A few hours later the last box was dropped onto the back dock area and we were done with our part of this plan. Ryder opened the door and got back into the captain’s chair.
“Everything is in place,” he said, starting the rig. “Sanctum have full control of the blood bank area. They’ve been here for a few days learning the ropes. They won’t make any mistakes. The cure will be reaching the Hives within the next day or two.”
I nodded, my breath catching in my chest. I was already sick of this cloak and dagger, hide Charlie in the back of the van bullshit. I wanted my life back.
Kyle got in and shut the door firmly. “They’re going to text when it’s all done. They have six more members in the labs, and will work through the night to get the blood into every single bottle.”
“Did the other guys run into any trouble?” I asked, wishing I had a phone to get updates and stuff on. Sort of felt naked without technology in my hands.
Ryder shook his head. “Nah, they’re all good. Few checkpoints, but each looking for you. Sanctum was in place, as promised, at the Californian hospital.”
The rig was on the road again, back in downtown Dallas. “So now we just lay low and wait for the shit to hit the fan, right?”
Somehow it all seemed too easy, like we should be fighting and stabbing vampires in the neck with cure-filled syringes.
Ryder laughed. “Yes, we now have to wait. We’ll head back to Portland and prepare ourselves for war.”
He dialed a number then and put it on speaker. It rang a few times before a familiar voice answered.
“Talk to me, Ryder,” Lincoln said, voice hard.
“Plan is in place. E.T.A forty-eight hours. You?”
“Files in action. Cities around the globe on standby, everything looking rosy on our end. Will inform you if anything new arises. Waiting on bottle delivery now.”
They weren’t exactly speaking in code. I understood exactly what was being said. The army was already heading to the Hive towns. They were going to be on standby for the possible fallout of the cure.
Lincoln continued: “All members have darts filled with liquid from a Dr. Leander. None will escape.”
The boys exchanged a few more words before ending the secure call.
Ryder looked pleased. “Everything is in place. Lincoln has used the files to ensure silence from men with power. They have multiple teams in all cities and are loaded down with cure. Becca made sure to send them all her extra. We are as ready as we’ll ever be.”
Okay. Wow. He got a lot more than me from that conversation. But it was all good news. Settling in to the couch, preparing for a long drive home, I sent out as many positive thoughts as I could. This had to work.
The next two days went by agonizingly slow. Everything was in place. The UV resistant bottles were on their way to the Hives; human donors had arrived already at most places. Everything was perfect. A little too perfect.
“So there has been no chatter on the network?” I asked Sam for the hundredth time. “Nothing to indicate that the vampires know about our plan?”
He glared, before running a hand through his dark hair. It was getting long; he needed a cut. “No, there’s still nothing. Normal chatter. Nothing in code. So far we’re good.”
The seven of us were camped out in another safe house. Not in Portland. There were still mass searches going on for me there, but in the nearby Salem area, about an hour’s drive away. We’d been spending our time playing cards and obsessively checking the online updates.
“Blood just hit Canada,” Markus called, leaning back and stretching out his long body. He’d been in that chair all day. “And Florida has theirs now.”
Sanctum were updating us via the untraceable cells. So far eighty percent of shipments had arrived today.
Sam sat a little straighter in his chair then, his fingers flying across the keyboard.
“What’s happening?” I leaned forward, unable to stop myself from asking.
“Vampire celebrations underway in Chicago. Ash enforcers there said the blood and donors are out in force, and that vampires are indulging themselves.”
I exchanged a smile with Kyle. Awesome, this was exactly what we hoped would happen. New blood days were almost always a celebration. The blood was the freshest, and they had new donors to ravage. The old blood was distributed to ash and the freshest was for vampires.
Fuckers.
Becca had assured me that the cure didn’t hurt ash, because they were born and not made. She’d tested it on donated blood from the boys, which meant all the ash in the compounds were going to be okay. They just had to wait it out.
