Chapter 33 #2
The world goes black as I pass out, but I hold tight to my promise. If I don’t do it, one of my alphas will.
ANSEL
My arms burn in the heat as I push the fucking machine that reminds me of a type of lawnmower down the grassy property. Shiloh, Abbott, and I each have one, and are spaced out as we walk for miles in one direction before turning around to go in the other way exactly an inch over.
The machine reads that there’s a building underground for the entire area, but it hasn’t told us anything about a door. Sweat drips from my forehead in the muggy Georgia air, and there are dark clouds moving in over my head.
Abbott screams about fifty feet away from me, dropping to his knees before he begins to puke.
Shiloh and I abandon our positions, running toward him in panic.
Our men are further away, so no one else hears him.
It might be dumb to assume no one will come take us out, but if they haven’t yet, I doubt they will.
We aren’t the targets. Cassidy is collateral damage, while Clara has been gunning for Winter and Bellamy.
“What is it?” I ask, looking around for something to kill.
He can’t tell me anything, his body wracked with pain.
The feeling that I’m being torn apart makes me scream as I fall onto my ass, and I can vaguely hear Shi doing the same. I fight through the nausea as Winter is ripped away from me, and Abbott passes out on the ground.
He was bonded to both of our omegas, so he felt this pain twice. Holy fuck.
“They’re not dead,” I rasp, having to work through this.
“No,” Shiloh groans, stumbling as he gets up. There’s a pool of vomit in front of him, evidence that his stomach lost his own fight with it. “We’d feel worse. I mean…this is one of the worst things I’ve ever felt. But—”
“They’re not fucking dead,” I growl in agreement. “The bonds are broken, which isn’t supposed to be possible.”
“Fuck,” Shiloh whispers, crouching beside Abbott to shake him awake. “Keep looking, Ansel. Find us a goddamned door.”
Nodding, I go back to the machine and push it, begging it to find what I need. My mind drifts as I wonder what could have broken our bonds with our omegas when the machine begins to scream at me. Stopping, I look up and find I’m about a mile and a half from the gate.
There’s no evidence of a vehicle’s tire tracks, but that’s normal in this scraggy grass. Looking down, stomping on the ground, trying to imagine a steel door underneath my feet. Grabbing my phone, I call Henri, who I left at the front of the property.
“Did you find something?” he asks as he answers. We’ve been out here for hours, trying desperately to find an answer to where this fucking entrance is. He knows I wouldn’t call unless I’d found something.
We have our men out here, as well as Packs Thornefield, Mayor, Nisim, and Alston. It’s all hands on deck, though not all of them will go down with us to save our people.
Everyone has a role, even if it’s simply to be our emergency medic when we escape with Cass, Bellamy, and Winter.
We just have to find them first.
“Yes,” I say, my voice cracking and fucked. I feel out of control, and know that going feral is a very real possibility right now.
Having your omega bonds ripped from you can do that to you.
“Boss?” he asks.
“I need some help,” I growl, my voice gravely as I exercise it. It’s never been like this before, but I’ll worry about it later.
“I heard screaming earlier, is this in regards to that?” Henri asks. “I didn’t hear gunshots, so I figured you three were fighting.”
Snorting, I shake my head. Of course he’d think that.
“I think I found a door. All hands on deck, Henri. As soon as I get this bitch open, we’re going to get my omegas.”
I hang up without another word as I turn off the machine and put it to the side. Winter and Bellamy will always be mine, bonds or not.
Dropping to my knees, I begin to dig into the ground, looking for a divot that could be hiding an opening to lift it up.
“Shi!” I yell over my shoulder. He’s the best at finding patterns, while I just see dirt that I want to blow up.
Speaking of explosives, I have a decent supply of them in our vehicle, ready to be pulled from a bag and used. The bombs are all prepped, and ready for someone to use them. In order to keep myself from losing my mind last night, I showed Shiloh how to set them up in case it was necessary.
He enjoys watching things burn, I like to blow them up. They’re very different types of dopamine dumps.
“Yeah?” Shiloh asks breathlessly, dropping to the ground with Abbott.
“The door is underneath this. There has to be something to lift the shit covering it,” I say urgently.
“You were right,” Abbott says, shaking his head. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”
“Don’t care about that,” I say honestly. They both stare at the guttural tone in my voice, but I’m really past caring about a fight we had. Abbott’s voice isn’t much better than mine.
We need Cassidy and our omegas. Too much loss can break even the strongest alpha.
“I’ll look,” Shiloh mutters as he moves in the opposite direction of me. “There you are, you little fucker. Move, guys.”
Doing as he asks, I watch as he pulls the door up slowly, groaning as he does. Moving to help him, Abbott and I help to lay the door on the other side of the ground. It’s amazing how camouflaging grass can be.
“I’ll be goddamned,” Abbott sighs as various vehicles surround us.
Henri gets out of the SUV, his jaw falling as he sees what we found.
“Load up the equipment to keep it out of the rain, we’re going in,” I say softly, not knowing how much my voice will travel underground.
The stairs go down into the darkness, and Abbott begins to bark out quiet instructions as we move to the back of the vehicle that Greig drove in.
“Grab jackets, even if it’s hot,” I grunt, yanking one on. “With the auction, I doubt we’ll find Bellamy and our girls clothed.”
Nodding, Abbott also strips out of his tank top to pull on a t-shirt and windbreaker. There are built in holsters in our pants and jackets, and we load up on firearms, ammunition, and other weapons.
A gun isn’t always the best option.
“Let’s go,” Abbott says, looking at the two of us to make sure we’re ready.
“Don’t get cold feet on us now boss,” I mutter. “I don’t want the job, I just wanted you to get your head out of your ass.”
“Fair,” he says, his hand fisting in my shirt to pull me into a fast kiss. “I love you too. Let’s go get our people.”
“Ready,” Shi says, his bag holding a lightweight laptop just in case.
After having been without because we’d been taken by surprise when our pack members were taken, it’s better to be safe than sorry.
“What do we want to do with Jake?” I ask as I sling my bag of toys over my head. “Other than murder?”
“Oi!” Abbott says, getting everyone’s attention as we walk around the vehicle to join them.
“Jake, as you probably know, helped to kidnap members of my pack. I want him alive so Cassidy can murder him slowly and to her liking. You all know how brutal she can be, and something tells me she’ll need this.
We all trusted the fucker. But, if he can’t be taken alive, dead is dead. ”
“Yes, boss,” everyone says with a nod.
Abbott makes sure several people stay back to guard the door and our vehicles, and then we’re going down the steps as the first raindrops begin to fall.
“Close it up behind us,” I say over my shoulder. “You’ll know it’s us coming back out.”
Our men nod and close the door with the help of each other as flashlights get turned on around us. We’ll turn them off as soon as we know we won’t tumble to our deaths. I can’t see a damn thing as it is.
Hold on, loves. I promise we’re coming. It just took us longer than we planned.