Get Up
It feels like it’s been hours since the doctor left and I did exactly as I was told. I ate the food and I dressed in the grey sweats and sweater, put on the socks and oversized boots, which baffled me completely as to why I needed them and all the undergarments in the bag, and now I am pacing my cell wondering if I just imagined they had any importance. Maybe he really was just being thoughtful and giving me items to aid comfort and I was looking for something that was not there because I am so desperate for an out. I rummaged the bag and food wondering if maybe he had left some sort of something, like a key card for me and came up with nothing except confusion, convincing myself I imagined this completely.
I can’t stay here like this watching her sleep the day away, and if all he is going to do is take tests and fill me in with stories that screw up my head, then this is hopeless. I’m trying to process all of it and I just can’t swallow it right now, doing what I do best and pushing it to one section of my brain for a later date. When I can handle just how awful it makes me feel. Right now, I need to stay focused and find a way out of here on my own.
When Juan get’s here I am all but useless against him and his pack and can’t do crap about anything, especially not him as long as this damn building holds my ability to turn captive. And Sierra over there ‘hey thanks for rendering my gifts useless at a time in my life that I could actually really be using them and then getting yourself knocked out so I can’t access them. Stellar planning there!’
A seer who doesn’t predict the possibility of not being able to give a girl back what’s hers if your beloved mate comatoses you! What kind of seer is that? And what kind of witch binds her own child and leaves them motherless for ten years if she saw it all coming? If Colton had the ability to see things and not been bound maybe he could have found her a long time ago and avoided all of this. None of this was smart planning on her part. It’s really messed up.
I stop my erratic mind brewing and moving around only to watch that same female come and tend to Sierra’s machines, pausing my manic foot stomping around my small space as she dissappears just as quickly without looking my way. I can sense her apprehension the whole time she is in there, keeping her eyes averted, obviously uncomfortable they have a prisoner down here and I watch closely at what she does before scampering off, acting like I wasn’t over here staring. Not that she did much to watch. Press some buttons, check some fluids, move Sierra’s bed up and down and rearrange her position to avoid sores. Prop her pillows and turn her on her side before pressing some more buttons, changing her bed sheet and leaving her alone again. Basic care and nothing too exciting. I guess I’m thankful they do at least show her some compassion and tend to her frequently, turning her and such.
No matter how much I stand and glare like some kind of creepy psychopath at Sierra, nothing is waking that woman up, let alone will power. I can’t imagine what eight years in an induced coma has done to her to be honest. What state her mind and body would be if we did wake her up and now, I am starting to doubt if that is plausible at all. For all I know, the drugs over the years have wasted her mind to mush anyway. Her body has been inactive for so long that I am assuming instant recovery is not going to happen and if she is even capable of being woken after so long. In a building where her powers have been bound, then she is mortal and susceptible to all the damage and harm an induced coma would do to a human in eight years.
Not to mention the fact she has lost almost a decade of her life and what would coming to do to her now? Last time she saw Colton he was a nine-year-old boy and now he’s a stocky, arrogantly handsome man … or the making of one anyway. That is bound to mess her up and disorientate her if she wakes up and ten years ago was just yesterday in her mental timeframe. The world has changed so much and her mate has brought our mountain to ruin in that time. Our people are divided by class and worth and the Santo’s rule with fear.
Maybe I was never supposed to wake her up. Maybe she left some other way for me to get back my gifts and I just had to find her?
My train of thought is interrupted as a lunch trolley is pushed down from the elevator and left outside my door shortly after the woman exits, but the guard, another Santo looking asshole, shrugs at me and with a distasteful smug expression, butts up against the glass with his shoulder and let’s his eyes lazily walk over me. It’s the idiot who was sat at the desk upstairs when Deacon informed him I was to be fed the same mealtimes as the rest of the facility.
“I was told to give you lunch, but the doc stopped me and said you can’t eat anything until he’s taken some sort of sample….so I guess I leave it here and it gets cold. Enjoy. Not that I would advise eating it later.” He smirks, clearly happy with his sad position of power. A total omega wolf, low pecking order and looking for any kind of upper hand to scrape him from the bottom.
I just scowl at him, the smell of steak and soup wafting through the glass and even though he thinks he’s getting some sort of power kick by leaving it out of reach, I don’t even want it. I ate the food earlier and it does confuse me that the doc would insist I ate that and not this, it’s not really been long enough to even feel hungry yet. I don’t get the sudden urge to tell me NOT to eat now.
