Chapter 5
It didn’t take longfor Adrian and Elias to respond. Adrian cursed our names, then ordered his cadre of vamps to, in his words, “Get them!” Not very clever, I admit. But hey, who was I to criticize?
Gabriel and I didn’t hang around long enough to let them catch us. Instead, we tore ass down the hallway, the injured werewolf hot on our heels. Our feet pounded against the cold concrete floor, the sound echoing off the walls as we ran.
This was an…interesting change of pace for me—and note my sarcasm. Usually, I was the one chasing vampires, not the other way around. And I had to say, I didn’t care for it. The sound of their feet racing toward us sent my pulse into overdrive. It certainly didn’t help matters that we only had the one path to take. I just wanted to be free of this damn building, steel cages and all.
But no, we had to race down this seemingly endless hallway, which led us deeper into the building. The air was thick with dust, and still reeked of death and decay, no matter how far or fast we ran.
“There,” Gabriel called out, pointing ahead. The hallway had finally come to an end, and a set of double doors awaited us. “Let’s hope that’s an exit.”
We sprinted forward, then shoved through the doors, spilling into a larger space. Gone was the narrow, confining hallway, replaced with an expansive, open area that I suspected had once been a warehouse. The enormity of the room baffled me, from the high ceiling supported by steel beams to the cracked concrete floor beneath my feet. Except, instead of boxes and machinery, this area apparently stored more fucking cages.
Ice filled my veins. Rows upon rows of cages filled the room, some stacked by two or three. And at the far end sat a single forklift, ready to move them around as needed. I couldn’t begin to guess how many there were—but certainly more than enough to hold an entire werewolf pack, for sure.
“What the fuck,” I whispered.
“Keep moving,” Gabriel said, giving me no time to consider why Adrian needed this many cages. And he was right. We needed to keep moving. I couldn’t stand there slack-jawed.
He clutched my hand and dragged me deeper into the room, pulling me through the rows of cages in search of an exit. Unfortunately, we weren’t moving quickly enough. The sound of the door slamming open after us took a mere few seconds. The injured werewolf was slowing us down too much. It wouldn’t be long now before they caught us. And we absolutely could not let that happen.
“Gabriel,” I said, my voice far more breathless than I would have liked. The injured werewolf wasn’t the only one struggling.
He shot me a quick, worried glance, then nodded.
We were running on borrowed time. And these damn cages were just a prime reminder of what awaited us should we fail.
Goody.
“Come on,” Gabriel muttered. “There has to be a way out of here. A door, a window—something!”
I understood his frustration. Hell, I was thinking the same damn thing. But this freaking prison seemed inescapable. Who the hell had designed this place?
While Gabriel led us down another row, my focus darted to the walls in search of a bright red sign that glowed with the word exit. Apparently, that was asking too much though. I scanned all four walls until finally—finally—a glimmer of hope caught my eye. One small window, barely visible through the stacks of cages, was hidden right behind the forklift. The sight sparked a surge of relief so intense, I stumbled over my own two feet.
Gabriel shot me another glance, his fear practically palpable. He knew the stakes. And he knew we couldn’t keep running forever. Soon, my limited reserves would completely dry up.
“I’m okay,” I reassured him, my voice hoarse. “And I found our way out.” I pointed at the window, then took the lead, a second wind—or maybe it was the fifth now—revitalizing me. When we escaped—and yes, when, not if—I needed to eat and sleep. Preferably in that order. And if my body could just keep me going for a little while longer, I promised it all the pizza and cheeseburgers I could stuff in my mouth.
We adjusted our path and darted toward the forklift, which sat next to two cages stacked atop each other. Thankfully, the machine was at full-mast, the two fork thingies raised just high enough that we could jump for the window. The second we were close enough, Gabriel gripped my waist and heaved me into the air. I scrambled up the cages, then spun around in time to watch him toss the other werewolf up beside me. Gabriel came next, climbing with perfect efficiency. It made me want to hit him, just a little bit. Of the three of us, he was the only one firing on all cylinders right now, the lucky bugger.
