Chapter 69 The Trap Springs
VIVIENNE
The silver water was rising faster than physics should allow, swallowing the lower galleries like Edmund had engineered the entire facility as a giant bathtub designed specifically to drown werewolves.
I stayed in wolf form because the Silvermane bloodline provided resistance the others didn't have. The silver gas that was still hissing through vents made standard werewolves choke and convulse… I could breathe it without immediate poisoning. The UV lights that burned exposed skin felt uncomfortable but not agonizing. Even the silver water rising around my paws didn't trigger the violent reaction it caused in everyone else.
Genetic advantages of being descended from the oldest werewolf bloodline in existence. My ancestors had survived centuries of hunter attacks by developing resistance to the very weapons designed to kill us.
Would've been nice if someone had mentioned this before today.
A young wolf from the Irish Border Pack slipped on wet stone, fell into the rising water. Started screaming as silver solution burned through his fur, poisoning his system within seconds.
I dove in without thinking.
The water stung… my resistance wasn't immunity, just delayed reaction. But I could tolerate it long enough to grab the young wolf by his scruff, haul him toward the stairs leading to higher galleries.
Siobhan appeared beside me, helping lift him despite the silver water poisoning her too. "Get him to Freya! She's got antidotes prepared!"
We hauled the convulsing wolf up three flights of stairs to where Freya had established a makeshift medical station in the upper gallery. She was surrounded by injured wolves, her hands glowing with protective magic as she worked through triage.
"Silver poisoning, acute exposure!" I said, depositing the young wolf at her feet.
Freya didn't even look up from the wolf she was currently treating. "Put him on the left! That's the critical care section! Someone get me more rowan ash… we're running through supplies faster than I can prep them!"
Owen appeared, carrying what looked like an entire bag of magical components. "I have no idea what half this stuff is but I grabbed everything you pointed at earlier!"
"You're a saint, Owen! Start grinding the rowan bark… we need powder consistency!"
"I'm not qualified for this!"
"Neither am I! I'm a witch, not a battlefield medic! We're all improvising!"
I left them to it, shifted back to wolf form, and dove back into the chaos.
The water had reached the fourth tier now. Wolves were packed into the upper galleries, territorial instincts completely overwhelmed by the immediate need to not drown in silver solution.
Through the mate bond, I felt Declan coordinating defensive positions on the north side. He was in human form, shouting orders to wolves who were barely maintaining rational thought under the Silver Moon's influence.
I needed to help. Needed to use the Silvermane abilities to force order on panic.
But every time I tried to command in the ancient tongue, I risked accidentally compelling allies into submission at the worst possible moment. Like when I'd made forty wolves kneel including three Alphas, which was definitely not helpful during active combat.
A hunter appeared on the catwalk above me, aiming a weapon at clustered wolves who were trapped against a wall by rising water.
I shifted to human. "Grathas en'thil!"
The hunter's body jerked as the transformation compulsion hit him. He was human… didn't have the genetic structure to shift… but the Silvermane command tried anyway, attempting to rewrite his biology through sheer ancient authority amplified by the Silver Moon.
He screamed, convulsed, dropped his weapon.
I released the compulsion before it killed him. "Rethas mor'shul!"
The hunter collapsed, gasping. Pointed weakly toward something behind me.
I turned.
Three more hunters were positioning a massive device near the water's edge… some kind of electrified net launcher designed to deploy into the rising silver solution.
Oh, hell no.
I shifted back to wolf form, charged across the gallery with speed the Silver Moon amplified. Hit the first hunter before he could activate the device, sent him sprawling.
The second hunter swung at me with a silver blade. I dodged left, his blade cutting through empty air where I'd been a heartbeat earlier. Shifted to human mid-dodge, grabbed his wrist, twisted until he dropped the weapon.
The third hunter had a gun. Aimed directly at my head.
Rachel appeared from nowhere, tackling him before he could fire. "Stop trying to electrocute the drowning victims! Where's your humanity?!"
"They're not human!" the hunter shouted, struggling against Rachel's hold. "They're monsters!"
"They're people! Children, families, students! What the hell is wrong with you?!"
I left Rachel to handle him… she had rage-fueled moral authority on her side and was clearly winning the argument through strategic application of punching… and shifted back to wolf form to destroy the electrified net launcher before anyone else could activate it.
Used my jaws to rip out critical components. Sparks flew. The device made a sad electrical whine and died.
