30. Vivianna
VIVIANNA
The site of my mates cooing at the little angel that I held in my arms repaired more of my heart than I thought it would. Their faces were full of delight as they looked down on the missing member of our family, but all too soon, Koit gave me a sad smile. “I hate to do this to you, babe.”
“It’s alright. I need her to be safe or else I won’t be able to focus on anything else,” I admitted, handing her over to him. “Let me grab the blanket they had her in.”
I turned to the Humvee, only to see one of the guards holding it out to me. “You looking for this?”
“Thank you… I’m sorry, I didn’t even ask your names,” I muttered.
“Kent, that’s Tyler, and the one with the sister is Pat,” he shared, pointing to the others.
“I hate to rush you, Dama, but they’ll know the Humvee passed the checkpoint.
We’re supposed to radio in after we’ve done the check, but we lost those when we met up with you.
If you guys drive the Humvee, we’ll take care of the rest, but we’ll have to split up. ”
“I understand,” I agreed with a smile. “We’ll make this quick and head up the drive.”
“You might want to see if you can take the dead guys’ uniforms. Being naked might give you guys away,” Pat called out before he shifted and took off with the other two.
Darius let out a huff, shaking his head. “That’s a smart kid. I’m glad we didn’t have to kill him.”
All the guys took turns holding Hope, giving her a goodbye kiss, before handing her to me once more.
I nuzzled my face against hers, making her laugh, and her tiny hands grabbed my hair, yanking it as I pull my head back.
Koit helped me get my hair free as I covered her face in kisses.
“Mommy loves you more than anything, my little angel. We will see you soon, alright? You’re going to spend a little time with Grandma Maria. ”
More happy noises came out of her mouth as her nose scrunched up with her smile.
This time, handing her over to Koit, I didn’t feel as gutted because I knew she would be safe, and I would see her again.
Koit pulled me into a side hug and kissed me on the forehead.
“I’ll keep her safe, Viv. She’ll be waiting for us when we get back. ”
I nodded, tears in my eyes once again, as I brushed a hand over her face, memorizing it and wishing there was something more I could do to keep her safe.
Then, with my left eye, I saw my magic flowing into her, shrouding her in a bubble of light that made her sneeze twice in a row and look a little bewildered.
I didn’t have a clue what I did, but it made me feel better to know I’d wrapped her up in a part of me.
“I love you both, be safe, you hear me?”
“You got it, babe. I’ll be back as soon as she’s taken care of,” he promised. With one more searing kiss, he was off, shifting into his wolf, holding the knot of the blanket satchel Rik made to transport Hope in his mouth.
Standing there in the middle of the road, naked with the cold wind making my skin pimple, I watched my mate and child disappear into the night. A warm body stepped up behind me. “Viv, we need to go.”
Turning, I faced Tav who was now dressed in the black military uniform of the men we’d pulled out of the Humvee.
His long hair was tucked up in a black beanie, making him look like a totally different person at a quick glance.
I nodded, but before I shifted, I reached out and hugged him tightly, knowing that once we went into that lab, there was no telling what could happen next.
We had a plan, but half of this was coming together at a moment’s notice, making me unsettled.
Tav returned the hug, picking me up and carrying me into the Humvee where he let me sit in the back with him, all curled up.
“Christian, Koit is coming your way with my daughter, Hope. He’s going to hand her off to Maria for safekeeping. She’s with you, right?” I asked, wanting to make sure that there were no issues.
“Cachorro, I’m here and I would be honored to look after your little one,” Maria answered, cutting into our conversation.
Wait, has she always been able to do that? Oh, man, the things that woman has heard.
“Ah, my dear cachorro, since Viv has shown up and you along with her, my life is far less boring. I should be thanking you for bringing this old woman’s spark back with all the chaos you both have caused,” Maria shared with a chuckle.
“Don’t worry one more second about the little one.
I’ll guard her with my life if it comes to that, but this old witch has plenty of tricks to use. ”
Yeah… not sure I want to know what that means.
“Viv, you should shift so you can hide in the back with the others,” Tav whispered in my ear, kissing my jaw.
Agreeing, I shifted and crawled into the back storage area of the Humvee, lying down so Tav could cover us with a tarp someone found folded up.
There had been four guards, so Tav, Rik, Tristan, and Darius were dressed up, while Orion, Bentley, and I hid in the back.
It was harder to wait calmly while being unable to see out, but Orion and Bentley snuggled around me, trying to ease all our tension.
The car came to a stop and the window rolled down. “Sorry we were late. The damn baby wouldn’t sleep, then shit itself worse than I’ve ever seen in my life.”
“Sounds quiet back there now,” a voice said.
“Yeah, that’s what a little whiskey in the formula will do for ya. Makes them sleep like the dead,” Darius muttered. “Would have done it a long time ago, but someone said it would hurt the thing if we did.”
“Hey, you want to explain to them if something happened? We both know this baby is really important if it had four guards drive it over here,” Rik snapped.
A shrill whistle sounded, interrupting the argument between the men. “Enough. I don’t give a shit about any of this, just roll on in and wait for the service elevator to take you down below.”
“Whatever you want. I just need out of this goddamn car,” Darius grumbled as the window rolled up.
Reaching out through the pack link, I roped in the three new additions, wanting to check in with them. “Taylor, Kent, Pat, can you hear me?”
