CHAPTER 120:10 Seconds to Mercy
ADAM
Exactly as I suspected, the secret laboratory wasn’t secured. The place reeked of arrogance, as if the people behind it believed no one would ever find them. Maybe they thought they were ghosts untouchable, invisible. But they forgot one thing.
Wolves have an instinct for secrets.
With Mrs. Vallaire’s diary tucked beneath my arm and the blueprints already burned into my mind, it took me less than five minutes to slip past the perimeter. A crumbling vent behind the overgrown shrubbery gave way to a dusty passage that led me inside.
The air was sterile. Too clean. It made my nose twitch.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead as I padded quietly down the hallway. Every room I passed was worse than the last walls lined with sharp instruments, syringes still full of fluorescent liquid, and restraints stained with old blood.
Don’t tell me Marcus had them test this stuff on werewolves.
The thought slithered through my head like poison. My lips curled back, a low growl rising in my throat. Rage simmered in my chest, threatening to boil over. I pushed deeper into the lab, the stench of sterilized steel and chemicals stinging my nose.
Then something else.
Copper.
Faint. Metallic. Familiar.
Blood.
My pace quickened. Every step echoed through the corridor, too loud, too real. I rounded the corner, and a door loomed ahead slightly ajar. My heart hammered as I pushed it open.
The moment stretched thin.
There, shackled to a steel bed, skin bruised and bloodied, was someone I hadn’t seen in years. His chest rose in shallow, broken breaths.
“Drake,” I breathed.
The name stuck to my throat like ash.
He didn’t respond.
But gods it was him.
Drake. My brother in all but name. The one person who understood what it meant to be both man and wolf. And now he was here. Shackled. Tortured.
Why didn’t I ask more when he said he was going to the human realm? Why didn’t I press when weeks passed without word?
I crossed the room in a blur, my claws out before I even realized it, slicing through the leather restraints with precision.
His eyelids fluttered. “Adam…” His voice was cracked glass. “Run. Don’t… let them catch you.”
“Shh.” I pressed a trembling hand over his mouth. “I’m not leaving you behind.”
He sagged against me as the final strap gave way. I caught him, barely registering how light he’d become. Like something had been hollowed out of him.
I hoisted him over my shoulder and turned, retracing my steps through the maze of corridors. My wolf instincts guided me like a compass.
When I slipped into the hidden chamber, Emmanuelle’s eyes went wide.
“God…” she whispered, taking a step back at the sight of him. “Is he?”
“He’s alive,” I said. “But barely. His wolf is holding on.”
She reached out, fingertips brushing a bloodstained edge of his shirt, then looked to me. “What are you going to do?”
“Keep him safe. Keep yourself safe.”
I laid Drake gently onto the floor, careful not to jostle him. His breathing was ragged, but steady.
“Don’t open this door unless it’s me,” I said.
Emmanuelle hesitated. “Wait. What are you planning?”
I didn’t answer.
“Adam”
Her hand closed around mine. Her grip was small but fierce.
“I’m blowing the lab,” I said quietly.
Her breath caught. “But… that could take the building down.”
“Not all of it.” I turned to face her fully now, gaze locked. “Just the underground. No one gets in again.”
“You could die.”
I gave her a grim smile. “Then I die doing the right thing.”
Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Please come back.”
I didn’t promise. I just pulled my hand from hers and disappeared into the shadows.
The hallway ahead was darker now colder.
My claws clicked against the concrete as I followed the blueprint burned into my memory. I found the second chamber just as Mrs. Vallaire had described in her diary.
Chains rattled.
Four of them. Hybrids.
Not fully wolf. Not fully human. Something twisted between.
They watched me with glowing eyes, their bodies twitching with restrained rage. The chains barely held them.
If they got out under the full moon… moongoddes help us all.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered.
They lunged snarling, snapping, straining against the steel.
I stepped forward anyway.
“I can’t let you out. You were never supposed to exist.”
My claws extended.
One strike.
Then another.
Four hearts silenced in quick, clean succession. I didn’t let myself feel it. Not yet.
I wiped the blood from my hands on my shirt and pushed into the control room. The smell of ozone lingered here, wires exposed, panels humming softly.
The detonation panel glowed, just like the journal said.
I flipped the switch. A red button blinked beneath a transparent case.
My fingers hovered for a moment.
Then I pressed it.
Ten.
I shifted.
Bones cracked. Fur tore through skin. The world sharpened—sound, scent, speed.
Nine.
I lunged through the halls, faster than the human eye could track.
Eight. Seven. Six.
I reached Drake. Tossed him onto my back like I’d done a hundred times before when we were pups sparring in the forest.
Five.
I bolted, depositing him beyond the perimeter. Safe.
Four.
I turned back, paws pounding the ground.
Three.
Emmanuelle. She was running barefoot, determined, hair streaming behind her like a dark flame.
“Go!” she shouted. “Save him I’ll follow!”
Two.
No time to argue.
I scooped her into my arms.
One.
Heat. Fire. An invisible hand slammed into us, flinging us forward.
I twisted mid-air, curling my body around hers.
We hit the ground hard. The taste of ash coated my tongue. My ears rang with the force of the explosion.
Pain bloomed through my ribs, sharp and brutal. I kept her tucked against me, shielding her from the worst of it.
Smoke curled around us like fingers.
Then footsteps.
Slow. Heavy.
Someone was coming.
My muscles screamed. My vision blurred. The world tilted.
I didn’t know if I was about to collapse or fight.
But if it was the enemy…
They’d better pray I stayed conscious.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
Thank you so much for reading this chapter it means the world to me. Every comment, every like, and every time you return to dive deeper into this story reminds me why I love writing in the first place.
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