Page 53 of Hitched to the Vampire King
It hadn’t taken us long to pack up and move here, thanks to everyone busting their asses. Avery had acquired the transportation—the same vehicle as before—along with the massive blanket we’d wrapped Gabriel in last time. Once we had him ready for transport, Josh and Sam had hauled him out to the van. Five minutes later, we were on the move, changing locations before the city had even started to truly wake up.
From there, we’d broken into two groups. Lucy, Sam, Avery, and I took Gabriel to the new house, while Jaden and Josh set off on their adventure to procure all the tech and the spell we needed for today. Regardless of our unexpected visitors earlier this morning, we couldn’t delay today’s mission.
Once we arrived at the new safehouse, the four of us set to work. First, we chose a room for Gabriel and blacked it out with the UV-blocking curtains we borrowed from Aimee’s place, then Sam and I unloaded our resident vampire and carried him upstairs. It didn’t take long to get him settled on the bed, and then we returned downstairs to where Avery and Lucy had set up our command center.
Just before lunch, Josh and Jaden returned, their hands full of bags of equipment, food, and blood for Gabriel.
I let them into the house, then gave the neighborhood a quick perusal before closing the door and locking us in.
The moment I rejoined everyone in the kitchen, the atmosphere in the house shifted from a cautious calm to a focused urgency. Jaden and Josh dropped the bags on the floor, and we all gathered around, keen to test out the new tech.
But before we could so much as sneak a peek, Jaden grabbed one of my hands and squeezed so hard she might have broken it if I were human. “I have to tell you something.”
I lifted my brows.
“While we were meeting with the witch, I received a call from Ginny. Do you remember her?”
My jaw tightened, and it took everything in me not to growl at the mention of her name. Yes, I remembered Ginny. How could I forget? She’d been the one to arrange our little tête-à-tête with the council, seeing as her aunt was Councilwoman Lorraine. The same woman who’d then voted to turn us over to Adrian.
“Well, I guess Ginny heard about Chris and decided enough was enough. She took everything I told her, about the fraudulent contracts, the Academy corruption, Chris’s death,everything, and brought it all to the local PD. Apparently, the police are now investigating the Academy.”
Stunned by this news, I leaned back and stared at Jaden. “Seriously? I figured Ginny betrayed us. I always thought she turned us over to her aunt.”
“No,” Jaden said with a small smile. “She was always on our side. But when they murdered Chris, I guess she couldn’t sit by quietly anymore. Ginny wanted to let me know what was happening. The council doesn’t know they’re being investigated yet, but it sounds like the police have found quite a bit of evidence. Maybe even enough to make an arrest.”
A heavy breath rushed past my lips as I pondered what this meant. The Academy had to pay for their crimes, and I’d always imagined I would be the one to take them out. But Jaden’s words from night before last came back to me, that they were humans and fell under police jurisdiction. As much as I wanted to make them suffer, I had to abide by the law. I had to bebetterthan them. If this was the path others wanted to take, then I would curb my bloodlust—or at least save wholly it for Adrian and Nash.
“Ginny’s also been telling everyone that the council killed Chris,” Jaden continued. “And from what I hear, our people are listening, and they’re pissed.”
This was incredible. For once, we didn’t have to take on the world’s problems by ourselves.
“This is great news,” I murmured, still blown away by the revelation. “Wow. This is all so amazing to hear. Keep me in the loop, okay?”
“You bet,” Jaden said. “Ginny said she’d call us once she hears from the Sergeant in charge of the case. But it sounds like when they make an arrest—not if—we can be there to watch.”
Oh god, I wanted that. I wanted to be there as the police hauled the council out in handcuffs.
“Which means we need to take care of Nash and Adrian as soon as possible so we can get home in time to see all this go down,” I said.
“Right. Well, that just lit a fire under our asses, huh?”
I chuckled. It certainly did.
“Let’s get back to it then,” Jaden said.
I forced our recent conversation from my mind—as difficult as that was—and glanced at the equipment now laid out on the table, thanks to Josh.
“We got everything we needed,” he announced, unloading the gear. He pulled out what I presumed was the RF detector, since I’d never seen one before and it looked completely unfamiliar, and then four Bluetooth earpieces which we would use to keep in communication with each other. We’d done this before when hunting the demon, and it had proven very effective.
Jaden handed one to Sam and then me, then slipped a third in her own ear. We left the fourth in the box, not needing it right this second. “Let’s test these out. Make sure they work before we send you out there.”
I connected my earpiece to my cell phone and dialed into the group audio call Jaden had sent us a link to earlier this morning.
“Test,” I called out once I’d turned everything on.
“I hear you,” Jaden replied, her voice echoing in my ear even though I could hear her right beside me too.
“And I hear you both,” Sam commented.
