The silent enforcer was up to something and “trust me” was alien to my controlling take-charge personality.
Sam didn’t answer me. He just looked at Ryder. Something passed between them, something without words. What was with all these people speaking with no more than a few exchanged looks. Words, use them. They existed for a reason.
Ryder eventually gave a nod. “We are going to trust Sam on this one. I have no doubt his plan is solid. When are you ready for us to move out?”
“I’m going to need at least a week to get everything sorted. Especially if Charlie plans on curing the little girl.”
Oh, I planned on doing that.
“I want to bring Tess and Jayden,” I said. “I promised my BAFF that I’d never leave him behind, and he’d be the first victim of the Quorum if I did.”
“I second that,” Oliver said. “I won’t leave without Jayden.”
“Already counted him,” was all Sam said.
“And Tessa?”
The enforcers exchanged a single look. It was fast, almost unnoticeable, but I freaking noticed. My anger was at boiling point again, and I was wondering if my hair might be smoking from all of the heat in my head.
Kyle was the first to try to reason with me. “Charlie, you have to understand that a vampire is a massive liability for us to carry around. She can’t travel in the sunlight, she needs a ton more blood than we do, and she’s going to be pretty hard to control for the first few months. If we take Tessa, we are pretty much signing our own death warrants.”
No. Just … no. I couldn’t leave her here to the mercy of vampires.
Still, he made some really valid points.
Ryder had a look of sympathy on his face, which immediately told me I was going to be pissed by what he was about to say.
“How do you even know she’ll want to run with you, Charlie? She’s been going full-throttle for the last couple of months to get into the vamp world, and according to you, she was obsessed with them for most of your lives. She also loves Blake, so I think she’ll resist you. There’s nothing you can do but let her learn the hard way that this is not the world for her.”
Fuck! Dammit, why did he have to be attractive and intelligent? Really, was it just too much to ask that he blindly agreed with everything I said?
“Well, I’m at least going to give her the option to leave with me. She always said her main reason for being in here was so that we would be together.”
Markus snorted. “Vampires and ash are rarely encouraged to be together. She’ll be part of the elite, and all too soon will start thinking of herself in the same way that all vampires do. As the superior race.”
My bestie was not shallow like that, but there was a part of her that had always wanted to belong somewhere. She had that with me and my mom, but once I was gone that had all fallen apart for her. Maybe what the vamps would offer her, a large and secure family, would trump me. This reminded me of something else I hadn’t had a chance to tell the boys yet. It was time they knew what we were up against, if they didn’t already.
“I have a confession,” I squeaked, and suddenly every enforcer stopped what they were doing and all eyes were on me. Shit, I hadn’t meant to make it sound that serious. Taking a deep breath, I rambled:
“Jayden overheard some rumors about the vampires being big assholes, so I used my keycard to get into the file room. Jayden picked a lock with a bobby pin because he’s like MacGyver or something, and then we read some crazy shit then got caught and pretended to make out as a cover for being in the room and then we ran.”
Whew. Got it all out in two sentences and I felt better already. I’d been meaning to tell them for ages. There should be no lies between us all.
Ryder and Oliver shared a look, no doubt reflecting on the fact that I said Jayden and I made out. To my surprise it was Sam who spoke. I could see the thoughts churning through him.
“What did you find?”
I explained in detail the blackmail files, the oil industry payments, the blood bank, the photos of the Original bloodbath. As I went into detail about each, Sam’s face darkened, until he exploded:
“I’ve been searching for this information for a long time, but never guessed it would be in paper form, in plain sight in the damn middle of the Hive.”
Yep, that was why simple minds worked best. Like Jayden’s and mine. With a grimace, Sam dropped his gaze and began typing away on his computer. I started to tell the enforcers a few more things about that day, before Sam growled, interrupting me.