"How are we meant to get out of here? We're on the lowest floor and the elevator is that way?" I nod with my head in the direction we came from, a growing tight knot of anxiety that maybe the doctor's plan is not the best. He waves at the trucks again, reminding me of their presence, but I'm not sure how they will help down here.
"The one on the end, it's a medical truck, and that platform lifts up to the ground above. It's how we store them and transport things in and out."
As soon as he says it, I spin my head, eyeing the last green military truck that looks like its half-brother was a tank, and see the gears of the platform on the space behind it. The poles and hydraulics lining the steel wall in shadow and look up into a cavernous space that opens over your head when you get up close to them. From my room I couldn't see it, but this space goes up some hundred or more feet to a set of closed metal doors on the top ceiling.
"And then what? We drive around until she wakes up?" I gasp, bumping the bed onto the edge of the platform, still helping while dissecting the absurdity of this and he shoves it fully. We come side by side with the truck we are aiming for and he motions me to keep it going to the rear. I eye him warily, real tension ripping through me as panic rears its ugly head, at his lack of a proper plan.
"Yes, sounds right. She's been in a coma for eight years… we need time. I need to wean her awake and even then, I've no idea what state she will be in, physically, or mentally. All I know is we can't stay here and do that without getting caught, and I owe her. I won't fail my friend again!" the doctor has regained some of his equilibrium and leaves the bed with me to go run to a metal cabinet on the wall which houses keys and scoops up a set, coming back to open the truck and motions to bring the bed around.
"So, what you're saying is … there's no plan beyond getting out?" It's a dry, non-amused response and I stare at him as everything inside of me grips tight. I have to swallow down the rising panic and he half-heartedly shrugs at me.
"I'm a doctor, not a masked villain who kidnaps people for a living. I figured your fates would somehow… I don't know… help!! I mean you came and …. you're here!"
"Oh my god!" it's the only response as I have as words fail me, and I bite down on my lower lip and try to focus everything on helping him, and not the fact that after we get out I have no god damn idea what we're meant to do. The guards won't sleep forever, and they will come after us. At speed, with guns, and lots of them…. And inform Juan.
We make light work using the ramps inside the truck to get the bed and trolley in and he braces them in place which special metal clamps, hanging her saline bag on a hook coming from the interior wall, and pushes the mobile one into a corner and ties it down. He pushes the devices into clamps, and clips, along the wall parallel to her bed, and settles everything free standing into holders, or ties them in place expertly. Making light work as I can only stand and frantically race a million ideas through my head about what we're going to do.
"I have a cabin, my home I guess, when I'm not here. We should go there and try and get her to wake up. They'll track us, but we have a good head start and I don't know if we can lose them. No one knew about my cabin." It's a weird little look, a half happy he came up with a plan, with a heavy dose of please tell me that's a smart idea. I can only shake my head and stare.
He's not thinking this through, or really envisioning how well a wolf can track, or how much faster they can be on foot when needs be. They won't just dawdle when they find Sierra and me gone, they will come tearing after us like demons on the warpath and Juan will too, with his four crazy loyal subpacks, who annihilated my entire bloodline and got away with it. There's no being safe in some cabin in the middle of god knows where.
"That won't work… you've no idea how well they can hunt us. And Sierra… if Juan killed people to keep his dirty secrets silent, then he's going to send a tsunami after her to make sure we don't wake her up." I point out, tucking Sierra's blankets in tight to hold her neatly while he applies straps over her body to keep her in place. All I can do is keep helping, even if nausea is almost strangling me with so many possibilities and ways to die at Juan's hands.
"Well do you have a better idea? … We need to protect her until she wakes, we need to find a place we can fortify. I don't know people outside of these walls… I can't fight or shoot an army of wolves."
No place can be fortified against a pack of angry Lycans. Especially not when all you have is a bound wolf who can't use her gifts, unless in serious threat, a human aging, unfit doctor, and a sleeping witch. We are so screwed.
I wrack my brains, trying to think of a million places I passed these past weeks alone, and how none of them are any good to hide, and no amount of hiding will stop them tracking us. It was different when I ran, I was solitary, and only Colton had reason to follow, and I had a couple of days head start to let my scent fade to nothing….
Colton!!!! Of course!
I can't believe how stupid I was not seeing the most obvious answer to this question. Of course, the fates would bring me full circle and back to him, they've never stopped tormenting me mentally when it comes to that boy, making sure I couldn't forget him if I wanted to. This is why. This moment of need.
Colton's mom… Colton has an undying love for her and a need to find her. He also has a sub pack, and some fierce ass wolves who would do anything for him. One of the fiercest in the valley. Colton is our protection and I just need to get outside to link him, so he knows I need him. We need him.
"Yes…I do. I have her son… and he has a pack, and I know he won't leave me to fight this alone if I tell him I have his mom." He won't fail her; he's been looking for her. I know his heart and it's not like Juan's.
"You can trust him? Even after ten years with his father?" The doctor flashes me a wary look and I nod with no hint of hesitation. I know why he would query it, assuming under his father's guidance that he might have twisted his son into a mini clone in all these years, but Colton is far stronger than I ever gave him credit for. He is his own mind and he doesn't agree with how Juan hurts his people.
"Colton won't let me down. If he knows I need him, that she does, he'll come. I have no doubts in this. We're linked, it's not hard to find him." Unless the fates took that from me when he marked Carmen, but I guess I'm going to find that out. I don't think they would be so cruel in taking away something like that when I really need to use it to get Sierra out of this place in one piece. The fates in all of this, have been trying to address the balance and bring us back to what Juan destroyed.
"Okay, once we get free of the building, you should be able to use your gifts. So, I tell you where we are and where we are going, and he can possibly help. Plan? Yes, I think so. I don't fancy dying tonight, so we better make it snappy." The doctor is starting to lose his adrenalin rush, his panic panting, and instead seemingly in the 'regret and what have I done, but to hell with it', mode.
He ushers me to the front of the truck, pulling the doors shut behind us and he locks them in place from the inside. I can walk straight through with crouching, in the dark confines of the small space to the front seats and sit down in the passenger side with a quizzical look aimed right at him as he too gets settled in his driver seat.
"How do we go up, if we're in here?" I point out, assuming he forgot that minor detail, of the fact we're underground, but he picks up a very heavy-duty looking radio device from the dash and waves it at me.
"This is a very high tech and expensive facility. They like remotes. Boy toys." He presses a button in the center of the military green controller and I almost have a heart attack when the entire platform shunts into motion, jerking us harshly, and begins to lift. Not just this one truck, but with all three on the entire floor and we slowly start to raise up and leave the bay level behind.
This is when my panic sets in and nerves get the better of me as I realize our escape is probably going to go down in the history of worst ever attempts. Its louder than hell; crunching, and groaning, and echoing around us like crazy, and probably scaring off all the wildlife above ground in a three-mile radius. I hope to god he was right about knocking those guards out, because otherwise they are definitely going to know we are running away. I cover my ears, cringing, and recoiling into my seat, and have to resist the urge to shut my eyes in the hopes this is a bad dream.
"Once we get up there and out into the open, the building no longer has any bind over you. The walls work on some sort of ingrained frequency that's impossible for us to hear, but out there it doesn't work. It has to surround you, you see." The doctor yells over the noise, telling me facts about something I currently couldn't care less about, but it hits a nerve and I sit up, blinking as my attention peeks.
"A frequency?" I turn to him, startled, some memory from before, tingling at my brain and I don't know why that's important, but I feel like it should be. My moment of fear dissipating when suspicion starts hiking up inside of me.
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