“No, I’m going with you.” Olivia looked at me and stared me down, then when her brother went to say something she held her hand up. “I don’t want to hear it. She needs me, she’ll never get close without you or I along to show her the way through the Pack defenses. You’re Alpha here, so you stay.”
“What if they stop you on the road, Olivia?”
“I’ll be fine, they can’t tell the difference between humans and werewolves yet.” Olivia started to pick weapons out of the locker as well, a good idea since shifting around humans was suicide now.
Craig looked desperately at me. “The boys, Ella, they need you. Think about them.”
I put his face in my hands and stared into his eyes. “I am thinking of them, and everyone else. Every breath that man takes is an insult to the Werewolf race, and a danger to all of us… including our boys.” I gave him a kiss, then walked behind Olivia and Mark out the door before we lost our nerve.
We were taking Mark’s Corolla, it was much less conspicuous than my big truck or my RV. I stopped at my room to grab a change of clothes and some cash. By the time I got downstairs, Mabel was handing me a large cooler full of sandwiches and drinks. “Be safe, Ella. Bring them all back.”
“You can count on it.” I gave the sisters a hug and headed out the door. Craig met me at the car. “You can’t stop me, love.”
“I know.” He handed me two burner phones. “I’ve programmed in the number of a burner phone here. Josh did some computer stuff, he said that it would send a false location, but that it could still record the conversation. Be safe.” He gave me a crushing, lingering hug and a deep kiss goodbye.
“I’ll be back tomorrow.” I got in the car and we drove off without looking back.
Mark and Olivia alternated driving as we went through the plan. We got to his Pack territory about three in the morning; Olivia spent a good half hour near the border observing before concluding that they were not sending out any patrols. This was good for us; Mark dropped us as close as the road would take us to their Pack House. Olivia’s plan for avoiding the motion sensors and any wolves looking outside was to use the emergency escape tunnel from their Pack safe room. We reached the fake stump in the woods, and she pulled a panel off to reveal a keyboard. Entering the code, the red light turned green and there was a click as the latch released.
She lifted the hatch and looked down, taking a deep sniff. “Clear.” She climbed down the ladder and I quickly followed. The ladder left us in a narrow tunnel made of concrete rain sewer piping, with puddles of stagnant water along the bottom. “Follow me,” she said. I really had no choice, once the hatch was back in place I couldn’t see a thing with my human sight, there were no lights down here. I felt my way behind her and into the tunnel, trying to keep up as we crawled along. She told me this tunnel was 287 yards long, and I felt every one of them on my hands and knees.
I bumped into her when she came to a stop. I could hear her punching another code in, then there was a click. She slowly opened the door, listening and sniffing for other wolves, before she opened it.
We came out from behind a weapon storage rack that was hinged to hide the hatch edges. As soon as I was standing in the room, I drew the big Glock in my right hand while my partially-functioning left hand gripped the silver knife. She had a large knife in her hand as I followed her to the door and she used the code again to open the vault-like door that led to their safe room from the basement.
We made it upstairs without incident, but Olivia stilled in the kitchen as she scented the area. “They’re in the great room,” she said. We moved to the archway leading there as quietly as we could. Peering out, we saw the entire Pack had gathered here to sleep, some in wolf form, others human. At the center of the pile was Alpha Michael and Luna Marie. Their son and heir Matthew was asleep nearby, a number of younger wolves clustered around him. It took a few moments until the first werewolf noted my scent, but before he could give a warning I racked the slide of my Glock and allowed it to slam home, chambering a silver and wolfsbane custom made round.
“ALPHA ANDERSON, YOU HAVE BETRAYED US ALL.” The Pack members woke up confused, and Michael jumped to his feet and glared at me.
“Ella, you’ve”
BANG!
Everyone in the room jumped at the noise, and I watched like it was in slow motion as the big hollow point bullet struck Michael’s nose, blowing his brains out the back of his head. Marie screamed and jumped for me, and the gun blasted a second time, the round hitting her in the throat. She fell to the floor.
