Anarchy (Hive Trilogy Book 2) (3 page)

They nodded.

“We went down to free him,” Kyle said, “as per Quorum orders, and imagine our surprise when he turned up as a human.”

Most of the boys still looked shocked, but Sam’s face was a mask of calm. I was getting a feeling about him, like he knew more than he was saying. Of course, before I could press him, the others distracted me with a bunch of curses and angry exclamations.

“Well, shit, looks like our little unicorn is dipped in gold,” Markus finally said, his brogue deep and smooth. “What’s the plan?”

Ryder took a moment. I could almost see the tumult of thoughts flashing through his mind. “I got rid of the human. No one knows about Charlie.”

Sam’s growl cut him off. “You can’t know that.” His voice was dark, ominous. The man of few words looked fired up, which had more alarm bells ringing in my head.

Ryder’s brow furrowed at his mysterious best friend. “You’re right. I don’t know for absolute sure that this information is not in the community. And the timing of the Sanctum and Deliverance attacks are suspicious to say the least. The truth is, it’s only a matter of time until someone comes for her again, so we have two options. Stay and play good boys at the Hive—use that time to tap into our resources and try to find the mole, try to find who hired the Sanctum, and see if we can discern any connection between Sanctum and Deliverance. Then when the shit hits the fan, I take Charlie and run.” Clearly he’d had the same thoughts as me outside the restaurant. “Or … I can just take Charlie now and run.”

Whoa. Run where? Survive how? The fact that Ryder was willing to drop everything and run away to protect me did crazy fluttery things to my insides. I understood why we had to run. Not even Ryder could take on the entire vampire population, yet I hated the thought that anyone would give up their life for me. This was bullshit, the entire thing.

“
We
run.” Markus said with force.

“Huh?” I said, furrowing my brows.

Kyle nodded. “We stay in the Hive, gather information, and when the shit hits the fan, we run. Together.”

He put his fist in the center of the circle, and each of the sexy six followed suit. After their macho fist bump, Ryder tucked me closer to his strong frame.

“I’ll start planning for that day. Until then, we tell no one.”

As we turned to start back to the car, Sam, who had still been staring at me the entire time, growled through clenched teeth: “This can never be mentioned inside the Hive. If her secret is found out by the humans, she will be experimented on and drained to distribute the cure and end the virus. If her secret is found out by the vampires, she will be decapitated and then burned for fear of her taking away all their power.” Since he rarely spoke in full sentences, we all knew he felt strongly about this information.

Ryder reached out and placed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. “That will never happen, brother. Not while I’m still alive to fight.”

Sam’s worried words brought it all home for me. He was right. No matter who found out about this, there was no happy ending for Charlie. Can I just say FML?

The next morning I stumbled out to find Jayden sitting at the coffee table nursing a bottle of blood and giving me the evil eye.

“What?” I grumbled. I needed a bottle of half blood, half espresso right now. After returning from my date I had tossed and turned, thinking about all the drama in my life, worried and scared. I hated that feeling of being out of control, like I was sitting on a bomb and I had no idea how long until it exploded.

Jayden pointed a finger at me. “You didn’t wake me to tell me about your date so I figured Ryder slept over and now I see your ass stumble out of your room alone. Tell me you at least made out with him?”

I smiled. Oh Jayden. Always making sure my sex life was legit. Where to start? “Well, there was a steamy kiss at my door.”

He leaned forward, eyebrows raised, and I swear he even turned his ear in my direction like he didn’t want to miss a word.

“But that was after we got attacked on our date by a religious group that thinks vampires are the devil incarnate.”

The cheeky expression fell from his face. “Oh. I see. Kind of a mood killer.”

I nodded. “Yep and that’s not all.”

If Ryder was telling the sexy six, I sure as hell was telling my bestie.
I knew what Sam had said about never repeating my secret in the Hive was sound advice, but I wasn’t planning on being inside these walls when I did.

Grabbing his hand, I tilted my head to indicate we needed to walk outside the apartment. Jayden looked confused for a second, but didn’t hesitate to follow my lead as I slipped on my tennis shoes and grabbed a bottle of O-negative. There was no conversation as I led Jayden to the roof jogging track. It was empty this time of day. Bright with the light of the sun, no vampires would be up here. I also found great perspective staring out over the entire city.