I guess Deacon has briefed his sub pack on who and what Juan says I am and they are all part of the Alora fan club right now, given the way this asshole is acting. I can almost taste his dislike and the creepy way he is eyeing me up like a main course on his dinner menu, gives me bad vibes. He reminds me of that jerk Damon who used to watch me through school and tried to get at me in a hallways. He was a perverted creep who liked control over girls, much like this idiot.
“Why don’t you have it … you could obviously use some extra energy boosts. I mean, if the chase in the forest was anything to go by.” I give him the same friendly passive aggressive attitude that I give Deacon and he just grins, ear to ear as though he’s too stupid to realise it was a dig. Annoyingly smug and if he wasn’t such a jerk, he would be kind of cute, in the whole Colton way.
Damn, I really need to stop doing that. Comparing every hot Latino to him and finding fault because it’s not him. I get it. I still give a rats ass and I still miss him constantly and every dark haired, dimpled and dreamy eyed hot Colombian brings him back to the forefront, but god….timing. If he was Colton, he would let me out in a heartbeat and he would never throw such a smug look at me for something so absurd. If Colton was here, he would know what to do about this whole mess, he always seems wiser like he has the answers and he probably would be handing this idiot his genitals back about now.
I can’t fault that part of Colton, even when he was a jerk in our youth. Apart from that one time he shoved me out of his way for epically tripping in front of him and his entire rabid crew, he never really went out of his way to be any kind of ass to people for no reason. He was just always so superior and seemed aloof and quiet, like he was better than us. It was all in the looks he gave, rather than the verbal content but I guess he does have a sort of intimidating way about him, even when he doesn’t mean it.
A proper Bro type, who hung with his pack and played sports and walked around like Danny from the movie Greece. Everyone looking up to him and kissing his ass when he waltzed by. I guess maybe he was just not very sociable with those outside of his sub pack because that’s not who I know now and his memories, they don’t show an asshole like that either. Colton just doesn’t like to get close to people outside his own circle and I guess it’s because he lost so many in the war and then his own mother. He has a wall up and he keeps everyone outside his pack, on the other side of it. I guess that’s why he tries so hard to make his father proud, because he loves him even if he’s not worthy of being loved and that’s not Colton’s fault, that’s Juan’s. Colton’s flaw is trying to be this perfect Santo wolf, with a weight of responsibility on his shoulders that one day he will lead. He follows the rules , the laws and the word of the Alpha without conflict, as he is meant to and even puts all of that over his own desires. I guess a leader does have to be that way, ingrained greatness where his heart can’t always lead and it only further ingrains that he will be the best for his people one day, but for us, not so much.
I get back to my previous activity when smug smiley guard walks off, getting bored with my disinterest in him and go back to pacing the room and looking for any kind of tool or help to get out. It didn’t last long and just enforces the fact he is an omega and low in the scale of things. Used to being ignored and dismissed and quietly slinks off. Thankfully as I have no mind space for asshats. I feel uptight, worn thin and agitated about my current predicament with so many warring emotions coming at me from my own mind.
The cupboards are just full of medical crap, bandages and nothing even sharp or helpful. Its practically an empty room and anything with real weight is bolted down into concrete floors with steel pins. There is nothing at all that could be of any real use, let alone as a weapon of sorts and I end up throwing my cushions against the glass in frustration when my anger peeks and I can’t contain it anymore.
I have so many swirling emotions that I don’t know what to do with. A vibrating energy pulsing through my core and I am mentally up and down and all over the place. One second, I want to cry and lay down and sob again, then the next I’m angry, furious, boiling over and want to slash Juan into a thousand tiny bloody pieces for everything that brought me here and my entire life since they went to war. Just when it feels like it’s reaches overwhelming levels and I can’t breathe for the suffocating need to expel this hatred physically, in the next breath I’m calm and logical and trying to plan a way out. I can’t keep up and it’s exhausting.
Time alone to think and let it sink in has done nothing except get me riled and upset and yes, I have cried. I sat in a huddle in the corner for a good twenty minutes and just sobbed my heart out while it felt like it was breaking all over again. Much like when I left Colton and found myself alone without him and no choice but to keep going. Soon as the doctor left it’s all I could do …for me, my mother, my brother and father, my family, my pack.
I cried until my nose ran and I couldn’t breathe and I drenched the upper part of my gown because I was still wearing it at that point and the cold wet spread across my chest on thin fabric was strangely comforting. Mirroring how my soul felt and how it was spreading and seeping into every pore. I just felt hopeless and weak and broken and I had no idea how to get past that.
