Ryder was grim-faced as he stared out of his window, seeming to be lost in thought. Kyle pulled the Humvee in behind some trees, on the outer perimeter of the Hive fence. Blue lights and sirens were flickering around, casting everyone’s faces in a ghostly shadowing. Our Hive was in lockdown, standard operating procedure in these situations. Ryder leaned down and pulled a duffle bag out from under the seat. He rifled through for a moment, retrieving two pairs of hand suction cups. I recognized them from the training room.

“Sam, Markus, you scale the outside windows and hang outside of Charlie’s apartment.”

He tossed them the suction cups. Holy shit, like seriously? They were going to scale the thirty-three floors to my apartment with only a suction cup to keep them from falling? Before I could express both my worry and incredulity of this, the boys had already slipped from the Humvee and taken off into the dark of night. I glimpsed them scaling the high razor wire wall like it was no big deal. Then they were gone.

Ryder looked at Kyle. “You and Jared create a big-ass distraction. Drive the Humvee into the lobby for all I care, just make sure all eyes and cameras are on you.”

“No worries, mate.” The surfer dude Aussie looked completely relaxed, like he’d just agreed to ride some gnarly waves, not crash his car into a building.

Ryder then turned to Oliver and I. “Oliver, you’re with me and Charlie. We’ll head to her apartment, where I’m almost certain the Sanctum will be waiting for us, with Jayden as a hostage.”

Oliver clenched his teeth and nodded. My stomach dropped. No, no, no, no! Jayden better be okay, or mercenaries or not I was killing myself some ash tonight.

“I’m coming with you?” I hadn’t expected him to allow that so easily.

Ryder’s face was scary warrior right now. I got legit chills. “You, Charlie, are my shadow. Where I walk, you walk. If I tell you to get down, you get down. If I am not satisfied that you are listening to me, I will knock you out and stuff you in a closet. Do you understand?”

Damn. Ryder didn’t fuck around. “Glue myself to your ass – got it!”

He cracked a hint of a smile then and handed me a sleek black pistol. “I’m told you know how to use one of these.” He glared at Kyle, who tried to hide a smirk. No guns were used in the culling, but subduing the ash on that call last week hadn’t been the first time I’d fired a gun. After my attack I took defense classes, and right now the cool weight of it in my hand was oddly comforting.

Ryder took a deep breath, rolling his head side to side, “Oliver, if after we get in the apartment I say to get Jayden and Charlie out of there…”

Oliver nodded. “I get them out.”

Ryder seemed satisfied. “Let’s do this.” He picked up the CB radio. It was time to let them know we were coming in. Of course, they didn’t know that most of us wouldn’t be coming in the front door. “Core enforcer team inbound, ETA sixty seconds.”

Jason’s voice returned immediately: “Thank God. Three men breeched security, killed ten of ours, and now can’t be found.”

Shit. Three mercenaries crawling around my home? I would never sleep again.

“We’ll take care of it,” Ryder radioed back, and looked at all of us. “Happy hunting.”

Kyle grinned. “You know that CB isn’t secure from the Sanctum.”

Ryder grinned back. “I know.”

His boots slammed down on the asphalt, and Oliver and I followed. Thank God I decided to wear my flat boots tonight. Tires screeched as Kyle peeled out in the Humvee with Jared. They were our distraction. In seconds we were at the chain-link fence. Once we crossed it we’d be right outside the huge laundry room, and our best way in undetected.

I groaned as I looked at the tall fence with razor wire at the top. “Why don’t we go in through the front door?”

Ryder gave me a look from the corner of his eye. “Because of Manuel.” I raised an eyebrow, and lucky for him he continued his explanation. “The Sanctum’s sniper. Come on. Enough talk.”

He jumped up and began climbing the fence. Oliver and I followed. Shit, this was harder than it looked. My fingers were cutting into the wire and the holes weren’t big enough for my feet. The cold wasn’t helping at all, but at least there was no snow or rain to dampen the journey. The boys were smoother than me, but they had gloves on and I didn’t. Halfway up, I winced. My fingers looked like they were turning purple.

Ryder looked down at me. “What’s wrong?”

I shook my head, “Nothing.” I went to reach that next section of fence when my fingers slipped. Thankfully, I caught myself at the last second. The plunge to the ground would not have been pleasant.

Near the top, Ryder grabbed a chunk of the barbed fence and pulled himself over. He reached down to help me over the last part. His strength easily hoisted me up, and I was just swinging my leg over, my butt close to his face, when I slipped again, and we both almost fell off the side. I was about to recover my position when a snapping sound drew my attention. Ryder knocked me down again, the barbs cutting into my body, and I realized what it had been. A bullet. Which had scraped right between us, only missing because I’d slipped at that last second.