Taking Jayden’s hand, I led him as far from the entrance as possible, to the edge, staring down the sixty stories. My bestie was quiet, which was about as far removed from his personality as was possible. He no doubt had sensed the secrecy in my actions. Standing up on my tiptoes, I whispered into his ear.

“That guy that bit me at the club turned into a human. My blood is so tempting because it’s the cure and we might need to leave the Hive at any moment because people are after me.”

I popped back down on my flat feet and waited for his response. As our eyes locked, I could see his were wide and full of emotions. A lot of which looked like concern. He slipped his hand in mine and squeezed.

“Oliver knows?” he murmured.

I nodded. “As of last night.”

His face became serious. “Don’t you leave me here, bitch. No protecting me for my own good.” I sucked in deeply, so relieved to know that even with this new information on my magic blood, nothing had changed between Jayden and I.

I grinned, punching him lightly on the arm. “Wouldn’t dream of it, bitch.”

Needing to relieve my inner tension, I took off running, Jayden at my heels. He could have easily overtaken me—he was descended from the second house, and they had an affinity for speed—but instead kept pace with me. Running was my drug now. As my feet pounded the track, the wind in my hair, I felt like I was running from all of my problems and it gave me a temporary reprieve from the insanity that had become my life.

After showering, I dragged myself down to my boring-ass job of answering phones in the enforcer call room. Stepping through the door, I stumbled a little to see Ryder sitting in my chair, his feet up at my desk. I often had an enforcer in here with me, but never the big bad leader of the crew.

I nudged his legs out of my way. “Excuse me, big day ahead. Important job of phone answering.”

His heavy boots hit the floor. “Nope, sorry. You’re fired.”

I ground to a halt halfway into my chair. “What?”

Could he fire me? Was the Quorum involved? Maybe after last night they wanted me somewhere else. OMG please don’t let it be washing dishes or some shit.

Ryder produced a sleek black gun from behind his back and a walkie-talkie. My eyebrows shot up as he handed them to me.

“Let’s be honest, you’re not a people person, and how am I going to keep an eye on you unless I make you an enforcer trainee?”

OMFG. “What? I’m an enforcer?” I jumped up and down like a teenager as Ryder’s lips quirked into a smile.

“No. You’re a trainee, a rookie who will watch and learn and never leave the car. Got it?”

I took the gun, sliding it into my belt, and clipped on the walkie-talkie. Fuck yeah. “Got it.”

He nodded and walked away, motioning that I was to follow. I looked behind me and glanced one last time at my boring-ass desk and phone. Peace out, stupid job. Peace out.

Following Ryder into the enforcer locker room, I met the gaze of the sexy six and tried not to smirk in pride.

Kyle looked me up and down, his eyes resting on my walkie-talkie. “Well, well, what do we have here?”

Markus advanced towards me, inhaling deeply. “Smells like a rookie.”

I rolled my eyes. First unicorn, now rookie. Oh hells no. Pick a nickname and stick with it.

“Rookie with a gun, boys,” I joked, turning a full circle to show it tucked in my waist belt.

Oliver gave a half smile. “Perks of dating the boss. I didn’t get a gun for months.”

Slivers of heat filled my cheeks. I knew my face was probably a little red. Were we officially dating? I mean … we had been on a date. Still, there were no labels or titles attached to us yet. Ryder was all dark and mysterious; he probably beat labels up for fun in his spare time.

Ignoring the Latino enforcer, Ryder called the boys in closer. “Listen up, Lucas has approved Charlie to be an enforcer trainee. This gives her a weapon, an access badge, and clearance to leave the Hive grounds on official business.”

The room was heavy, our silence saying everything as we all shared a look. This was a part of a greater plan, this was Ryder preparing for the possibility that we may one day leave the Hive. I swallowed hard, losing the thrill I’d initially felt at my new job.

The boys nodded curtly, which had me squaring my shoulders. I could do this, I was going to be trained and have a gun. Screw the Hive. Game on, bitches.

