Annihilate (Hive Trilogy Book 3) (12 page)

“We’ll be in touch,” he said, tapping the phone in my hand.

I just nodded, mentally urging them to GTFO. I needed to see Ryder and everyone. Make sure they were all okay. As soon as they were gone, leaving behind no trace that they’d even been there, I left the room. In the hall I saw that I was currently on the sixth floor, room 614. I chuckled. These smooth-ass fuckers had even got the room right above Ryder and the boys. Probably spying through the vents or some shit.

I started jogging down the hallway, sluggish and thirsty as hell, trying to keep my eyes down in case I encountered a human. Finding the exit door I plowed through it and pretty much threw myself down the stairs, emerging onto the fifth floor. It took me no time to find room 514.

I banged on the door like a cop about to do a raid. “It’s me!” I shouted, and one second I was banging and the next Ryder was filling the doorway, assaulting me with all of his hotness.

I drank in the sight of him, his rugged features, sexy tousled hair and blazing silver eyes. For a few moments today I’d been sure I’d never see him again, and standing there, both of our gazes locked,
I drank in every inch of him. My heart swelled, and it almost felt like it wasn’t large enough to contain all of the emotions exploding through me.

Ryder reached out a hand then; his eyes were wide. He looked speechless. His thumb brushed down my cheek and his lashes fluttered, as if he couldn’t believe I was standing right in front of him. I almost couldn’t believe it. Without a sound his arm lowered and his hand cupped around my shoulder as he pulled me into his body. His palms began running over my back like he was inspecting my body, making sure I was all in one piece.

I tried to reassure him: “I’m fine. Sanctum didn’t hurt me. They want a truce,” I said.

He still hadn’t said anything and something told me he was too pissed to speak. He just pulled me tighter into him and squeezed me within an inch of my life, burying his face into the side of my neck. I was pretty sure he was smelling my hair.

Finally, after we stood like that for many moments, he said, “I’ll kill them all.”

I heard murmurs from behind him, and knew the other boys were back there and in full agreement.

I sighed and he released me. “You can’t. We need them.”

Another voice broke through the tension between us: “What happened? Tell us everything.” It was Sam. The enforcer seemed to be thinking a little more clearly, and with one last brush of my hand along Ryder’s arm, I stepped into the room. My eyes alighted on five faces. Each and every one of my family was unharmed.

“They blew a hole in the side of the house and kidnapped me. Tranq-darted me with what I can only assume was that AT20 stuff you guys were talking about.”

Ryder was pacing now, fists clenched.

“And then I woke up—”

“Where? Where are they?” Ryder was seeing red, his anger too large to be contained. I had to find a way to get through to him.

Before I could say anything else I finally noticed the room beyond the enforcers. The far wall, which must have been where the television and chairs were originally situated, was now completely stripped and had been turned into a board of Charlie. Surveillance shots of my face were seriously everywhere, along with lots of maps, papers, and other paraphernalia. There were these long strings connecting things across the place, and large red dots which were clearly checkpoints.

Seriously, I could have only been gone a few hours and already they had the mother of all police boards going on there. I took a few steps closer.

Markus’ brogue washed over me: “Sam was hacking into all the security footage around the streets where we were. We had narrowed it down to this area, which is why we checked into this hotel. We were regrouping before tracking them down.”

I couldn’t stop myself from crossing to the burly enforcer and throwing my arms around him. My voice started in a hurry, words spilling over each other: “I’m so glad you’re all okay. I was so worried. You guys were definitely tracking them in the right direction – they had me one floor above you.” I barely stopped to breathe, it was so important to get it all out.

“They knew I was the cure. Probably before half the vampire world did. They sent that guy out to Alaska to draw us out, to discuss a truce. He was supposed to get us out in the open so we didn’t go nuts and attack him before he could talk to us. Of course that didn’t exactly work out when we totally freaked about the barn and hunted him down.” Releasing Markus, I turned and sank tiredly onto the couch. It had been a long day. “Then they saw our message on the network. They want to help take down the vamps.” I pulled the cell phone from my pocket and gently laid it on the small table off to my right. “This is the phone we’ll use to communicate with them.”

