Faster than I could have anticipated, the cage fell from the ceiling. We weren’t prepared and hit the ground hard with an oomph. I pushed upwards, trying to dislodge the top of the cage from my body. It was heavy, but eventually all four of us moved it.
That was when it occurred to me that we didn’t have any weapons. Not one. Rosa was ahead of me on that front. As I watched her break pieces of the fallen roof into small but workable stakes, I’ve never been so grateful to have an efficient, smart partner in my life.
She chucked one of the makeshift weapons and I caught it as I darted to my feet. Vampires surrounded us on all sides. But I wasn’t concerned, because if they were anything like the ones I’d faced at the last feeding facility, they were lazy and untrained in fighting.
I kicked out, catching one of them off guard. He flew backwards into another Vampire as I systematically staked one after another. They clawed at me but didn’t tear into my clothes. I took them down easily.
The door to the room banged open and my worst nightmare entered. It was Payne, and the fuming red haze radiating from his eyes told me how furious he truly was. I had hoped to have more time before he appeared. In fact, I’d hoped to get out the facility all together without having to see him at all.
Fighting him—or any other Wolves—was going to be a problem. I didn’t have a machete, the only way I knew how to take down a Wolf. Truth was, I’m a really, really bad Wolf fighter. Some of the Warriors were better at it than I was, and I didn’t really want to dwell at the moment on how much of that had to do with the fact that my ex-boyfriend was a Werewolf.
Payne only had eyes for me. I kicked the Vampire blocking me from Payne out of my way. I had no choice. There was no getting away from him.
As I watched, Payne shifted into his Wolf. His features elongated as his body reshaped into its canine form. I’d found Jason’s shifts to be beautiful, but Payne’s made me gag. Maybe it was the look of pure evil radiating from his eyes as he growled and salivated.
Rosa yelled to my left. “Rachel, I think you need to run. Fast.”
I could hear the terror in her voice. Run? Where would I go? I wouldn’t make it to the hall with Payne in the room.
“Rosa, get the others out. I’ll stay here and hold him off as long as I can.”
“Hell, no.” Rosa sounded fierce.
I wanted to argue but there was no time. Payne was on top of me. He lunged for my face. Evidently, in his wolf form he wasn’t distractible. Instinctually, I covered my face with my hands. I didn’t want to be clawed to death.
Bracing myself for the onslaught I knew was coming, I was shocked when Payne was pushed sideways instead of hitting me. I gasped as I immediately recognized the person who had kept Payne from hurting me.
It was Chad.
Chad attacked Payne fiercely. He held a wooden club that he must have made himself because I’d never seen anything like it before. The room filled with roars as the monsters fought back but all of my senses were completely focused on Chad.
He lived. He breathed. He was here.
And he was beating the heck out of Payne. I couldn’t help my grin, even as I fought back two Vampires. I bumped into Rosa who looked up at me, smiling.
“That the boyfriend? Apparently, he’s still alive.”
I laughed, true joy filling my entire being. “Yes and Yes.”
Chad pushed Payne back until the wolf had no choice but to rush out the door of the room. He turned to grin at me and I rushed to his side. I grabbed his hand; it was hard to find the words to tell him how excited I was that he was here.
“How did you get here?”
He shrugged before he pulled me in his arms and kissed me soundly. His lips were soft but demanding, and I wished we were in better circumstances.
“Took me a little while. You didn’t think I’d let my girl just vanish, did you?”
Chad’s face was impassive as he scanned the room, now filled mostly with dead Vampires, but his eyes spoke a different story. They seemed to devour my face, and I felt my cheeks heat up under his regard.
I squeezed his hand. “But seriously, how did you find me?”
“It took a little while. I had to stalk some of the local monster population and see where they went. I’ve never done that before. I almost got caught a few times.”
I could picture him doing it, which was amazing. Was there anything Chad couldn’t do?
“I thought you were dead.”
“Yeah, well I did have to take down three of the Vampires you negotiated with. What the hell were you thinking? You don’t make deals with the Undead.”
“Oh, Chad.” I shook my head. How was I supposed to explain what I didn’t fully understand? “I couldn’t be responsible for your death. I thought I could help you and then I couldn’t stop thinking I’d actually killed you.”
“Rachel, the fate of the world is not on your shoulders alone. You made a mistake but we’ll handle it. Stop taking on every bad thing that happens as if you somehow caused it or were involved in it.”
A roar behind us made me jump and Chad swore under his breath. Payne was back in the room with reinforcements. Still in their wolf bodies, I had to assume it was three other Werewolves who had hauled us into our cages earlier. Or maybe not. Maybe there was a never-ending supply of Werewolves in these tunnels. “I don’t have anything to fight them with. They can’t just let us go. Icahn is here.”
