazing silver eyes. “Ready?” he asked, and reached out to hold my hand.
I nodded. “Ready.”
We were split into three groups. Ryder, Kyle and I. Sam with Markus. Oliver with Jared. California was the bigger of the blood distributors, so two trucks were going there. I followed the boys through the cornfields and out onto a two lane highway. Three huge semi-trucks with hazards on were pulled off the side of the road. They all bore the same red, yellow, and blue logo that I recognized from visiting my mother at the hospital. The Cellway distributors. Ryder, Kyle, and I got in the red truck. Sam gave Ryder the keys, with a few instructions on how to handle the rig. Apparently they’d all learned to drive trucks many years ago, but Ryder was a little rusty.
“You guys head on over to the Texas blood receiving station.” Sam said finally. “It’s on the outskirts of Dallas. They ship out to the east coast and it will be less likely that anyone will recognize Charlie. We’ll head to Cali and drop our shipments there. If all goes well, meet back up in Portland at the lake house. If shit hits the fan, hide.”
Ryder nodded and they bro-hugged and that was it. We were in a massive rig packed full of hundreds of thousands of specialty bottles, all filled with the cure for vampirism. Now we just needed to get it to the Sanctum dudes already in place in the hospitals, then it was done. Easy-peasy, right? What could go wrong?
This rig was of the super deluxe variety. I had always wondered what the inside of one of these looked like, and this one did not disappoint. It was like a motel on steroids.
Ryder was in the captain’s chair, expertly controlling the massive semi and wearing his Cellway blood lab group vest. Kyle and I were behind him, playing cards on a table set up in the mini five foot living room. Yes, a freakin’ living room! Also in here were two couches that faced each other and a tiny kitchenette equipped with all the mod cons, including sink and the cutest tiny microwave you ever saw.
It was well over a day’s drive to Dallas, so we decided to take shifts sleeping and driving and just go all the way through. We were stopped a few times during Ryder’s shift, when we needed to weigh our load, but luckily no one looked too closely at me.
When Kyle switched with Ryder, I found myself snuggled in my boyfriend’s arms. Both of us squished on the little twin-size couch. I knew he was exhausted from driving, but he still tucked me into his body, facing him, and played with my hair.
His silvery eyes locked onto mine, staring at me in that way he had, where I knew I was the only thing he saw. I didn’t say anything, cherishing this time we had together. It might be the last snuggle before hell broke loose.
“Charlie…” His voice was gruff.
“Yes?” I said, resting my hand against his face.
“Have you ever been to Hawaii?” His eyelids were drooping, but my laugh had them snapping open again.
“No. Random. I have not been to Hawaii.” Hello, I grew up with a single mom. I had barely ever left Portland unless Tessa was paying.
He graced me with one of his insanely sexy smiles. “There’s this little cove. It’s a secret only locals know about. It’s full of turtles. I want to take you snorkeling there when this is all over.”
A huge smile broke out onto my face at the thought of walking hand in hand on the white sand beaches of Hawaii with Ryder. The sun high in the sky. Not a care in the world. Yes, I wanted that. His eyes were closing again and I knew he was seconds from sleep.
“I’d like that.” I kissed his chin and let his rhythmic breathing lull me to sleep.
Chapter 11
Kyle’s deep voice awoke me from what had been a surprisingly restful sleep. “Wake up, kids! It’s almost show time.”
I peeled my eyes open to see Ryder staring at me. Had he been awake watching me? Creepy or cute? Hmm … little bit of both. I sat up, pretty sure that my gothic makeup had officially dripped all over my face and I now looked like a half dead zombie.
Ryder sat up as well. “How far out until the hospital drop?” he asked as I fiddled in my bag for my toothbrush.
“About three miles out. I got a text from Sanctum. They’re in place.”
And just like that my stomach scrunched with nerves. Brushing my teeth quickly in the tiny sink, I decided it was best not to try and find a mirror. Adjusting my nose ring, and running my hands through my hair would have to count as “getting ready.”
After Ryder brushed his teeth, he opened the small fridge and passed around some bottles of blood. “Drink up. We need to look as normal as possible if this is going to go down.”
I guzzled the blood and then we all made sure our contacts were in. Kyle and Ryder still looked way too gorgeous to be normal humans, but hopefully they would pass for really hot models that happened to have side jobs truck driving.
It could happen.
As Kyle maneuvered through the streets, which was easy with the huge lanes here, we all kept an eye out for University Medical Centre, which was the hospital in this region that handled blood for the Hives. The moment the distinctive building came into view, I shrugged on my Cellway vest and settled myself in near the back of our rig. No need to draw attention to the clown makeup goth girl. I’d let the boys handle any security.
Part one of our plan went off without a hitch. Sam had detailed maps explaining the back entrance and how we get to the loading docks. Besides two rent-a-cops on the entrance gate, we had no one stop us and soon we were pulling up to the large, industrial space. Kyle swung himself out of the rig and took some time to chat with whomever worked these docks. Ryder let him go, waiting for the signal to start unloading.
