Annihilate (Hive Trilogy Book 3) (7 page)

Taking off my goggles, I slipped across the torn up area to reach Markus. As I crashed to my knees beside him, he started groaning. I ripped off my gloves, trying my best to feel around for his injuries. The enforcer surprised me by grabbing at his groin and rolling off on his side, panting.

“Little prick kicked me in the goodies!” he growled. “Then when I doubled over, he knocked me out cold.” The Scottish accent was strong in his voice. I could barely make out his angry words.

Ryder almost looked like he was holding back a smile. “Sanctum have no rules.”

Markus was sitting up now, leaning on my outstretched arm. “It’s a code, a universal code between all males. You DO NOT go for the junk.”

Ryder’s smile came through this time, before disappearing again as he picked up his walkie-talkie, radioing Sam, Jared, and Kyle.

“We’ve got the enemy down and Markus is okay. Rendezvous at base camp.” His cold words cut through the tension now that the immediate danger was over, and I had to admit this military talk was sexy AF.

When we all got back to the house Jayden was waiting, a blubbering nervous wreck. He inspected each of us, including Becca, who arrived back from the hospital at the same time as us, and determined we were all okay.

“Are Lupita and her father okay?” I asked the blond ashpire, hoping there had been no other problems.

She nodded, reaching out and squeezing my hand, which was a lot of emotion for the normally reserved chick. “Thank you, thank you so much. They’re my friends, have been for many years. I saved their oldest daughter when she got sick and they have repaid me a million times over in love, friendship, and cake. If they had lost him, well, it would have been devastating for all of them. He’s the backbone of the family.”

Shit, there must be some debris in my eyes or something, because they were suddenly watering like crazy. Or I was hormonal. Yes, that was it. Stupid ashpire hormones had me leaking and stuff.

I smiled. “I’m really glad I was here to help.”

Ryder’s voice broke over all of us. “Meeting time. Let’s gather in the main room. Hands up for first scout and patrol duty.”

Ten minutes later I was settled into the couch and warm again. Finally. Felt like you could literally freeze your butt off up here in seconds. All of us, except for Markus and Jared, who were stationed on the roof watching our backs, were gathered around in the main room again, and the atmosphere was grim.

Ryder, who was still decked out in enforcer gear, had the floor. “We need to run. We can’t risk the Sanctum coming back to check on their missing guy, or worse, alerting the vampires to where we are.”

“I … what? I can’t leave. I need my lab to create the cure…” Becca’s voice was surprisingly strong for someone who’d just had her world turned upside down. She was a little tigress about things she loved. I liked it.

“How can you be sure there was only one scout?” Sam muttered through gritted teeth. The silent enforcer’s mind was calculating our next move. I knew it.

Ryder didn’t seem surprised by the question, even though his jaw clenched harder, and the corner of his lips thinned out. “Because I used to be one of them, remember? I’ve done scouting missions. When you aren’t sure where a target is, you spread out, five or six guys at different locations where you suspect they may be. Scout and report back. They would have monitored all of us over the time they’ve been watching Charlie, gathering intel. They know you take these trips away, so it was logical to check out Alaska. My guess is you’re usually very circumspect about coming to this particular location though, so he didn’t know exactly where you went. That’s what the fire was all about, a way to draw us out of wherever we were hiding so he could confirm a sighting. Sanctum wants evidence. They wouldn’t send all their people here on a hunch. Probably didn’t expect you’d immediately pick up on the scent of the accelerant used in the fire.”

Jayden frowned, holding up his hand like he was in kindergarten.

“Jayden,” Ryder called on him.

“Okay, I get this whole life or death issue is serious, but I refuse to go on the run until my internet shopping shipments come tomorrow.” He crossed his arms defiantly, and despite the heavy mood, we all smiled.

Sam nodded. “I think two or three nights here is safe, but then we need to get on the move.”

Becca’s mouth was hanging open. “Sam…”

Sam’s expression softened as he looked at her. “I’m sorry I brought this to your door. I didn’t think they were watching us so closely, or that anyone beside these guys would notice all the years I came out here, but I guess someone did, and they opened their big mouths.”

