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.
Jared cleared his throat, leaning forward to join the conversation. He was awake now and apparently following along no worries. Something told me the Australian enforcer had only been dozing. None of these guys let their guard down for very long.
“We better get our arses into gear. If we plan on busting out of here next Friday, that only gives us five days to sort our shit here.”
The others all nodded, so it looked like Friday was the day.
Five days … could I convince Tessa to leave with us in that time? I freakin’ hoped so.
We dispersed after about an hour on the roof. With the increase in surveillance on us, spending too much time in a group was a bad idea. No doubt it hadn’t escaped the vampires’ notice that we were using the sunlit rooftop a lot, even if we did leave random enforcers—Oliver today—in the control room with some of the other non-sexy-six enforcers. You know, keeping up appearances. Still, it was unfortunately true that while the vamps were evil, they weren’t stupid.
I was restless for the rest of the afternoon, pacing my apartment to the amusement of Markus and Kyle, who were on Charlie duty. Eventually, after dinner, I had reached the end of my patience. It was almost time to leave to meet Tessa.
“Is it midnight yet?” I asked for the zillionth time in the past hour.
“It’s a quarter to midnight.” Markus was generally patient and kind, but at the moment he sort of looked like he wanted to strangle me.
“Where’s Ryder?” I was about to haul ass and leave without him. I couldn’t miss this meeting with Tessa.
“He’ll be here, Charlie, and he’s not going to be happy if we let you meet a newly-turned vampire on the roof without him.”
Well, I gave zero fucks right about now. Ryder had two more minutes or he was going to have to hear the story from us later. The door flew open then and I jumped to my feet, but it was only Jayden strolling in with Oliver.
As my face fell, my BAFF gave a shout of laughter. “Bitch, you better be happy to see me. I’ve been slaving away at the feeding center—you know, doing stuff.” He raised his eyebrows up and down, and I knew he was talking about all the crates of blood he’d been ferreting away for us. We were going to need a decent supply when we ran, and Jayden was in the perfect position to facilitate that.
I managed a smile for him. It was not his fault I was a stressed out hot mess. In fact, if it hadn’t been for his never-ending smartass humor, I’d be rocking in the corner right now.
Pushing down my impatience, I bounced over and threw myself at him. He hauled me up into his strong arms. “There’s my BAFF. Come on, girl, it’s going to be okay.”