It was for Colton and Sierra too, and just this whole god damn mess. For the life I should have had, the family I should have still been with and the mate I would have imprinted on in another life and been allowed to be with. It would have still been Colton, that’s what the fates decided a long time ago, but I would never have had to leave him and I would be with him now, safe in his arms and calmed by his touch. Guided by that wise part f him that always seems to have a idea about what’s going on. Only it failed him when he needed that gift the most.
I miss him so much right now, even if I can’t get past what he’s done to our bond and I’m still broken by him; it just adds to my urgency in looking around for some kind of pointer in what to do.
I shake myself and I remind myself that the girl I was, she’s dead. Little Alora of the Whyte pack and Elren farm, peacefully living a carefree life. The war seen to my parents unplanned leave and Juan saw they never came back. She died a long time ago when her life was turned upside down and it altered everything she knew. Her path disintegrated and all those dreams and hopes, they fluttered away on the breeze.
That unwanted, rejected, feeble little no one who imprinted on a boy ten years later who stood in her place …. also dead. She who couldn’t be allowed to love her fated mate, because of what she was. She never really existed anyway. She was a lie that was fed to me and made me live under a mask of my own making because I never knew the truth and this girl, this one right here. She’s the Alora who has been holding her breath and waiting for me to find her.
She’s the daughter of a warrior. She is the heroine of a prophecy and she’s a god damn white wolf with red eyes that makes her some kind of hybrid with gifts, a witch thought so powerful that she bound them until a time when she needed to get them back. She’s someone to be reckoned with, she just needs to find the way to bloom.
That doesn’t sound like any kind of weak no one to me, not a reject or unworthy of an alpha mate and I need to own that crap. Everything I have done in my life for the past ten years has been overshadowed by a black cloud of shame and failure and believing I was never good enough, because they told me so. It’s gone. Almost like someone lifted that lid and finally uncaged my soul. There’s nothing over my head weighing me down now and that little voice that second guessed it all. It’s dead too. That was never my voice, it was theirs out there in the world around the mountain.
This girl, she has a right to stand up and be counted as someone worthy and the fates for whatever reason led me here and I need to see it through. They knew me before I existed and I was part of the plan. They know what I am capable of and they set on my way to be sure I showed everyone else. If they got me this far then maybe they have a plan and I should stop fighting and listen. Close my eyes and let the fates send me some kind of message through the cosmos and the air…because this is not how it ends.
Th noise of the elevator interrupts my train of thought, a noise so perfectly on cue I blink and open my eyes and my head spins towards the source. Half expecting to Deacon strolling on in and just making my day worse, if that was even possible, but it’s the doctor and he’s pushing a cabinet on wheels with all manner of things sliding off the top as he dashes to Sierras room and I am drawn to the wall to watch him, suspicious of his behaviour. Forgetting my pep talk and all my internal boosting of confidence.
He seems different somehow. Wired maybe, a little erratic in his abrupt walking around and hurried movements. He drops a scattering of implements on the floor, the noise of cascading metal and hard objects clattering and echoing in this large space as he abandons the cart outside Sierras door and swipes the panel to open it.
He stops before entering, picks them up and throws them back on top, scooping anymore he disturbs with his ungraceful and somewhat rushed movements and then rushes into her room and starts frantically pressing buttons on machines by her head.
I can’t do much else but watch and as he starts picking up small mobile devices and sitting them on her bed, his face ashen and serious and fully focused on what he is doing. I realise he’s not just checking on her and something is up. His expression says it all and there’s no hint of gentle jovial eccentric doctor in this moment. He looks frayed and afraid.
Even from here I can see he’s sweating, his forehead shiny and the underarms of his white jacket are beginning to darken with excessive body heat. He’s in a state of panic and I look around expecting his staff or the guards to come flooding down, suddenly worried about why. My own nerve shitching as my stomach ties itself in knots and I end up flat to the window, palms pressed by the sides of me against the glass, heavily breathing as I watch, anchored to my spot.
Maybe Sierra is crashing…maybe all I was to do was witness her die.
God no, please, Colton needs to see her one last time. She can’t die….he needs her. I need to know what I am supposed to do now.
The doctor unhooks her from the machine keeping her heartbeat monitored loudly and I hold my breath, inhaling sharply as the beep beep is stalled so suddenly the air becomes unbearably silent. I don’t get why he would take that off but when he yanks another box from under the bed and plugs her onto that instead I exhale, slightly confused. That familiar beep beep starts up again, in a subtler tone from a different machine and he moves to the next and next replacing everything he can with smaller mobile devices as my brain pulls together amid my own frantic fear and gives me a shake.
