“I figured as much, good thing I have a good poker face,” Nick told him with a small smirk. James laughed and made a mental note never to play poker with the alpha.
“Aw, I wanted to see you two go at it. It would have been an awesome fight,” Bianca stated with a small pout and James glared at the red head.
“I agree it would have been cool! I would have put my money down on the beast,” the dryad stated.
“We don’t have time for this,” Dorin told them with irritation and glaring at them.
“He’s right, as I was saying before I believe the children will be located in the lower levels,” Jessie told them and everyone nodded following her lead. They passed the corridor where Lily had gone on her own and James felt a pang of doubt. He should have gone with her and he didn’t understand why she had insisted being by herself.
It didn’t take them long before they reached the lower levels. There were more guards here and James felt rather defenseless. He couldn’t shift, or handle a gun; he didn’t even have any kind of weapon on him. When a few of Xavier’s men came after him, James found out, at least, he could throw a decent punch.
There was a maze of halls filled with doors down there. Some looked like the emergency rooms. They were sealed off with a sterile look to them. There were several small tables filled with syringes and terrifying looking metal tools. Several cabinets accompany the tables that James was sure was filled with even more instruments to experiment and in the center of the room was an examining bed with thick leather straps to restrain the arms and legs.
“Son of a-” Nick swore softly looking at one of the many rooms like this. His face paled and James knew he was thinking of his daughter.
“Let’s hurry up,” James stated and everyone continued silently. There was a mass of maybe twenty of Xavier’s men guarding a pair of metal doors. “This must be it,” James whispered quietly and the human woman nodded mutely. She began to make hand signals that seemed like something out of a cop movie when the swat team is about to move in on the bad guys. It was a shame James never paid attention to those types of movies because he had no idea what they meant.
“James, David and Brian since neither of you have much skill with arms or combat wait here until we take care of the bulk of the guards,” Nick ordered them through the mental connection. James nodded along with the other two wolves. As the sharp shooters started to fire on the guards, vampires, and other supernaturals went fighting hand to hand. James almost felt sorry for Xavier’s men as they were so easily cut down.
They entered the double doors into another long hallway that had several doors along each side. The doors appeared to be made of thick metal with a small square window. James walked up to the first door and looked into the room. It was like the corridor, the walls, ceiling and floor were a blinding white in color lit with florescent light. It looked like a prison with a sink and toilet on one side of the wall and a small metal bed on the other. James thought it was empty at first until he saw a pair of feet sticking out from the corner.
He grabbed the handle not surprised at finding it locked though surprised it took nearly all his strength to break the handle and open the door. Nick entered the room and helped the pale boy stand up on his feet. “Phillip,” a one of the men cried running up to the boy smothering him in a hug demanding to know if the boy was alright.
The boy nodded and mumbled that he was fine. Nick clapped the man on the back with a large smile. “Brian stay here with Phillip and Ethan, Amber stay as well. If any more of Xavier’s men show up call me,” he ordered and the selected wolves gave him an obedient nod.
They slowly made their way down the hall; each room contained one of the missing children. James glanced over towards Nick as they reached the end of the hall that intersected with another one. Nick’s face had become even paler as all the children, but his own daughter had been recovered. “Harry,” he called out to of the wolves. “Take Jessie and half of the teams to escort the children out of here and back to town. The rest will come with me to search for anyone else that might be locked up.”
“Yes sir,” the brunette werewolf stated then looked at his alpha with a look of sympathy before turning back to the others.
The human started to complain, but Nick shook his head. “I need you with the children just in case Xavier may have someone waiting for them on the way out,” he told her and after a moment of hesitation she left with the others.
Nick and James lead the way through the next hallway. They found some rogue werewolves, a few vampires, even a couple of humans but what disturbed James the most is there were six rooms they hadn’t dared open because they contained those Xavier already experimented on. Much to Nick’s relief all they some were clearly male and adults and the others, at least, didn’t have the appearance of once being a thirteen-year-old girl.
“What do we do with them?” Nick asked as they peered into one of the rooms.
“Kill them,” Bianca quickly replied with disgust dripping from her voice. James glared at her with equal disgust.
“We open the door,” Dorin told them. “See if they remain some sanity left. If they don’t we give them a merciful death, if they do we free them like the rest and see just how much of them is really left,” he explained.
“Don’t be a fool, Dorin,” Bianca snapped but Nick stopped her.
“No, the vampire… Dorin I mean, is right. They deserve the same chance as Lily,” he told her.
“Don’t forget about the Aequivalere laws vampire,” Karya told Bianca and the redhead scoffed with a pout.
James opened the door slowly. The hairy man before them glared at them with glowing eyes and growled from his foaming mouth before he charged. Dorin shot him quickly with a silver bullet to the head. James caught a sad expression on the vampire’s face before he turned away from the dead hybrid and moved on to the next room. Unfortunately, all six creatures were just the same as the first. All were rabid frothing creatures that tried to attack them as soon as they opened the door.
“I told you,” Bianca said with a smug tone as the last one fell.
“We had to try,” Nick demanded angrily. “Now come on, there may still be people down here,” he snapped quickly walking down the hallway. James followed him feeling the desperation coming off the alpha in waves.
Two hours passed and they didn’t find anyone else down there. “Let’s go back and see if Lily has returned,” Bianca stated. “Maybe she has some good news,” she added. The distraught alpha looked slightly hopeful and they returned back to the above ground levels. They headed directly for the sealed off corridor where the door remained shut. Nick contacted his beta that was with the kids and found out no one had yet to hear from Lily. He swore and James got very unsettled. All, this time, had passed and no one had heard from her at all, what if Xavier had overpowered her, James thought worried.