Together, we turned toward the forklift. This would be tricky, but we were paranormal creatures. Surely, we could handle climbing a forklift and jumping to reach a window, right?
I didn’t have time to ponder that thought before Gabriel started assisting the werewolf up the forklift. Watching them, claws scrabbling for purchase and massive body slipping and sliding, I was suddenly thankful I hadn’t stayed in wolf form. Hands were definitely helpful right now.
Unfortunately, Adrian’s people didn’t give us enough time to sort out our problems. The werewolf had just reached the forks when one of the vamps scrambled up next to me. He’d barely caught his balance when I focused all my dwindling energy into a shove—one that yeeted the damn vampire right off the cage. His eyes widened and his arms pinwheeled, then he dropped to the ground, his head cracking off the concrete floor. Sadly, that wouldn’t keep him down for long. Vampire resiliency and all that.
“Maddie—”
“Go!” I shouted to Gabriel. “I’ll be right behind you.”
“Like hell!” he barked back.
Before I could argue, my knight in filthy, days-old clothing gripped my waist and, once more, threw me into the air.
I choked on a breath as I gripped the metal forks and hauled myself up. Below me, Gabriel was a blur of movement, fighting off three vampires who had jumped up onto the cage next to him. Their fighting space was limited, which was actually working to his advantage. There was only room for the four of them.
I positioned myself from above, ready to pounce on one of the vampires.
“No!” Gabriel shouted, somehow able to watch me while fighting for his life.
Well, too bad. No way would I sit up here and watch him die. I gathered my strength, about to attack from above, when Gabriel executed a perfect leg sweep. One that took two of the vamps down. The third, he sucker-punched in the groin. All three collapsed in a pile. Without hesitation, Gabriel whirled around to the forklift. I scurried over to the other metal fork and watched as he gracefully jumped up next to me.
“Go,” he told me, pointing to the newly-opened window. Guess our werewolf friend had decided not to wait for us. I couldn’t blame them. I’d want the hell out of here too. We’d given them a chance, and they’d taken it.
“Together,” I said. “One, two?—”
“Three,” Gabriel finished.
We jumped, our hands clawing for the window ledge. My fingers wrapped around the cold metal frame, my feet scrabbling for purchase against the concrete wall—and failing. Beside me, Gabriel’s grip was solid, unwavering.
“Go!” Gabriel released one hand and boosted my bottom.
Okay, even for a werewolf, this was tough, and every muscle in my body screamed with the effort. Usually, I could do pull-ups until the cows came home, but it wasn’t so easy tonight, thanks to my injured rib and the fact that I’d donated half my blood to the vamp dangling next to me.
My grip started to slip, and I growled at myself. But before I could fall, a pair of hands darted into the window and grabbed my arms. I cried out, the fear that Adrian had guards on the outside stealing my senses. I was preparing to fight when a haggard head popped into sight—a woman with long, mussed, dark hair, knotted and tangled. Warm honey-colored eyes locked onto mine and her lips pulled back to show flat canines.
Not a vampire, then.
“Hurry up!” came her raspy voice.
A lightbulb went off in my head. The werewolf. She’d shifted once outside the window. Oh, thank god.
I let her pull me up. Once through the window and on the other side, my arms buckled under the weight of exhaustion, relief, and the sheer physical toll the last three nights had taken. I wanted to collapse onto the grass and cry, sleep, laugh—my emotions couldn’t choose just one—but I couldn’t. Not with Gabriel still inside the warehouse.
I leaned back through the window and reached for my mate. “Come on!”
Together, we strained, and I pulled with everything I had left, which wasn’t much. Really, it felt like he was doing all the work, because he was. He came through easier than me, then immediately wrapped an arm around my waist and dragged us both to our feet.
“We have to keep moving,” he said.
He was right. Adrian’s goons wouldn’t be far behind, and we were hardly safe. The other werewolf limped ahead, then pointed at a thick expanse of trees behind the warehouse.
