Annihilate (Hive Trilogy Book 3) (17 page)

“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. D
roplets 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.”