Chapter 9

 

 

We crept along, no one speaking, all on high alert.

I slowed as we passed the third path that veered off the main. A rustle caught my attention a second before someone jumped out of a dim alcove. Without thinking, my arm struck out, slamming the person with an uppercut to the jaw. Around me were the sounds of weapons locked and loaded. It took me a split second to recognize the groan and familiar white coat. Okay, not so white at the moment; it was thoroughly streaked with blood and grime, but still the signature outerwear of the only vampire I trusted.

I threw myself forward in front of the male, holding my arms out as I shouted, “Don’t shoot. It’s Lucas!”

I didn’t relax until all of the team had lowered their weapons. Turning, I found Lucas still rubbing his jaw. His eyes roamed over my new haircut and then a smile graced his lips.

“Hello, Charlie.”

I couldn’t stop my own smile as I gave him a quick hug. It was so good to see him. I had feared that when I left him on the roof all that time ago, I’d never seen him alive again. He was one tough bastard to survive the Hive as an enemy for this long.

Lincoln shifted on the spot. His expression was hard and I could tell that good and bad vampires meant nothing to him. All vamps were the enemy. But for now they were following my lead and not attacking.

“Where’s Tessa?” I asked Lucas. There was no time for pleasantries.

He didn’t seem surprised at all, and with a nod he took off running. Okay, that worked for me. Please let her be alive and not mentally fucked up from being tortured. I was feeling good about this plan. It was going really well; there seemed to be no vampires down here. They must all be busy fighting Ryder and the rest of our crew. I was seconds from seeing my best friend. That’s when my thoughts jinxed me, because the moment we turned the corner a flashbang grenade went off right in front of my face. Cue deafness for the second fucking time.

I really needed to quit this job and work on a farm or some shit.

I hit the ground, grabbing my ringing ears and trying to orient myself. The fucking sound bomb had worked too damn well in disabling my backup soldiers; we were all on the ground, wincing in agony. The humans in our group would take longer to recover, which put us at a decided disadvantage. Of course, I should have known Wonder Woman wasn’t going to let a little sound grenade keep her down. She was up before everyone and was already spraying bullets at the onslaught of undead coming at us.

Lucas and I were close behind her. Blue Eyes and the Sanctum males recovered quickly too. The humans had actually fared better than I’d expected. One or two were still on the ground, so right now it was five versus at least thirty. My instincts had been right. This was a secondary trap, primarily for me. I wondered how long Fugly had been planning this. These vamps had probably been down here for days.

Vampires weren’t big on weapons usually. They considered themselves to be enough of a weapon, but some of them were shooting at us, so we had to use one of the little alcoves for protection. I wasn’t able to get out of the way fast enough and a bullet grazed my left arm, opening a four-inch gash that was now bleeding freely. Just a flesh wound, so I didn’t bother to give it more than a glance. Blue eyes dragged his other men in, while tatted chick and I started blasting away at vamps.

They were coming straight for us, clearly not caring that we were easily taking down their front line. I think they expected to have enough numbers to reach us before we could kill them all. And it looked like they were right.

I dodged to the left, avoiding a rain of bullets that clinked into the stone right where my head had been.

“They’re too close now,” I said to the badass while I reloaded my gun. The tranqs were not going to work on these assholes – bullets all the way.

She nodded, and before I could say anything else she did a dive roll out, a gun in each hand, firing away like a crazy person. And from what I could tell, every shot was a headshot. This chick was not human, I don’t care what anyone said.

Lincoln and I followed her. Lucas, who didn’t have a weapon, remained protectively crouched close to my side. While firing my semi-automatic, I handed him a handgun, and it turned out that he wasn’t just a pretty face. Dude had game. He was slicing through the charging mass, each hit a headshot too.

The vampires were down to about twelve when the front line finally reached us. A body toppled next to me, and I glanced down long enough to see one of the humans dead on the ground, bullet to the head. Shit. We were all wearing tactical gear with bulletproof vests, but a bullet to the head couldn’t be avoided. Turning swiftly, I used my gun to both shoot at the assholes and also smack a few of them around. I cracked a vampire in the face with the butt, knocking him back a few paces, before swinging the weapon around and shooting the male in the temple.

