Chapter 154: The Final Assault

Calix Pov

My father’s black eyes did not blink. He took one more step down the porch stairs and then he stopped. The blackness inside his eye sockets started to leak down his face like thick grease. He did not look like a man anymore. He looked like an empty coat that was being held up by old string.

I did not wait for him to move again. I did not think. I just moved.

I launched my body forward before he could raise his hands. I hit him with everything I had left in my lungs and we both went down into the dirt. My claws caught the skin of his throat and my teeth clamped down on his shoulder. His flesh felt cold and dry like paper. He did not even bleed right. He just made a dry, rattling sound in his throat and tried to push my face away with his grey fingers.

"Calix, stop," Simone screamed from the top of the lawn.

I did not listen to her. I dug my teeth deeper into his neck and I twisted my head with a hard snap. I felt the bone in his neck break. The black fluid came out in a rush and it smelled like old well water. His body went completely loose under my paws. The old Alpha Hawthorne was dead for real this time and he did not move again.

I dropped back onto my human knees and I spit the black taste out of my mouth.

Maddie came up right beside me. Her white fur was glowing very bright and the light from her skin was hitting the grass like the morning sun. The silver wound on her side was fully closed now. She looked at my father's body and then she looked up at the line of rogue wolves.

"The old man is gone," Maddie said and she looked straight at the crowd.

"Do not look at him," Simone shouted and she ran down the porch stairs until she was standing behind her front line. "He was weak. The stones are gone but I still have the blood. Kill them now."

The rogue wolves shifted their weight from side to side. They looked at my father's loose skin on the ground and then they looked at Maddie's white fur. The tight circle they had made around us started to open up because some of them were stepping backward into the shadows.

"We are not going anywhere," I said and I stood up straight.

"We take her together," Maddie said in my mind.

"I have the center," I said.

"I will take the left side," she said.

Marcus came up to my right side and he was holding a thick piece of broken wood from the fence. He had a big cut over his left eye but his grip on the wood was tight. Elder Thomas and twelve more of our remaining wolves moved up too. They formed a short, flat line right behind me and Maddie.

"We stand our ground," Marcus said and he bared his teeth.

"Let us end it," I said.

We started to run.

I let the shift take my body while my bare feet were hitting the grass. My bones popped and stretched into place in one big second and the black fur grew out over my skin. Next to me, Maddie was a white streak. We hit the first row of rogue wolves together and the sound of our bodies colliding was loud like two rocks hitting each other.

I hit a big brown wolf with my chest and sent him rolling into the dirt. Another rogue tried to catch my hind leg but I spun around and ripped my claws across his snout. He let out a sharp whine and ran back toward the bushes. The fight was close and personal. I could smell the sour sweat of the rogues and the hot smoke from the house.

Maddie was moving fast on the left. She jumped over a grey wolf and caught his back with her teeth. She did not use the red anger this time. She just used the pure white light and every wolf she touched backed away like they were being burned by iron.

"Simone," I roared in my mind.

Simone was backed up against the old stone well at the edge of the woods. She did not have the dagger anymore and her hands were empty. Her army was breaking apart because the wolves were scattering into the dark trees. They were leaving her all by herself on the lawn.

"You are a coward, Calix," Simone said and she spit onto the grass.

"Your wolves are gone," I said as I dropped back into my human form ten feet away from her.

Maddie dropped into her human form right next to me. Her skin was covered in black soot from the roof but her blue eyes were completely clear.

"It is over, Simone," Maddie said and she took a slow step forward.

"It is not over," Simone said.

She did not try to turn around and run into the forest. Instead, she dug her own fingernails into her palms until the red blood started to drip down her wrists. She smeared the fluid across the old stones of the well and then she slammed both of her palms flat onto the dirt.

A loud cracking sound started right under my boots.

It did not sound like wood snapping. It sounded like the entire mountain was splitting apart from the inside. The ground beneath us began to move up and down like the surface of a lake.

"Calix, get back right now," Elder Thomas shouted from behind the line.

The dirt in the middle of the lawn suddenly caved in. A huge hole opened up right where my father’s body was lying. The earth just swallowed the grass and the stones and the remaining pieces of the porch. The hole was growing wider with every second and the edges were crumbling away into nothing. It was a giant sinkhole and it was eating the whole clearing.

"What did you do?" I shouted and I reached out to grab Maddie’s arm before she could slide.

"If I cannot have this pack, nobody will," Simone screamed and she laughed while the stones of the well started to slide into the pit. "We can all go down into the dark together."

The edge of the hole reached the spot where Marcus was standing. The ground broke under his feet and he let out a loud shout as his legs went into the empty air. He caught a thick tree root with his hands but the root was pulling out of the wet dirt.

"Marcus," Maddie yelled and she tried to break away from my grip to help him.

"The hill is collapsing," I said and I locked my arm around her waist.