His eyes were molten silver as he nodded. “I’ll contact you, Charlie.”
Then he stepped back, gathered Joanna into his arms, and started moving. He was fast, and within seconds they were gone. I swallowed a few times, trying to sort myself out. There was no time for falling apart now, we had shit to do. I needed to cure the little girl and then all of us were getting the hell out of the Hive. I was hoping all of us included Tessa, but my gut told me different.
Life recently was all about kicking Charlie in the teeth. Tessa was a vampire, Mom was in hiding with my Viking father, and the Hive was going to try to kill me soon. Pretty sure I needed to find someone to trade destinies with. Mine was faulty.
Ryder’s arms closed around me and all of sudden I was a mess of tears again. What was with all the waterworks tonight?
“I’m not tough,” I wailed, as I gripped his shirt in both of my hands. “I don’t want to handle this shit. I want to go home, build a nice fort out of blankets, and crawl into it with a good book.”
“Charlie can read?” I heard Kyle mutter. “Swear to God, when I asked her to flick through the enforcer handbook she threw it in my face.”
Ryder’s arms tightened around me and I could feel his chest shaking with laughter. Holy shit. Here I was pouring out my worries and fears and the assholes were laughing at me. I leaned back and punched him clean into his hard chest. Ouch. Okay, that was not supposed to hurt me so much.
The silver in Ryder’s eyes was dancing as he cupped my face with both hands. “Charlie, sweetheart, you are tougher than you think. And you’re not alone … never alone. We can do this together, all of us. Whatever the Hive throws at us, we’ll deal with.”
I wrinkled my nose at him. “You’ve changed your tune. Usually you’re all doom and gloom.”
He cracked a broad smile and white teeth dazzled me. “You bring out the worst of my protective instincts, but I’m working on that. I’m going to focus on you as an equal member of my team. The reason my core enforcers work so well is that we are a single unit, we have each other’s backs. Complete trust. You can’t handle this shit alone, but together we can handle anything.”
Complete Trust. Hah! Except for our little Sam. Keeping his secrets.
The dark, mysterious enforcer met my squinty eyes and gave me a nod. “Soon,” he mouthed at me, and blinking a few times in shock I returned that nod. Seems he was going to finally let us in.
Turning around, I let my gaze linger on the path that Carter and my mom had just taken through the park. I let out an exaggerated sigh. “At least I know she’s going to be out of Portland, no longer available for any of the Charlie haters to use as a weapon against me.”
There were nods all around. It was one of the few positive pieces of information we had received in the past few weeks. Kyle started ushering us out of the area then, no more time to linger. There were only a few hours till dawn and we had shit to do. Plus, I still had to try and find my brainwashed, pod-person bestie tonight.
As soon as we exited the Humvee in the garage back at the Hive, my stomach dropped. The Quorum was standing inside, clearly waiting for us. I scanned across their group but Lucas was not there. Shit! My hand automatically went to my gun, but Ryder nudged me.
“Is there a problem?” he asked them, sounding completely unconcerned.
Allistair, aka fugly, sneered, holding out a hand, palm open. “You’re all under investigation. Please hand in your badges. You’re suspended from leaving the Hive until further notice.”
Sam’s eyes were blazing with rage. Kyle was keeping a poker face. And Ryder’s jaw was just slightly clenched as he pulled his card from his pocket.
The lead enforcer’s tone was low and deadly. “Over thirty years of service and this is how you treat me?”
A few of the Quorum members’ faces fell at Ryder’s remark, but Allistair shrugged. “If you could take simple orders this wouldn’t be happening, but ever since you started fucking Charlie you’ve changed.”
The words had barely left Allistair’s mouth before Ryder’s right arm came out of nowhere, connecting with the vampire’s jaw. The crack of shattering bone ricocheted off the cement garage walls.
Ryder moved forward to pulverize him further, but two Quorum members zoomed into action, latching onto him, pulling his arms back and twisting them until near breaking point. Sam and Kyle were already moving to intervene, but Ryder shook his head.
“Throw him in the pit!” one of the Quorum members shouted.
Shit!
“Ryder!” I stepped forward, but he just nailed me with a hard look. His lips didn’t move but his eyes said everything. The last thing we needed was all of us in the pit.
Allistair stood, holding what looked like a completely shattered jaw in one hand, and stalked over to Sam. He held out his free hand.