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Chapter 12
Wyatt
The group’s anxiety was a living, breathing presence around us. No one spoke as we rushed through the forest. Ahead of us, Crew’s wolf led the way to Simon’s lab. Kira and I stayed in our human forms to pass communication to the rest. The whirring of the helicopters had faded, then gone silent once they’d made it to the volcano. The urgency wasn’t lost on anyone.
One of our only shots of getting off the island was already here. Every second that we weren’t attacking Simon’s lab was an extra moment the helicopters had to load up and fly back to the mainland.
Using hand signals, Kira and I kept our three attack groups organized. Our Tranquility Ops training was coming in handy. In fact, I couldn’t remember a time when I was happier to have the knowledge and experience at my disposal.
The rest of our people had the wild-eyed look of people rushing toward what might be certain death. It was a look people got when they went on their first missions, or when soldiers went to war for the first time. Some of these people would surprise themselves and rise to the occasion, but that wouldn’t be the case for everyone. They had little training, no experience,and were already exhausted from escaping Haven. They would panic, freeze up. They’d probably die.
It was a reality I couldn’t allow myself to dwell on too much. We’d done all we could, and now we had to push forward. We’d mourn the ones we lost when this was over.
We made it to the volcano in record time, but the fact that we didn’t run into any monsters nagged at me. Maybe the helicopters had scared them off? Or perhaps even the psychotic creatures on this godsforsaken island were afraid of what Simon was capable of. Either way, after only thirty minutes, Crew shifted back to his human form and called a halt to our run.
Kira, Eli, Mika, and I joined him to scope out the lone entrance we knew of. “They’re ready,” Crew whispered as he pointed through the foliage.
Sure enough, some two hundred yards ahead, three of Simon’s lumbering monstrosities guarded the entrance like walking jigsaw puzzles of death.
“What’s the plan?” Kira asked.
“I’ll take my team in first,” Crew whispered. “Get their attention, lure them away from the entrance. Once they’re on us, Eli and Mika will bring in their team. Wyatt, you and Kira will hang back in case we need reinforcements. I’d prefer to keep at least one team hidden in case word spreads through the lab. Then they’ll think there are less of us than there really are, but the team won’t hesitate to jump in if it looks like we’re in trouble.”
“We’ll be ready,” I said.
“Once those things are dealt with, we move into the lab as fast as we can,” Crew said. “Use surprise to our advantage.”
Crew gathered his team, moving them closer to the entrance. They paused at the edge of the tree line, only feet beyond the reach of the spotlights Simon had installed. Behind Crew’s group, Mika and Eli prepared their team. Kira and I took the rearwith our own group. The tension reverberated like an electric current through the people under our care. They were makeshift soldiers about to go into battle.
When Crew sprinted forward, followed by the seven people on his team, a pressure release of sorts went through the group. A collective sigh of relief.
Crew bounded ahead. He and three of his team were shifters, and they all transitioned to their animal forms. The beasts guarding the door let out roars and squeals at the sight of the intruders. True to Crew’s plan, the creatures rushed forward, leaving the entryway unguarded.
“Go!” Eli shouted as the two groups fell into a skirmish in the distance.
Mika and Eli led their team out, rushing the creatures from the back. Kira and I moved our own team up, waiting. From the bowels of the lab, a group of vampires erupted. They were not the decrepit half-starved things we’d been fighting in the jungle. No, these were lucid, well-fed, and well-prepared creatures of the night. They intercepted Mika and Eli before they could join Crew.
“Crap,” I hissed. “Move. Everyone, let’s go.”
Not waiting for an answer, I sprinted out, rushing toward the fight that was rapidly devolving into chaos. The sound of my team following gave me a small sense of relief, which was dashed when five feral shifters loped out of the entrance to join the fray. Three wolves, a bear, and a panther.
The feral bear shifter slammed into Mika’s group, one massive paw lashing out. It got one of the male wiccans in the throat. Blood spurted from the wiccan’s neck as the bear shifter tossed him away, and I saw the light flicker out of his eyes.
Crew and his shifters had already managed to take down two of the three monsters. The third was being protected by Simon’smagic users, with some strange spell condensing the water in the air, encasing the thing in a ball of water.
The panther I was battling struck out at me with his razor-sharp claws, slicing the air inches in front of me. Still in my human form, I prepared to shift, but before I could, Kira leapt onto the panther’s back, wrapped her arms around its neck, and hauled its head back. A fae ran forward with a sharpened branch and slammed the stick into the beast’s chest. It was dead before it hit the ground, managing only a yowl of pained surprise before its eyes rolled back and a final breath gurgled out of it.
“Behind you!” Kira shouted, pointed over my shoulder.
I ducked and rolled out of the path of an incoming vampire. Gavin shoved the thing in the back, and it tumbled right onto the dead panther. The same stick that had killed the panther pierced the vampire through the chest. Both enemies lay like some fucked-up kebab on the ground.
With the deaths of the patchwork creatures, Crew’s team was free to assist us with the ferals and vampires. It was the most chaotic fight I’d ever been part of. Most of what we did in the TO was subtler. Undercover work, maybe some hand-to-hand combat and sometimes guns were involved, but never against more than four or five targets. This? This was war. Shouts, screams of pain, hisses, and howls cut through the air. In response, the beasts of the forest called back, sending the island into a fervor.
Eventually, we’d dealt with most of the enemies, but time was slipping away. Wehadto get inside.
Crew shifted back to his human form. “Wyatt, get in there! We’ll finish these off and join. Move.”
I whistled at my team. “Inside! Follow me!”
