Page 46 of Rejected Wolf
We slunk through the hole in the fence, half expecting a barrage of gunfire. They had to know we were here. But everything remained dark and silent as the grave.
“Where is everyone?” Damon whispered, voicing what we were all thinking.
Silas’s Beta, Pacey, stepped to the head of the group and got down on one knee. His long hair was tied back in a sleek braid, and the armor seemed nowhere large enough for a man his size. “Stick to the plan.” He lifted a large metal barrel to his shoulder; it smelled like metal, tar, and melted plastic. “Batter up,” he said with glee, his white smile bright in the dark.
A slice of fire cut through the night, leaving a red trail across our vision. It impacted the solid wall of the warehouse with an almighty roar. My wolf shut our eyes tight against the flare of light, in an attempt tomaintain our night vision, but we certainly felt the explosion. The ground vibrated under our feet, the very air pulsing through our fur with a wave of force.
And just like that, the solid wall that had been standing in our way was just… gone. In the distance, behind the crackling of flames and rattle of concrete, we heard startled cries of alarm.
We all raced across the empty parking lot on padded feet and combat boots. Climbing over debris and choking on smoke and dust, the armed shifters went in through the breach first, while the wolves waited outside. We heard a few shouts, swiftly cut off with a loud retort of gunfire. And then it was our turn.
Shan was at the head of our group, Silas’s red wolf beside him, shoulder to shoulder. Dylan’s panther blended in with the shadows as he slunk around to the right with lethal grace. Tristan went with him.
I wanted to go in, needed to, but our legs locked up.Let’s move, my wolf growled, urging me to fight past the years of trauma.For Dad, he said, reminding me of what we were fighting for.For Morgan.
Fighting past the mental block, we were one of the last wolves through.
The hallway we entered didn’t look familiar, though it was bathed in white from emergency lights, spattered withred mist from bullet wounds. It took a moment to get our bearings. Turning left, we were just in time to see a man in uniform rush around the far corner, handgun raised. Shan was ready and leaped at him, clamping his jaws down on the man’s wrist and wrenching the gun to the side, where it fired harmlessly, the bullet lodging into the wall. Silas didn’t hesitate, tearing into the man’s thigh where there was no protection.
The guard went down with a scream that echoed in my ears. A pool of crimson spread across the familiar linoleum tiles while we ran past and around the bend into the hallway beyond. Our blood was pounding with the surge of adrenaline, the taste of iron on our tongue.
These people are not innocent, I reminded myself.They deserve whatever is coming for them.
I didn’t need to give my wolf directions. He remembered our escape better than I did. We headed straight toward the dorm where we’d been kept.
We came to a halt in front of the door, staring at the red light. The door was locked, the backup generator keeping security intact. “Red means stop, green means go,” I heard my father say, the beginner reader open in his lap.
Dad…
Memories flooded through me in waves, remembered sights, sounds… smells. I couldn’t tell if it was all in myhead or if it was real. The chemical scent was so strong, it burned our nasal passages. It was bad enough when they’d drawn blood—so much worse when they injected some new concoction into my veins, trying to force my shift.It hurts… gods, I can’t do this.
My wolf whimpered, our legs buckling beneath us, our head dipping low. “It’ll just hurt for a moment,” Dr. Gray said, scalpel in hand.
“You’d better behave, or I’ll take your sister instead,” he said, smiling through the threats.
“There’s something wrong with you.You’re broken,” he said with clinical efficiency when I failed to produce my wolf.
Now, unable to move, to even breathe, I wasn’t just broken—I wasparalyzed.
Jude!my wolf shouted, trying to bring me back, but it was too much. The shadows drew in from all sides, turning my vision black.
As lost as I was in the past, I barely registered the familiarbeep, clickas the door opened, the sound blending into the flood of memories. That sound meant the doctor was coming for me.
“What the fu—” The guard’s voice snapped me back into the present. He hadn’t seen us, unmoving, this low tothe floor, and that was the only reason we weren’t already dead.
The man was fast, but my wolf was faster. We slammed our forelimbs into the guard’s chest, knocking him back through the open door. He fell backward, his head cracking against the floor. He lost his grip on the gun, and the weapon went clattering off to the side.
We lunged for his throat, but he brought his arm up in time, our teeth sinking instead into the thick fabric of his uniform. We wrestled with him, thrashing our head side to side, but the man was too big, too heavy, compared to our lithe lupine form.
He brought his leg up and over, pinning us between his thighs and squeezing. Our joints were screaming, but still we held on. If we lost our grip on that arm, we would be dead for sure.
“Fuck you,” the guard cursed, punching our ribs with his free hand. When that didn’t work, he tried hooking his fingers around our muzzle, prying at our mouth. “Open, you son of a bitch,” he grunted.
I wasn’t expecting the loud bang, the flash from the gun’s barrel. I waited for the pain, waited for death, but it never came. Instead, the man’s body went slack. He was dead.
Scrambling in panic, we wiggled out from under him, heaving for breath.
A man stood over us, dressed in light blue scrubs now decorated with blood spatter. He still held the gun pointed at the guard’s dead body, glaring at the corpse with cold blue eyes.