Ryder wasted no time then. His huge hand basically lifted me up and hoisted me off the fence. “Soft landing and roll, Charlie!” he shouted.

I flailed for the entire fifteen-foot drop but was proud that I didn’t scream. I braced for the jolt as my legs slammed on the ground and sharp pain shot up my shins. Apparently the soft landing part had completely passed me by.

Soft landing and roll? Was this man for reals?

I felt Ryder slam down behind me. Oliver was there too. The three of us took off running in a zigzag, more bullets raining around us, but we were moving too fast for them to track us. We made it into the side entrance, and using Ryder’s ID badge were inside in seconds. We were on target too, right near the laundry chutes. I scanned Ryder quickly. He seemed to be unhurt, then I turned to Oliver. Holy shit. The enforcer was holding his right shoulder, which was bleeding freely. I wasn’t sure if he’d hurt himself on the fence or if he’d been hit.

“Oliver,” I said, reaching out for him.

He brushed me off. “I’m fine. Jayden is the priority.”

I hesitated for a moment, before nodding. Neither of us would worry about injuries until Jayden was safe.

Ryder moved into my personal space then. “They aren’t here to kill you, Charlie. Manuel never misses. He was aiming to hurt you, not kill. They intend to capture you alive.”

And I’d thought the sniper had missed because of our awesome dodging skills. Wait? Take me alive? I would much rather they wanted to kill me.

“This changes the plan slightly. But no matter what happens in there, you stay close to me. The boys can handle the Sanctum. They made a mistake when they brought only three. I know one will be down in the lobby investigating Jared and Kyle. So that leaves two for us, plus the sniper.”

Ah, so even though the Hive thought there were three, Ryder knew there were at least four of them…

Ryder hunched over and crept silently down the hall to the stairwell. I followed his movements to a T. I had no doubt that if anyone could keep me alive in a dangerous situation, it would be Ryder. He drew his weapon and then quietly opened the stairwell door, he and Oliver taking a side each, heads craning around first before their bodies followed. They continued moving, looking left and right. Ryder put a finger to his lips to indicate complete quiet for the rest of the trip. We all padded like cats up the thirty-three floors to the apartment I shared with Jayden. It was a very long-ass trip, and I wanted to complain like a mofo, but kept quiet. No other ash or vampire crossed our path. The Hive was on lockdown, which was a good thing as I was jumpy and would probably shoot anybody who appeared.

We finally reached my floor. Ryder took point, and was just about to hit the handle when I felt a slight shift in the air. This was my only indication that something was above us, and then a black shadow pretty much fell from the sky. My finger sort of did a spasm, and sure enough I managed to shoot out the light above us. Great, not only could I have killed someone, but I also plunged everything into darkness.

This didn’t seem to bother Ryder. He managed in one movement to spin, block the masked man’s outstretched arm, and step in front of me in a protective stance. My ash sight was advanced enough to see a gun fly off and clatter against the wall, but I couldn’t tell who it had come from. It didn’t fire at least. I backed up to the wall and stood there silently, my own weapon still grasped in my sweaty hand. I couldn’t use it. It was too dark and I wouldn’t risk hitting one of my guys.

Oliver moved in to help Ryder, swift and silent even with his injury. He kicked out, cracking the guy in the back. The black-clad man – legit dressed like a ninja, face mask and all – had been busy keeping Ryder from breaking his limbs and hadn’t seen Oliver. The ninja dropped to the ground now, and on the way managed to kick out his leg and push Oliver down the flight of stairs.

Before I could dive down the steps to see if my friend was okay, the ninja popped up and pivoted himself to the left. He practically flew across the stairwell in my direction. I started to lift my gun, which had fallen uselessly to my side, but instinctively knew I was going to be too slow. This guy moved like a shadow, so fast he almost looked blurry. Just as his hands landed on my throat, and I was tightening my finger on the trigger – I didn’t even care if I only managed to shoot his nuts off, that would certainly slow him down – Ryder leapt out of the shadows, moving in the same blurry way, cracking the ninja straight in the temple. As the Sanctum guy stumbled, Ryder whipped up his weapon and pressed the barrel to the back of the ninja’s head.

It was like time stopped. I could see Ryder’s hesitation. He wasn’t a cold-hearted killer. And for all he knew this Sanctum ninja was very possibly an old friend of his.

“Call off this job and I will let you walk,” Ryder said, his voice clipped.

I could see the ninja breathing deeply. “She’s worth more than any job we’ve had, and you were always too weak to be one of us.” The ninja folded himself over, doing a front flip, his feet kicking Ryder in the stomach, knocking him back. The ninja didn’t take time to fight again. He jumped up high and spun over the side of the railing, down the stairs and out of sight.

