Chapter 10

 

The silence was too much for me. I had to start talking. I needed answers. “Why would the Quorum order me to be kidnapped? Why didn’t they just take me out when I first got into the Hive? Or in the culling? It would have been easy to end me in those battles. Instead they made my run through quite smooth.”

Lucas … shit. Was he in on this too? Why warn me that they were after me then?

Ryder stepped closer to me. “I have had my suspicions for some time that the orders for Sanctum were from someone on the Quorum. I went over the log of events on that night, and the council was ferreted away very quickly, almost as if one or more of them knew in advance.”

Kyle nodded. “When you mentioned you were looking into Allistair, I figured you had suspicions on the Quorum.”

“Who is Allistair?” I asked.

“The creepy looking head of the fourth house,” Kyle said without missing a beat.

Right, fugly. I stood then because I needed to move. Of course, maybe I just needed to be closer to Ryder. The moment I stepped into him, and that familiar scent of spices and cedarwood wrapped around me, I felt better, calmer even, able to organize my jumbled thoughts. Speaking them out loud helped even more.

“So we’re saying it’s probably not all of the Quorum, which is why I’m still living in the Hive and not dead or locked away in their laboratory. Still, one of those bastards hired someone who almost killed Jayden, and tried to coerce Ryder to their side so he’d help to kidnap me. They’ve been behind the scenes this entire time, manipulating everything … playing with our lives.”

Tension filtered through our group, built on fear and pissed-off-ness.

Kyle snarled: “The thing with Tessa is starting to make much more sense. I know we were only guessing at it before, but I have no doubt now that they allowed her change because of you.”

I lurched forward as worries for her came back full throttle. I’d been trying to suppress the fact that my bestie was now part of the “nightmare club.”

“Do you think they’ll hurt her?”

If that was the case, even if she refused, I was knocking out her undead ass and dragging her out of here by her hair.

“No, they won’t,” Markus said. “She’s much more use to them alive. They’re going to try and manipulate her, use her to ferret out your secrets. You have to assume anything Tessa knows, the Quorum will now be able to access.”

Which was pretty much everything. She was my best-friend-sister, I told her everything.

“She doesn’t know about your blood, right?” Markus finished, locking me in his stare.

Everything except that.

I shook my head. “No, I never had a chance to tell her.”

In hindsight, maybe I’d held that back for a reason. I sort of knew that with her close proximity to Blake it wasn’t knowledge to just hand across.

Ryder shook his head a few times, as if trying to sort his thoughts. “This complicates things. Even if Tessa doesn’t know of her blood, I still don’t want Charlie in here one more second than necessary. If a Quorum member is after her, then she’s not safe anywhere, even with us on full-time guard duty.” He turned to Sam. “I know you need a week, but I won’t give a second more than that.”

Sam gave a decisive nod, but his eyes looked lost. Again I was struck by how much I hated that we were blindly trusting him. Don’t get me wrong, Sam was family, but this was a life or death situation and my gut said he was hiding something. As if he’d read my mind, Sam’s dark gaze shot up and our eyes clashed. His look suddenly changed to something more biting. Was that … fear? Before I could say anything, the moment was gone.

In a smooth movement, Sam stood, closing his laptop. “Don’t worry, a week is enough time. I’ll get everything rolling. Be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”

 

After running out some of my aggression on the roof, I showered and went to find Tessa. A few feet from the medical ward, I heard her voice, demanding and shrill.

“More blood!” she screamed.

My hand froze on the door handle. Tessa, you stupid, stupid bitch. How could you want this life? Breathing to center myself, I entered the room and saw Tessa chugging a bottle of blood. My eyes were immediately drawn to the shine of her hair. It had been beautiful before, but looked absolutely stunning now. The pale blond ringlets were tight and glossy.

But unnatural. I preferred when she looked more real.

