I slammed my foot down on the gas pedal, pulling the Humvee back onto the road. The right side of the car clipped one of the Deliverance on our way out, the tires squealing as I did zero to sixty in record time. My hands were slippery on the wheel, blood and sweat coating them. My heart was beating triple-time; I couldn’t tell what was fear and what was adrenalin. Everything felt the same in my crazed mind.
A few bullets pinged off the back as we made our escape, but that noise faded away as I screeched around another corner. Once we were a safe distance away, I managed to slow the car down and get my breathing under control. A glance in the rear was enough to see that Ryder was in Kyle’s lap. Blood and grime stained the enforcer’s dirty-blond hair and he looked like he was seconds from losing his shit. Turning back around, I refused to think that crazed look in his eyes was because of Ryder. The lead enforcer was going to be fine—he was like Superman or some shit. Bullets could not kill him. Nothing could.
Dammit. A few minutes later I wanted to look again, to make sure that everyone was still breathing. “What’s happening back there, guys?” I shouted. I couldn’t turn at the moment, I was too busy white-knuckling the steering wheel while zooming through the downtown traffic.
“I’m fine, lass, just a few wee holes in me for luck.” Hearing Markus’ brogue was a welcome relief.
“Right, just a few holes,” Oliver said drily. “He has eight bullets in him. He’s just lucky most of them ended up in his right shoulder and leg.”
“That’s only because Ryder jumped in from the side and pushed me out of the way, which I will beat his damn ass for as soon as he’s back on his feet.” Markus sounded pissed, and worried. I knew he would have done the same for Ryder. They were a team, they had each other’s backs, no matter what.
“And Ryder?” my voice shook just a little, but since I was almost totally focused on the driving I was doing, I managed to stop myself losing it too badly.
“I’m counting twelve bullets, six in the abdomen, five scattered about his extremities, and one grazed his temple, which is why he’s out for the count right now.”
I could sort of see in the rearview mirror that Kyle was applying a thick pad or pressure cloth to his best friend’s stomach.
Our eyes met in the reflection. “Just keep driving, Charlie,” he said. “I won’t let him die. We just have to get back to the Hive.”
I slammed my foot down even harder. Horns blasted at me as I sailed through a red light, but I seriously did not give a single fuck right now. I was a woman on a mission, and I was getting our asses back to the Hive in record time.
I still couldn’t believe what had just happened? Massive shootout, dead humans. The six ash we had gone to save were dead. Not exactly the first day on the job that I imagined. Those Deliverance assholes … they were totally insane, and so much more ruthless and deadly than I expected. Ryder clearly had not been expecting it either; the boys might have had their weapons out, but there had been no real urgency, as if they never anticipated the others would retaliate with deadly force.
Fury washed through me again as I wrenched the wheel and pretty much drifted around the corner. The slickness of the roads would have been scarier if I hadn’t been angry enough to set the car on fire. I’d been a bit on the angry side lately. Most of my ire was reserved for the selfish vampires who thought ash were their personal entertainment and slaves. But now there was some space in the Charlie-is-pissed vault for these religious extremist humans.
Everywhere I looked, ash were being shit on and killed by others who thought our lives were not important, that we didn’t warrant the basic rights of survival. I knew that once upon a time I had been someone who cared very little for ash or the Hive. It was something I regretted. The ash were my friends and my family; the discrimination had to stop, and it had to stop right now, because as the Hives around the world filled further, there would be less and less room for ash, and even the few rights we had would disappear.
Guess there was now at least six spots freed up in our Hive, assuming those six had been from Portland. Gah, I was turning into a psycho. Seemed the moment my shock had faded out, I was less of the “human shaking and crying” and more of the ash “pissed and ready to kill”.
As the Hive came into view, I was relieved to see the gates were open. One of the boys had called ahead. Which was good because I wasn’t stopping. I screeched up the path and into the garage, my instincts urging me to go as fast as I could and slam on the brakes to stop. But knowing that might cause more injuries to the guys, I curbed those instincts and took my time to slow smoothly.
I threw it into park, and by the time I was out the door Kyle and Oliver were already moving. It took two of them to carry Ryder; they held him between them and were sprinting for the entrance. Jared and Markus were slower, but at least the Scottish enforcer was only limping. He didn’t seem to be in mortal danger.