I didn’t hesitate then to scramble down the steps to Oliver. My breath came a little easier when I saw the Latino enforcer gaining consciousness. He groaned. I almost tripped over the final few stairs – he’d fallen down a set of ten – and skidded to his side.

His eye fluttered a few times before focusing on me. “I’m fine. Get Jayden!” He was all business, and I knew he would never forgive me if I didn’t leave him in this stairwell right now. Of course, if anything happened to Oliver, Jayden probably wouldn’t forgive me either.

I leaned down and kissed him on the cheek. “Stay hidden. Do not get yourself killed. We will rescue Jayden and come back for you.”

He propped himself up. “I’m going to try and make it to the other guys. They’ll drop me at the medical ward. I just need some blood and I’ll be fine.”

He didn’t look fine. His arm was bleeding pretty badly again, and bones were definitely broken in his hand. I wondered why he wasn’t going to the feeding area for blood. Probably it was in lockdown too.

I felt heat at my back. Ryder was standing protectively over both of us. “Get some extra blood. We will probably need it. Meet us back at the Humvee.”

Oliver gave his leader a nod, and something passed between them. The sexy six were family, and none of this situation was easy on any of them. Especially the splitting up part.

Ryder reached down then, and before I could say anything he stashed a gun into the side of my boot. I recognized it as the one from the ninja. I didn’t question him – he would have a reason and I would be okay with that reason.

He started to move then, his gun on display. I picked up my original weapon from where it had dropped. I needed to start training again. Guns started to feel scary and odd when you didn’t have regular contact with them.

No one jumped us this time. The door silently opened, and my eyes remained glued on the broad shoulders in front of me. I didn’t question, I just followed him down the hall. My apartment door was unlocked, but Ryder kicked it open hard, like it was no more than a piece of paper, and it banged against the wall.

I couldn’t see anything at first. Ryder went in front, gun drawn and his scary face in play. He blocked my sight for about eight seconds, but the moment I could see around him my blood did this strange thing where it boiled and froze all at the same time. Jayden was tied to a chair, an unmasked mercenary standing behind him. He was not particularly tall or broad, and had no real defining features. He was sort of bland in a mousy brown-haired way. But his eyes, they were scary – ash black, literally no silver – and they looked flat … dead. This was not a good dude.

As I focused in on my best friend, I could see that Jayden looked a little drowsy, like they’d either hit him hard enough to stun or tranqued him. Boring dude had a gun trained on the back of Jayden’s head, his hand steady, not even the slightest shake, like he could stand there for hours in the same position. The window behind him was open and I wondered if Sam and Markus were there waiting. Why would the Sanctum have that window open? Was that how he’d gotten inside?

“Ryder…” His voice was as bland as his appearance. It was so odd, but I felt like I could forget everything about this guy the moment he was gone. Which was probably the appeal. Except his dead eyes, they were seared into my brain.

He continued: “So nice of you to bring the target.”

Ryder was about two feet inside the apartment. I was right up in his business, because I knew he would freak if I didn’t attach myself to him. Of course that didn’t stop me from looking up and around more than once. I was pretty sure there were no other Sanctum members in here, but you could never be too sure.

“Laz, I was kind of hoping I wouldn’t see your ugly face again.” Ryder sounded calm, but I could feel his tension.

Laz’s expression finally morphed into something resembling an expression, sort of a sneer or a shrug. Hard to tell. “You know the drill, you’ve done this plenty of times before. Drop your weapons on the floor, and if you haven’t handed over the target within ten seconds, I shoot the friend.”

My stomach dropped as I saw fear flash in Jayden’s eyes. Ryder was smooth as he dropped his weapon, then took mine from me and tossed it on the ground also. The heavy weight was still in my boot, and I was relieved to think we still had that backup.

“Kick them toward me,” the Sanctum mercenary said.

“I’ll pay you double to call off the job,” Ryder said as he slid both guns across the tiles. They bumped near Jayden’s bound feet.

Laz looked a little surprised. “It’s not like golden-child Ryder to give a shit about a girl. Looks like this one is special to you in more ways than one. I might enjoy her before I hand her over.”

Not happening, asshole.

Then Laz focused fully on Ryder. “We both know you can’t afford it. This target is worth almost my entire year, and I will be bringing her in. The people who want her, they are willing to pay anything. She’s more important than you think.”

There I went again, being the all-important freakin’ unicorn. I would be okay with just being a regular horse right now. Unicorn was overrated.

Ryder grinned then, and it was sort of scary and sexy at the same time. “I know her exact worth. And they will never get their hands on her.”

Laz pressed the gun harder against Jayden. My friend’s head snapped forward from the impact. “Say goodbye to your friend,” he said.