Kyle’s blond head popped in through the now open back door. “All set, let’s unload the bottles.” Ryder got out straight away, but I knew I was to remain hidden, although I might have snuck over to peer out the window. My eyes were immediately drawn to the five men standing on the edge of the dock. They were wearing white lab coats, and three of them had glasses. They looked very much like Becca in her science lab glory, but I recognized at least four of them as Sanctum people. Not that there was anything immediately obvious, but I knew some of their faces, and I also recognized the way they moved. Ash did not move in the same way as humans, they were more like jungle cats. Not to mention they were all gorgeous.
They prowled. Took control. Sat at the top of their jungle abode and disdainfully stared down at everything rushing past them. It was also how I knew at least one of those five was a human, an actual lab person who would probably, unknowingly, help to add this cure to all Hive blood.
I could hear them chatting through the window. “All the humans are here, in the back area,” a Sanctum male said. “We’ll give them the flu shot and then the bus ships them out in four hours.”
The humans were going to be injected with a version of the cure – under the pretense of a vaccine to keep them healthy – which would reproduce in their blood, and as long as they were fed on within the next month or so, the vampire would get a full dose. The bottled blood was going to be the time-consuming part. The donated blood was stored in bags in the refrigerators. Each of those bags was used to fill the UV bottles, which were then delivered to the Hives. Apparently it took a full day for them to distribute the blood into the bottles with special
machinery. The bottles were then sealed, a process which mixed the cure and blood cells together, before going into the refrigerated containers and onto private jets which dispatched to all the Hives.
It was a huge job. But there was no other option.
Ryder and Kyle were offloading the wooden pallets from the back of the rig. There were hundreds of pallet crates, and within each was a thousand cure-laced bottles.
The human was right there in the midst, unknowingly helping us take down the vamps. Sanctum wore game faces, but they were excited, I could tell. They wanted us to take out the vampires.
A few hours later the last box was dropped onto the back dock area and we were done with our part of this plan. Ryder opened the door and got back into the captain’s chair.
“Everything is in place,” he said, starting the rig. “Sanctum have full control of the blood bank area. They’ve been here for a few days learning the ropes. They won’t make any mistakes. The cure will be reaching the Hives within the next day or two.”
I nodded, my breath catching in my chest. I was already sick of this cloak and dagger, hide Charlie in the back of the van bullshit. I wanted my life back.
Kyle got in and shut the door firmly. “They’re going to text when it’s all done. They have six more members in the labs, and will work through the night to get the blood into every single bottle.”
“Did the other guys run into any trouble?” I asked, wishing I had a phone to get updates and stuff on. Sort of felt naked without technology in my hands.
Ryder shook his head. “Nah, they’re all good. Few checkpoints, but each looking for you. Sanctum was in place, as promised, at the Californian hospital.”
The rig was on the road again, back in downtown Dallas. “So now we just lay low and wait for the shit to hit the fan, right?”
Somehow it all seemed too easy, like we should be fighting and stabbing vampires in the neck with cure-filled syringes.
Ryder laughed. “Yes, we now have to wait. We’ll head back to Portland and prepare ourselves for war.”
He dialed a number then and put it on speaker. It rang a few times before a familiar voice answered.
“Talk to me, Ryder,” Lincoln said, voice hard.
“Plan is in place. E.T.A forty-eight hours. You?”
“Files in action. Cities around the globe on standby, everything looking rosy on our end. Will inform you if anything new arises. Waiting on bottle delivery now.”
They weren’t exactly speaking in code. I understood exactly what was being said. The army was already heading to the Hive towns. They were going to be on standby for the possible fallout of the cure.
Lincoln continued: “All members have darts filled with liquid from a Dr. Leander. None will escape.”
The boys exchanged a few more words before ending the secure call.
Ryder looked pleased. “Everything is in place. Lincoln has used the files to ensure silence from men with power. They have multiple teams in all cities and are loaded down with cure. Becca made sure to send them all her extra. We are as ready as we’ll ever be.”
Okay. Wow. He got a lot more than me from that conversation. But it was all good news. Settling in to the couch, preparing for a long drive home, I sent out as many positive thoughts as I could. This had to work.
The next two days went by agonizingly slow. Everything was in place. The UV resistant bottles were on their way to the Hives; human donors had arrived already at most places. Everything was perfect. A little too perfect.
“So there has been no chatter on the network?” I asked Sam for the hundredth time. “Nothing to indicate that the vampires know about our plan?”
He glared, before running a hand through his dark hair. It was getting long; he needed a cut. “No, there’s still nothing. Normal chatter. Nothing in code. So far we’re good.”
The seven of us were camped out in another safe house. Not in Portland. There were still mass searches going on for me there, but in the nearby Salem area, about an hour’s drive away. We’d been spending our time playing cards and obsessively checking the online updates.
“Blood just hit Canada,” Markus called, leaning back and stretching out his long body. He’d been in that chair all day. “And Florida has theirs now.”
