“Of course you did! You only wanted to save your own first and screw the rest,” Wendy shot back at him.
“No, little alpha,” Donovan jumped in. “He’s right. We had no choice but to retreat and regroup. And he’s right that you have to stay here. That area now has silver residue everywhere. On the ground, on the plants, in the air. The only way any lycan can go with us is if they’re in a hazmat suit. You can’t go because with your dad unaccounted for, you now are your pack’s alpha. They need you here and they need you safe.”
“He tried to warm us, Alpha Wendy,” Bill said, his voice a lot gentler now. “He called Donovan and tried to warn us which means they found the traps first and that he was alive at the time of the call. There is a good chance he’ll still be when we get there.”
“Well, what are you waiting for! Go and get them. I see to things here,” she ordered, sounding a lot older than her sixteen years.
“I-” Bill started.
“Yes Alpha,” Donovan jumped in. “We’ll do that.”
Lily would’ve grinned if she could but besides, pain she was also starting to feel numb. Get James! She told the fairy in her mind. She didn’t think he’d hear her but she had to try.
“Just keep people away from the SUV. As well tell the doc that Lily’s got silver residue on her and she’s breathed it in. I think her lungs have really bad off. I think they’ve filled with blood,” He explained and Lily heard the door open again.
“What seems to be the problem,” an unfamiliar voice spoke then a sharp gasp. “Oh I see. How bad is it?” Wendy repeated what Donovan had told her. “Covered in silver we can’t relocate her to my make shift operating room. That is if we managed to cover her so she doesn’t burn in the sun. This is going to make it a little tricky but I believe we can do it. I’ll need someone to fetch some things.”
“I’ll get them and I can act as a nurse,” Xin Qian jumped in. “I don’t have formal training but I’m a Cho witch. I’ve specialized in healing magics and versed in traditional medicine.”
“Wonderful,” he replied, sounding like he actually meant it. “You do that my dear while I see to our patient.” A moment later Lily felt a laytex glove hand take her right with a gentle care. “Miss Lily, are you conscious?” He asked with a soft, warm tone and she gave him a squeeze in reply. “Good. Judging by the look of things, I don’t think you can speak,” he went on, she gave his hand another squeeze.
“I thought so. Miss Lily, this isn’t going to be pleasant for you. I’m not well stocked for vampiric healing. I’m not sure if my sedatives or anesthetics will work on you when full vamp. We can’t risk you going wolf until you’re more life threatening injuries are seen too.”
Lily gave him a hard squeeze, telling him she understood. This was going to suck and hurt like hell!
The crackling noise echoed through James’ head as his ears began to heal. Judging by the blood on his fingers when he touched them the noise of the explosion had caused his eardrums to burst. With his hearing slowly coming back, he stood up from his crouched position behind the SUV. The sight in front of him made his jaw drop and his stomach lurch.
What was left of Mark, one of Nick’s trackers, was spread all across the road. Sanders was screaming as he held his face while clawing at his face. Mitchell was growling as he desperately rubbed snow against the side of his face. The snow that fell back to the ground was red with his blood. All James could think was that it was like a war zone.
“Just don’t stand there, boy,” Mitchell barked. “Help him! The damn bomb was laced with silver powder. It’s eating away at him!”
James pulled out gloves from his coat pocket and zipped up the coat all the way up to his neck. Grabbing a small fold-away shovel from the back of the SUV, James cleared a path through the silver tainted snow to Sanders. He was still squirming and screaming as he clawed at his face which was only making his injuries worse. “Damn,” James breathed before digging into the snow to the silver free snow beneath.
Grabbing up a handful, he dumped it on Sander’s face. He grabbed several more and began rubbing it into the alpha’s wounds like he saw his father doing. Sander’s stopped trying to tear his face off and James took that as a good sign. He picked up more snow and started to rub all of Sander’s exposed skin, trying not to look the alpha in the face or what was left of it anyway.