He’s not trying to save her or trying to take her off the machines, he’s making her mobile so he can move her.
He stops, rushes off out of sight as he heads into the elevator once more, abandoning everything he has left in chaos and a moment later comes crashing back ungracefully pushing another bed, this time it’s on wheels back to her room. I press my cheek to the cool smooth wall in front of me, eyes locked on and heart rate hitching as it filter through. He catches me watching him, notices me with a second snap of his head as though he didn’t glance me the first time and makes a weird wave gesture with his hands that translates to nothing. I don’t understand.
“What?” I yell back, unsure what the hell he’s doing and he does it again, waving two fingers in the air which I can only assume means two minutes. I move back, confusion overtaking but intrigue definitely the dominant feeling. Everything else that had been coursing through me is replaced with a thousands questions about why he is moving her. I watch as I’ve nothing else to do, and over here it’s all I am capable of anyway as he struggles to get her from one bed to the other and shakes his head in defeat, getting redder faced and sweatier as he does. He pulls out a handkerchief from his top pocket, pats his face and puts it back while he seems to be taking a moment to size up his plan. He clicks his fingers in mid-air like he just had a eureka moment and then abandons her, turning and heading out towards me at speed. A complete look of determination on that furrow browed, overly serious expression as he dashes at me.
He crosses the bay so quickly and without hesitation opens my door and gestures me with flicking hands that I should come with him. His face is almost beetroot and soaked and he looks like he has just run a marathon
“What’s going on?” I eye him warily, unsure how to feel about his current behaviour and trying to figure out if the doc is drunk, and realise he’s breathless as hell and can barely talk.
He gestures again after blowing out an incoherent sound that I assume was meant to be words to follow, I shrug and do it. I don’t see any reason not to, he has proven himself to be a half decent human who isn’t out to hurt me and a voice at the back of my mind is telling me this is how I get close to her. As soon as he knows I am with him he turns on his heel and we head back to sierra.
“Help me… here to here” he motions wheezily when we get in her room beside her, from her bed to the new one he wheeled over here. His voice is low and laboured and he’s struggling through his words. Definitely been running about like a maniac before coming down here and I can almost feel his heart rate pulsing rapidly in the air around me. He’s composing himself as he works , but it’s obvious he’s not in the best physical shape.
I turn my eyes to our sleeping beauty, surprised at this distance how unwell she looks, and a whole lot less ethereal. Sierra up close looks like a porcelain doll , so silently still and unresponsive with flushed rosy cheeks on a milky pallor, dark lashes fanning her face under smooth dark brows and I can see Colton in her features immediately. I don’t argue but take her upper arms under her armpits as firmly as I can without hurting her and lift her over while he gets her legs.
She’s light in weight, surprisingly so, nothing to her and painfully thin as the blankets pull away and I see her body fully under her own thin medical gown. Her skin is almost translucent from lack of sunlight yet she seems so very warm and alive and I am convinced she’s going to open her eyes at any moment. It’s unnerving and I can’t stop staring at her face as we place her on the new bed, brushing her dark hair from her face as he tends to her limbs and tubes and settles her neatly.
“What are we doing? “ I whisper it back, keeping my voice hushed as it’s pretty obvious with the lack of helpers he’s not meant to be doing this. As soon as he fully arranges her on the gurney, he takes a moment to inhale, calm his breathing my pressing a hand to his chest and points at the door.
“We’re taking her and leaving….I drugged……. Fixed….. phew…” he struggles, wiping his brow with the back of his hand and takes another exaggerated breath, annoying me to the point of getting frustrated with his lack of vocabulary and he tries again. I raised my brows at him and throw a ‘and?’ look his way.
“I drugged dinner, we don’t have much time…..few hours at the most.” He wheezes and goes back to picking up tubes and arranging them around her in a rather hurried fashion.
“You did what?” I gawp at him, this unassuming little feeble doctor that wouldn’t stand up to Deacon earlier and now it registers just how quiet this place is when he’s making so much noise with carts and beds and no one has appeared. My face pales as my blood drains away and my brain catches up with exactly what’s happening.
He nods at the bay outside her room and motions to start pulling her bed. Making it clear I am not dreaming and we are in fact staging a bust out and a heist, in that Sierra is the gold and we are taking it. I swallow hard pull myself together and throw a glance up at the roof and a silent Thank you to the fates.
I do as he motions, tugging it backwards out the door with all my might to get it rolling as he throws machines and such almost on with her as we begin to move. He picks up and dumps more items on top of the bed as we pass a couple of free-standing trolleys, pulling the saline drip and bag feeding her fluids with him, and its trolley at the foot of the bed and stretching all her tubes almost taught.