Lucas growled at my side, and by the time I glanced to the left he’d completely torn a female’s head off.

“They’re not used to combat,” he said with a grin. “Too many years of getting ash to do their dirty work.”

I didn’t have time to answer, I was being double-teamed by two beefy vamps. I’d never seen them before, but that wasn’t unusual; vamps and ash did not mingle much. They came at me at the same time. I hit the ground, sweeping out with my feet, knocking down the one to my right and yanking my knife out to slice the other’s femoral artery. It dug deep into his thigh, but I hit the spot. It wouldn’t kill a vampire, but it would slow them down long enough that I’d find killing them much easier.

On my feet again, the one who’d hit the ground first was already rising. I dived and slammed into his chest. The impact radiated up my arms, but thankfully I didn’t drop the knife. In these close quarters my ashpire blood was working in full effect; the vampire growled and struggled to get at me. A few drops of my blood had dripped on his face. He stilled before his fangs extended full force and his eyes went crazy. He leaned up as if to bite me, and I used the distraction to shove the knife straight into his eye socket. Had to hit the brain to kill them.

My stomach roiled as I forced the blade in, up to the hilt. Holy hell. When had this become my life? I could now casually stab people in the eye. ‘Cause that’s not fucked up. Shivering, I finished the job and he fell to the ground, limp. Lucas was going around to all of the vampires we had dropped and was snapping their necks. He did this with such ease and precision it was clear he had done it many times before.

He noticed me watching and explained: “When you snap a vampire’s neck hard enough, it severs the spinal cord. This type of injury takes hours to heal and renders the vampire unconscious for that time.”

I wasn’t sure it was a good idea to leave them alive, but time was important too. And we needed to get moving.

Blue eyes was watching Lucas’ movements with interest, but said nothing. We were six now, and I felt awful that he had lost one of his men, especially because he was about to see that Tessa wasn’t human and they’d risked their lives for a vampire. Fuck me. He would probably kill me.

Making our way over the piles of unconscious or dead vampires, we continued down the hall and followed Lucas to a door. Cell 213. Lucas stopped in front of it and turned to hand me keys. By this time we were only a foot apart and his eyes had started pulsing, fangs distended. I was covered in blood, and a lot of it was mine. Damn unicorn blood.

“Lucas!” I forced as much authority as I could into that one word. For a second I thought he wasn’t going to snap out of it, but thankfully with a shake of his head he dropped the keys into my hand and stepped back.

“Sorry, they have restricted my feedings as punishment,” he murmured, his voice low and hoarse.

Shit. Well, hopefully the plan went off in the next few days, with no problems of course. Then we would cure all the vampires and end their sadistic rule. A moan from inside the cell drew my attention.

“Tessa!” I shouted, and began fumbling with the keys. “I’m coming for you, girl!”

“Char…” Her weak reply was cut off. Finally getting the key into the lock, I threw back the rusty handle and opened the door.

The first thing that hit me was the scent of urine and blood. The second thing was the sight of Fugly standing over my best friend. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. He had a lit torch in one hand, inches from Tessa’s bleach-blond hair. I knew her obsession with curling products. She would go up in flames in a moment.

Everyone froze. Lincoln was on my left, tattooed chick on my right. We just stood in the doorway staring into the tiny cell, helpless to do anything.

“Charlie, Charlie, Charlie,” Fugly said. “Still stupid I see. I knew you would eventually come for her.”

Tessa was hunched over, skinny and pale. She was staring at the floor. When she finally looked up at me, my breath caught in my throat. My best friend was broken. Not an ounce of the fun-loving girl that I grew up with looked back at me through those dim silver eyes.

Lincoln stiffened next to me.

“She’s a vampire,” he growled.

Double fuck. “They must have changed her,” I said. Not a total lie, just a stretching of the truth. Right?

Oh, God, please don’t let them leave me.

Fugly cranked the side of the torch, making the flame dance higher. “Charlie have you been lying to the humans?” His voice was so calm and even, like this was just a regular ol’ day for him.

