Annihilate (Hive Trilogy #3)(42)

“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.