“Jesus H Christ, is he with us?” Lincoln asked, sounding slightly concerned.
I nodded. “Yep, he’s one of the good ones, so please try not to shoot him.”
We were on the move. I instinctively stuck to Ryder’s side, knowing it made both of us feel better. We split up then into four groups. Sasha and Lucas were with us as we stormed the front entrance. What I saw had fresh hot rage igniting inside of me. Women were being dragged out of apartments by the hair, vampires feeding off of their necks. Female vampires were making the men drink their blood, exposing them to the virus.
“Party’s over, fuckers!” Sasha yelled, and tossed a flashbang grenade. She waited a second before dive rolling straight into the center of the chaos. I grinned. I’d forgotten how much I loved this chick. She was totally my spirit animal.
Despite my desire to stay close to Ryder, we were soon separated in the absolute chaos. I had my gun held tightly as I ran straight into the fray, shooting to kill as many vampires as I could. The humans’ lives depended on us moving quickly; a lot of them were close to death as it was.
For the infected humans I used my other gun, the one with the cure darts. Cure in my right hand, kill gun in my left. These humans would hopefully survive, but with the massive blood loss it was always a worry.
“Are the hospitals full?” I shouted to Lincoln, who was close by wrestling a vampire. For a human, he was holding his own.
Too impatient to wait for him to finish to answer, I swapped hands and used my “kill” gun, shooting the vampire right in the forehead. Lincoln jumped to his feet, his hands automatically going to wipe away the blood he’d just had spatter all over him.
“Fuck, Charlie. You could have hit me.”
I waved him off. “Nah, I’m an excellent shot. Besides, I owed you that for the broken jaw.”
He didn’t argue with me again. I might have even seen a small smile.
“So, hospitals? Should we be trying to get these humans there? Or is it a complete waste?”
Sasha dashed past us, chasing down a female vamp, and it looked like she had the upper hand. “Ten-hour backlog in hospitals already, no point taking them. We just need to do the best we can in the field.”
Dammit. That’s what I was worried about. Blue Eyes lifted a small comm device then and barked some orders. Within a minute three or four field medics burst into the building. I moved closer to them, determined to keep them safe from any vampires. This floor was relatively clear now, but I couldn’t see any of my boys. Even Jayden was gone, and he’d been close by too.
“Get the humans stabilized. Make sure all of them get a shot of the cure, no matter what.” Lincoln was off again, shouting and killing as he went. Once it looked like this floor was secure, I went into action, dragging the humans across the street to the medic building. They worked fast, already having set up a triage zone. It was soon filled with human casualties.
“All need to go to triage first,” a tall, thin male was shouting. “More urgent to the west end, and the least to the east.”
Dude, seriously! If you want me to follow directions, please never include the words west or east. Thankfully I figured it out; it was clear which were in the worst condition. One near the end had pretty much had her throat torn out, and two Army people were working to stabilize it.
“Charlie, help!”
The faint call caught my attention. I quickly deposited my human somewhere in the middle of the triage line. She was conscious but had lost a lot of blood. Following that call from outside, I holstered my cure gun and kept the kill one out. The streets were no better than before. In fact there looked to be a lot more humans and vampires out.
Come on. The cure had to start working soon. In this case, Becca couldn’t have made the change fast enough. As I darted across the road, searching for the one who’d called my name, I sent out a brief hope that other cities weren’t hit as hard as Portland. New York seemed to be under control fast; it had to be the same in other places. I would never be able to live with myself if by curing the vampires I killed off 10% of the human population.
“Charlie!” I knew that voice better than any other. Tessa. She was in trouble.
Full on sprinting through the streets, I tapped into the heat at my center and levitated across the road, landing right before a dark, creepy alley. Of course. Why not? I stepped with very little hesitation, even as the darkness engulfed me. Most of the streetlights were busted, and power seemed to have been cut to lots of buildings. I had ashpire vision but it was still damn dark.
“Tess?” I said, barely more than a whisper. What the fuck was Tessa doing out in the middle of downtown Portland during the war?
The only reply was a low whimper. My heart was pounding heavily, my breathing doing something weird. I couldn’t seem to get enough oxygen. This alley was long and narrow. Multiple doorways led off it, and even a few other small alleys. I was about halfway along when I heard her cry out and realized she was to the left, down a side access. I took off, gun still held firmly.
It was stupid of me to come here alone. I knew that the moment I entered the alley. But there was no time to turn back. Tessa needed me. My boots slammed against the pavement, and as the end of the alley came into sight, the rapid pulsing of my heart increased.
WTAF? Tessa was pinned up against the wall by a vampire. A vampire I thought was long dead.
“Hello, Charlene, so nice of you to join us.” Blake had the full creepy stare going on, and I was sure he’d been feeding from my bestie. I could see the blood on his chin and on her throat.
Think, Charlie, you need to defuse this situation right now.
“What are you doing, Blake? You love Tessa. You promised me you’d never hurt her.”
He threw back his head and laughed, this stupid chuckle which was irritating enough that my finger flexed on the trigger. He must have noticed, shaking his head twice at me.
