Ash (22 page)

“Hot damn, baby, you
could turn this gay ash’s head any day of the week.” Jayden whistled as he took
in my skinny jeans, flat ankle boots, and skintight tank. It was one of those
which was ripped in places and held together by these little scraps of lace.
Everything was black, and I’d gone a little heavier on my eyes than normal. Not
to mention leaving my hair down to hang in straight layers to mid-back.

I blew Jayden a kiss,
crossing to link arms with him. We rolled out and made our way into the ash
dining room. It was packed; we were late as usual, and as always the entire
room basically paused for a second when we entered.

Jayden didn’t sweat shit
like that, simply dragging me across the room toward the enforcers’ table. We
had the privilege of sitting there. Not many were accepted into their little
group, but the thing with Ryder and me, not to mention Jayden and Oliver,
assured that we made the cut. The sexy six might need a new name. Exciting
eight. Exotic eight … I’d work on a name for us.

I paused as I counted
only five heads there. Before the disappointment could bowl me over, I was
distracted by the way they were leaning into each other, conversing too low to
hear. Their tense faces sent trills of fear through me.

Something was wrong.

Jayden left me and took
off for the long rows of food. As usual he was more than starving, and would
soon be back with his Mount Everest size plate of food. I didn’t follow. My
appetite was now nonexistent as I took the last few stumbling steps to fall
down into the spare chair beside Kyle. Five sets of black eyes locked on me,
and even though each of the enforcers’ looks were unique, right then they were
all wearing the same expression.

“Just give it to me
straight,” I said, wasting no time on bullshit. “You all look like you’re about
to kill the next fucking person who glances sideways at you, so I know
something has happened.”

Kyle and Markus – the red-headed
enforcer, looking surprisingly clean cut and handsome, having trimmed his bushy
beard and man bun – exchanged a glance and I forced myself not to scream and
stamp my foot.  Just as I was about to jump up and start beating the shit out
of them, even though they could wipe the floor with me every day and twice on
Sunday, Markus answered.

His voice was gruff, the
thickness of his accent making the growl worse. “Ryder was supposed to check in
when he left, and then again when he landed. He should have been back at the
compound thirty minutes ago.”

Kyle picked up the
conversation. “He did text me when he got to the airport. The private plane was
ready to take off. He never checked in upon landing, and when I called the
flight control, they said Ryder never showed. He didn’t make the flight.”

While they were talking,
there was this strange ringing in my head, like a buzz or something. It was my
panic, and it was distracting enough that it took me more than a few moments to
wrap my head around what they were saying. Ryder was missing. Ryder who was the
most badass ash in America. What the hell could have happened to him?

I forced the nausea down,
and clenching both fists in front of me landed hard eyes on each and every
single one of the boys. “Well, what the fuck are we waiting for? Let’s go find
out what happened to him!” I get all cursey when I’m scared or worried.

Kyle’s lips thinned, and
I realized he was forcing back a smile. He wasn’t the only one either. The rest
of them looked both amused and impressed. “It’s dangerous, Charlie.” Oliver’s
voice was low and smooth. “Not much could take down Ryder. We have no idea what
we’re walking into.”

I was already on my feet.
“Only one way to find out.” I turned then, and without looking back or locking
eyes with the many curious faces around us, I strode through the hall and out
the door.

I didn’t have to check, I
could feel the boy’s energy behind me, and I felt more than safe having them at
my back. I knew I should have told Jayden what was up, he’d be pissed at us
ditching him, but he’d be safer here at the Hive.

Kyle strode faster to
fall in line beside me. “What’s the plan?”

I gave it two seconds’
thought. “Say we got an emergency call, drive out of here in the van, sirens
blazing. Start driving to Seattle, asking questions wherever we stop. Interview
the pilot, rough up the Seattle Hive. Do whatever we have to.”

Kyle shook his head a few
times, his eyes drooping down as his entire body tensed. “I should have stayed
back with him,” he said as we turned the corner and opened the door leading to
the garage.