“I doped the soup and pretended to eat in the canteen to watch that they all did, we always eat together. Had to wait on them all passing out…. to the truck over there.” He nods at my shooting point and I pull the bed and aim for it, gaining speed as we go and he grabs the medical trolley in passing to tug behind him too, making it awkward for him to keep hold of the bed at all and I end up pulling it alone as he deals with that and her saline holder, dropping things as he does so.
If this is an escape it’s a haphazard one and he’s the worst kind of saving hero ever. He’s making enough noise to wake the dead and I’m not convinced he’s not going to keel over and have heart attack with how unfit he is. He’s puffing and heaving and losing more than half his weight in body sweat and I think he might need to lie down. Humans really are a weak race.
“How are we meant to get out of here? We’re on the lowest floor and the elevator is that way?” I nod with my head in the direction we came from, a growing tight knot of anxiety that maybe the Doctor’s plan is not the best. He waves at the trucks again reminding me of their presence but I am not sure how they will help down here.
“The one on the end, it’s a medical truck and that platform lifts up to the ground above. It’s how we store them and transport things in and out. “
As soon as he says it, I spin my head eyeing that last green military truck that looks like its half-brother was a tank and see the gears and such of the platform on the space behind. The poles and hydraulics lining the steel wall in shadow and look up into a cavernous space that opens over your head when you get up close to them. From my room I couldn’t see it but this space goes up some hundred or more feet to a set of closed metal doors on the top ceiling.
“And then what? We drive around until she wakes up?” I gasp bumping the bed onto the edge of the platform , still helping while dissecting the absurdity of this and he shoves it fully. We come side by side with the truck we are aiming for and he motions me to keep it going to the rear. I eye him warily, real tension ripping through me as panic rears it’s ugly head a his lack of a proper plan.
“Yes, sounds right. She’s been in a coma for eight years…we need time. I need to wean her awake and even then, I have no idea what state she will be in physically or mentally. All I know is we can’t stay here and do that without getting caught and I owe her. I won’t fail my friend again” the doctor has regained some of his equilibrium and leaves the bed with me to go run to a metal cabinet on the wall which houses keys and scoops up a set, coming back to open the truck and motions to bring the bed around.
“So what you’re saying is …there’s no plan beyond getting out?” It’s a dry , non-amused response and I just stare at him as everything inside of me grips tight. I have to swallow down the rising panic and he half-heartedly shrugs at me.
“I’m a doctor, not a masked villain who kidnaps people for a living. I just figured your fates would somehow…I don’t know…help!! I mean you came and …..you’re here!”
“Oh my god!” it’s the only response as I have as words fail me and I bite down on my lower lip and just try and focus everything on helping him and not the fact that after we get out I have no god damn idea what we are meant to do. The guards won’t sleep forever and they will come after us.
We make light work using the ramps inside the truck to get the bed and trolley in and he braces them in place which special metal clamps, hanging her saline bag on a hook coming from the interior wall and pushes the mobile one into a corner and ties it down. He pushes the devices into clamps and clips along the wall parallel to her bed and settles everything free standing into holders or ties them in place expertly. Making light work as I can only stand and frantically race a million ideas through my head about what we are going to do.
“I have a cabin, my home I guess when I am not here. We should go there and try and just get her to wake up. They will track us but we have a good head start and I don’t know if we can lose them. No one knew about my cabin.” It’s a weird little look, a half happy he came up with a plan with a heavy dose of please tell me that’s a smart idea. I can only shake my head and stare.
He’s not thinking this through or really envisioning how well a wolf can track or how much faster they can be on foot when needs be. They wont just dawdle when they find Sierra and me gone, they will come tearing after us and Juan will too. There’s no being safe in some cabin in the middle of god knows where.
“That won’t work…you have no idea how well they can hunt us. And Sierra…if Juan killed people to keep his dirty secrets silent, then he is going to send a tsunami after her to make sure we don’t wake her up.” I point out, tucking Sierras blankets in tight to hold her neatly while he applies straps over her body to keep her in place. All I can do is keep helping, even if nausea is almost strangling me with so many possibilities and ways to die at Juan’s hands.
“Well do you have better idea?… We need to protect her until she wakes, we need to find a place we can fortify. I don’t know people outside of these walls… I can’t fight or shoot an army of wolves.”
