Annihilate (Hive Trilogy #3)(52)

Okay. Wow. He got a lot more than me from that conversation. But it was all good news. Settling in to the couch, preparing for a long drive home, I sent out as many positive thoughts as I could. This had to work.



The next two days went by agonizingly slow. Everything was in place. The UV resistant bottles were on their way to the Hives; human donors had arrived already at most places. Everything was perfect. A little too perfect.

“So there has been no chatter on the network?” I asked Sam for the hundredth time. “Nothing to indicate that the vampires know about our plan?”

He glared, before running a hand through his dark hair. It was getting long; he needed a cut. “No, there’s still nothing. Normal chatter. Nothing in code. So far we’re good.”

The seven of us were camped out in another safe house. Not in Portland. There were still mass searches going on for me there, but in the nearby Salem area, about an hour’s drive away. We’d been spending our time playing cards and obsessively checking the online updates.

“Blood just hit Canada,” Markus called, leaning back and stretching out his long body. He’d been in that chair all day. “And Florida has theirs now.”

Sanctum were updating us via the untraceable cells. So far eighty percent of shipments had arrived today.

Sam sat a little straighter in his chair then, his fingers flying across the keyboard.

“What’s happening?” I leaned forward, unable to stop myself from asking.

“Vampire celebrations underway in Chicago. Ash enforcers there said the blood and donors are out in force, and that vampires are indulging themselves.”

I exchanged a smile with Kyle. Awesome, this was exactly what we hoped would happen. New blood days were almost always a celebration. The blood was the freshest, and they had new donors to ravage. The old blood was distributed to ash and the freshest was for vampires.

Fuckers.

Becca had assured me that the cure didn’t hurt ash, because they were born and not made. She’d tested it on donated blood from the boys, which meant all the ash in the compounds were going to be okay. They just had to wait it out.

“Blood hit Mexico twenty minutes ago,” Jared said. “Their celebrations are underway too.”

I had to get to my feet and start pacing. This was too much for me to handle. It was happening. Shit. This was actually happening. What would go down when the first vampire began to turn human? Would they figure it out right away or think he was a fluke? Oh God. I was going to be sick with nerves.

A knock at the door had all of us on high alert. Our location was completely secret. Sam had set the safe house up, and so far we’d done all our communicating via secure cell phones. Our internet signal was pinged and directed all around the world so that no one could trace it. Well, no one below Sam’s level of hacking.

So who the hell was knocking on the door? Ryder didn’t hesitate. Weapon locked and loaded, expression hard, he strode to the entrance. There was a peephole, which he used for a few seconds, before raising his brows to me and opening the door.

A Viking stepped through, and I was already running. My dad, mom, Becca, and Jayden were standing in the doorway. I crashed into the open arms of my father. We had never hugged, not like this. He might have only been my sire on paper, but in my heart he was my real dad. I squeezed him even tighter, thankful to him for keeping my mom safe this whole time. His scent was not familiar to me, but I felt comforted by the citrus and fresh autumn aroma that covered me now. Every girl needed a dad, whether he was blood or not. I had already chosen him as my father.

We had to get to know each other more, but hopefully there would be time for that. Stepping back, I was crushed into a hug between my mom and Jayden. Tears pricked my eyes. A part of me had wondered if I’d ever see them again.

They let me go and I turned to Becca. “Come here, girl.” I opened my arms and she smiled shyly before jumping into them.

I gave her a quick hug and then Sam was there. She threw her arms around him, and his face softened as they hugged.

“I told you to stay put,” he growled as he pulled back.

She smirked. “Nice to see you too.”

He scowled before ushering everyone inside.

Carter gave Ryder a nod. “I went back to Alaska looking for you. I found some signs of fresh tracks around the safe house these kids were in. Didn’t like it. So I brought them with me.”

Sam and I shared a look. Would the humans have known I was in Alaska? WTF. They must have people on the inside looking into my trail. CIA maybe. Shit, this was bad. This is why we were so cautious about spreading the word of the “cure takedown vamp plan” with humans. They had big mouths.

“It’s probably nothing,” Ryder assured me.

Before I could answer, I had a muscular, fine-ass BAFF in my face. “Bitch, I’ve been here five minutes and you haven’t said a word. How about, ‘Damn, Jayden your fingernails look busted. Why? Oh that’s right, you’ve been up for forty-eight hours packaging the cure.’” He crossed his arms and Oliver and I began slowly walking toward him.

Jayden was a sensitive flower and needed to be tended too. “Awww.” I picked up his hands and inspected the chipped nails and blisters. “Poor baby. Manicure, on me, when this shit dies down,” I said, and was rewarded with a broad smile.

Oliver stepped forward then and I was completely forgotten. That enforcer was very good at distracting him. My mom looked me up and down. I had ditched the gothic getup, but my hair was still short. “You’ve grown up, Charlie bear.”