One threat neutralized. Approximately seventeen more still active.
DECLAN
The north wall was our best chance at escape. Marcus Dunne had already breached it from the outside, creating a gap we could theoretically widen if we had enough concentrated force.
"Everyone!" I shouted, my Alpha voice cutting through the panic as wolves scrambled for higher ground. "North wall! We break through together or we drown separately!"
Ten wolves responded… a mix of Greyfang, Highland, and Welsh packs working together despite never having coordinated before today. The Silver Moon was making everyone's territorial instincts go haywire, but survival apparently trumped pack hierarchy when the alternative was drowning in silver solution.
We shifted simultaneously, charged the weakened section of concrete that Marcus had initially damaged.
Hit it with combined force.
The wall cracked further. Still not enough to break through, but progress.
"Again!" I shifted back to human to give clear orders. "Same spot! Full strength!"
We charged a second time.
The concrete buckled. Cracks spread like spiderwebs across the entire section.
A third charge and we'd have an exit large enough for wolves to escape through.
We never got the third charge.
A hunter appeared in the gap we'd created, aiming some kind of cannon directly at our position.
"UV cannon armed!" he shouted into his radio. "North breach team, engaging!"
The cannon fired.
Concentrated ultraviolet light flooded the area in a beam that made the ceiling-mounted UV lights look gentle by comparison. Wolves screamed, scrambling away from the beam as it burned exposed skin with intensity that prevented regeneration.
I shifted to wolf form on pure instinct, using my fur as minimal protection. The UV light still hurt… felt like standing too close to fire… but at least I wasn't getting third-degree burns on bare human skin.
Callum appeared beside me, also in wolf form, gesturing with his head toward the hunter operating the cannon. We needed to take him down before he could sweep the beam across the entire gallery.
I nodded. We split up, approaching from different angles.
The hunter was focused on operating the cannon, tracking wolves with the UV beam as they tried to scatter. Didn't see me coming from his right blind spot.
I hit him hard enough to send the cannon tilting off its mounting. The UV beam swept across the ceiling instead of the gallery, giving everyone a few seconds of relief.
Callum tackled him from the other side, both of us working together to disarm him before he could activate any backup weapons.
"Where's Edmund?" I shifted to human to interrogate properly. "Where is he coordinating from?"
The hunter just smiled. "Somewhere you can't reach him. And it doesn't matter… the trap is automated now. Even if you kill every hunter here, the facility will keep flooding until there's no room left. You're all going to drown."
"Cheerful bastard, isn't he?" Callum said, also shifting to human. "Should we keep him alive for testimony or just throw him in the silver water?"
"Testimony. Gabriel said we need survivors to expose the conspiracy."
"Pity. Throwing him in the water would be more satisfying."
We secured the hunter with his own restraints… hunters always carried zip ties for some reason… and left him for someone else to handle.
The water had reached the fifth tier. We were running out of time.
"The north wall breach isn't going to work!" I called to the wolves who'd helped with the initial assault. "The hunters have it covered with UV cannons! We need a different exit!"
"South wall!" Gabriel's voice through the communication network. "Marcus is working on it from the outside with his full pack! They've got the barricades almost cleared!"
South wall it was.
I gathered my people… the ten who'd helped with the north breach plus anyone else willing to follow… and headed south through galleries that were becoming increasingly crowded as the rising water forced everyone into smaller and smaller spaces.
GABRIEL
The south wall was reinforced concrete three feet thick, designed to withstand supernatural assault. Breaking through it from inside would require coordinated force from multiple Alphas working together.
Breaking through from outside with construction equipment was significantly easier.
Marcus Dunne had brought a backhoe.
I had no idea where he'd acquired a backhoe at 7 PM on the night of the Silver Moon, but the massive Highland Pack Alpha was currently operating heavy machinery with the kind of casual competence that suggested this wasn't his first time breaching fortified structures.
"Almost through!" he shouted over the engine noise. "Thirty more seconds!"
I coordinated the interior team… fifteen wolves from my survivors plus volunteers from other packs, all of us ready to assist the moment the wall broke.
The backhoe's reinforced scoop slammed into the concrete a fourth time.
The wall collapsed inward, creating a gap large enough for wolves to escape through.
"Go!" I shouted. "Everyone who can move, evacuate now! Injured first!"
Wolves poured through the opening. Some in human form, some still shifted, all of them desperate to escape the flooding facility before the silver water reached lethal levels.