Sanctum were updating us via the untraceable cells. So far eighty percent of shipments had arrived today.
Sam sat a little straighter in his chair then, his fingers flying across the keyboard.
“What’s happening?” I leaned forward, unable to stop myself from asking.
“Vampire celebrations underway in Chicago. Ash enforcers there said the blood and donors are out in force, and that vampires are indulging themselves.”
I exchanged a smile with Kyle. Awesome, this was exactly what we hoped would happen. New blood days were almost always a celebration. The blood was the freshest, and they had new donors to ravage. The old blood was distributed to ash and the freshest was for vampires.
Fuckers.
Becca had assured me that the cure didn’t hurt ash, because they were born and not made. She’d tested it on donated blood from the boys, which meant all the ash in the compounds were going to be okay. They just had to wait it out.
“Blood hit Mexico twenty minutes ago,” Jared said. “Their celebrations are underway too.”
I had to get to my feet and start pacing. This was too much for me to handle. It was happening. Shit. This was actually happening. What would go down when the first vampire began to turn human? Would they figure it out right away or think he was a fluke? Oh God. I was going to be sick with nerves.
A knock at the door had all of us on high alert. Our location was completely secret. Sam had set the safe house up, and so far we’d done all our communicating via secure cell phones. Our internet signal was pinged and directed all around the world so that no one could trace it. Well, no one below Sam’s level of hacking.
So who the hell was knocking on the door? Ryder didn’t hesitate. Weapon locked and loaded, expression hard, he strode to the entrance. There was a peephole, which he used for a few seconds, before raising his brows to me and opening the door.
A Viking stepped through, and I was already running. My dad, mom, Becca, and Jayden were standing in the doorway. I crashed into the open arms of my father. We had never hugged, not like this. He might have only been my sire on paper, but in my heart he was my real dad. I squeezed him even tighter, thankful to him for keeping my mom safe this whole time. His scent was not familiar to me, but I felt comforted by the citrus and fresh autumn aroma that covered me now. Every girl needed a dad, whether he was blood or not. I had already chosen him as my father.
We had to get to know each other more, but hopefully there would be time for that. Stepping back, I was crushed into a hug between my mom and Jayden. Tears pricked my eyes. A part of me had wondered if I’d ever see them again.
They let me go and I turned to Becca. “Come here, girl.” I opened my arms and she smiled shyly before jumping into them.
I gave her a quick hug and then Sam was there. She threw her arms around him, and his face softened as they hugged.
“I told you to stay put,” he growled as he pulled back.
She smirked. “Nice to see you too.”
He scowled before ushering everyone inside.
Carter gave Ryder a nod. “I went back to Alaska looking for you. I found some signs of fresh tracks around the safe house these kids were in. Didn’t like it. So I brought them with me.”
Sam and I shared a look. Would the humans have known I was in Alaska? WTF. They must have people on the inside looking into my trail. CIA maybe. Shit, this was bad. This is why we were so cautious about spreading the word of the “cure takedown vamp plan” with humans. They had big mouths.
“It’s probably nothing,” Ryder assured me.
Before I could answer, I had a muscular, fine-ass BAFF in my face. “Bitch, I’ve been here five minutes and you haven�
��t said a word. How about, ‘Damn, Jayden your fingernails look busted. Why? Oh that’s right, you’ve been up for forty-eight hours packaging the cure.’” He crossed his arms and Oliver and I began slowly walking toward him.
Jayden was a sensitive flower and needed to be tended too. “Awww.” I picked up his hands and inspected the chipped nails and blisters. “Poor baby. Manicure, on me, when this shit dies down,” I said, and was rewarded with a broad smile.
Oliver stepped forward then and I was completely forgotten. That enforcer was very good at distracting him. My mom looked me up and down. I had ditched the gothic getup, but my hair was still short. “You’ve grown up, Charlie bear.”
Why do parents feel the need to call you by your childhood name in front of your boyfriend? And grown up? Hah. The understatement of my life. She had no idea what I had been through and I would never tell her. So I simply nodded, my smile weak but genuine.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” I said, pulling her close for another hug.
“Shit!” Kyle’s curse echoed around the room. He looked up from the computer perched on his lap and my gut dropped when I saw his face. Something very, very bad had happened.
Ryder and I practically crashed into Sam, all of us fighting to get over to Kyle.
“What is it?” Ryder demanded.
“Those motherfuckers.” Kyle was still swearing, and I was about to crack him over the head when he spun the laptop in our direction. It took me about five minutes to wrap my head around what I was seeing. I recognized the images, but my brain was having trouble processing.
Holy shit! We had been expecting some backlash. Lives did hang in the balance when it was anything to do with vampires … but this, this was so much worse.
The video footage was image after image of vampires spilling out onto the streets as the sun was setting in New York. They were attacking humans. Killing them, turning them, drinking from them, destroying homes and buildings, causing damage for the sake of causing damage. Shit! What was happening? Had some started to turn to human already, and the rest went crazy? Were they going to take out as many as they could before the cure kicked in?