I shrugged. “I shouldn’t
have given my virginity to Seth Peters. Can’t live life in the past.” I tended
to lean on inappropriate humor and sarcasm to avoid serious emotions and get
through stressful times.

Oliver, Markus, and Jared
all chuckled. Not Sam though, he was immune to all of Charlie’s charm. As we
reached the Humvee, I grabbed the keys and moved to open the driver’s side
door. Kyle placed a hand on the glass, barring me from opening it.

“Nice try. Get in back
and hide.” He pulled the keys from my hand as all of the guys piled in.

Dammit. Bossy-ass ash.
Still, Ryder was gone and we were the only ones looking for him. I would obey
for now because I didn’t want them to waste any more time. I lay in the back and
piled some thermal blankets over myself. The engine roared to life and then we
were hauling ass. It was much rougher back here with no seatbelt. I felt one of
the guys drop a heavy hand on my side, which definitely helped to keep me in
place. A few minutes later Kyle called back to me.

“Okay, Charlie, you can
sit up.”

Whew! I sat up gasping
for fresh air and took in the rigid postures of the five massive ash enforcers.
I wasn’t sure right then, but I thought it was Sam who had held me in place.
Which was unexpected but nice from the reticent ash.

All of the boys looked
tense and ready for anything. I forced myself to focus, my mind going through
all of the places Ryder could be. If he had been taken by humans, he could be
anywhere, but if he had been taken by our kind, his locations were limited.

A cell phone rang
somewhere in the car. Kyle fumbled to get it out and glanced down.

“It’s Ryder!” He put it
on speaker. “Where are you?” His voice was sharp and tense.

“Having pepperoni pizza,”
Ryder said coolly, but he sounded out of breath and his voice was raspy.

What the actual fuck? If
he was out having pizza, I was going to kill him myself. But I saw the color
drain from Kyle’s face through the rearview mirror, and all of the guys shared
a look.

“Where at?” Kyle said
casually.

“That place we went for
my sixteenth birthday.”

How long had Kyle and
Ryder known each other and why were they speaking in code?

“Kyle, bring my lucky
jacket.
Don’t
leave it behind,” Ryder insisted.

Kyle met my eyes through
the rearview and nodded. “It’s with me now.” Then he hung up and tossed the
phone out the open window.

“Phones,” he barked, and
everyone pulled out their phones and tossed them out the window. Oh my God.
Five smartphones. That was three grand gone, just like that. I climbed over the
back seat, my ass hitting Markus’s pretty man bun, and shoved myself in between
Kyle’s driver seat and Oliver’s shotgun.

“What the hell is going
on?” I quipped. I didn’t have a phone to toss out the window and I didn’t know
what had just happened.

Kyle gave it to me
straight. “Pepperoni pizza is our code word for if some shit goes down and
phones are tapped. Never had to use it. Ryder hates pepperoni, he would never eat
it.”

I shouldn’t have let
myself get distracted, but seriously, who hates pepperoni pizza? I needed to
get to know more about this man, because pepperoni was right up there with
bacon in my book. It might be a deal breaker if he didn’t like bacon.

“So, we’re going to a
pizza place and the phones were tapped?”

Kyle took a hard left.
“No, we’re going to a fishing lake, and the phones were tapped, and you’re the
lucky jacket.”

I smiled at that part.
Ryder had a code word for me.

“And if the phones are
tapped, we most likely have an inside mole,” Markus offered.

Well … shit. At least
Ryder was safe. Silver lining. Not to mention he’d cared enough to make sure
they brought me along. That had to mean something.

After about thirty minutes of tense
atmosphere in the car, we pulled up to a private Lake in a fancy suburb of
Portland.

“This is where he had his
sixteenth birthday?” I looked around and saw one thing: money. Big houses, fancy
cars, and a beautiful lake with a huge clubhouse overlooking it.