“How is he?” Mitchell demanded, his voice sounding strained. James looked up and did a double take. Half of his father’s face and neck was just as bad as Sander’s. “Well?” He barked, snapping James out of his horrified staring.
“I think he’s better…” he started.
“But he needs a doc,” Mitchell finished for him. “Get his arms and I’ll get his legs. We’ll take him back to base.”
James did as he was told. He grabbed the alpha from under his arms and lifted him up. “What about the others?” He said as they carried him back to the SUV. His thoughts on Lily. What if all the roads were trapped like this one? Fear and dread made him feel sick to his stomach but he wouldn’t lose his breakfast in front of his dad.
“There’s nothing we can do for her right now. Not when the alpha’s life depends on us getting back as soon as possible,” his dad replied.
As much as James hated to admit it, his father was right. He swallowed down the bile that crept up his throat and tried to focus on getting Sanders into the back of the car without jostling him too much. The alpha hadn’t made a sound or flinch since he stopped screaming and it was only his ragged breath that told James he was still alive. When the laid him down in the back seat James started to get into the car when his father stopped him.
“Wait,” he said, grabbing James arm with his good hand. “Before we drive off. Let’s get those spikes out of the way and check for more explosives.” They walked over towards the spikes. His father spat out a curse and blood as they noticed the silver wire lined across the street just above the spike strip that obviously hadn’t been there before.
“They’ve rigged the road ahead with explosives in case we tried to keep going after the spikes! They rigged the way back to make sure we died,” Mitchell swore, spitting out more curses and blood.
“So what do we do now?” James asked as he kneeled down to look at the thin wire. This was bad. This was real bad.
“We’ve got two choices. Try to disable the explosives or walk it,” he replied.
“You know how to do that?”
His dad made a sound of derision. “I did… thirty years ago. Now with all this digital stuff…”
“So we’re walking,” James said, standing up and walked back to the SUV. “Do you think the woods are safe?”
“No real way of telling,” Mitchell replied. “We’re just going to have to chance it and hope like hell they figured this crap they set up on the road was enough.”
He nodded, pulling Sanders out of the SUV by his legs and throwing him over his shoulder in a fireman’s hold. “Let’s get going. I don’t think Sanders has a whole lot of time.” James didn’t wait for his father’s reply as he charged into the woods at a quick jog. He ran into the woods for a couple of minutes, making a large U until he came back to the road about a half mile from the traps. He hoped like hell no one else would use that road.
Mitchell followed behind him but at a much slower pace and his breath heavy. James had a feeling his father was much more injured than he was letting on. “You need to slow down?” He asked as they reached the road. His dad made another sound of derision and ran off down the road. James sighed, adjusting Sanders on his shoulder. “Fine! Act all super wolf and get yourself killed,” he grumbled before jogging off after him.
Despite all of Mitchell’s intentions, they did end up slowing down. The older wolf’s breathing was ragged and raspy. James choose not to say anything, knowing it would only make his dad more grumpy. Nothing could be done for his worry for his dad. Even if he was an abusive old bully, he was still James’ dad after all.
A sound of a car brought their still hurried pace to a halt. They glanced at each other and James could see the same worry in Mitchell’s face as in his. Who was coming this way? Were they friend or were they the enemy? With some hesitation, James decided to stand his ground and wait to see who was coming. He almost wished it was someone working with the vampires so he could unleash his beast on them.
Moments later a dark SUV came around a wide bend. The car slowed and stopped next to them. Donovan and Bill jumped out, taking Sanders from James. “See you got the same gift package,” Donovan said, looking at his dad. James and Mitchell climbed into the back seat then the others helped lay Sanders across their laps.
“Yeah,” Mitchell said, his voice gruff. “We lucked out and James didn’t get hit. The wind pushed the silver away from us. The only casualty so far was the tracker who tripped the bomb. Sanders was standing not to far from him so he got hit hard, and I was still too close.”
“Yeah, we fared about the same,” Donovan said darkly as they drove. The dark looks on their faces told James something bad had happened. Bile crept up into his throat again while panic tried to take over him.
“How bad,” James managed to say.