Anarchy (Hive Trilogy, #2)(47)
I suppose I had jumped in with little to no thought, but I seriously needed her safe. It was keeping me up at night. “Fine, *s, you design the rescue mission, but this is happening, and soon, because I can’t sleep knowing this girl could be killed.”
All of their faces softened then and it surprised me when Sam spoke: “You’re good for us, Charlie. We’ve been doing this so long, watched too many cullings, seen too much death. We’ve become desensitized to the evil of the vampires.”
A silence settled over our small rooftop group. What Sam just said had struck a chord and rang true. Something within me shifted. It had been slowly chipping away for the last few months, but finally the last iota of my long-held belief that the ash were evil by association with the vampires was gone.
I could see now that the vampires had created a perfect little society with ash as their slaves, brainwashed them into killing, made them feel less powerful and more dependent on the Hive for survival. Rage boiled up inside of me. This was not okay!
I met Sam’s eyes, which were blazing with almost equal parts silver to black. “I will bring down this Hive if it’s the last thing I do. I’ll bring down all of them.”
Kyle nodded. “Now we’re talking.”
But when I turned to Ryder, something in his face made me falter—a shade of vulnerability. He didn’t like that we were going to take on the powerful vamps. I had no doubt he would back me and his boys all the way, but I guess the responsibility of our lives weighed heavily on him. I reached out and took his hand.
“We’re all adults here.” My gaze flicked across to Jared, who was laid back with his mouth open, asleep and lightly snoring. “Okay, most of us are adults here, and we make these decisions knowing full well what the consequences could be. You don’t carry this alone. You don’t have to shoulder the burden of our choices.”
He was all fierce now. “You guys are my family, and I will tear down anyone who tries to mess with that. It is my responsibility. I know we have no options left. The vampires are going to act soon. My clearance level is practically gone. The information I had available to me is no longer there. The Quorum is gunning for Charlie, and even though I only have theories on what their end plan is, we can never let them get their hands on her. She will be gone, and they have the money and resources to keep her gone forever.”
I actually shivered at that thought. Definitely couldn’t let that happen. I would not want to find myself at the mercy of creatures who demonstrated daily that they had no mercy.
Speaking of…
“Have we heard anything about Deliverance?”
The news on them had been pretty much non-existent since we’d commandeered all their money and had a major street fight that was somehow covered up and didn’t even make the local news program. Which was probably to do with SWAT and their interest in the religious group. At least it was nice to see reports of the charities who received the money. They’d been overjoyed by their windfalls and it made my heart happy to see some of the work which was already in place through the generosity of those Bible bashers.
“Gone underground,” Markus said. “They have to regroup, and I heard there was a mass call put out for donations, but the human population is getting a little tired of their hate mongering.”
Which hopefully meant it would take them many years to rebuild. Still, they would always find someone with too much money and hate in their soul. I had no doubts they would eventually be back.
Sam shifted then, his fingers flying over the keyboard. He’d been practically buried in his laptop the last few days. It was one of the few we had left which was completely safe. “I think I’ve found a place to stash the little girl when Charlie cures her,” he said, his voice very quiet. “There are pockets of humans who are sympathetic to ash. They have reserves scattered around the world, offering short-term safe passage to ash if they decide to run from the Hives. Human law enforcement check in on them, so there is no way ash can stay long term, but that won’t be an issue once the little girl is human.”
“Yep, as long as she is hidden from the Hive’s prying eyes, so they don’t come looking for whomever cured her,” Ryder agreed.
Whoa! I had not known about those reserves and ash sympathizers. I mean, I knew ash were not hated on the same scale as vampires. Just the fact that we needed to eat and could be in the sun, they didn’t see us as quite so alien.
I leaned forward. “Why can’t we use those reserves when we escape? We could go between them, stay for a short time…”
Sam nixed my idea immediately. “No, we’re a well-known and large group of ash. The vamps would hear about us very quickly.”
Markus nodded. “The Hive will make a token effort to search for the girl, but if there’s no trail of carnage they’ll just think she’s dead. They won’t expend much of their resources looking for her. Children are liabilities they do not want to deal with. Us on the other hand … they’re going to be beyond pissed. They will hunt for us. Charlie especially.”
Okay, all good points. I liked that the enforcers had not dismissed my need to cure the little girl. They knew it was important to me, and it was starting to look like it was important to them too. I had to do it; I could feel it in my very cellular makeup. Before I arrived with my magical unicorn Nutella-flavored blood, there had been no cure for the virus, despite millions of dollars spent every year by the humans. But somehow nature found a way. I was that way.