Chapter 97
No matter how much she thought about it, she couldn’t figure out a way out of the holding cells. The time she had spent there when she was a child was a hopeless period of her life, so being back in that cell was doing a good job of eating away at her spirit.
“What do we do, Luna?”, Hannah asked as she leaned against the bars.
Throwing her head back, Amelia rested her head against the cold stone wall as she closed her eyes and contemplated her next move. She told herself that there had to be something she could do, but she couldn’t think of anything.
“I don’t know…” Amelia sighed. “But we’ll think of something.”
“Maybe I can create some kind of distraction”, Hannah said. “So that you can escape.”
Amelia opened her eyes and smiled at her friend. Even after getting her into this mess, she was touched that Hannah was still willing to do what she could to get Amelia to safety.
“I’m not leaving you here, Hannah”, Amelia said as she extended her hand to Hannah.
Although Hannah seemed sad that Amelia had not taken her suggestion, she still smiled and held her hand as both women tried to comfort each other.
“So what do we do?” Hannah asked, unable to hide her concern for their immediate future.
“We wait, Hannah”, Amelia replied. “Whenever I was surrounded by rogues, all I had to do was wait for an opening to be able to get away. So we wait.”
The silence that hung between them was filled with fear and uncertainty. But both women knew that they had to wait for the right opportunity.
They heard footsteps approaching before they saw the four pack warriors walk into the space with the holding cells. Three of the warriors had the same restraints that they had used on her when she had tried to escape days prior. The fourth warrior walked over to Hannah’s cell and pointed a handgun at her from the other side of the bars.
“Stand up!”, one of the warriors ordered Amelia.
Amelia studied the warriors for a moment before she glanced at the warrior pointing a gun at Hannah. She decided that the risk was too great to do anything in that situation, so she decided to obey their orders and stood up from the floor.
“Luna, no…”, Hannah protested as she also stood from the floor.
“It’s okay, Hannah”, Amelia said, trying to reassure her. “Just wait for me. Everything will be fine.”
Amelia stepped away from Hannah and stood in the middle of her cell as she waited for their orders.
“Turn around and place your hands at the back of your head!”, the warrior ordered.
Doing as she was ordered to, she turned around and placed her hands at the back of her head.
To ensure that she didn’t do anything, the warrior with the gun cocked it to show that he would shoot Hannah if she attacked them. The other three warriors then opened her cell door and entered the holding cell with her. Two of the warriors cuffed her wrists with silver-coated restraints while the third cuffed her neck. When they were sure that they had restrained her securely with her hands held at her back and her head pushed down slightly, they slowly dragged her out of her cell and into the hallway.
Although she had no idea why they had come for her that night, she knew that whatever the reason may be it wasn’t good.
*****
Waiting patiently, Michael and his team hid in the shadows as another pair of guards walked past them. And like all the other patrols before them, Michael signaled for his teammates to grab them and pull them back into the shadows.
They were surprised to see that there weren’t as many guards as they had expected to see guarding the back offices. They had initially thought that they would have tripped some sort of alarm by that point but they weren’t going to try their luck by not being stealthy.
When they arrived at the surveillance office, they stood on either side of the room and knocked on the door. Unfortunately, the door could only be opened from the inside so they waited for one of the workers on the inside to answer the knock.
As soon as one of the workers opened the door, the first thing he saw was the muzzle of a rifle pointing at his face. He silently stepped back inside the room as a couple of the other warriors stepped inside and walked over to the other two workers. Before the other two workers could react, they already had rifles pointed at them.
Michael stepped into the room and immediately made his way to one of the computers connected to the wall of monitor screens displaying CCTV from around the pack. He called up the shutdown protocol and confirmed that no one else would be able to access them from anywhere in the pack.
“Patrick, we have control of the surveillance room”, Michael called through the radio.
“Copy that”, Patrick replied. “Thomas, status report.”
It had taken them a little longer to make their way to the main gate than they had thought it would. But Thomas’s team had managed to work their way towards the gate while taking out a couple more patrolling guards before they arrived.
When they got to the gate, they found a quiet place to hide while they prepared to breach the gates.
“We’re preparing the explosives now”, Thomas replied.
As soon as the explosive charges were prepared, Thomas and his team immediately snuck to the gate and placed the charges on the hinges and the locks. They had to use a lot more explosives than they had to use at the service gate which made them spend more time out in the open than they would have preferred.
While they were still working on the gate, they heard a couple of guards coming around the corner of a building. Before Thomas could give the order to his team to get to cover, a couple of the Lycans he had told to keep watch immediately attacked and took them out. Thomas smirked to himself, thankful for the extra backup.
“Explosives set”, Thomas called out through the radio. “Taking cover now.”
He immediately signaled for his men to take cover in anticipation of the explosion.
“Advance team ready for breach”, Thomas said through the radio when all his teammates had taken shelter.
“Copy that, Thomas”, Michael said through the radio. “Cutting the CCTV connection now.”
*****
Walking through the cold corridors of the castle, Amelia wondered how her father could ever think that she would want to be a part of such a cold and heartless pack. She tried desperately to steady her breathing as the anxiety continued to grow about where the warriors were taking her as they walked through more passages.
They finally arrived at a pair of large doors that swung open the moment they arrived. When they walked in, Amelia was hit with the unmistakable scent of antiseptic that made her crinkle her nose at the unpleasant smell.
Scanning the room, Amelia saw the faces of the nervous scientists all around her. But what made her panic was seeing the operating table in the middle of the room with leg rests attached to it.
This was where they were going to take her baby from her.
She had thought that they still had at least a day before they were going to attempt something so dangerous, but she realized that she was wrong about her and Hannah waiting for the right moment. Because there was no right moment, they had lost all their chances.
Amelia immediately began thrashing about in panic as the warriors struggled to hold her in place. Even when they twisted the poles holding her wrists, Amelia screamed out in pain but continued to struggle against their hold on her.
“Hold her down!”, Thornbury commanded as he walked into the lab.
The warrior holding on to the cuff at her neck immediately pushed her forward, making her stumble to her knees. To gloat at his victory, Thornbury walked next to Amelia and squatted down to speak to her as she sat on her knees.
“You will be a part of my vision”, Thornbury said. “Whether you like it or not.”
“Why do you hate me so much?” Amelia asked as she looked at him trying to fight back the tears.
Thornbury scowled at her question before he gestured for the warriors to raise her from the floor. The warriors holding her down immediately pulled on her restraints, making her choke against the burning metal as she stood up from the floor.
They then maneuvered her to the operating table and managed to pull one of her arms into the restraint attached to the table. The warrior holding onto her neck then pulled her down so that she fell onto the bed while the other warrior tried to pull her other arm into the second restraint.
Just before he could get her wrist down, the whole room shook as an explosion rang through the castle and rattled the windows.