“NOBODY MOVE!” Olivia put Alpha influence into her voice, and her Pack responded even though Michael had banished her. Matthew was too shocked by the sudden turn of events to do anything but stare at her. Olivia held up a voice recorder in her left hand, pressing PLAY it started to play back the conversation from yesterday.
The shock and anger the Pack had for us faded quickly as they heard what their Alpha had done. He had called Homeland Security and told them that Doug Johnson’s Pack was five hundred strong, heavily armed and prepared to fight to the death. In exchange for giving them the GPS coordinates of their Pack House, he wanted one million dollars cash and immunity for himself and his immediate family in the upcoming war. If they liked his information, he was willing to give them the list of ALL Pack Alphas and their territories for one hundred million dollars. It was a small price to pay, he told them, for the information they needed to end this war quickly.
The bastard had sold out us all. We walked out of their Pack house as the remainder of the Pack listened in horror to what he had done.
We didn’t say anything as we walked back downstairs to the safe room and back into the escape tunnel. What was there to say? Olivia had just watched her parents be shot to death in front of what used to be her Pack. I couldn’t imagine what she was feeling right now. She was trying to be strong, I could see that in her face, at least until we entered the tunnel and I pulled the hatch closed behind me. Then I was back to seeling nothing again.
We crawled our way to the exit hatch and walked back through the woods to Craig’s car. I opened the door and got in the back seat, giving them a little privacy as he hugged her outside the driver’s door. I could see her legs collapse, how he held her up as she finally broke down.
I tried to pay attention to other things, mainly by turning the radio up. It was a news station we had been listening to. I got so involved I didn’t notice the police and military vehicles approaching until they were almost on us. Craig and Olivia dove into the front seat and we all hid from sight until they passed by. “What the hell are they doing out here in the middle of the night,” Mark said.
I handed the phone to Olivia. “Call your brother, they are going to attack.” She punched in a number and we all waited nervously for him to pick up as Mark drove away.
“Matthew, it’s Olivia. There is a convoy of vehicles approaching- SWAT, infantry, heavy weapons. They must have figured out where your father was located. You need to get out.”
I could hear him shouting instructions. Finally, he got back on the line. “It’s too late to run, Olivia. I’m sending the women and children out the escape tunnel, the rest of us will fight, try to hold them off.”
Olivia was crying. “No, you have to run now!”
“We’re already surrounded. A fight is the only way to distract them long enough for some of us to escape. Help them, Olivia. I love you.”
“Send them west through the woods, we will see what we can do. Destroy Dad’s office and computer, they will be after that Pack list. I love you, Matthew.”
She directed him to a side road west of where the exit was. We turned off the car and waited, and we didn’t have to wait long. A flare was fired high in the air, and it was immediately followed by the swooshing sound and explosions of rocket fire. We couldn’t see the battle, but we could feel it. The popping sounds of the M-4 rifles, the louder noises of the Pack’s rifles, and the explosions of grenades and anti-tank rounds. The sky was turned orange as the Pack house was set on fire, eventually stopping the firing.
Olivia went into shock as she felt the family bond to her brother break. Mark was holding her close as she sobbed into his chest. I got out and used a pair of binoculars to watch the direction from which the escapees would be coming.
Ten minutes later, there were shouts and sounds of gunfire from that direction. “Start the car and keep the lights off, Mark.” I continued to watch, but the noises were moving off to my right. I could hear sporadic gunfire, they were chasing someone.
I was so busy looking at the chase they were on top of me before I noticed. Two small, grey colored pups ran up to me and looked up, their little tongues hanging out the sides of their mouths. I quickly opened the back door and they jumped in. I got in and closed the door, telling Mark to start driving. They shifted into human form, they looked to be about five years old, a boy and a girl. “Where are the others?”
They looked at each other, then the boy looked at me. “The bad men found us after we got out of the tunnel. Mommy told us to run to you and not look back, they would lead them away.” The little girl was crying into his chest.