No place can be fortified against a pack of angry Lycans. Especially not when all you have is a bound wolf who can’t use her gifts unless in serious threat, a human aging, unfit doctor and a sleeping witch. We are so screwed.
I wrack my brains, trying to think of a million places I passed these past weeks alone and how none of them are any good to hide and no amount of hiding will stop them tracking us. It was different when I ran, I was solitary and only Colton had reason to follow and I had a couple of days head start to let my scent fade to nothing.
Colton!
I can’t believe how stupidly I was not seeing the most obvious answer to this question. Of course the fates would bring me full circle and back to him, they have never stopped tormenting me mentally when it comes to that boy, making sure I couldn’t forget him if I wanted to.
Colton’s mother…Colton has an undying love for her and a need to find her. He also has a sub pack and some fierce ass wolves who would do anything for him. Colton is our protection and I just need to get outside to link him.
“Yes…I do. I have her son…and he has a pack, and I know he won’t leave me to fight this alone if I tell him I have his mother.” He won’t fail her; he’s been looking for her. I know his heart and it’s not like Juan’s.
“You can trust him? Even after ten years with his father?” The doctor flashes me a wary look and I nod with no hint of hesitation. I know why he would query it, assuming under his fathers guidance that he might have twisted his son into a mini clone in all these years, but Colton is far stronger than I ever gave him credit for. He is his own mind and he doesn’t agree with how Juan hurts his people.
“Colton won’t let me down. If he knows I need him, that she does, he’ll come. We are linked it’s not hard to find him.” Unless the fates took that from me when he marked Carmen but I guess I am going to find that out. I don’t think they would be so cruel in taking away something like that when I really need to use it to get Sierra out of this place in one piece. The fate sin all of this, have been trying to address the balance and bring us back to what Juan destroyed.
“Okay, once we get free of the building you should be able to use your gifts. So, I tell you where we are and where we are going and he can possibly help. Plan? Yes, I think so. I don’t fancy dying tonight so we better make it snappy.” The doctor is starting to lose his adrenalin rush, his panic panting and instead seemingly in the regret and what I have done, but to hell with it, mode.
He ushers me to the front of the truck , pulling the doors shut behind us and he locks them in place from the inside. I can walk straight through with crouching, in the dark confines of the small space to the front seats and sit down in the passenger side with a quizzical look aimed right at him as he too gets settled in his driver seat.
“How do we go up, if we are in here?” I point out, assuming he forgot that minor detail of the fact we are underground, but he picks up a very heavy-duty looking radio device from the dash and waves it at me.
“This is a very high tech and expensive facility. They like remotes. Boy toys.” He presses a button in the centre of the military green controller and I almost have a heart attack when the entire platform shunts into motion, jerking us harshly and begins to lift. Not just this one truck but with all three on the entire floor and we slowly start to raise up and leave the bay level behind.
This is when my panic sets in and nerves get the better of me as I realise our escape is probably going to go down in the history of worst ever attempts. Its louder than hell; crunching and groaning and echoing around us like crazy and probably scaring off all the wildlife above ground in a three-mile radius. I hope to god he was right about knocking those guards out because otherwise they are definitely going to know we are running away. I cover my ears, cringing and recoiling into my seat and have to resist the urge to shut my eyes in the hopes this is a bad dream.
“Once we get up there and out into the open, the building no longer has any bind over you. The walls work on some sort of ingrained frequency that’s impossible for us to hear but out there it doesn’t work. It has to surround you, you see.” The doctor yells over the noise, telling me facts about something I currently care about but it hits a nerve and I sit up, blinking as my attention peeks.
“A frequency?” I turn to him startled, some memory from before, tingling at my brain and I don’t know why that’s important but I feel like it should be. My moment of fear dissipating when suspicion starts hiking up inside of me.
“Yes, years of research has shown that certain frequencies alone are some of the biggest weapons against your kinds gifts. Truly fascinating. WE stumbled upon it when looking at some’s ability to emit ultra-sonic sounds as a weapon.”
That’s it…the weapon. The one the vampires used to attack the home and it was frequency based too. I blink at him not sure if I am piecing it together right or if I am way off. The doctor is off on a nervous tangent, babbling away like a runaway cart as a reaction to stress I guess, and I have to butt in on the meticulous details of frequency being used to detain and disable my species.
“Did Juan ever use this facility to make any sort of portable isolation tank that works on throwing out the frequency instead of putting it in the walls?” I’m clutching at thin air as I try to fit together puzzle pieces I don’t know belong together. I don’t know how that would fit given they almost killed me too and in turn would have killed Colton, but it seems a little too coincidental that this is how an isolation tank is made.