No wonder Sam was always so silent. It was pretty much the only way to ensure a secret remained that way.

Becca shook her head. “I don’t care about that, but I want to help Charlie wipe all of the vampires out, and for that I need my lab.”

Sam nodded as if he expected this. “Start packing up what you need. I have a safe house about fifteen clicks from here. Nobody knows about it. It’s from my human days.”

Damn, homeboy always had a plan B.

My eyelids were dropping. I was exhausted.

“Get some sleep. We’ll plan our next move in more detail in the morning,” Ryder called out, and we all nodded.

I somehow shuffled down the hall, and even though I smelled of barn, smoke, and sweat, and probably a little fear, I collapsed into bed in my t-shirt and granny undies with Ryder right next to me. Then it was lights out. Goodbye, fucked-up day.

The next morning I awoke and saw that I was all alone. As I shifted over, the scent coming from my clothes just about knocked me out. Ugh, I smelled like shit; it was crazy how the smell of a fire could stick to your hair, your clothes, your skin.

Stumbling into the bathroom, I showered and relished in the feeling of the warm water on my skin and the orange shampoo that Becca had in here. The citrus smell was invigorating; those shampoo commercials were really onto something.

After changing into my one spare pair of granny panties, a pair of Ryder’s sweats, and a clean tank-top, I began to make my way down the hall when Jayden’s shriek tore through the house. Shit! I ran through the connecting containers, cursing myself for not grabbing my gun. Stupid Charlie! We just got attacked last night! I shouldn’t go a second without a weapon from now on.

Another scream. Fuck! Blasting through the kitchen, I burst into the common room where Jayden was shrieking … and hand flapping and jumping up and down in excitement at what looked like at least a hundred packages stacked before him.

“You bitch! You scared the shit out of me,” I scolded him, and he turned with legit tears in his eyes.

Sam and Ryder, who’d also dashed in from somewhere, were glaring at my bestie.

“Jayden, FOUR delivery trucks! FOUR! You didn’t need to order this much stuff, we’re supposed to be keeping a low profile,” Ryder said with a shake of his head.

Jayden just put one hand on his hip. “You gave a gay man with incredible fashion sense a credit card and told him to do unlimited shopping.”

Oliver, who had wandered in late to the party, clearly the only one who had known what his man was shrieking about, shrugged. “It’s true, you kind of asked for it.”

Sam sighed. “Some of this shit better be useful.”

Now Jayden had his game face on. The “I will cut you” face. He rummaged through the packages and threw five huge boxes across the room to land at our feet. They were all identical, about four feet high and two feet wide. Sam raised an eyebrow and produced a pocket knife, cutting open his box. His brows rose as he pulled out a heavy duty, army spec camping backpack, the kind with a metal cage and chest straps and even a sleeping bag tied to the bottom.

“I figured at some point we would need to run. Got us all hooked up,” Jayden said, and was glaring at Sam, awaiting his reply.

“Thisisgood,” Sam mumbled.

Jayden put a hand to his ear. “What’s that, Sammy? I didn’t hear you?”

Sam actually smiled then. “This is good. Thank you.”

My BAFF looked at all of us and we took turns thanking him. Smug bastard. I loved that guy.

What can I say, after all the shitty events of the past few days, the next two hours were like Christmas. Jayden took turns handing all of us our presents. I got some completely inappropriate lingerie, including some star nipple pasties. But I also got some cute skinny jeans, regular lacy thongs, tight t-shirts – one of which said “coffee before talkie” – and a bunch of other cool camping shit, not to mention an absolute top of the line set of throwing knives.

“Jayden, you’re the shit!” I exclaimed.

My smile broadened as I noticed Markus sitting in the corner coloring in his adult-man coloring book. It had different cars and guns in it. I hadn’t even known the Scottish enforcer liked art, drawing and stuff, but Jayden did. There was a true friend there under all the flamboyance. Jayden was one of a kind.

I was distracted by Ryder. He got some hot denim jeans and cargo pants, leather combat boots and a sexy-AF black leather jacket. We all got a set of black army fatigues with tons of small pockets for storing cool shit.