Freya appeared with the critical care cases… wolves too injured or poisoned to move on their own. Owen and two others were helping carry them.
"Get them out first!" I said. "They're priority evacuation!"
"We're trying! Do you know how heavy an unconscious werewolf is? They're very dense!"
"Just move faster!"
A hunter appeared in the upper gallery, aiming at the evacuation in progress.
I didn't hesitate. Shifted, leaped across the distance separating us, tackled him before he could fire.
We hit the railing hard enough to crack it. The hunter tried to stab me with a silver knife… hunters always had backups, always… but I caught his wrist in my jaws, bit down until bones broke and the weapon clattered away.
"Your trap failed!" I shifted to human to speak clearly. "Edmund's plan didn't work! We're escaping!"
The hunter just laughed, blood running from his broken wrist. "You think this is the end? Edmund's been planning for eighteen months. You've survived one trap. He's got contingencies you haven't even imagined."
That was concerning.
I left him restrained with zip ties… testimony for later… and shifted back to wolf form to continue coordinating the evacuation.
Rachel was helping Freya move the critical cases. Thomas was covering the approach from the east. My entire survivor pack was working with practiced efficiency that came from two years of fighting hunters together.
We'd survived this long by being prepared for everything.
But Edmund had spent eighteen months preparing specifically to kill us.
The question was: had he prepared for us to survive the drowning trap?
SOPHIE
My main camera was still streaming live to forty-seven thousand viewers across five platforms. The backup cameras were recording to encrypted cloud storage. The button camera sewn into my jacket was continuously uploading footage that would survive even if everything else failed.
I was documenting genocide.
And I was absolutely terrified.
"For those just joining the stream," I narrated, keeping my voice steady despite my hands shaking, "what you're seeing is a coordinated attack on werewolf students at Blackthorn Academy. The facility is currently flooding with silver solution… silver being toxic to werewolves… while ultraviolet lights prevent their regenerative abilities from functioning. Twenty-three armed hunters are executing what can only be described as a massacre."
A hunter appeared in my peripheral vision, climbing toward the upper gallery where I was positioned.
I didn't stop filming.
"A hunter is approaching my location. If this stream cuts out, assume I've been compromised. All footage is backed up to cloud storage. Encrypted passwords are in my will. Don't let this be suppressed."
The hunter reached my position. Looked at the camera. Looked at me.
"You need to stop filming," he said. Not threatening, just stating fact.
"Legally, I'm a journalist documenting a public event. First Amendment protects… "
"This isn't a public event. This is a classified operation."
"Classified by whom? Under what authority? Who gave you permission to murder students?"
The hunter hesitated. Good… hesitation meant uncertainty, meant he was questioning orders, meant I might be able to appeal to whatever humanity he had left.
"These aren't students," he finally said. "They're werewolves. Supernatural threats to public safety."
"They're seventeen-year-old kids playing supernatural football! Look at them!" I turned the camera toward a cluster of terrified young wolves huddled against a wall, trying to stay above the rising water. "Do they look like threats to you?!"
The hunter looked. Actually looked at the wolves I was filming.
One of them was crying. Another was trying to comfort her. They were both maybe sixteen years old, soaking wet, burned from UV exposure, clearly terrified.
"Orders are orders," the hunter said, but there was doubt in his voice now.
"Orders from Edmund Ashford, who killed his wife and spent seventeen years torturing his daughter! You're following a psychopath's orders to commit genocide! Is this really who you want to be?!"
The hunter's hand went to his weapon.
I kept filming.
"If you kill me, it'll be on camera. Forty-seven thousand people are watching live. You'll be internationally famous as the man who murdered a journalist for documenting war crimes."
His hand moved away from the weapon.
"Get somewhere safe," he said quietly. "When the facility finishes flooding, anyone still inside will drown. That includes you."
Then he turned and left.
I exhaled shakily, realizing I'd been holding my breath.
"That was close," I muttered to the camera. "Very close. Anyway, continuing coverage… "
An explosion rocked the facility.
Not from inside. From above.
I tilted the camera upward, zooming in on the skylights.
Something massive had hit the roof.
VIVIENNE
The skylights exploded inward as something breached from above… not from our attacks, from outside.
Glass rained down on the upper galleries. Wolves scrambled for cover, the Silver Moon visible through the new opening, its blood-red light flooding the facility with even more intense supernatural energy.