“We can lose them in there,” was all she said before she limped onward.
I raised a quizzical brow. Guess our friendly werewolf didn’t have much experience with vampires—at least, not enough to know they could track us. I spared one last glance at the window, then kicked it shut, knowing it wouldn’t slow them down. It hadn’t slowed us, after all.
Then Gabriel and I hurried after the other werewolf, the bald cypress trees blurring by at a surprising speed. I had absolutely no idea where we were, but it definitely seemed somewhere swampy. We ducked under low-hanging branches and sidestepped thick vines that seemed to snatch at our ankles. The air was thick with humidity and stunk of wet foliage and brackish water. Draped in Spanish moss, the trees towered over us, the moonlight peeking through in an ethereal glow. But the worst was the ground and how it sucked at our feet, the mud almost as thick as wet cement. After a few steps, I lost one boot, soon followed by the other.
Nothing like running barefoot through the freaking bayou. Just great.
I struggled to keep moving, the difficult terrain doubling my exhaustion. “Does…anyone…know”—I wrenched my foot out of the mud with a wet plop—“where we are?”
“Just outside New Orleans,” the other werewolf threw back over her shoulder. She gripped a hanging vine and swung over a rather large puddle of terrifyingly murky water.
Once on the other side, she threw the vine back to me. I’d never swung through a forest like Tarzan before, but I was all for new experiences.
I gripped the vine and stared at her from across the small pond. “New Orleans?” Hope sparked within me. “My sister’s husband, Sam, he’s from here. If we can find the local pack, they might help!” Excitement warmed my chest. I’d fought with the pack once before to save Lucy’s life. Surely they would remember me, and if not, I was Sam’s sister-in-law. I had to believe they’d help family.
The woman threw me a wide-eyed glance. “Sam? Sam is your brother-in-law?”
That flicker of hope flared. “You know him?”
“Of course I know him. I’m part of the pack. I’ve known him my entire life.”
Relief washed over me, and I shot Gabriel a weak grin. Things were certainly looking up. We had help—provided we made it there before the sun rose, a fear I was trying very hard not to focus on. We had enough problems without adding the inevitable sunrise into the mix.
I positioned myself, about to swing across, when I paused and asked, “Hey, uh, what’s your name?”
“Avery. And you’re Maddie.”
I frowned at her.
She crooked her head toward Gabriel as she dodged around another tree. “I heard him call your name a few times.”
Ah.
“Okay, Avery.” I took a deep breath and swung over the water. I quickly landed on the other side. Any other day, I might have marveled at all this. Swinging the vine to Gabriel, I turned back to Avery. “This is clearly your home turf. Can you get us out of here and back to the city all before sunrise?”
I didn’t love her conflicted expression.
“No guarantees.”
Yeah, that didn’t work for me. There was no negotiating this part. We needed to be somewhere a hell of a lot safer than the bayou when the sun came a-knocking. My heart pounded in my ears, drowning out the distant calls of birds and the occasional splash of something far larger that I really didn’t want to think about. Sure, I was a werewolf. But it was my number one goal in life to never ever come face-to-face with a modern-day dinosaur. A goal that I suspected might be hard to keep out here. The marshes were their home, and we were intruding.
“We can’t be out here come sunrise,” I reminded her.
Avery glanced at Gabriel, who had just landed beside me, then gave a firm nod. “The pack has a safehouse nearby. I can get us there.”
“Hopefully before Adrian finds us,” I commented.
And speaking of Adrian.
I turned toward Gabriel. “Did we lose them? Can you still hear them?” I certainly couldn’t, but I’d been a little distracted by the conversation. “And a third, but equally serious, question. If a gator eats a vampire, does it become a vampiric gator? Asking for a friend, of course.”
Gabriel shot me a bewildered glance.
I shrugged, then tapped my head. “The things I think of.”
“Right. Well, Adrian isn’t too far away,” he said. “Thankfully, the terrain is slowing them down.”
