Soft landing and roll?Was this man for reals?
I felt Ryder slam downbehind me. Oliver was there too. The three of us took off running in a zigzag,more bullets raining around us, but we were moving too fast for them to trackus. We made it into the side entrance, and using Ryder’s ID badge were insidein seconds. We were on target too, right near the laundry chutes. I scannedRyder quickly. He seemed to be unhurt, then I turned to Oliver.Holy shit.Theenforcer was holding his right shoulder, which was bleeding freely. I wasn’tsure if he’d hurt himself on the fence or if he’d been hit.
“Oliver,” I said,reaching out for him.
He brushed me off. “I’mfine. Jayden is the priority.”
I hesitated for a moment,before nodding. Neither of us would worry about injuries until Jayden wassafe.
Ryder moved into mypersonal space then. “They aren’t here to kill you, Charlie. Manuel nevermisses. He was aiming to hurt you, not kill. They intend to capture you alive.”
And I’d thought thesniper had missed because of our awesome dodging skills. Wait? Take me alive? Iwould much rather they wanted to kill me.
“This changes the planslightly. But no matter what happens in there, you stay close to me. The boyscan handle the Sanctum. They made a mistake when they brought only three. Iknow one will be down in the lobby investigating Jared and Kyle. So that leavestwo for us, plus the sniper.”
Ah, so even though theHive thought there were three, Ryder knew there were at least four of them…
Ryder hunched over andcrept silently down the hall to the stairwell. I followed his movements to a T.I had no doubt that if anyone could keep me alive in a dangerous situation, itwould be Ryder. He drew his weapon and then quietly opened the stairwell door, heand Oliver taking a side each, heads craning around first before their bodiesfollowed. They continued moving, looking left and right. Ryder put a finger tohis lips to indicate complete quiet for the rest of the trip. We all paddedlike cats up the thirty-three floors to the apartment I shared with Jayden. Itwas a very long-ass trip, and I wanted to complain like a mofo, but kept quiet.No other ash or vampire crossed our path. The Hive was on lockdown, which was agood thing as I was jumpy and would probably shoot anybody who appeared.
We finally reached myfloor. Ryder took point, and was just about to hit the handle when I felt aslight shift in the air. This was my only indication that something was aboveus, and then a black shadow pretty much fell from the sky. My finger sort ofdid a spasm, and sure enough I managed to shoot out the light above us. Great,not only could I have killed someone, but I also plunged everything intodarkness.
This didn’t seem tobother Ryder. He managed in one movement to spin, block the masked man’soutstretched arm, and step in front of me in a protective stance. My ash sightwas advanced enough to see a gun fly off and clatter against the wall, but Icouldn’t tell who it had come from. It didn’t fire at least. I backed up to thewall and stood there silently, my own weapon still grasped in my sweaty hand. Icouldn’t use it. It was too dark and I wouldn’t risk hitting one of my guys.
Oliver moved in to helpRyder, swift and silent even with his injury. He kicked out, cracking the guyin the back. The black-clad man – legit dressed like a ninja, face mask and all– had been busy keeping Ryder from breaking his limbs and hadn’t seen Oliver. Theninja dropped to the ground now, and on the way managed to kick out his leg andpush Oliver down the flight of stairs.
Before I could dive downthe steps to see if my friend was okay, the ninja popped up and pivoted himselfto the left. He practically flew across the stairwell in my direction. Istarted to lift my gun, which had fallen uselessly to my side, butinstinctively knew I was going to be too slow. This guy moved like a shadow, sofast he almost looked blurry. Just as his hands landed on my throat, and I wastightening my finger on the trigger – I didn’t even care if I only managed toshoot his nuts off, that would certainly slow him down – Ryder leapt out of theshadows, moving in the same blurry way, cracking the ninja straight in thetemple. As the Sanctum guy stumbled, Ryder whipped up his weapon and pressedthe barrel to the back of the ninja’s head.
It was like time stopped.I could see Ryder’s hesitation. He wasn’t a cold-hearted killer. And for all heknew this Sanctum ninja was very possibly an old friend of his.
“Call off this job and Iwill let you walk,” Ryder said, his voice clipped.
I could see the ninja breathingdeeply. “She’s worth more than any job we’ve had, and you were always too weakto be one of us.” The ninja folded himself over, doing a front flip, his feetkicking Ryder in the stomach, knocking him back. The ninja didn’t take time tofight again. He jumped up high and spun over the side of the railing, down thestairs and out of sight.
I didn’t hesitate then toscramble down the steps to Oliver. My breath came a little easier when I saw theLatino enforcer gaining consciousness. He groaned. I almost tripped over thefinal few stairs – he’d fallen down a set of ten – and skidded to his side.
His eye fluttered a fewtimes before focusing on me. “I’m fine. Get Jayden!” He was all business, and Iknew he would never forgive me if I didn’t leave him in this stairwell rightnow. Of course, if anything happened to Oliver, Jayden probably wouldn’tforgive me either.
I leaned down and kissedhim on the cheek. “Stay hidden. Do not get yourself killed. We will rescueJayden and come back for you.”
He propped himself up.“I’m going to try and make it to the other guys. They’ll drop me at the medicalward. I just need some blood and I’ll be fine.”
He didn’t look fine. Hisarm was bleeding pretty badly again, and bones were definitely broken in hishand. I wondered why he wasn’t going to the feeding area for blood. Probably itwas in lockdown too.
I felt heat at my back.Ryder was standing protectively over both of us. “Get some extra blood. We willprobably need it. Meet us back at the Humvee.”
Oliver gave his leader anod, and something passed between them. The sexy six were family, and none ofthis situation was easy on any of them. Especially the splitting up part.
Ryder reached down then,and before I could say anything he stashed a gun into the side of my boot. Irecognized it as the one from the ninja. I didn’t question him – he would havea reason and I would be okay with that reason.
He started to move then,his gun on display. I picked up my original weapon from where it had dropped. Ineeded to start training again. Guns started to feel scary and odd when you didn’thave regular contact with them.
No one jumped us thistime. The door silently opened, and my eyes remained glued on the broadshoulders in front of me. I didn’t question, I just followed him down the hall.My apartment door was unlocked, but Ryder kicked it open hard, like it was nomore than a piece of paper, and it banged against the wall.
I couldn’t see anythingat first. Ryder went in front, gun drawn and his scary face in play. He blockedmy sight for about eight seconds, but the moment I could see around him myblood did this strange thing where it boiled and froze all at the same time. Jaydenwas tied to a chair, an unmasked mercenary standing behind him. He was notparticularly tall or broad, and had no real defining features. He was sort ofbland in a mousy brown-haired way. But his eyes, they were scary – ash black,literally no silver – and they looked flat … dead. This was not a good dude.
As I focused in on mybest friend, I could see that Jayden looked a little drowsy, like they’d eitherhit him hard enough to stun or tranqued him. Boring dude had a gun trained onthe back of Jayden’s head, his hand steady, not even the slightest shake, likehe could stand there for hours in the same position. The window behind him wasopen and I wondered if Sam and Markus were there waiting. Why would the Sanctumhave that window open? Was that how he’d gotten inside?
“Ryder…” His voice was asbland as his appearance. It was so odd, but I felt like I could forgeteverything about this guy the moment he was gone. Which was probably theappeal. Except his dead eyes, they were seared into my brain.