Now she was like a perfectly crafted doll, skin flawless and smooth. Not a single mark of her previous life remained, not the tiny scar that had been on her chin from when she got hit with a softball in gym, or those couple of persistent freckles which she did her best to cover with concealer. Nope. Nothing.

I flinched as her swirling-silver eyes swept over me. She squealed, dropping her bottle and pushing a nurse aside to reach out and grab my arm. She yanked me into a rib-crushing hug.

“Charlie! My bestie.” Her voice was full of happiness and I didn’t want to bring the world crashing down around her, but the roil of emotions inside guaranteed there was no way I could fake anything in regards to this.

My voice wavered, tears so close to falling. “You have no idea what you’ve done,” I choked out, my senses filled with her odd new smell, all vanilla and coppery blood. “I can’t believe you did this to yourself … to me.”

She released me from my hug. “I figured you would be pissed for a few days. But once you realize how amazing it is having me around you’ll see this was the best idea ever. Where’s Jayden? Have you seen how incredible my hair is?” She was actually grinning and it had my stomach churning. No real surprise that she was bouncing like a five-year-old on a chocolate high. I had always been the responsible part of our duo. She was the naïve, carefree one.

My voice was clipped: “Jayden is working in the blood feeding center. Ash are given ten hour a day jobs and made to live separately from the vampires. We live in cramped dorms and you will get your own fancy suite. I’m only permitted five minutes to visit you today and then you’ll be taken away to your new life and we’ll barely see each other.”

She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Charlie, don’t be such a mom. I’ll go meet with whomever to sort out my new apartment and stuff and then I’ll come over tomorrow for movies and pizza.” She bounced again.

Then her face dropped as soon as she caught her mistake. “Blood and movies, whatever. Pizza is overrated.”

Now my arms were crossed because my BFF just talked shit on my favorite food. Pizza would never be overrated. Knowing my time with her was almost up, I had to move forward and deal with the most important reason for my visit. There were eyes on us, so I did the only thing I could and pulled her in for another hug.

“Meet me on the roof tomorrow night, at midnight,” I whispered, and as I released her, turning to walk away, her perfect face was prettily creased in frowns.

I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying, because something told me Tessa would not be running away with us. Tessa seemed to like her new life just fine.

Craptastic.

 

The next day we were on the rooftop getting some sun. Two of the enforcers remained on rotational Charlie guard duty, and all of us had started to notice a pattern of random vampires outside the hallway of my apartment. It was a floor completely dedicated to ash housing, so they had no reason to be there. Bloodsuckers were keeping tabs on me.

We continued to keep all of our conversation inside the Hive general and light. We had confirmation that the bastards had bugged my apartment. The boys swept for them and found a few. We didn’t bother to destroy them; they would only replace them again, and we didn’t want them to know we were on to them. The ones they’d killed in the locker room were different. They expected the enforcers to be suspicious and to keep up security in there, but bugs in the apartment of the Hive, well, they knew we’d only sweep in there if we were suspicious of something.

For now, Jayden was laying low and staying out of our little rooftop planning session, but was ready to go with us at any moment.

Shit was most definitely going to hit the fan soon.

That morning, as we all sat in a little huddle, I decided it was time to inform the rest of them of my plans. I met Ryder’s gaze, knowing it would make him rage.

“I’m going to sneak into the girl’s room tomorrow in the daytime, when she’s sleeping, and feed her my blood. Then we can bust ass out of here.” Finding the bugs in my room, and vamps in my hall, had really shaken me. I felt like they were closing in on us, and I did not want anyone caught in the Hive’s deadly clutches. I didn’t care about Sam’s timing, I wanted out of here.

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.

Ryder reached out and grasped his friend by the shoulder, leaning in closer and talking to Sam in another language, which I was pretty sure was French. My jaw was on the floor right about then. How could I not know he spoke French? My boyfriend’s hotness had just skyrocketed. Dear God. That body and he speaks foreign languages.

As Ryder finished Sam nodded swiftly, and strode across the gym, flipped open his laptop, and within seconds was typing like a crazy person.