“No, my dear, but he did sell the research a few years ago claiming it was a profitable but overall harmless discovery.” The doctor casts me a confused look and I can tell he has no idea what I am talking about.
“Harmless? The vampires attacked our mountain using a frequency to disable us all from turning. I almost died because of that stupid black box and if Colton hadn’t….” I shudder at the memories, warmed slightly by the notion that Colton is where I am heading once more and even though it’s stupid and I should hate him, there’s a tiny ray of hope inside of me; a light aching to go back to him. My own stupid weakness kicking in and finally after weeks of being heavy and hurt, it’s raising a tiny little beam of sunshine in my dark days.
“It was turned into a weapon…by vampires? I thought their kind were long driven underground and no longer a threat. Forgive me my dear, we don’t get any kind of news here.” The doctor IS clueless and the shock evident on his face’ eyes wide, mouth gaping slightly as he takes that in and looks out of the window in front of us as he wraps his head around it, resting his hands on the wheel of the truck and shaking his head so very slightly.
“A month back, take or give, maybe longer now, I don’t know I lost track. They attacked out of the blue and sent the mountain into chaos. A war is coming and the wolves are all being dragged back to the mountain for Juan to control.” I sink back in my seat and watch as we climb the last few feet. Climbing the darkness while surrounded by eery tones of groaning and grinding and I try not to think too much about how high we are on this rickety sounding platform. The roof begins to open up and the dull grey of an ending day peeks through the cracks and makes me feel like I am about to taste fresh air once more. The urge to leap out and feel it on my skin distracts me and I turn to face the now silent doctor instead.
“Using a device, not too dissimilar to what we created? And they attacked Juan’s mountain and his people….” He mumbles more to himself than me and I can tell he really did not know. I can almost taste the suspicion in his tone as he too comes to a conclusion I thought about, but realise it’s stupid and I am letting paranoia and hate cloud my judgement.
“Yeah but if your thinking Juan had something to do with it then, one – we hate vampires so no, unlikely he would coerce with them, and two – Colton saved me when I was almost toast. If I died then Juan would have lost his son and heir and no, that’s just no. I don’t care what kind of monster he is, he puts Colton on a pedestal and always talks about his ruling one day. He wouldn’t let his own son die. No matter what, I do believe his legacy is the most important thing next to being king of all he sees. He only has one son.”
“But, hear me out ……. If Colton died then Juan would have had reason to tie up his people in his control and use the attack to rally the wolves to unite as a pack. If he fabricated a war or even gave them the means to start one then it all plays into what he wants to be…. the prophecy. Uniting the packs against a war and thus forcing his position to fill what the prophecy wanted – a wolf to reign the people. He’s still so obsessed that it should be him!”
My blood runs cold and as crazy as it sound sit starts to fall into place. The doctor has a point and yes Colton dying would push those loyal to Colton to rally with Juan in avenging his death. A common enemy is a great way to instil fear and make the people look to a leader to save them.
Something doesn’t sit right with it though and I am trying to decipher it.
“You think he enabled the vampires and prompted them to hit the orphanage in the hopes Colton would die when I did? As a catalyst to get the people under control and mounting an arsenal.”
I feel instantly nauseous, my skin prickling with goosebumps and my breathing gets shallow as I try and swallow this all down. Even for Juan it seems insane, but then he did cull an entire blood line for his chance at taking a crown. The doctor nods his head, looking up as our freedom comes into view with an increase in grinding and crunching in the mechanics and he starts the engine with the turn of a key. The truck roaring into life and vibrating through the seta under me as I reach around and pull on my seat belt, so eager to get out of here I am almost bouncing in my seat with nerves.
“He sedated his mate and left her to rot … you tell me if killing his son to manoeuvre an outcome is something he would do?”
“He went to war against them and lost so many of his people. He hates the vampires with a passion.” It doesn’t make sense. He wouldn’t willingly negotiate with them but it does make sense that he didn’t care who he sold the research to and maybe it came by their way in another avenue. Maybe the vampires took it or bought from whomever Juan sold it too. There’s something just not there that I feel I should see and it’s leaving a hole big enough to cast serious doubt, as much as I want to tar him with that brush.
“A war against a people that should never have happened. Lycans and Vampires used to dwell in peace…not so long ago.” The doctor side-tracks me with a ludicrous stamen and I frown his way, half snorting at his gross misinformation.
“No, they didn’t. I don’t know who told you that story but I can assure you, we have been mortal enemies since the dawn of creation. We were never peaceful allies.“ They taught us that in school and for the life of me I have never heard any other version. It’s ludicrous to imagine out =r two species living on the same lands and not tearing each other’s throats out.
