Whew! I sat up gaspingfor 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 lookedtense and ready for anything. I forced myself to focus, my mind going throughall of the places Ryder could be. If he had been taken by humans, he could beanywhere, but if he had been taken by our kind, his locations were limited.
A cell phone rangsomewhere in the car. Kyle fumbled to get it out and glanced down.
“It’s Ryder!” He put iton 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? Ifhe was out having pizza, I was going to kill him myself. But I saw the colordrain from Kyle’s face through the rearview mirror, and all of the guys shareda look.
“Where at?” Kyle saidcasually.
“That place we went formy sixteenth birthday.”
How long had Kyle andRyder known each other and why were they speaking in code?
“Kyle, bring my luckyjacket.Don’tleave it behind,” Ryder insisted.
Kyle met my eyes throughthe rearview and nodded. “It’s with me now.” Then he hung up and tossed thephone out the open window.
“Phones,” he barked, andeveryone 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 theback seat, my ass hitting Markus’s pretty man bun, and shoved myself in betweenKyle’s driver seat and Oliver’s shotgun.
“What the hell is goingon?” I quipped. I didn’t have a phone to toss out the window and I didn’t knowwhat had just happened.
Kyle gave it to mestraight. “Pepperoni pizza is our code word for if some shit goes down andphones are tapped. Never had to use it. Ryder hates pepperoni, he would never eatit.”
I shouldn’t have letmyself get distracted, but seriously, who hates pepperoni pizza? I needed toget to know more about this man, because pepperoni was right up there withbacon in my book. It might be a deal breaker if he didn’t like bacon.
“So, we’re going to apizza 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 thelucky jacket.”
I smiled at that part.Ryder had a code word for me.
“And if the phones aretapped, we most likely have an inside mole,” Markus offered.
Well … shit. At leastRyder was safe. Silver lining. Not to mention he’d cared enough to make surethey brought me along. That had to mean something.
After about thirty minutes of tenseatmosphere in the car, we pulled up to a private Lake in a fancy suburb ofPortland.
“This is where he had hissixteenth birthday?” I looked around and saw one thing: money. Big houses, fancycars, and a beautiful lake with a huge clubhouse overlooking it.
Kyle crept the SUV up tothe farthest parking spot, encasing it in the darkness.
“The clubhouse, yeah. Wewere rich kids. Get over it.”
Ouch. Sensitive subject.They should have tried being a not rich kid. I had my sixteenth birthday in a ChuckyCheese.
“How is it that you andRyder both grew up in the same neighborhood and were both ash?” Seriously, whatwere the odds of that.
Kyle lifted his full lipsinto a smile, kind of creepy that grin. “Our mothers were best friends, richgirls with overindulgent families. It was the ‘60s, free love and all thatshit. They both got knocked up by vampires at the same party. This was rightaround the time that groups were lobbying for equal rights. They were supposedto stop all the testing on our kind, and it was sort of the in thing to try andhave an ash baby.”
I vaguely remember Tessatelling me that the ‘60s had been the biggest time for ash in all of vampirehistory. So Ryder and Kyle were over fifty years old. Of course, they didn’tlook a day out of their early twenties. Ash aged so slowly, it was like twentyhuman years to one ash. We lived a very long time.
“Ryder and I have beenbuds since birth, and there is no better human or ash in the world. We arelucky to have him.” Kyle finished his little speech, sinking back to wait outthe rest of the time in silence. Which was okay by me, I had plenty of thoughtsto keep me occupied. Especially about the enigmatic and quite mysterious headenforcer.
We sat in the van forwhat felt like forever. After a certain amount of time I was no longer able tobe 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 heartstarted to beat double-time and I had to stop myself from rushing out of thevehicle and throwing myself at him. Ryder was looking a little worse for wear,limping and holding his right shoulder.
