“Blood hit Mexico twenty minutes ago,” Jared said. “Their celebrations are underway too.”
I had to get to my feet and start pacing. This was too much for me to handle. It was happening. Shit. This was actually happening. What would go down when the first vampire began to turn human? Would they figure it out right away or think he was a fluke? Oh God. I was going to be sick with nerves.
A knock at the door had all of us on high alert. Our location was completely secret. Sam had set the safe house up, and so far we’d done all our communicating via secure cell phones. Our internet signal was pinged and directed all around the world so that no one could trace it. Well, no one below Sam’s level of hacking.
So who the hell was knocking on the door? Ryder didn’t hesitate. Weapon locked and loaded, expression hard, he strode to the entrance. There was a peephole, which he used for a few seconds, before raising his brows to me and opening the door.
A Viking stepped through, and I was already running. My dad, mom, Becca, and Jayden were standing in the doorway. I crashed into the open arms of my father. We had never hugged, not like this. He might have only been my sire on paper, but in my heart he was my real dad. I squeezed him even tighter, thankful to him for keeping my mom safe this whole time. His scent was not familiar to me, but I felt comforted by the citrus and fresh autumn aroma that covered me now. Every girl needed a dad, whether he was blood or not. I had already chosen him as my father.
We had to get to know each other more, but hopefully there would be time for that. Stepping back, I was crushed into a hug between my mom and Jayden. Tears pricked my eyes. A part of me had wondered if I’d ever see them again.
They let me go and I turned to Becca. “Come here, girl.” I opened my arms and she smiled shyly before jumping into them.
I gave her a quick hug and then Sam was there. She threw her arms around him, and his face softened as they hugged.
“I told you to stay put,” he growled as he pulled back.
She smirked. “Nice to see you too.”
He scowled before ushering everyone inside.
Carter gave Ryder a nod. “I went back to Alaska looking for you. I found some signs of fresh tracks around the safe house these kids were in. Didn’t like it. So I brought them with me.”
Sam and I shared a look. Would the humans have known I was in Alaska? WTF. They must have people on the inside looking into my trail. CIA maybe. Shit, this was bad. This is why we were so cautious about spreading the word of the “cure takedown vamp plan” with humans. They had big mouths.
“It’s probably nothing,” Ryder assured me.
Before I could answer, I had a muscular, fine-ass BAFF in my face. “Bitch, I’ve been here five minutes and you haven’t said a word. How about, ‘Damn, Jayden your fingernails look busted. Why? Oh that’s right, you’ve been up for forty-eight hours packaging the cure.’” He crossed his arms and Oliver and I began slowly walking toward him.
Jayden was a sensitive flower and needed to be tended too. “Awww.” I picked up his hands and inspected the chipped nails and blisters. “Poor baby. Manicure, on me, when this shit dies down,” I said, and was rewarded with a broad smile.
Oliver stepped forward then and I was completely forgotten. That enforcer was very good at distracting him. My mom looked me up and down. I had ditched the gothic getup, but my hair was still short. “You’ve grown up, Charlie bear.”
Why do parents feel the need to call you by your childhood name in front of your boyfriend? And grown up? Hah. The understatement of my life. She had no idea what I had been through and I would never tell her. So I simply nodded, my smile weak but genuine.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” I said, pulling her close for another hug.
“Shit!” Kyle’s curse echoed around the room. He looked up from the computer perched on his lap and my gut dropped when I saw his face. Something very, very bad had happened.
Ryder and I practically crashed into Sam, all of us fighting to get over to Kyle.
“What is it?” Ryder demanded.
“Those motherfuckers.” Kyle was still swearing, and I was about to crack him over the head when he spun the laptop in our direction. It took me about five minutes to wrap my head around what I was seeing. I recognized the images, but my brain was having trouble processing.
Holy shit! We had been expecting some backlash. Lives did hang in the balance when it was anything to do with vampires … but this, this was so much worse.
The video footage was image after image of vampires spilling out onto the streets as the sun was setting in New York. They were attacking humans. Killing them, turning them, drinking from them, destroying homes and buildings, causing damage for the sake of causing damage. Shit! What was happening? Had some started to turn to human already, and the rest went crazy? Were they going to take out as many as they could before the cure kicked in?
Ryder’s jaw was clenched. “Three hours.”
“Huh?” My brain was still processing the video.
Ryder turned to everyone in the room. “The sun goes down in Portland in three hours.”
Well … fuck. Maybe I wasn’t getting out of this alive. Because you bet your ass if the vampires were coming for the people of Portland, I was going to be there to stop them.
“It’s a one-hour drive, so we have two hours to suit up and make a plan.”