Lincoln was giving me a side glare as I internally panicked. Would he really light her on fire? Alive? I felt my last meal threaten to come up at the thought. Where the fuck was Blake? He’d better be dead, otherwise I was killing him for not helping.

“Let her go and I’ll give you anything you want,” I said, using every ounce of acting skills I had to keep my voice and face calm.

He grinned. “I was hoping you would say that.”

We all waited in silence for a beat.

“Charlie, I’ll let Tessa go right now if you take that gun and shoot yourself in the head.” That sent a shock through me. He wanted me to kill myself?

Of course he did.

Lincoln shifted slightly beside me, finally turning his glare onto someone else. “Why would you want that?” he asked the maniac, who was holding that damn flame way too close to my bestie’s product-fried hair.

Fugly looked delighted. “She hasn’t told you? She’s the cure for vampirism. She could end all of this.” He waved his hands around. “But instead she ran away, leaving her friend in my care.”

“Is that true?” Lincoln turned to me. I’d never seen him so enraged.

Uh … shit. “Yes, but—”

Before I could finish, Lincoln’s fist came out quickly and socked me so hard in the side of the face that the force of it threw me backwards into the cell. The bones in my jaw cracked and a garbled moan escaped me as I fought for consciousness, stars dancing across my vision.

I’d landed on my hands and knees, two feet from Tessa and Fugly. I worked to stay semi-upright, panting in pain.

Fugly laughed and it reverberated across the entire cell.

Half of me thought Lincoln had really enjoyed that hit because one of his men died trying to free my vampire bestie, but the other half recognized that he was a genius – he’d just unobtrusively gotten me within grappling range of Fugly. Here’s hoping the ashpire healing kicked in really fast this time.

Fugly wasn’t focused on me. “Oh, I enjoyed that immensely – thank you,” he said to Lincoln. Before he could turn his attention back to me or realize that I was regaining my strength, I dug my heels into the cold packed earth and leapt up, swift and silent.

I was pretty sure this could go badly – with me and Tessa both torched like steaks on a grill. As I crashed into the Quorum leader I was relieved to see I had taken him completely by surprise. He tumbled backward a few steps and I heard the clank of the torch hitting the ground. As we started to grapple, I tried my best not to trample Tessa, but at one point I was definitely standing on her leg.

I couldn’t worry about that though, there were far more pressing dangers to her body. My palm came up fast, smashing Fugly’s nose up as hard as I could. As my hand connected I was rewarded with a crack and a gush of blood onto my palm. The impact sent a shock of pain along my jaw; it was not healed yet – adrenalin was keeping me going. It would take a few hours to fully heal, hours I didn’t have.

Fugly recovered quickly, and before I could register what was happening, both of his hands were around my throat, cutting off my air supply.

I heard scuffling behind me, then Lincoln’s voice filled the cell: “Don’t shoot, you could hit her.”

Fugly was using me as a shield. My jaw was killing me and now black spots were dancing across my vision. Before my thoughts completely turned to mush, I had to think: What would Ryder do? But it wasn’t Ryder that came to mind. It was Jayden. My hands were on Fugly’s forearms, trying to pry them off me, but thinking of my BAFF and what he would do, I let go, and in two quick moves jammed both of my thumbs into the vampire’s eyes. I followed this with a knee into his groin.

The satisfying and surprisingly feminine scream that tore from Fugly’s mouth was short-lived. In seconds, something grabbed me around the waist and I was tossed to the side. I flipped around in time to see a streak of black crashing into Fugly. Ryder. He was already straddling him, pinning his arms down and pummeling his face with his fists.

“For Marc Delaney.” Ryder’s fists crashed into him and I wasn’t sure if I was hearing Fugly’s bones crack or Ryder’s knuckles. Maybe both.

“And Jason Scout.”

Ryder kept repeating his men’s names. One by one.

From the corner of my eye I could see tattoo chick next to Tessa, checking her out.

Another thud had me focusing again on the beatdown. Shit.

“Ryder!” My voice was firm, but he never looked away from Fugly.