“Yeah, it’s slowing us down too,” I grumbled, still itching to know if vampiric gators were a possibility.
“Not for long,” Avery called to us. “This way. I know exactly where to go now.”
She did? How? Everything looked the same to me. But she hurried onward before I could question her further.
“Just up ahead,” Avery continued as she rather elegantly hopped over a fallen tree. Guess scoring her freedom had given her a fresh dose of adrenaline. “Once we reach the lake, we’ll be home free.”
Home free? And a lake? What lake? How did she know exactly where we were? I certainly had questions, but I needed to focus my energy on tackling the terrain and not the endless—and unanswered—questions roaring through my head.
We pressed on, Gabriel and I following Avery while the bayou threw its absolute best at us—thick mud that weighed down our feet, dense underbrush that snagged our clothes, and the constant, eerie calls of wildlife that had me picturing unspeakable things. Vampiric gator-like things. It didn’t take long, though it felt like forever, for the foliage to start thinning.
“Is this it?” I asked.
Breathless, Avery nodded before leading us through the last of the trees. We emerged into a clearing where the moon cast its silver light on the water’s surface. The sight was surreal—a vast expanse of calm water stretching out before us, framed by the bayou’s wild beauty.
“Ah, there it is,” Avery panted.
I tore my gaze from the sight and shot her a glance, then followed her gaze to where someone had tied an airboat to a dock at the water’s edge. Avery didn’t miss a beat, stumbling toward the boat with a purpose that reignited my flagging energy.
“There,” she said. “Our way out of here.”
“How on earth…?” I glanced back the way we came, utterly stunned that she’d found this place. It wasn’t like there’d been signs to guide us.
Gabriel took my hand and tugged me forward. “Come on.”
“I have so many questions,” I muttered.
He quietly snickered as he helped me board the boat. “As do I.”
Avery took her spot in the driver’s seat, then ducked low and started rifling around. Soon, she popped up with a small tote bag in hand. She unzipped it and fished out what looked like a spotlight. “Maddie, take this.”
I did as she said, turning the spotlight over in my hands. “Do you think light is a good idea? Won’t it give away our position?”
She chuckled. “Never been on an airboat, have ya?”
I shook my head.
“You’ll see in a second why us using a light won’t matter.” She pointed at the bench in front of her seat. “Sit. And Maddie, I need you to use that light to keep an eye on the water. Trust me, we’ll need it.”
“We will? What am I looking for?” I asked as I sat next to Gabriel on the bench.
“Anything. Everything. Other boats, animals in the water, the shore.”
Before I could respond, she fired up the boat. The propellers started spinning, and I barely refrained from clapping my hands over my ears. No wonder she wasn’t worried about the light. The noise alone would give our location away.
And then we were off, the boat surging through the water with a speed that felt like we were flying. I swung around and pointed the spotlight back the way we’d come, but I saw nothing. No Adrian or anyone else. Nor were there any other boats for Adrian to commandeer.
Relief had me turning back around. The spotlight hit the water in front of us, illuminating a decent percentage of the entire area. From all over, small orbs of red reflected back at us. When a pair blinked before suddenly vanishing under the water, I gasped and inched closer to Gabriel. I had no idea that gators’ eyes reflected red in the light, and now that I did, I was convinced they were demonic creatures.
Gabriel slid an arm around me and pulled me close. I laughed at myself, not that anyone could hear the sound over the propellers. The gators really weren’t the most pressing thing I needed to worry about right now.
No, that prize went to Adrian. We may have escaped, but I had no doubt he would continue searching for us. He wanted us dead—a feeling that was very much mutual. Still, we’d escaped, and I was determined to take this moment to just breathe and calm my mind. While confined in that infernal cage, my thoughts had ventured to a dark place. There were moments where I’d truly believed we were done for. That we would never escape. But thanks to Avery, we’d accomplished the impossible. We’d escaped. We were free, together, and, most importantly, alive.
Relaxing, I nestled against Gabriel and watched the water ripple as we streaked toward our freedom.