Ryder turned to me, handing me a keycard with my name on it. “Guard this with your life. Don’t go sneaking around, and stay out of the medical ward. Every door you open with that gets logged into a database that the Quorum looks over daily. Be good.”

I saluted him. “Yes, boss.”

My curt reply was followed up with a sexy smoldering grin, all eyelashes and bedroom eyes. How far could I push him now that he was my boss and possible dating partner?

A few of the boys snickered.

Ryder quickly concealed his earlier charm into a mask of calm, not giving into my pushing of his buttons. “Your locker is number eleven. Uniform is inside.”

I rolled my eyes. He was no fun. All work. I strode across the aisle and found number eleven quickly. There’d better be some cool black army fatigues inside, ones with small pockets so I could hide knives and shit. Pulling the lever, I opened the locker. A whoosh of air hit me first, and then in the next instant I was doused in a warm brown liquid. My breath caught as a startled scream ripped from my throat.

What. The. Actual. Fuck.

I blinked a few times in shock as the liquid ran down my face and dripped into my open mouth. The moment it hit my tongue I recognized the smooth, sugary flavor. Chocolate.

Those mutha … effing … asshole … freaking…

At the roar of laughter behind me, I swung around with my biggest baddest death glare. “Welcome to training, rookie,” Jared choked out between laughs.

Even Sam was trying to contain his usual toughass façade.

I didn’t utter a word, continuing to glare. They were just lucky I hadn’t been wearing my favorite shoes. I would have actually shot them with my new gun if my ass-kicking boots had been ruined. Something in my expression must have finally sunk into the stupid six across from me.

Their laughter stopped.

Oliver gave Ryder a worried look. “Her gun isn’t loaded, right?”

Ryder’s smile was quickly lost. “Charlie, it’s a joke. We’ve all been through it.”

Usually his slightly pleading expression would soften me right up, but today I was covered from head to toe in a bucket of warm melty chocolate. Did I mention how hard this was going to be to get out of my hair? Not to mention how torn I was to not start licking this liquid orgasm off of my arm. I was a chocolate whore for sure, but I wouldn’t tell them that.

I smiled sweetly. “Oh, totally, just a joke, right. Ha, ha.” The words had barely left my mouth before I began stalking towards Ryder. All of the guys backed up, but unfortunately for them they’d caged themselves into the side of the locker room where there was no easy escape.

Ryder put his arms out. “Charlie…”

I was already across the room, but decided to tap into the heat at my center, which was the home for my levitation power. I hadn’t used it since the culling, but thankfully everything seemed to still work the same. I leapt across the room and landed right on Ryder. He caught me and together we fell backwards.

Rubbing my chocolate hands on his face, I laughed.

Ryder gave me an amused glare. “Now we both have to shower.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Is that an invitation?”

T
he silver of his eyes started swirling as I heard his low groan.
Hah. Guys were easy. I was going to say that was round one to Charlie.

After showering—alone—and cleaning up, I went down to my scheduled feeding time, hoping to see Tessa. I had sent my human best friend a hundred emails begging her to come talk to me, but she was mad at me for crushing her dreams of wanting to be a vampire. She thought this was the answer to us being able to stay friends for the rest of eternity. I thought it was a direct path to her losing her soul. Vampires were cold-blooded assholes. Lucas was the only one I even liked. H
e was different for some reason.

Jayden was working at the front desk and I took a few minutes to excitedly tell him that I was now a rookie enforcer. My bestie was suitably thrilled for me, before handing me my bottle of O-negative. I glanced nervously down the hallway, where the rooms were. Jayden gave me the slightest shake of his head, telling me that Tessa wasn’t here yet. I knew my face had fallen, and with a sad sigh I dragged myself to the private room.

I don’t know why I bothered to keep waiting. I had all but decided that Tessa wasn’t ever going to show up here again. Downing my blood, I bopped my leg as I waited. Then the door handle moved. I held my breath, only letting it out as my bestie walked in, platinum blond hair perfectly curled, make-up expertly painted, designer clothes exquisitely chosen.

“Tessa,” I nearly choked. So much had happened since we last talked. I stood quickly, but as I tried to cross the room to hug her, she flipped up her hand in the universal sign for “halt the hell up.” Her lips had that tight firm line they always got before I was about to get bitched out.