I knew my man, and this wasn’t him. He wasn’t this dark. I needed to save him from doing something that would haunt his dreams. We didn’t torture people. Kill them, yes. Torture them by slowly beating them to death, no.

“RYDER!” I shouted, and something in my tone must have caught his attention He stilled and looked up at me.

Fugly looked to be suffocating in his own blood. Droplets were spluttering from his mouth as he tried to suck in air.

“Enough,” I said, my eyes pleading with him not to lose himself to this darkness. His chest was heaving as he stared at me, fists still clenched, blood dripping in small plops on the floor. Finally, he blinked, and some black bled back into the silver of his eyes. He nodded and took one last look down at Fugly, before cracking his neck.

I retrieved the torch then, which was still lit, making my way back and handing it to Ryder. He brought it down onto Fugly’s comatose body, lighting his hair and clothes. This fucker was clearly going to die, but this way he’d be unconscious right up until the fire finished him off. Like I said, we were civilized murderers.

There were small vents above each cell, and I assumed since the cell was made of stone and earth it wouldn’t burn down the entire Hive, but if it did, then so be it.

Zero fucks given at this point.

Ryder slipped an arm around me and we followed the tattooed girl and Tessa out of the cell, closing the door behind us. I raced to Tessa’s side and she collapsed against me. She was so thin, her hair lank and dull. They’d been starving her for some time, it was very clear.

“You better start talking,” Lincoln ordered me.

I gritted my teeth, jaw aching, and fought the urge to sock Lincoln in the throat. Fucker had punched me out of nowhere. Whether he had grounds to do that or not, it still pissed me off.

Tessa’s head flopped back, and I could see her eyes were pulsing, despite the fact she looked half dead. Her face was listless, and it didn’t seem as if she recognized me yet.

“We were going to tell you, Linc—”

Before I could finish, Tessa lunged forward with more strength than I thought she had and sunk her teeth into my upper arm, the one that was injured and bleeding.

“Christ, Tessa!” I shouted; the pain was sharp and instant. Gritting my teeth, I fought against the urge to pull her off. The wheels were turning in my mind. Let her drink. Then she’d be human and would be safe from this fucked up world. Badass chick raised her gun, her eyes dark as she watched us closely. I shook my head, stopping her.

“Allistair wasn’t lying to you. My blood is the cure. When she’s done drinking from me she’ll begin the change back to human.” I stared down at my bestie. She was calming now as the blood entered her system. By the time I looked up again, Lincoln and the remaining members of his crew looked stunned.

“Why wasn’t this the first thing you said to us?” Lincoln asked.

Ryder stepped in front of me and faced off with Blue Eyes. “Because this is a secret that has placed a huge target on Charlie’s back. She’s been hunted, and will continue to be hunted, until we can end the vampires. We have a plan. It’s going to go into action in a few days. I was going to tell you tomorrow, giving you just enough notice to rally the troops. You have to be aware that a lot of the higher-up officials are in the vampires’ pockets, paid off or blackmailed. We had to keep this one secret for as long as possible. The enforcers are retrieving some blackmail files right now that might help you control the release of information.”

I’d forgotten about that. Lincoln would know who to tell, and how to use those files in the best way. Of course, right now he was in a puddle of disbelief.

“I’m going to have to give a briefing … I have to report this. You were right to keep this quiet though. Corruption is nothing new, and the human world is rife with it. I’ll have to be careful about who I inform. This information will have to be classified above top secret.” He was sort of talking to us and murmuring to himself. Finally, he straightened and faced Ryder. “Yes, give me the files. I have a few that I trust, and for the others … we’ll work something out.”

Ryder nodded.

Lincoln turned to me then. “I’m sorry for hitting you, Charlie. You took me by surprise. I thought my people had been killed trying to save a vampire, and that’s unacceptable to me. Still, I mostly wanted to get you in the room with him without raising suspicion.”

Ryder turned on Lincoln then, and I was praying a fight didn’t break out in these close quarters. “You punched Charlie?” His voice was low and deadly. Somehow he made it seem even worse when he didn’t yell. Like he was beyond that emotion altogether.

