Chapter 62

Cody

I had picked a lock or two in my day, but not when the bars had silver on them. I was diligently working the lock while trying not to touch the bars. The noise was waking up the other sleeping wolves and they were now whimpering all around me. It was both depressing and annoying, as I was trying to concentrate. After about thirty minutes, I got the cage open with the she wolf. I lifted her out and carried her in my arms out of the outbuilding. It was freezing cold outside and I knew she wouldn't be able to last long in the elements. When I exited the door, one of the warriors who was standing guard, grabbed her from me and I instructed him to run as fast as he could back to the pack house and to mind link the Luna to get the pack doctor there quickly. There would be more. The warrior nodded in understanding and before he could take off, one of the warriors from Garrett's pack stepped forward and took off his jacket and wrapped it around the little she wolf. He looked up at me, sadness in his eyes. "I know her Beta. I went to school with her. This is heart breaking to see her like this." I nodded in understanding and then turned to go back in after telling them I would be bringing more out. I heard someone say they would run back for blankets, but then I descended the stairs and only the sounds of the whimpers surrounded me again.

I headed back to the area where the cages were. It was a bit easier to pick the locks without touching the silver. The ones in shackles were going to have to wait. Another hour and I had two more cages open, the wolves inside slowly crawled out, barely able to move. These wolves were not from the Godsend pack or the Wyoming Wolf Pack. I wasn't sure where they were from, but they felt my Beta aura and followed my directions, staying just in front of me as I walked them to the exit. I didn't want to put my back to them, since I didn't know who they were. As we exited into the cold, one of them dropped down and shifted back to human form. He was a young man, no more than twenty, but severely malnourished and dehydrated. By the time I had these three out, one of the warriors had returned with an ATV and some blankets. They wrapped up the passed out man and placed him on the trailer behind the ATV, the other two wolves followed suit and jumped onto the back of the trailer and promptly laid down and went to sleep. I asked if anyone had any gloves and ordered for them to bring me back a crowbar on the next return. They drove off and I headed back into the darkness. I had the small boy that Garrett had called Alek and one other male wolf that was chained up. Besides them, the two feral wolves, which I could assume were rogues. They smelled like rot and sewage. I wasn't letting them out. They would need put down in a humane way, they were not recoverable.

***

Alpha Gabe

We tore down the tunnel at break neck speed. We must have ran a mile before we came upon Dexter and the others. They were huddled together, whispering, trying to make a plan. As soon as we approached, they barred their necks to me in submission and I returned to human form. Dexter placed his fingers to his lips in a hush sign and pointed above him. There was a rope hanging down from what appeared to be an extension ladder. He reached up and pulled down on it slowly. It let out a slight creak noise as he gently lowered it to the ground. "It's a door Alpha. It leads outside. We pushed it up about an inch to see if we could make out where we are. Mostly I could see leaves and grass, so it's got to be in the middle of the forest from what I could see," Dexter briefed me.

"Ok, well we need to open it I suppose, and hope no one is above us. The explosion may have alerted someone, we don't want to be jumped. Did you feel any inclination as to the direction of this tunnel? Maybe someone could go back and walk to where this door could potentially be hidden, tap it so we know the coast is clear," I suggested.

"I've got no idea Alpha, it's so dark down here, it's hard to say. Maybe if we had a compass?" Dexter might be on to something.

"It's a thought. We now know what's here and that someone was keeping prisoners. I need to ask Cody if he recognized the scent of any of those wolves as the one who threw the rabbit at his house. Maybe that particular wolf knows something," I rubbed my hand on my chin in thought. "The alternative is that we sit and wait for them to come back to us. Eventually they are going to come check on their prisoners."

We all exchanged looks, trying to decide what to agree on. Finally Alpha Garrett looked at me and said, "If you don't mind Alpha, I'm going to just charge up this damn ladder and flip that hatch open. I don't want to waste anymore time. These pieces of shit have kidnapped and tortured members of my pack, most of which are children or were when they were abducted. I can't believe I didn't think that any of this could have been related to them. All this time I was looking at my current day pack, for deserters or traitors." Garrett was physically shaking at this point. I knew there would be no denying him when he was seeking revenge, so I gave him a nod. The rest of us prepared to go right behind him, everyone stripping out of their clothes to make it a quick shift as we cleared the top of the ladder.

Garrett climbed to the top of the ladder, initially giving the door a slight push to gauge it's weight. It seemed to be a very thin metal, nothing a werwolf couldn't manage, but a human would have a very hard time lifting it. He peeked out through the opening that he had created, lifting it up about two inches. We watched as he looked to the three sides he could see out of, and stood listening for any sounds. He took a deep breath, gave us a nod and flipped the hatch door up and open, the rest of us making quick work of following behind him. We all made it out of the door and shifted as soon as our heads cleared the opening. We stood, all of us facing different directions, our backs to each other, to make sure no one could sneak up on us from any direction. The forest was quiet as we stood listening and watching for movement. A bird would chirp here and there. A rabbit scurried from under a bush, it's nose twitching at us, and it disappeared just as quickly.

We began to fan out and as we did, I noticed a few more details. First we were still on Old Man Dusty's land, but we were near the edge of the hillside, where the property line ended and the Godsend pack land began. We were actually on the outside of the old mans barbed wire fence, so he, nor his cattle would have ever walked over this door. Or at least it would be unusual if he had felt the need to go this far. I mind linked with my warriors, to carefully make their way over the hill, check if they saw anyone or anything. We were going to need a plan to deal with this, and quickly.

A few minutes later, my warriors came back. They didn't see anyone but confirmed that we definitely were on the border. They could smell the fresh scent of one of the pack members, likely a patrol. Not wanting to rush or do anything rash, I pulled my wolves back to the tunnel opening and we clambered back down, shifted and quickly dressed. Garrett was hesitant, wanting to seek his revenge now, but I was able to convince him that running on to their land without a plan was just a suicide mission. There weren't enough of us. We made sure the door was completely shut, so as not to raise suspicion and then headed back to where I had left Cody to free the wolves.

The plan was to wait for them to come back. We would do it in shifts, once we spoke with the wolves who could talk to us. The young woman had been speaking, she may be our best bet. If we could gather some intel as to how many of them were involved, or if they had used names, it would give us the advantage.