“No, my dear, that’s not true. Sierra was very good at her history and very vivid in her telling’s. Her people, the witches …. as her mother was, predate the first of either of your kinds. They tell the stories among their own.” The doctor lifts his brows in a paternal manner, nodding towards me as though in this he is one hundred percent certain and I just can’t grasp it. It’s all we were ever taught – the vampires are the enemy and always have been.
“So, what are you telling me? We used to be friends. Had morning coffee and bake sales together?“ I almost laugh at that, sarcasm kicking in and as we finally hit the upper ground, he throws the truck in gear and reverses at speed right off of the platform and then backs us into a clearing in the middle of the dusky forest we find ourselves back in. We are already outside the compound , further than the dirt road that came up to the fence and I realise we are a fair bit from that completely. Underground must spread wider than I realised and he hits the makeshift road and puts his foot to the gas, heading out and switching on headlights to illuminate where we are going. The sun has not yet set but the forest is grey and shadow and I have to clinging onto my seat as I bounce around on the rough terrain, trees hitting the shield and roof as we skim low branches.
I cast a glance behind us to check on Sierra and although the insides of the truck are rocking and bouncing around like mad, she is secured and her machines are still beeping away, all the tubes swinging wildly. She seems okay.
“The Lycans were the daylight guardians of the vampires and in turn the vampires protected wolf lairs in the darkest hours. They were created to complement and protect each other, not war and fight, it’s why you are almost matched in power and gift. Each with a special unique gift of course, but neither meant to be used against one another. A peaceable arrangement born at conception between light walkers and dark , both with different needs and not even a shared food source, so no reason to feud….Your kinds were from the same lands and some even procreated. A bite from either side can kill the other so it’s not exactly smart to start raging fights with an enemy who only hints at your demise every time.”
I return to facing his side profile as he watches the road closely and manoeuvres around falls logs and debris, focusing all my disbelief in the side of his head.
“Procreate… now I know you are insane and you need to up your meds, Doc. A vampire and a wolf…had babies? Nahh, Now I know you’re high. That’s definitely not a thing, there is no such thing. We are enemies, and always were.” It’s a half laugh, shaking my head as I turn in my seat to face the fast fly by of the forest, completely convinced he has a screw loose somewhere.
The doctor throws me an alarmed look that I catch from the corner of my eye, frowning and screwing up his face like I am crazy and almost swerves us into a tree before looking back and saving us the near-death impact. That makes me jump, fiercely snapping my eyes to him in a bid of ‘watch where you’re driving’ gasping and panting for breath after that near miss. My stomach is now lodged in my throat and I brace my legs against the dash and push myself back in the seat to attempt to calm down. My wolf hasn’t yet figured out she can come out to play now we are free of the facility but another fright like that and she won’t hesitate. I am so tired of shredding and losing clothes and it would be awkward sitting nakedly with this man.
“Alora … yes it’s hard to digest and like I pointed out in the case of Colton, cross breeding is not always successful given your masterful DNA and its ability to heal, much like the vampires can, but how can you disbelieve when you are sat here, the very proof of that union. Your own genetics are waving their hands at you and saying, ‘here I am’.” He blanches at me as though I am being completely preposterous and his words are like a punch in the gut.
“What?!?!” that is not the response I expected from him at all and I blink at him, my mouth gawping open and frown intensely. “I thought you said I was witch and wolf.” I let it out slowly, precisely as I remind him of just how stupid what he is saying, actually is.
“No, my dear, I said you were a hybrid…. assuming your mother was a perfect half and half without knowing her history of course, but it was very clear from your turning what you are. You’re white… witches generally make black wolves, like a kind of racial thing, I guess. You know like humans where Latino and white makes semi Latino and then a white and white human makes white …. add in a splash of colour and their babies shades are wonderfully diverse. Vampires however… lack of sun and being the undead, fascinating in biology by the way, they make white. Interestingly though in all hybrids where wolf DNA is present, they are always the prominent characteristic. Amazing…strong genetics the wolves. And in some rare, rare instances where the vampire gene is equally strong but yet, still of no match to that powerful beast…. the babies are lucky enough, gifted enough down the generational tree to have red eyes. Remarkable.”
I don’t know if my mind leaves my body completely or if shock and a sense of numb knocks me for six, but I swear I have an outer body experience and get so close to passing out as I just stare at him blankly, dead pan not even remotely able to react to that little titbit of information that I say nothing at all.
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