Markus groaned. “That Sanctum spy in Alaska, he kept saying ‘ally’ to me.” I did remember the spy murmuring something. “So that’s what he was talking about. I thought he was faking, that it was a trap.”

Ryder seemed to relax a little. “I did wonder why they left Markus alive. That wasn’t their normal MO, and the scout could have easily taken him out. Still, why would we truce with the devil? Sanctum should never be trusted.”

Okay, it was clear Ryder didn’t think too highly of them. And since he was the one who knew them the best, I felt we needed to heed his warnings.

Kyle crossed the room to crash in next to me, his long arm slung around me. “This isn’t the worst thing that could have happened,” he said. “We’re wanted criminals within the Hives. Sanctum have stealth and the numbers to get around easily. They also have many more connections than we do. But why are they helping us?”

Ryder was the one to answer: “They’re elitists. They have always seen the humans as the bottom of the food chain and the ash on top.”

I nodded. “That’s pretty much what Laz said. He believes ash are superior even to vampires, and he hates the way they control us.” Ryder locked eyes with mine, and even from across the room the air practically sizzled between us. He was still furious about what happened, and only time was going to allow him to release the fury. “Sanctum has a man in Cellway. They’re going to get us in as workers and delivery drivers. So that part of the plan should go smoothly. Laz also assured me that his people can infiltrate the hospitals. They have the skills and numbers, and that was always the biggest risk in our plan, the part where failure was a true worry. Someone noticing the cure in the bottles and informing someone.”

Jared was uncharacteristically somber, standing near the board which detailed the last few hours of my life. “Can we trust something like this to mercenaries who can be bought off?”

I shook my head. “We trust no one, but it’s the best plan we have right now. And that’s also why I want us to be the ones to get the cure into the bottles and transport them to the blood banks. We can at least keep an eye on some aspects of the plan. Hopefully Sanctum can just be used to make it that much easier.”

“What’s your gut saying, Charlie?” This was from Oliver, the more intuitive and gentle of the enforcers. “You spent time with them. Heard them speak of a truce directly. Do you believe they are double-crossing us?”

I worried at my lip for a moment, wondering if my next words might be the downfall of us all. “I believe they’re legit. We have a common goal, and they have a multitude of very large reasons to want the same thing as us. Of course we’ll also be wiping out their largest predator from the food chain, so I think they’re going to be a problem for us in the future, but right now I think they’re honestly going to help us.”

Ryder finally crossed to me and I could tell he’d held out as long as he could. I was hauled up off the couch, Kyle’s arm falling as I found myself in Ryder’s lap. His warmth enveloped me, and on instinct I relaxed into him, our bodies fusing together in something that was both sexual and comforting.

His chest lifted beneath me as his low voice filled the room. “Charlie has good instincts on this, so for now we trust her. It’s time for us to get back to Alaska, pick up some vampires for testing, and get this cure ready to roll. This is the last time I want to worry about any one of you. It’s time to end it.”

Here’s hoping Becca was ready for us to deliver her an early Christmas present. Trussed up vampire was the perfect gift under the tree, right?

“Uh, guys, I really don’t need this many test subjects.”

Becca stood out the front of her hidey-hole cabin. She looked thin and tired; her eyes had dark circles that would have been driving my BAFF insane. There was two things Jayden detested, and that was unkempt eyebrows and uneven skin tone. Poor Becca had probably lost her mind listening to him fuss over her for the past few days.

Sam’s eyes were locked on the ragged ashpire as he untethered the five vampires he had strapped to the roof of his snowmobile. As I jumped out of the buggy I’d shared with Ryder, I stretched my legs and back. We’d been traveling for at least a billion hours. Flights out of Cali, then a private plane, then vampire hunting – which I was annoyingly excluded from – and then finally the huge ass trip to this tiny speck of civilization.

Sam had not been kidding when he said his bugout place was isolated. We’d driven for a long time in our snowmobiles. Would have been quite the sight with five vampires strapped to the roof, but luckily there was nobody out here to see us.

“Better to have too many than too little,” Ryder said to her.