The other three Warriors rushed to our side. I could hear them breathing hard and in the same way that I knew all of Chad’s attention had turned to the impending Werewolf fight, I knew the others felt the same way. Keith called it the camaraderie of the fight. It was the moment when you knew all the people around you were focused on one goal. Only, in this case I wasn’t sure we weren’t all silently quaking with fear.
Only Chad had a weapon that was worth anything in this situation. He shouted over the growling. “We have to get out of here.”
At first, I wasn’t sure what I heard. It started as a small vibrating noise, like an alarm going off somewhere in the distance made the room shake a bit. The Wolves lifted their heads and sniffed the air. I didn’t know what that was about but I knew it couldn’t be good.
I grabbed Chad’s arm. “Something is happening.”
“Oh damn.” Rosa yelled at the top of her voice. “Icahn’s going to bring down the building on top of all of us just like he did at Liberty.”
I swallowed. Was there anything more terrifying than being buried alive?
The Wolves took off in a sprint and I decided it seemed like a good idea to follow them. Chad grabbed my arm at the moment I realized we should follow them.
The small noise that had started out as a vibration was a downright roar now. Chad and I crossed over the threshold of the room together.
That’s the last thing I remember.
I can’t really tell you what it feels like when the ceiling caves in on you. I guess I must have been knocked out cold. Or maybe I’ve blocked out the parts of it where I was actually conscious. But it does feel that fast. One second I was crossing a doorway at top speed, the next nothing.
***
I blinked, the darkness of the night filling my vision. Behind me I heard the crackle of a well-lit fire and for a second I thought I was back at home in my tent above Genesis. But then it all came crashing down on me. Everything. Unless I’d suddenly become insane, I couldn’t have invented the events of the last few days.
I groaned and tried to sit up. “Chad?”
I didn’t know how we’d gotten out of that place, with the ceiling coming down. I needed him to tell me.
“No, no, Pixie-Girl. It’s not Chad. It’s me.”
My heart stuttered at the sound and I risked dizziness to turn around. I really didn’t have to bother. Across a crowded hall I would know his voice over all others. It was Jason. Apparently he’d come back.
Sitting to my left, just out my range of sight, he looked like a fallen angel as he sat, his blond hair practically glowing in the firelight. He gazed at me with his lids slightly lowered, regarded me from a slight distance.
“Where is everyone?”
My heart pounded and a sinking sensation took hold in my shoulders. This wasn’t normal. We shouldn’t be alone together. Where was everyone else?
“I barely found you before the explosion.”
I swallowed. His words weren’t making a lot of sense. “What explosion?”
“After the ceiling came down, the whole thing blew up. I’d barely dragged you out of the rubble before there was no way to go back.”
His words were clipped like he didn’t want to say them or as if he resented having to explain at all.
“So everyone else….”
This time it was me who didn’t want to say the words. Rosa, Dave, Ken, and Chad. They’d all been with me. If they weren’t here, if he hadn’t gotten them out, then the unthinkable had happened. They couldn’t all be dead. They couldn’t.
Even as my mind denied the inevitable, my body reacted to the news like it had been struck. I doubled over, my head touching the ground as I tried not to heave.
“No, no, no, no….”
I hadn’t realized I’d spoken the words aloud until I heard my own voice as if from a distance—so defeated, so despondent, so completely out of control.
The world couldn’t be so cruel. It wasn’t possible. I couldn’t have gotten Chad back only to truly lose him. Was my pain somehow amusing to the universe?
Jason scooted over next to me and rubbed my back in circular motions meant to soothe me. But I didn’t want to be soothed. I pushed his hand away as I darted to my feet.
“Why?” I stared down at him. In that moment, he could have been anyone. It didn’t matter. I just wanted him to have pain because I had pain.
He stood, slowly, his eyes never leaving mine. “Why what?”
“Why did you come and get me? Why didn’t you leave me there to die with them?”
He inhaled his breath, a loud hiss of a sound. “Because I love you. I’m enormously grateful to have gotten there in time to drag you out. I heard a crash, a loud tremendous bang, and the ground shook. I ran down the ladder faster than I’ve ever moved and followed my nose to you….”
I shook my head, moved my hands to shield myself from him. I turned my back. “You should have left me there with them.”
Because they were gone. The three Warriors I’d barely had time to get to know and the guy who had never let me down and most likely never would have. They were dead. I was here. And there was nothing fair about that.
“I’ll never let you die, Rachel. Not ever.”
“No.” I whirled around. “You’ll just leave me in the snow waiting for you while you run off with your pack.”
“I’ve spoken to my father.” His face was passive now. No emotion showed in his blue eyes. “He admitted to lying. He had his reasons. They don’t matter. I’ve left him.”
I blinked. “What?”
Jason took a step toward me. “I’ve left him, left the pack. Even if you never want me again, I can’t go back with him. I can’t trust him. He took from me what was mine and now I’m not sure I can ever get it back.”