Suddenly the siren over the locker room, which told us that there was a call coming in, started wailing. I met Sam’s eyes and grinned as he winked.

Jason, one of the call room ash, came running in. “We’ve got another suspected ash. On Alberta Street, may have attacked a human.” He was out of breath.

Thanks to Sam, the world’s best hacker, we’d just been handed the perfect excuse to get out of the Hive.

Ryder nodded at the panicky ash. “Thank you. Don’t bother to call out anyone else. We’re on it.”

We suited up quickly, tossing on bulletproof vests, and guns, before jogging out the door.

In the Humvee, Ryder sat shotgun and Kyle drove, while Sam slid in beside me. We peeled out in a rush of screeching tires and engine acceleration. I noticed when we were halfway across the grounds that the gate wasn’t opening like it normally did.

“What’s happening?” Ryder leaned forward, his eyes locked in. I knew what was worrying him—dispatch always radioed the gate to open it for us. If they hadn’t, that must mean…

Mother-effers. “They’re stopping us!” I pounded the back of the seat.

Sam was hammering away on his laptop as Kyle slammed on the brakes. We had been barreling along and had to slow or we’d have smashed into the fence.

“They’re not blocking me,” Sam said, and I breathed out a huge sigh of relief when the gate opened. “But they didn’t dispatch through like normal.”

Thank God he’d thought to bring his computer with him. Maybe he had anticipated this happening. Why hadn’t they dispatched it through? Was the Quorum not even trying to pretend they weren’t targeting us now? The thought was partly liberating but mostly frightening.

Kyle gunned it. A guard had stepped out of his tower to stop us, but when it was clear we were not slowing this vehicle, he did the smart thing and jumped out of our way.

“Where did they say the ash was? Legacy hospital?” I asked, playing my part for the listening vampires. It was also the easiest way to let them know that was where my mom worked.

Sam played along. “Yeah, just near that on Alberta.”

After the longest eight minutes of my life, Kyle hopped the Humvee onto the curb outside of the emergency room where my mom worked. I had the door open and was halfway out before the car had even stopped. I was powering toward the entrance when a familiar scream rang out into the night and had me changing direction toward the smoker’s alley. That shriek had sounded an awful lot like my mom.

The boys were close behind me, and as I turned the corner the scene was definitely not what I had expected. There, standing in the alley was the guy, the blond Viking-looking vampire who had saved me from my attack over a year ago. He had my mother in his arms, cradling her gently, and there were three mangled bodies at his feet.

“Mom!” I screamed, shaking off my stupor, stumbling toward her.

She looked stunned to see me, but that didn’t stop her from tearing herself from Viking dude’s grasp and running at me. In the dull light I noticed her scrubs were torn, and I could smell fresh blood on her. Looked like there were some gashes on her arm.

No surprise that she looked like she had put up a fight. There was nothing more badass than a single working mom.

“Charlie, thank God you’re okay!” Pulling me in for a hug, my eyes wandered back over to the blond vampire who was standing there, barely moving. Why had she been hugging him?

“Who’s that?” I gestured to the Norse god before us.

My mom sighed and met his gaze before turning to me. “Charlie, this is Carter, your father.”

What the…?

The one who saved me from my attack was my father?

I was happy to see I wasn’t the only one standing there dumbfounded.

Ryder, Kyle, Sam, and I were all frozen, mouths open, staring at Carter. An Original vampire. In real life. Alive.

Eventually Carter cleared his throat and walked closer to us. “Hello, Charlie, I’ve been keeping an eye out for you and your mother for a long time, but it’s nice to officially meet you.”

Okay, this was not exactly how I’d envisioned meeting my father. Not only had I just stumbled onto a scene where he’d killed a bunch of vamp douchewads, but then his first words were an admittance of stalking.

I guess no families were perfect.

