Page 84 of Meeting Her Mate
These soldiers bore no marks of military nor that of any militia. Their suits were black camo, and they had night vision goggles on. All of them had rifles hanging from their shoulders.
More soldiers swarmed from the corridor, the lasers of their guns aiming in my direction. I ducked immediately to avoid the first flurry of gunfire in my direction, then crawled along the terrace till I reached the door as bullets flew above me, shattering the glass and spreading it everywhere around me. By the time I got to the door, my forearms had tiny shards wedged in them, but I had no time to see to these new injuries as more soldiers stood inside the building, waiting for me. Once inside, the red flashing alarm light gave me a momentary cover to roll behind the furniture in the lobby and narrowly avoid the next bout of gunfire.
It was utter and pure mayhem in the lobby, with soldiers coming from every side, making me wonder how on earth I was ever going to close the distance between Blair and myself and how I would ever get my hands on Wolf’s Bane now.
Even though the glass windows were well shattered, creating a kaleidoscopic effect that did nothing to help me with scoping my surroundings, I saw a black shadow outside, rising from below and heading up to the roof. Upon first sight of this strange sight, I had no clue as to what I had just seen, but before the shadow disappeared, I caught glimpse of the face amid all the blackness floating upwards.
It was Ralph.
Folkloric tales that I had heard when I was young told of accounts where vampires could fly. Even as a child, that had seemed like an exaggeration to me. Their inability to come out in the daylight and their proclivity for blood were all within the realm of plausibility. But were they really able to fly? That was far-fetched. It had always seemed unlikely. Until just now when I saw Ralph flying up like a giant bat. If he were to rendezvous with Blair on the roof, the two of them would become an unstoppable force, what with the additional mercenaries swarming the building.
My heart sank a little as I realized that the only way Ralph could have escaped would have been after defeating Alexis. An image conjured itself in my mind: Alexis lying lifeless on the floor, her body drained of all blood, bite marks on her neck.
I am okay,a voice resounded in my head, laying my worst suspicion to rest.But Ralph escaped.
How?
He freaking flew! Didn’t you see?
Amidst the telepathic conversation, the sound of the chopper on the roof, and the gunfire blazing overhead, I tried to improvise a new plan in real-time, and upon thinking in a dozen different trajectories at the same time, I finally said,There’s no way we’re doing this alone. Regroup with me so we can take them on together.
In the meantime, I crawled further behind the bullet-riddled lobby furniture and hid behind the lobby desk where no bullets were flying. This allowed me to respite enough to remove the shards from my forearms and recalibrate myself to my surroundings.
The volume of gunfire was a bit misguiding, I learned. There weren’t as many soldiers as I had thought there were. Six of them were on one side of the lobby, while ten stood in a semi-circle in front of the staircase and elevator. But that still amounted to sixteen armed soldiers with a seemingly infinite amount of ammo for their fully-automatic rifles, leaving me stranded behind the desk.
A desk that would not hold for long under gunfire if the soldiers realized that I was hidden behind it.
I needed a diversion.
Chapter 31: Alexis
Of all the things that Ralph could have done, I would never in a million years have imagined him flying away from me and crashing through the window in an attempt to flee.
Well, he succeeded, and here I stood, unable to comprehend what had just happened. As far as I knew, vampires only knew how to fly in movies, and not even in all of them. Was it just Ralph who had this ability, or were all of the vampires able to fly? I dared not think about the possibility of hundreds of vampires being able to fly.
After my telepathic conversation with Will ended, I only had one goal. I had to track Will somewhere on the upper floors and help him escape from where he was stuck. It did not help that the reinforcements were arriving faster than either of us had anticipated and were quickly filling up all the hallways and corridors. Who were these men anyway? Private guns hired by Blair as an overkill way to ascertain our deaths? What was next, that we’d find out that they were all carrying silver bullets in their guns?
Even though we did not communicate this part explicitly, my bond with my mate had strengthened enough to make me realize that he needed a diversion if he were to escape from where he was stuck.
I had only one card left to play. It was not something preplanned or even something I had thought up more than a minute ago. It was only after taking a good look at one of the soldiers and realizing that they were all wearing night vision goggles that this idea occurred to me.
I fished my phone out of my pocket. Amidst all the shifting and unshifting, my phone had lodged itself deep into the pocket of my flexible jeggings. Whenever I shifted, my jeggings merely tore just a little as opposed to any other clothing. That was the secret to being a werewolf and still remaining clothed—I chose loose and flexible clothing. Sweatshirts and hoodies for my torso and jeggings or pajamas for my legs.
Maliha’s number was already on speed dial. It only took a press of a button to call her.
“Are you in a gaming zone without telling me? What did I tell you about playing multiplayer games without me? I hate it!” Maliha protested.
Rather than tell her that the bullets she was hearing in the background were not sounds coming from Call of Duty or Battlefield but actual shots being fired by actual mercenaries, I said, “Maliha, turn the lights back on. All of them at once. Right now.”
“Oh, we’re still fucking with Beckett Pharma, are we?” Maliha asked. “So you’re not gaming?”
“I’m not. And hurry up!”
“You better give me some explanation for whatever the godforsaken din is coming from your background,” she said.
She was stubborn, often irritating at times, but at least she always complied with my requests. Right after I told her to turn the lights on, the power came back to Beckett Pharma and tripped the alarm as well as the emergency red flashing light, leaving the entire building lit with off-white fluorescent lights.
I might not be gaming right now, but I knew this much thanks to Maliha’s adroitness in multiplayer first-person shooters: whenever someone turned the lights on in the face of a soldier wearing night-vision goggles, the soldiers were always blinded.