“Yes, Dama, we do, loud and clear,” Kent answered. “Looks like you made it into the hangar alright.”
“They said we need to wait for the service elevator. Anything we need to know about that?” Rik questioned.
“No, that’s all standard but they will be expecting the baby, so a caregiver will be escorted up with at least two guards. Assuming you still had the baby, they would want you to hand it off to the caregiver and escort her, with the other guards, back to the nursery,” Pat explained.
“Guys, do we still have the car seat in here? We can use it as a decoy to get close to the elevator before they send out an alarm,” I suggested.
“Yeah, I grabbed it,” Rik answered.
The tarp was lifted, revealing us. Since we made it inside, hiding didn’t matter anymore.
Tav grabbed the car seat, put some of our guns and explosives in it, then pulled one of the extra blankets, draping it over the top to hide it was empty.
“You three stay here until we assess the situation. Once they see you, the gig is up, and battle is on us.”
Nodding, I stood, wanting to get a look at where we were, but with the side windows so tinted it was hard to see anything.
Out the windshield though, I could tell we were in the mountain and bulbs were placed every two feet or so, filling the large space with warm light.
The sound of gears turning alerted us that the massive hangar door was sliding shut, locking us in.
No turning back now, it was do or die and I had no plans to die today, or anytime soon.
Rik and the others got out of the Humvee, but Tristan didn’t latch his door, just let it close, making it easier for us to get in the action when we needed to.
The wait for the elevator wasn’t that long, but I guess they knew we were here when they radioed in.
A kind-looking woman in a simple dress and cardigan stepped out of the elevator, with two guards armed with rifles, flanking her.
I wondered if this had anything to do with how Tim got Nicole out of here when she was little.
“I heard you had trouble getting her to settle down,” the woman said when she reached my mates. “Seems like she tired herself out.”
“The whiskey might have helped. My mom used to do that for me when I was little and always said it worked like a charm,” Darius said with a cocky grin on his face.
The woman gasped and moved to pull off the blanket. “Hey now, she just got to sleep ten minutes ago. The last thing she needs is to be woken up,” Tav pointed out as he moved the carrier away from her reach.
“How much did you give her?” the woman demanded, hands on her hips.
“Calm down, I only stuck my finger in the bottle and let her suck on it a few times. I doubt that will cause any lasting damage,” Darius said, as if he was pretending to be Koit. “Can we get this over with so I can shower and get some sleep?”
The woman glared at him but nodded, taking the car seat from Tav and marching back toward the elevator.
I wanted to burst out at that moment, but when I looked around, there were five more guards scattered around the space, most of them watching the interaction.
We were parked right in the middle, so whenever we made our move, it would be obvious.
One of the guards waved a keycard over the sensor and leaned forward for his eye to be scanned to open the doors to the elevator.
“Now.” I yelled, leaping out of the Humvee and running right for the elevator.
Tav took out one guard, while Tristan took out the other, the woman screaming at the top of her lungs alerting the whole room.
I didn’t know whether to kill her or just kick her out of the elevator, but Rik made that choice for me, yanking the basket out of her hands and shoving her out into the hangar.
The elevator doors closed and started moving on its journey downward, utterly silent.
Now I understood why they had elevator music; it made things less awkward.
“What do we do now? They’ll know we’re coming, and chances are we’ll be shot on sight,” I muttered. “We should have stayed to deal with the guards before coming down.”
“Viv, the chances of them sounding the alarm the moment they spotted you are high. If we’d stayed up there, it’s possible we never would have made it in here, since a full lockdown is protocol,” Darius countered.
“Dama, we were able to deal with the guards up here. Two of them were with us and made sure to stop the alarm from going off,” Kent informed us. “Let us know when the rest of your group shows up and we’ll get them in.”
“Good work, guys, I’m not sure how we would have done this without you,” I answered back.
“Hate to break it to you, but you would have been dead already. There are canisters of aerosolized wolfsbane that’s triggered if the alarm had gone off,” Pat added.
“Fucking hell,” Tav muttered. “Not one of our connections knew about that. The universe must really want to kill these guys off for this whole thing to be coming together the way it is.”
“So, what’s the plan when the doors open?” Orion asked. “If they don’t know we’re here, then it might be best to keep that on the down low until we can find Jason and Vadik.”
An idea came to me, and I couldn’t help but grin at the thought of it. “I know we promised that I wouldn’t be bait, but here me out, alright?”
They looked down at me and scowled, but once I explained my thoughts, they couldn’t help but agree it was a solid plan.
My magic might be new to me, and we didn’t know how big this place was, but I did know if we got everyone into the same space, it would be much easier.
It was time to take a page out of Tim’s book and start a fire, because I would bet everything on the fact they still had the same procedures, just better security when it happened.
Removing the innocents would make this so much easier and reduce the amount of hostages that Vadik and Jason could use against us.
When the elevator dinged, announcing we had arrived, the guys took guns out of the carrier and slipped them in the back of their pants, along with the explosives.
They just so happened to have some left over from the river job and we didn’t exactly have a lighter handy, so why not set off some dynamite instead?
“Everybody ready?” Rik asked, his face set with determination.
“Fuck yeah, it’s time to end this,” Darius growled as the doors to the lab slid open.