“Okay, but I can’t even fight to protect her,” Addison argues, desperately trying to join us. She bites her lip and looks at me, her hazel eyes gleaming. “I can’t stand to be away from you. Especially when I know what could happen.”
I wrap my arms around her and hold her close. I run my fingers through her hair to comfort her, feeling the warmth of her body spreading around me. “I know you’re nervous. We all are. But right now, the most important thing to me is that you’re safe. If they see you there, they’re going to be targeting you over everyone else.”
“Okay,” Addison finally whispers, pulling away from me with moist eyes.
I know it’s a lot more than just being afraid for her. These people killed her parents. They took everything from her. She’s worried about losing me, too.
“Nothing will ever keep me away from you,” I tell her, leaning in and giving her a kiss. “Mark my words, I’ll be back here later tonight.”
That gets a smile out of her, and she nods her head, reluctantly heading back to the living room where Nora is saying goodbye to Cole.
We all pile into cars soon after. As we drive away, I look over my shoulder to see Nora and Addison standing in the window and watching us go.
This is going to be a ruthless, bloody fight. But knowing that I have Addison here waiting for me will carry me through it all. I have to come back to her. I can’t abandon her now and leave her all alone like she’s been her whole life. She needs me.
Normally, we would prefer to run through the woods, shifted for an ambush like this, but we have an armada of cars going instead. This way, we can carry some of the supplies we’ll need to destroy the building, and if there are any injured people, we can transport them to safety with ease.
In our car, Declan makes us go over the plan for the hundredth time. Every time we go over it, I try to pinpoint any holes in the plan I can so we can have all our bases covered. Thankfully, we’ve nailed it down to such an extreme measure that I don’t think there are any.
I’m confident this is going to work out. Axiom will be destroyed.
When we reach the dirt road leading to the facility, we stop our car alongside the other vehicles trailing in our caravan. All of us get out and prepare to take our positions.
The first group to go in is composed of the best scouts from the Wild Heart and Echo Ridge packs. Their goal is to move through this place as quickly as possible, in and out of their wolf forms, and disable communication. All comms will be jammed, and they’ll turn off surveillance so nobody else will see us coming.
When we’re ready, we give the first wave the go-ahead, and they run off in the directions we planned. They’re all quick andnimble, sneaky enough to move through without detection. It doesn’t hurt that the pictures Cole took the first time we came out here showed a very obvious placement of security cameras.
I watched through binoculars as Nick, one of ours, climbed the fence, unshifted with ease, and hid behind different obstacles to remain unseen. He eventually accesses one of the doors, using the security clearance we took from the man we interrogated in the basement.
The others file in right behind him, and we know it should only be a matter of minutes before they call us to let us know the job is done.
Those few minutes pass excruciatingly slowly. My mind wanders to all of the things that could go wrong while they’re in there. But eventually, Declan’s phone vibrates in his hand, and he answers, getting a call from Nick directly, who lets him know the cameras are down. They’re replaying a loop of the courtyard while the security officer is dead in his chair.
“Wave two, you’re up,” Declan says. Kyran nods his head and assembles his group from the bear clan.
Guards in the courtyard are patrolling with weapons in hand, but we have the advantage of our heightened senses on our side. This is why we chose to fight under the cover of darkness. We can take away their light with ease.
All of the bears shift, surrounding us with oversized beasts. Kyran stands at the front of them, ready to lead the way.
He takes off, running over toward the barbed-wire fence and using his incredible strength to rip a hole right in it. All of them flood through the fence instantly, overwhelming the few guards running around.
“We’re under attack!” one of them shouts. I focus my binoculars on him, watching as he reaches for his comms device, tries to use it, then throws it to the ground in frustration.
A moment later, I hear a series of loud crashes, and darkness surrounds them. The bears have targeted the light poles in the courtyard. They’ve knocked them over and busted them out so the only light illuminating the battlefield is the moon.
“Wave three, get ready,” Declan says. That’s us. I drop the binoculars on the ground, ready to take off at a moment’s notice. We hear screaming and crashing, electrical hissing, and a loud pop that signals that we’re ready. The bears have taken out the generators.
“Now!” Declan screams, and the rest of us run off, shifting immediately. It’s my brothers and I, as well as all the best fighters from both of the packs.
We burst through the opening in the barbed-wire fence, some even taking a risk and climbing up and over the top. We descend upon the guards quickly and efficiently, running to them before they even have a chance to raise their weapons at us and ripping them apart.
My feet pad across the concrete toward the door Nick entered. I scratch at it with Cole and Declan right behind me, and it’s open a moment later. Nick stands there, a nervous look in his eyes as he props the door open with a cinder block.
Everything moves so quickly that it’s almost hard to remember the map Addison drew for us. But I separate from my brothers, both of us leaving a smaller team behind as we search through the halls for anyone.
Our destination is the labs. Along the way, we are targeted by a few stray bullets from guards trying to fight us off. We take some time with relative ease, scattering their guns and bullets all over the floor and tracking blood down the hall with our feet. By the time we make it to the lab, I see doctors holed up inside for safety. They have their phones open with the flashlights on, trying to get an emergency lighting system to operate.
I push the door open and howl, and all the others from my group run in around me. Everyone in this room is a target. They’ve all done atrocious things and hurt innocent people. But right now, there’s one person I want to contend with. Dr. Hendricks. The only doctor Addison remembered was the man with the cruel smile. The man who put his hands on her and tortured her for ten years of her life. I find him huddled in a corner, cowering as the people he’s tried to capture and torture for years rush through the room and kill his coworkers. Blood splatters against machinery. I leap from the door across a pile of writhing bodies and shifters sinking their teeth into them to stand in front of Dr. Hendricks.