“Don’t talk about me like I’m not here listening to you. I’m not an object you lost.”
He sighed loudly. “Rachel, I know that.”
I shook my head. “I can’t talk to you about this. I have to go.”
I looked around. I wasn’t sure how I was going to find the way. This wasn’t on my grid. I hadn’t been trained to know instinctually how to get around.
Jason touched my arm and I was ashamed by the way my skin tingled below his big hands.
“You need to go where?”
I choked on a sob. “I have to go home and tell them that Liberty fell. I have to go tell the Lyons that their son died rescuing me.”
“It’s not your fault, Rachel.”
I pulled my arm away. “At some point everyone has to stop telling me how things aren’t my fault. Eventually, when bad things keep happening over and over to everyone around you, you have to acknowledge that it’s you, that it is something about you that causes these things. That’s where I am, Jason.” I wiped at my eyes. “Can you point me in the direction of Genesis? I have to walk. It’s going to take months.”
But I would do it. I would walk until I got there. Everyone had to know the things I had to tell them. Even if they hated me forever.
“I can get you there faster.”
I knew exactly what he meant. He could carry me on his back in his wolf form. The last time he’d done that, we’d sped through the snow to report to his pack about Vampire activity.
“It’s not going to work. We don’t have the carrier.”
“You could hold on.”
Now it was my turn to sigh. What was the matter of me? It would get me there faster. Did I want to delay telling the leadership what they needed to hear because I was afraid to remember how it had felt to be on Jason’s back?
I could picture Chad’s face as I’d last seen him. The way he’d burst in the room, a slight grin on his face as he’d taken down so many Vampires and beaten Payne.
His family had to know how brave he was; they deserved to know what happened to him. My eyes filled with tears. Going with Jason wasn’t disloyal to Chad, even if it felt like it was. And still I couldn’t make myself agree.
“Rachel?” Jason’s voice broke. “I can smell your pain and it’s eating at me.”
“I’m not going to hide it, Jason. I can’t. I’m not capable of it. If it bothers you feel free to point me towards home and go away.”
“I don’t want you to hide.” He fisted his hands at his side. “I want to help you. You think I don’t get it? I just told you that the guy you’re in love with is dead, which I know caused you tremendous pain. At the same time, I can’t help but feel relief that I won’t have to fight him for you anymore.”
I think I stopped breathing when he made his statement. I’m not sure. All I know is that we stood there in silence as I tried to absorb the horror of what he’d just said to me.
“Even if you were thinking that—which clearly you were—why on earth would you say that aloud? Chad is dead. You never would have won in a contest with him. I would have chosen him every time.”
Jason shook his head. “Liar.”
I screamed like I could bring down the moon with my fury alone. “What is the matter with you? Why are you doing this to me now?”
Jason held out his hands in a gesture of surrender. “You’re right, I’m sorry. I just have so many emotions going on right now, Rachel, and I know you don’t even want me touching you.”
I cried in earnest. I couldn’t help it. My tears wouldn’t stop, and after a while I stopped trying to make them.
“I had this idea.” It was hard for me to speak through my hysteria but I was desperate to say what I needed to say. “That you and I would somehow make it work even though I knew it was virtually impossible.”
Jason started to speak and I stopped him as I held up my hand. I wasn’t done.
“Then you abandoned me and I thought for a while I would never smile again. But I did. Eventually I did because of Chad. So, when I could breathe again I started imagining there could be a future with him. One we would build together at Genesis. Now he’s dead. I guess it’s a different kind of abandonment. He’s gone, even if he didn’t choose to be.”
My tears stopped abruptly and I wondered, distantly, if I would ever cry again. Right now, I felt dry like all of the tears in my body had suddenly evaporated and gone to take up residence elsewhere. What was left was a feeling of nothingness.
“Go back to your Pack, Jason. You’re a Werewolf. You can’t exist without them.”
I’d been brutally assaulted by one the whole time I’d been underground. Payne had gotten off on it and given me a whole new definition of discomfort. I didn’t want anything to do with Werewolves right now.
“Which way is my home?”
Jason paused. I didn’t know if he was going to tell me. I didn’t know if he was even going to respond to what I’d just laid on him. I didn’t care.
He pointed. “That way.”
I nodded. “Thanks.”
Putting one foot in front of another seemed like a good idea so I did just that. I moved at a steady pace in the direction that would eventually take me home. Perhaps I should have asked Jason to show me where everyone had been killed but I couldn’t. In my mind’s eye it was clear.
I could even taste the smoke in my mouth.
No, I didn’t need to see where Chad, Rosa, Dave, and Ken had met their fire-filled end. They were buried in my heart now. It was the only grave marker I would ever need to visit.
I heard Jason walking behind me. He could stay. He could go. I really didn’t care. How could Chad be dead if I could still taste his kiss on my lips?