Kyle crept the SUV up to
the farthest parking spot, encasing it in the darkness.

“The clubhouse, yeah. We
were rich kids. Get over it.”

Ouch. Sensitive subject.
They should have tried being a not rich kid. I had my sixteenth birthday in a Chucky
Cheese.

“How is it that you and
Ryder both grew up in the same neighborhood and were both ash?” Seriously, what
were the odds of that.

Kyle lifted his full lips
into a smile, kind of creepy that grin. “Our mothers were best friends, rich
girls with overindulgent families. It was the ‘60s, free love and all that
shit. They both got knocked up by vampires at the same party. This was right
around the time that groups were lobbying for equal rights. They were supposed
to stop all the testing on our kind, and it was sort of the in thing to try and
have an ash baby.”

I vaguely remember Tessa
telling me that the ‘60s had been the biggest time for ash in all of vampire
history. So Ryder and Kyle were over fifty years old. Of course, they didn’t
look a day out of their early twenties. Ash aged so slowly, it was like twenty
human years to one ash. We lived a very long time.

“Ryder and I have been
buds since birth, and there is no better human or ash in the world. We are
lucky to have him.” Kyle finished his little speech, sinking back to wait out
the rest of the time in silence. Which was okay by me, I had plenty of thoughts
to keep me occupied. Especially about the enigmatic and quite mysterious head
enforcer. 

We sat in the van for
what felt like forever. After a certain amount of time I was no longer able to
be patient. I was seriously about five seconds from losing my shit when,
finally, I saw a familiar shadow hobble out of some tall, thick reeds. My heart
started to beat double-time and I had to stop myself from rushing out of the
vehicle and throwing myself at him. Ryder was looking a little worse for wear,
limping and holding his right shoulder.

Kyle burst out of the
SUV, gun drawn, and I decided that I was definitely following him. Thank God it
was dark out, ‘cause Kyle and I looked shady as shit, especially with his gun
waving around.

I forced myself to stop a
few feet from Ryder. I wanted to hug him but wasn’t sure if I should. It felt a
little weird between us, so much unresolved after that kiss. Before I could
mentally break apart our relationship any further, Kyle swooped in, his long
arms loping across Ryder’s shoulders, taking his weight.

“Charlie’s not safe,” he
mumbled as we walked back to the van.

Kyle and I exchanged a
glance. Ryder was barely audible. He was in worse shape than I’d thought. What
had happened? What did this have to do with me and the fact that he knew
something about me “not being safe?” When we reached the car, Markus and Oliver
piled into the far back. I squeezed in between Jared and Sam, allowing Ryder to
take shotgun. The injured ash took the white gauze which Sam had pulled from
the med kit for him and wiped away some of the red on his forehead, the cuts
looked to have already healed. In the close confines of the car, his copper
blood hit me and I was instantly reminded of drinking from him.

Trying my best to ignore
this, I leaned forward, peeking through the middle seat. “What happened? Pilot
said you didn’t make your flight? How are you here?” Seattle was a three-hour
drive from Portland – he had gotten back somehow.

Ryder barked out a laugh.
“Is that what he told you? I made the flight. Bastard set me up. I got jumped
by some enforcers from another Hive when the pilot landed in this field just
outside of Portland. Said we needed to pick up another person. I didn’t trust
him, so I was ready.”

Holy shit. Ryder fought a
group of enforcers and got away alive?

Ryder met my eyes.
“Charlie, they had your original blood work. They know that you’re not showing
normal ash blood and that you’re a direct descendant of the fourth house. They’re
after you. They were trying to recruit me to their cause. Offered me money and
plenty of other incentives to turn against you.”

Bastards. Guess I was
lucky Ryder had an honor code. I had never doubted that he was a good guy deep
down, even if he had electrocuted me.

“How much money did they
offer?” Kyle flashed his pearly whites at me. “Always good to know the going
rate for Charlie’s life.”