Suddenly I hear the vents shake and everyone starts whimpering trying to get under the thin sheets.
“What is it?” I ask and Aliza points to the vents and a second later it hits me when I turn to look and suck in a breath. Wolfsbane being pumped in the vents. I cough covering my mouth and Aliza offers a piece of her sheet to me. I cover my mouth and nose. My eyes burned and watered and my skin blistered and burned but it didn’t last long and the vents stopped shuddering and groaning. It wasn’t enough to kill anyone but enough to keep them weak. We needed to get out of here. I looked at the vents running along the roof and they were pretty big, big enough to crawl through but they were also pretty high up the roof.
I wait for my body to stop retching and hacking up on the wolfsbane. My breathing wheezed and burned each breath I took and I used the wall to push myself upright, staggering as I looked for a join in the vents and at the brackets.
“What are you doing?” Carla asks.
“Do you know where the vents lead?” I ask her and she shakes her head.
“The laundry room in the packhouse, they are set on a timer, every hour they open the vents. You can’t use them, those vents are coated in wolfsbane, you would die trying to get out of them” Aliza says and I shake my head.
“I need to get in those vents so I can get help” I tell her.
“Did you not hear what I said? They are coated in wolfsbane, and if the vents turn on while you are in there” She doesn’t finish, instead coughing.
“It may kill you Aliza, but I am not just a werewolf, I am mutation. Wolfsbane affects me but it would take a lot to kill me” I tell her while looking around the cell. The cells were bare except the steel sinks and toilets in each one. Looking around the other cells, I notice a piece of bent rebar sticking out the wall in Carla’s cell.
“Carla, can you break that bar off?” She shakes her head. “I tried it won’t budge” She says and I nod looking back at the ceiling.
The cells were barred but painted red with wolfsbane in the paint. I grit my teeth before walking to the corner of the cell where our cell met the other. I tug off my jeans leaving me in only my pink panties, if I could just get my jeans around the sprinkler system it might hold my weight to get close enough to the vent. I could break the bracket where they join but would the vent hold my weight?
Gripping the bars, I lift my leg on to the bar that runs crossways before pulling myself up. I try to reach the sprinkler system but it is too high, and my thighs too wide to fit through the bars to climb them.
“Pass my jeans” I tell Aliza. She staggers over coughing and hands them to me. Holding one leg, I try to toss them over over the sprinkler system, it took multiple attempts while trying to hang onto the bar with one hand while trying to toss the denim jeans over it, as the gap was only small, each time I hit the roof only for them to fall missing the bar but eventually I managed it.
I was eating up the hour already and I didn’t want to be stuck in those vents when the timer went off. I carefully jiggle my jeans so the other leg falls through the otherside. Once it was through enough to grab, I looped my arm through the bars while I reached out for the other before grabbing both in one hand. I tug on the jeans and they hold and the bolts holding the sprinkler system don’t budge. I test my weight on it.
“Now what?” Carla asks, looking up at me curiously.
“Now I need to break the vent bracket at the join,” I tell her, trying to think of how exactly I was going to do that. The brackets were not very big but they were held with two bolts on each side. Leaning back with the pant legs clutched in one hand. I now had to try to swing over and hope it held my swinging weight.
The sprinkler system ran alongside the vent but higher up the roof, the vents hanging down a little lower so I would be close enough to climb in if I could break the bracket or bust one side of the vent open. They joined in the centre of the cell. A bracket on each side of the join, if I could break one and pop the vent out, I should be able to climb into the side with the bracket attached still.
Testing that theory I jump clutching the jeans with both hands. I spin for a second before climbing the denim like a rope and wrapping my hands around the sprinkler system. The metal is cool to touch but hard to grip. I kick at the bracket to find it already loose. Oh thank the goddess, I think to myself and see how rusted the bolts holding it to the roof are. Instead of kicking the bracket I start kicking the side of the vent crushing the wall inwards, knowing gripping the bracket, chances are the bracket will rip from the roof and hopefully my weight will separate the vents.