“No,” I screamed, and right then I didn’t care about Ryder’s previous orders, I was handing myself over. If Jayden died because of me, I might as well be dead. I would never be able to live with myself. I shoved Ryder, who was not ready for it and stumbled. This gave me an opening, but before I could step out, Sam flew through the window. He held a gun in each hand and was shooting before he even landed. I felt a hot weight on my leg, and glanced down to find Ryder’s hand capturing my ankle, yanking me down beside him.

“Jayden!” I screamed again as bullets flew. My best friend had better not get hurt or heads would fucking roll!

I heard grunting, and I was able to flip over and see that Jayden’s chair had been knocked forward. Thank God. He seemed fine and was squirming to break free. The bullets stopped as Laz and Sam crashed into each other and started fighting. Laz seemed to favor grappling. He immediately brought the large enforcer down, but Sam recovered instantly. He was quick, and managed to flip Laz over and crack him twice with his elbow.

I was distracted as Ryder silently rose and crossed the room, moving in to help his teammate. Just before he reached them, though, another dark shadow flew in through the window. I expected it to be Markus, but the fully black-clad figure didn’t look like the Scottish enforcer. It was one of the Sanctum. He landed on Ryder, the two of them trading blows. I started to drag myself across to Jayden. If I freed him, we could escape together. I’d come back for Ryder as soon as my friend was safe.

I gasped as Laz gained the upper hand on Sam. He pulled a knife from within his black fatigues and stabbed him a few times in the gut. Ryder’s eyes practically glowed then, and with a snarl he locked his Sanctum under his arm and with the slightest twist snapped his neck. But he didn’t stop there, continuing to twist until the head was completely removed from the body. Blood spurted everywhere, slowing to a drizzle in seconds. Ash bled a lot less than humans. But seriously, what? What sort of strength would anyone have to possess to be able to literally tear a head from a person? It was inconceivable.

Ryder launched himself at Laz, knocking him off Sam. Laz pushed Ryder and took off then, heading toward the open window, and then he … jumped. I stumbled up and ran to the open window with Ryder hot on my heels. We got there in time to see Laz falling rapidly, right before he pulled a cord and a wingsuit flipped out from his black outfit, like a base jumper.

I gave a little shriek as Markus popped his head up from outside the window, hanging by the suction cups. He grinned. “Sorry, was a little tied up with the sniper. He jumped with his boss.” I noticed then the second wingsuit zooming out across the Hive grounds. “But I can head after them if you want.” His eyes flicked to Ryder.

Ryder shook his head. “No, you’ll never catch them. They will be gone before you even hit the ground.

“Shit, so they all just get away?” I asked, frustrated. “Well, except for dead guy…” Who I guessed was the ninja-clad dude from the stairwell. Since he had thrown Oliver down the stairs, I couldn’t dredge up much sadness for him.

Ryder’s hands were clenched on the window sill, but he finally turned to face me. “They’ll be back. This was just a test run. They hoped for an easy mark with me out of commission. Next time they’ll come in force.”

Great, awesome news to end this shit day.

“Not to interrupt your little powwow here, but can I get some goddamn help? Where’s my man?” Jayden had loosened his gag, and was looking pissed from his position on the floor.

Whoops, I’d never gotten around to freeing him.

I scrambled to untie his bindings, and in that same moment Oliver and Kyle appeared in the doorway. Oliver was holding about eight bottles of blood and was looking a lot better.

“I thought I said meet at the vehicle.” Ryder didn’t sound that pissed.

Oliver ignored him; his sole focus was on Jayden. My fingers fumbled a few times with the thick ropes, and before I could loosen them Oliver stepped in and softly moved me so he could take over. His eyes were dancing with silver; he looked murderous, but his hands were gentle as he cut away the binds.

“Did he hurt you?” Oliver ground out when Jayden was finally free. The enforcer reached down and hauled his man to his feet.

Jayden’s muscular arms trembled as he launched himself at Oliver. “Yes, he had god awful taste in music and his breath reeked. It was awful.”

This was why we were best friends – we both had terrible comedic timing.

Still, it worked to break the tension. Even Oliver’s expression lightened. Ahhh Jayden, the world would truly be a dark place without you. I couldn’t stop myself then from stepping into them, joining Oliver and Jayden for a group hug. Strong arms surrounded me, and I was so relieved to know that no one had been hurt badly today. My family was safe for now. We had been lucky. But I hadn’t forgotten what Ryder said. They’d be back, and soon. Would we be so lucky the next time?

Ryder stood apart from us, his jaw rigid enough that he was looking quite statue-like. He was making it very clear that he was in no mood to celebrate. His worries would not ease tonight. In the depths of his silver eyes swirled a windstorm of emotions. The worst, though, was the coldness there. This situation had done something to him … to us. I wasn’t sure what, but it didn’t feel good. I felt him going distant again, putting up the walls.

Great. Looked like we were back to the old days, treating me like no more than number forty-six in the ash culling members.