“I fucked up,” Lincoln shot back. “But you weren’t here. Allistair was going to burn her friend. It was very clear. I did what I could to get her into the room. The vamp expected me to react like that. He knew I would be pissed at her, so he never saw the deception.”

That was very true. Ryder didn’t seem to care though; he advanced on Blue Eyes. I needed to defuse the situation, now.

“His actions probably saved Tessa’s life. It was pretty genius.”

Although a small part of me was plotting revenge, my jaw would heal and Lincoln had saved Tessa from being charred bacon.

Ryder growled long and low then; the sound echoed around the cavern. Hair rose on my arms at the pure menace, the animalistic nature of his response. Lincoln took a step backwards, and it was the first time I’d ever seen the composed SWAT leader look concerned. Before Ryder could react though, my groan distracted him.

I was feeling faint now. “Help,” I murmured, because I wasn’t sure I could pry Tessa off myself.

Ryder, his eyes still flaming silver, moved like a swift wind. Leaning down, he covered Tessa’s nose and palmed the back of her head to dislodge her from my arm. She only fought for a second before slumping toward me. Ryder reached out and supported us both.

Tessa lifted her head to stare at me, and I could see the way her eyes flared to life with swirls of silver. “Shit, Charlie. I’m…”

The rest of her words were incoherent as she started bawling. I reached out to comfort her.

Lucas cleared his throat. I’d sort of forgotten he was even there. “With Allistair dead, I can take control of the Quorum again. No one liked him, but he had too many secrets on us.”

Ryder nodded.

Lucas leaned forward, dropping his voice. “Let me know the day the plan goes into action. I’ll do everything I can to make sure this Hive is ready.”

I patted the still sobbing Tessa on the back, before handing her off to Ryder and standing to meet Lucas head on. “My promise to you holds. Thank you, friend. I appreciate everything you’ve done and sacrificed for me.” Lucas was one of the rare vampires who didn’t lose oxytocin. There was no other explanation for his kindness.

The smile he gave me then was like nothing I had ever seen on him before. I realized then that he loved me, in some weird small way. The way his eyes roamed tenderly over my broken jaw to my lips. I quickly looked at Ryder and the look on his face said that he saw it too. It didn’t matter; I would never be with Lucas, I would always belong to Ryder. We would bring the vampires down and I would make sure Lucas had his cure, had his human life back.

We all made our way back to the golden elevator, climbing over broken-necked vampires. The SWAT member we had lost was gone now too. Someone must have retrieved him already.

Once we got to the elevator I turned to Lucas. “Are you sure they’ll take you back?” I asked uneasily, eyeing the bodies behind him. Surely they would wake up and talk, right? I couldn’t bear it if Lucas died because of me.

Lucas gave me a sly grin, holding up the torch. “I’ll have to burn a bit more evidence, but yes, they will. Most of the vampires are under lockdown, they’ll have no idea what actually went down tonight.”

Okay then. It was hard to believe that Fugly was gone. That bastard had made my life hell, all of our lives hell. Good riddance.

“Thank you,” I said, squeezing his hand. He nodded and squeezed back. After stepping into the elevator, we selected the ground floor.

“Kyle?” I asked Ryder.

“Fine,” he said.

Tessa had been quiet this whole time, but was managing to walk on her own. I turned to face her. “You’re coming with us. By tomorrow you should be human.”

She surprised me by bursting into tears again. “Blake,” she said.

Fuck Blake. “He can’t come,” I ground out. That bastard wasn’t down in the pit with Lucas trying to help us, so I didn’t care about him anymore.

She nodded. “I know … he’s dead. Allistair got to him.”

Oh fuck. I was totally kidding before when I said he’d better be dead. Dammit. That explained a lot. That’s probably what got her thrown in the pit. A story for another time. I wouldn’t ask her about it now in front of everyone.

I just held her as the elevator doors opened. Kyle was waiting on the other side, and the sight of him made my heart soar. My family was okay. We could get through this. We could get through anything.

 

An hour later we were all back at Lincoln’s house. Sanctum had bailed right after the fight, but we’d see them again pretty soon. They already had a lot of their members stationed in the hospitals and blood stations. The others were heading off to join them.