With barely a hesitation, I reached out and shook his hand, before blurting out the first thing that came into my head: “You have blond hair?” I’d always thought I got my dark hair from my father. My mother raised me believing that her boyfriend who died in the war was my father. He had been a human with hair as dark as mine. But when we found out I was an ash and fathered by Carter … well, I had just assumed that he was the one I had inherited the hair color from.

Carter’s lips raised in an easy smile. I could see he was amused. Ryder stepped forward then; his hand slipped into mine and he gave a gentle squeeze, which felt both supportive and encouraging.

“Can you fly?” Kyle asked him, and Carter’s smile turned into a laugh. My mom’s eyes lit up at the sight of him laughing. Oh my God, she still loved him. Who wouldn’t? He was gorgeous, ya know, in a good looking dad kinda way.

“Something like that,” Carter told Kyle, and winked. Whoa, so the rumors about the Originals were true. They were totally scary and powerful.

“Oh shit. Cool,” Kyle replied.

Carter was suddenly all business, turning back to the bodies in the alley. “Hive will come looking for their boys soon. We need to move.”

Crap! There was no way the Quorum wouldn’t trace this back to us. We had left the Hive at the perfect time for this attack, and now all of the vamps were dead. Hopefully it would still be a few days before they came for us. Our plan was hinging on it.

 

An hour later, I was sitting in a remote wooded park with my mom, Carter and the enforcers. Carter and I were spending a lot of time staring at each other. I was fascinated with the Original vampire. He seemed different from the other bloodsuckers, a strange combination of lethal Viking and refined gentleman. I could definitely see why my mom fell for him. He was enigmatic. I sat beside Joanna, and Carter stood before us. My enforcer bodyguards were lurking around, making sure we remained alone.

“I need you to get my mom out of Portland, it’s not safe for her here anymore.” I turned to face the unflappable Bennett mama at my side. She’d just been attacked in an alley and was as calm as anything. “I’m going to have to run soon, and there’s no way I can do that if I know you’re here and they could come after you at any time.” I told her.

Finally, some worry pulled down the corner of her lips and eyes. It wasn’t worry for herself though, it was all for me. “Charlie, baby, come with us. Carter already told me he has a safe house set up.”

I shook my head, Jayden and the rest of the gang were waiting for us back at the Hive and I didn’t want to lead trouble to my mom. She was better off nowhere near me. I turned back to my father, forcing myself to not lose focus again. He was just so mesmerizing. I opened my mouth to ask him where he planned to take her, but other questions emerged instead. “Why did you leave her … us? How could you do this and leave both of us vulnerable to the Hive?” Anger tightened my voice. Ever since I had found out I was an ash, all I’d wondered about was him, my vampire father, and how he could abandon his family.

Emotions flickered across his face; sparks of gold were really strong in his silver eyes. They were not like regular vamps’ color, nope. His were flecked through with golden stars or some shit.

“I’m hunted for my blood, Charlie, for the purity of the original virus. I wanted to stay. I tried to make it work, but in the end I had to do what I thought was best to keep you both safe, which was to keep myself alive to look after you. Your mother and I thought you were human because you were female, and me being around was only going to get both of you killed.”

“So you ran?”

He nodded, those blond braids scattered through his thick tresses of hair flying around. “I ran. But I always came back, checking in, making sure you were cared for. I deposited small amounts of money, never enough that anyone would check into you. If either of you ever needed me, I would have been there.”

Like the night I was attacked. I stood then, unable to remain sitting, and took a step into his personal space. He didn’t move back; his eyes tracked across my face, as if memorizing me.

“Thank you for saving me from those ash,” I said, needing him to know that I remembered. “I have no idea what would have happened if you weren’t there.”

I could see sprinkles of tears in my mom’s eyes, and the sight hurt my heart. I cleared my throat, blinking a few times to get myself under control.

Carter nodded, placing a hand on my arm. In that moment no words were needed.

“One more question,” I managed to mumble out. “How the hell am I a female ash? And what do you know about my blood?”

I was more than ready for these answers, and I damn well hoped Carter had them.