It was nearing midnight and the sauce that Jared and Sam had concocted to make the vamps groggy would be wearing off soon. Turns out AT20 could be home brewed. It involved blood wine, sinus decongestant, and some other weird shit I didn’t recognize. My hand went to my neck where the Sanctum had darted me and I shivered, thinking of that drugged feeling.

After helping the boys load the creepy vamps into the basement of the charming 1920s hunting cabin, I collapsed onto the couch.

“I could sleep for a week,” I moaned to Jayden.

All of the boys were downstairs securing the vamps with bolts and chains. Becca was in her makeshift lab making tiny final corrections to her formula.

Jayden was grinning and giving me this crazy look.

I groaned. “What? I’m too tired for your games.”

Jayden leaned forward, positively bubbling with excitement. “Becca and Sam hooked up one dark snowy night two years ago.”

I sat up quickly, almost cracking him in the face. “Shut up!” I whisper screamed. “You got that out of her?”

Jayden nodded. “Best sex of her life. Only sex really, and then she wakes up and realizes it was all a mistake.”

My mouth dropped open. I was totally in love with Ryder, but damn, I didn’t think sleeping with Sam would be a mistake. Boy had it going on.

“What? She’s loony.”

Jayden nodded, picking at his cuticles. “She realized he was her very best friend in the whole world and didn’t want to ruin that.”

“Ughhh.” Those two were the worst. One of them afraid of ruining the friendship and the other one afraid to have any liabilities to be used against him.

Whatever. Totally not my business. I could stay out of it … maybe. Okay, probably not.

Becca came out of her lab then and I threw myself backward on the couch.

“Hey, what are you guys—”

“Nothing!” I blurted, and Jayden snort laughed. Becca looked confused. Shit, I was such a bad liar.

She let out a few uncomfortable chuckles. “Okay, well, if you’re doing nothing, do you want to help me prepare the samples? I need an assistant or two.”

I jumped up. “Yep. Sure.”

I really wished Jayden hadn’t told me about the hot sex. Now I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Taking a few deep breaths, I made a concerted effort to put it to the back of my mind.

“So…” Becca said as we entered her makeshift lab. “I have three candidates for the cure that I’m ninety percent sure will work, and two that are fifty-fifty.”

I could see a bunch of beakers and empty syringes lying around. “Okay, tell us what we should do.”

She nodded, and over the next hour Jayden and I helped her label the cures one-five and put them into the syringes. Only at the last minute did she add some type of stabilizing compound I didn’t understand.

After we were done she stared at the five syringes and chewed a fingernail. The liquid inside was clear and it amazed me that with one bag of my blood she was able to extract the cure and turn it into this vaccine of sorts.

“Okay,” she said.

“Okay,” Jayden and I echoed.

I realized then how much pressure we had put on her. Here we were making this entire plan for curing the vampires and setting up the network and spreading the word and she hadn’t even figured out the cure yet.

She grabbed the labeled syringes and slipped them into her pocket, and as we turned to leave she picked up a tiny handheld camcorder with tripod and handed it to Jayden.

Crossing through the hallway, we made our way down a dim and narrow set of stairs and into the dark, creepy, freezing basement. The walls were cement and the fluorescent lighting cast eerie shadows on the tied-up vampires before us.

The vampires were chained to various things. Two were on the steel drain pipe, two on the water heater, and the other one chained to a large stabilizing column.

“They’re all yours, Becks,” Sam told her, and my heart pinched at the endearing tone in his voice. She pulled out the syringes and motioned to Jayden to turn on the camera. He set it up and began filming her.

“I’m Dr. Rebecca Leander and this is trial one of the vampire cure,” she told the camera.

Whoa, it didn’t hit me until now how monumental it was that we were curing an entire race.

Becca walked to the first vampire, a scraggly male who was moaning softly. “Subject one will receive cure number one.”

She pulled out the syringe with a one on it and inserted it into the man’s vein at the elbow. His eyes flew open and his mouth widened as he bared his fangs at her. Before anyone could act, Sam was there blindingly fast, ripping Becca out of harm’s way.