Watching Becca open her packages was hilarious. I’d never seen someone turn so red. When she opened the push-up bra, she literally inspected it like a scientist would, squeezing all the padding.

“There must be an inch of padding. That’s like … false advertisement.” She gawked and we all laughed.

Becca, Jayden, and I all got new makeup kits, and of course Becca
got false eyelashes and we both got green contacts. Jayden thought of everything.

“You have a future in personal shopping. I’m just throwing that out there,” I told my BAFF.

“I know, right!” He winked, slipping on his Gucci loafers.

We had swapped out those who were on patrol duty a few times so that everyone got to enjoy their gifts, but all too soon it was time to put our shit away and get down to business. And not the fun, sexy kind. Nope, this business was going to be dangerous, scary, and there was a high possibility I was never going to get a chance to use my sexy new lingerie.

Ryder gathered all of us together, even calling the boys in from patrol. Everyone had to be here to chime in on the plan. We were going to iron it out, make sure it was concrete, and then put it into motion.

“Sam is going to take Becca, all her necessary lab equipment, and everything else needed for a month or more of lockdown, across to his secret house. Becca believes that in using Charlie’s blood she can create a synthetic cure or vaccine for the vampire virus, and that we’ll be able to use it in a mass amount to take down all the Hives.”

We were all hanging on Ryder’s words. I don’t think anyone was even breathing so as not to miss anything. Because this was it. Finally we were going to be taking action.

He continued: “I was up early this morning, and managed to get a secure, coded call through to Lucas.”

Involuntarily I lurched toward him then, my hands lifting of their own accord. Ryder noticed, and answered before I could reach out and grasp onto his shirt. “Tessa’s fine, and so is Blake.” I relaxed back again, realizing how truly afraid I’d been for her. “From what I could infer, they’re playing their part, acting as if we have all betrayed the Hive, and that they hate ash. Lucas said there’s not much he can do right now. They put him in the pit for a few days and now have him under strict surveillance. It’s only his money and power stopping them from killing him. He did have some ideas of how we could get the cure into each of the Hives at the same time.”

I was excited to hear Lucas’ ideas.

“Every three months, all of the Hives receive a shipment from the blood banks, and at the same time there’s a turnover of human feeders. The government requires all volunteer feeders be changed quarterly to keep them healthy. The new feeders all have to report to a few select hospitals across America. There they have their blood checked, catalogued, and then they are shipped out to Hives across the country.”

Damn, I knew so little about this world. Why did I not pay attention in these classes? I hated when I wasn’t as informed as I needed to be. “So the humans who we and the vamps feed from could be from anywhere?” I asked. “How is it that Tessa managed to get into Portland Hive? She never said anything about her blood being tested.”

Jayden answered me, and I realized that we actually had a very good source of information sitting right here in this room, the very ash who’d been front line in the feeding center. He did the paperwork, he would know all about this stuff. “Tessa had all the paperwork. It was correctly filed and everything. I think maybe someone in the Quorum, Fugly perhaps, forged it and rushed her through so she was always there to be used as a weapon against you. Right from the start it was all in play, even before they knew what you were.”

Fuck! Made sense, but still…

Oliver posed the next important question. “How many of these hospitals are there across the world? Because this sort of plan needs to go down on the same day. Otherwise the Hives will lock down and we’ll never get to the vamps again. Our timing must be perfect.”

Jayden answered: “Two in America: Texas and California. They transport blood and humans out to North and South America. There are three in the UK and Europe: London, Belgium, and Sweden. And finally there is one in Indonesia, which only deals in bottled blood, not humans. It’s massive though, shipping out to Australia, Japan, and China. These are the only other countries with Hives, and each only has one. Their human governments are not as lenient as the American one, and vamps were mostly killed off there, allowing only a small percent of the vampire population to live.”

Jared nodded. “Yep, my old Hive in Brisbane does not allow any more cullings or new vampires. All ash and newly changed vamps are killed upon turning, unless you can convince another Hive to take you. The vampires stay holed up in their massive compound, and only use bottled blood. So we don’t have to worry about humans going there for feedings.”

“So these shipments happen every three months,” I said. “Do we know when the next date is?”