I kick the side denting it all in and the bottom of the vent using my toes. I hiss when my toes break before healing only to break again as I kick the bottom of the vent when I hear a click, the vent unpopping from its groove.
Adrenaline courses through me and I kick the bracket a couple of times to make sure it is loose enough before reaching over and grabbing it. The moment I drop my weight on it, this side rips from the ceiling and I barely hang on before dropping down and jarring my feet. I climb back up repeating the process this time kicking the dented vent to knockthem apart enough to get my fingers between them. When I manage that, I grip the vent, my weight and the missing bracket on that side makes the vent bend downwards when it pulls out of the wall and I hit the concrete on my ass. The piece of vent I was gripping fell on to me and knocked the air out of me.
“Are you ok?” Nathaniel coughs. I groan and Aliza helps me up.
“You should wait, we haven’t got much more time until the timer goes off and pushes the wolfsbane through the vents again”
“Are you sure it leads to the laundry?” I ask her.
“Yes one side would have to lead outside the other to the laundry” She says, looking up at the vents. I didn’t have a choice in which one to go through now as half the vent was on the ground and I couldn’t climb the brick. So hopefully the one I am going through leads outside if not laundry it is, I think to myself. Climbing the bars to my jeans again.
My fingers were cut to pieces as I gripped the lip of the vent. I dangled there for a bit trying to find a way to pull myself up, managing to get one arm in and I used my arm elbow to help pull myself in. The wolfsbane residue on the vent was like acid on my skin.
I coughed and spluttered in the vent , my bare legs felt like the skin was being eaten off. Each second in there I grew weaker, and dizzy having to stop. I made it to the bend in the vents but now it went up. I felt like I was playing tetris moving my body at odd angles to turn on my back before pulling myself up to a sitting position. It went up a little over metre before turning flat again. Standing bent over slightly, I slide into the other vent on my stomach. I groan when I see the fan and know I am in the laundry. The other side went outside. The laundry though wasn’t the worst option as it was on the back deck of the packhouse, so also outside the main house.
The grate on the side was covered in to stop Wolfsbane from spilling into the laundry but the covering on the side was thin and after a couple of elbows I managed to get one side to break just as the vents groaned and turned on. I gasp as I inhale a huge breath of wolfsbane before holding my breath and slamming my elbow into the otherside shoving the grate covering the vent hole out. I was surprised no one came bursting in because it was hardly a quiet task breaking into the vents and crawling through. The grate fell to the ground with a clang and I squeeze out covering my mouth and nose trying to find the switch for the fans to the vents. Looking out the window, I look down to see our concrete prison underneath the back deck and also to see if anyone was lurking outside.
Luckily no one appeared to be around, making me wonder why no one was at the packhouse today and where Alpha Jamie was. I couldn’t see a single person. Turning back to the laundry, I spot the switch and shut it off before spotting a 2L bottle of wolfsbane sitting on top of the fan, a hose and funnel coming out of the Motor from somewhere which must be where they pour wolfsbane in.
Despite this being a laundry room it was empty and last time I was out on the back deck here, I do remember seeing the Washer and dryer on the back deck and thought it was a little odd but never questioned it. And to think everyone has been trapped at the packhouse this entire time. But that made more sense because the pack believed Aliza was dead so his Beta must have been the only one to know of the cells under the deck.
Opening the laundry door, I sucked in a deep breath of unpolluted air, my face was burning from the wolfsbane and I wasted no time rushing down the steps of the back deck to the ground. I look at the door of the outbuilding that I always thought was for storage as it went the entire length of the deck. I sneak around and see a huge padlock on the door and digital key panel. I let out a breath now I just had to throw myself over the borders and hope Ace and Tyson don’t kill me at first glance. Running across the rear lawn. I climb the fence and dart into the trees.