The clock had started now, and we were on a three to four day countdown.

At the moment, Ryder, Kyle, and I were being interrogated as Tessa slept off her vampire hangover in the guest room. Tattooed chick’s name was Sasha and she was officially my woman crush Wednesday. She had already stitched up her own thigh wound and was now eye screwing Kyle every second she got.

It was definitely clear she had these boys by the balls. In the last fifteen minutes she had gone around to collect blood samples from all the SWAT team. I guess it was protocol after a bloody fight with the vampires to get checked and make sure no one was infected. She had some type of handheld machine, and she came over to Lincoln, who was mid-sentence.

“…I have about thirty minutes before I have to report everything that went down tonight. We lost a man—”

Sasha grabbed his finger and poked it, letting a few drops fall onto the wand before sticking it into the meter. Then she walked away as Lincoln sucked his finger, and I became very aware that I was thirsty as hell; we hadn’t had blood in a while.

Ryder shifted his stance. “Our plan all along was to have the help of the human government. We have no idea what will happen in the few hours after the plan goes into effect. The cure is not instant, and vampires can do a lot of damage in a short time. But it’s imperative they don’t find out before the plan goes into action, otherwise we’re all screwed.”

Lincoln seemed to consider me, staring at my forehead like it would unlock something.

“You really think you can cure them all? All of them?” He really stressed the last few words.

I sighed. “Well, obviously not every single one. But the vampires live in controlled little societies. The Hives. And they live on one thing, blood, so I’m pretty damn sure we will get 95% of them.”

He seemed pleased with that answer. “A vaccine you say?”

I nodded. “My blood is the cure. Once Tessa wakes up you’ll see.”

“Boss…” Sasha entered the room with the machine, and for the first time she looked out of control. Her hands even looked to be shaking. “You’ve been infected.”

Lincoln swayed on his feet, and now that she had said it, I noticed he was looking ashen, fine beads of sweat on his face. Shit.

“You know protocol. Call it in,” he stated, his expression calming as he managed to hide his shock.

Sasha reached for her phone, but before she could dial I threw both of my hands in her direction, waving like a crazy person. “Calm down, everyone. Let’s talk this through.” Sasha stalled, holding her phone. “You call this in and they will drop him off at the local Hive. The Hive he just helped slaughter.”

Sasha shook her head. “No, it’s standard procedure in our specialized units. We don’t go down the bloodsucker route. We sign waivers and documents stating this much. He’ll be…” She didn’t finish, but I heard her loud and clear.

My mouth popped open. “They KILL you?”

Lincoln nodded. “It’s what I want. I don’t want to be a bloodsucker. No offense.”

Been there. Got the shirt. And vamp was so much worse than ash.

“Then let me help you. I’m the cure, remember?”

Lincoln seemed to consider it. “You still have yet to prove that.” He gestured to the room where Tessa was recovering.

I levelled a glare on him. “Option one: you think I’m a liar and call this in and get yourself killed. Option two: you trust me, inject some of my blood in your arm, and have the rest of your life as a human. What do you have to lose by trusting me?”

He still hesitated, and I wanted to roll my eyes. Men. Seriously. Idiots.

I crossed my arms and looked at Sasha. This woman had power; she needed to use it. She met my steely gaze and gave me a curt nod before getting in her boss’s face.

“Do it. If it doesn’t work by morning, I’ll kill you myself,” she said bluntly. They stared at each other for a painfully long amount of time. Finally, he nodded.

“Do it!” He outstretched his arm and I could see the beads of sweat on his brow were increasing. The fine veins in his eyes were already bloodshot.

The virus was brutal. No wonder more humans died than were turned. Sasha took my blood and transferred it into Lincoln’s arm. Here’s hoping the human part of him didn’t react to the different blood-type before the cure part got going on the virus. I’d never cured someone who wasn’t fully turned yet.

I guess we’d find out tomorrow. Not to mention that tomorrow was the day we’d meet up with the rest of the sexy six and kick our plan into action. The next few days would either be the final for us, or the vampires. I know who I had my money on. All five dollars of it.