Sam gave a decisive nod, but his eyes looked lost. Again I was struck by how much I hated that we were blindly trusting him. Don’t get me wrong, Sam was family, but this was a life or death situation and my gut said he was hiding something. As if he’d read my mind, Sam’s dark gaze shot up and our eyes clashed. His look suddenly changed to something more biting. Was that … fear? Before I could say anything, the moment was gone.
In a smooth movement, Sam stood, closing his laptop. “Don’t worry, a week is enough time. I’ll get everything rolling. Be ready to go at a moment’s notice.”
After running out some of my aggression on the roof, I showered and went to find Tessa. A few feet from the medical ward, I heard her voice, demanding and shrill.
“More blood!” she screamed.
My hand froze on the door handle. Tessa, you stupid, stupid bitch. How could you want this life? Breathing to center myself, I entered the room and saw Tessa chugging a bottle of blood. My eyes were immediately drawn to the shine of her hair. It had been beautiful before, but looked absolutely stunning now. The pale blond ringlets were tight and glossy.
But unnatural. I preferred when she looked more real.
Now she was like a perfectly crafted doll, skin flawless and smooth. Not a single mark of her previous life remained, not the tiny scar that had been on her chin from when she got hit with a softball in gym, or those couple of persistent freckles which she did her best to cover with concealer. Nope. Nothing.
I flinched as her swirling-silver eyes swept over me. She squealed, dropping her bottle and pushing a nurse aside to reach out and grab my arm. She yanked me into a rib-crushing hug.
“Charlie! My bestie.” Her voice was full of happiness and I didn’t want to bring the world crashing down around her, but the roil of emotions inside guaranteed there was no way I could fake anything in regards to this.
My voice wavered, tears so close to falling. “You have no idea what you’ve done,” I choked out, my senses filled with her odd new smell, all vanilla and coppery blood. “I can’t believe you did this to yourself … to me.”
She released me from my hug. “I figured you would be pissed for a few days. But once you realize how amazing it is having me around you’ll see this was the best idea ever. Where’s Jayden? Have you seen how incredible my hair is?” She was actually grinning and it had my stomach churning. No real surprise that she was bouncing like a five-year-old on a chocolate high. I had always been the responsible part of our duo. She was the na?ve, carefree one.
My voice was clipped: “Jayden is working in the blood feeding center. Ash are given ten hour a day jobs and made to live separately from the vampires. We live in cramped dorms and you will get your own fancy suite. I’m only permitted five minutes to visit you today and then you’ll be taken away to your new life and we’ll barely see each other.”
She scoffed, rolling her eyes. “Charlie, don’t be such a mom. I’ll go meet with whomever to sort out my new apartment and stuff and then I’ll come over tomorrow for movies and pizza.” She bounced again.
Then her face dropped as soon as she caught her mistake. “Blood and movies, whatever. Pizza is overrated.”
Now my arms were crossed because my BFF just talked shit on my favorite food. Pizza would never be overrated. Knowing my time with her was almost up, I had to move forward and deal with the most important reason for my visit. There were eyes on us, so I did the only thing I could and pulled her in for another hug.
“Meet me on the roof tomorrow night, at midnight,” I whispered, and as I released her, turning to walk away, her perfect face was prettily creased in frowns.
I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying, because something told me Tessa would not be running away with us. Tessa seemed to like her new life just fine.
Craptastic.
The next day we were on the rooftop getting some sun. Two of the enforcers remained on rotational Charlie guard duty, and all of us had started to notice a pattern of random vampires outside the hallway of my apartment. It was a floor completely dedicated to ash housing, so they had no reason to be there. Bloodsuckers were keeping tabs on me.
We continued to keep all of our conversation inside the Hive general and light. We had confirmation that the bastards had bugged my apartment. The boys swept for them and found a few. We didn’t bother to destroy them; they would only replace them again, and we didn’t want them to know we were on to them. The ones they’d killed in the locker room were different. They expected the enforcers to be suspicious and to keep up security in there, but bugs in the apartment of the Hive, well, they knew we’d only sweep in there if we were suspicious of something.
For now, Jayden was laying low and staying out of our little rooftop planning session, but was ready to go with us at any moment.
Shit was most definitely going to hit the fan soon.