Iâm not sure exactly what woke me yet, and I slowly sit up, sliding my legs up, my knees touching my chest as I rub my now bruised, lumpy forehead while scanning my surroundings for a cause.
Taking deep breaths to calm down and center myself, I let my senses take over rather than my scared brain.
It doesnât take me long to see what brought me around once I settle down and look.
Thereâs a shiny black truck parked in the undergrowth beside the fence, nearer the back of the building where I first stood. Itâs about ten feet farther down the makeshift road.
They must have just pulled up. Maybe the noise and headlights are what roused me.
I watch with bated breath as someone slides out and makes their way around the fence to find the entranceâan eerie, solitary figure shrouded in darkness.
Itâs both a joy to see another person and a massive alarming worry that Iâm seeing another person.
Much like the truck, they are all in black, wearing a hood pulled over their head, so I canât see their face, but I can tell heâs male.
Tall and stocky, he moves around the gate, focusing on his task and is eerily quiet on his feet.
The wind picks up gently and blows this way, guiding his scent toward me, and I recoil in complete shock like someone Tasered my ass.
Heâs a wolf⦠like me. Thereâs no denying that particular scent we all carry, and it red alerts me and wakes up my brain immediately.
I have no idea why the hell a lycanthrope would operate a power plant in the middle of the forest.
I mean, maybe itâs not that big a deal. Some packs live and work in the human world and have regular jobs as they try to pass themselves off as one of them.
This could be a guy who works for the power company and, for some reason, likes to frequent his unmanned building in the middle of the night.
Iâm sure thatâs probably a regular thing for unconventional hours, or maybe if he has a special task at this time of night.
Probably not likely, and itâs too weird that, after being alone for weeks on end all the way out here, the first person I come in contact with is one of my kind.
Itâs a little too coincidental, especially as I came here after following some deep gut feeling and stupid dreams of Sierra Santo.
I watch, squinting through the foliage as I try to see his progress and get a better look, but the gates are obscured from my angle, and he disappears behind trees that sit between us and out of sight.
I donât want to lose track of him in case he somehow heads in here without me seeing and shows up at the foot of my tree. I doubt I would be a welcome discovery.
I donât hesitate. I slide off my perch, silently climb down the tree, and crawl closer until I see him again from another angle, ducking down behind a rock and keeping low.
Iâm relatively safe from this distance if he doesnât see me moving around. My senses are on major high alert, and Iâm taking comfort in the wind blowing this way, so he wonât smell me the way I did him.
I have to creep on all fours, keeping still and wedging behind a fallen log to get a better look as I track him.
By the time I figure out where he is, eyes scanning the fence and truck, heâs already inside the compound and up against the door. He moves fast, and it confirms that heâs one of my kind.
I hear a beep, a click like he opened something or had some sort of key, and the door slides to the side in front of him.
It doesnât open out as I would expect, but itâs more like that of an elevator door that slides out of sight, back on itself, which is weird for a low-tech building.
I can see inside from here, though, and nothing seems to be in the doorway, making it all even weirder.
It looks like an empty concrete box, with no big inside room, control panels, or anything from what I can peer into. That just makes the sliding door stranger if itâs concealing nothing.
I move a little closer still, unconvinced Iâm getting a complete picture, hitting the last line of trees before the clearing, and stand tall to side-slide behind one and peek around.
I know getting this near to him is stupid, but I canât see, and this place has me so confused about its purpose or importance to my instincts.
He walks inside, turns, and faces something to the left, just behind where the door is. He leans in, ducking slightly, so his face comes level with an out-of-sight panel.
âItâs me. Iâm back. Bring me down,â he says with a low growl to his masculine tone, most definitely a wolf. I can just tell.
He stands tall and turns to face the open front door. Thereâs a crunching noise, the humming of the generator revs up in ferocity, and the entire building emits a long grunting moan.
My heart rate escalates as nerves consume me, and my body trembles.
I swear, for a second, I think he looks right at me, and I dive back, flattening my back to the bark, and close my eyes as though somehow thatâll make me invisible.
Iâm not sure, though, as he didnât seem to react at all, and Iâm probably being paranoid because Iâm scared.
I look back, holding my breath to steady my shaking self, quick enough to see the door sliding shut as he slowly lowers below the level heâs standing on.
It clicks instantly that the floor is moving, and heâs going down, like some sort of elevator for sure, and it explains why, on the surface, thereâs no sign of life, and the building is small.
Itâs deceptive, and the sliding door conceals a car-sized platform to a lower level. That means whatever is down there is big enough to accommodate vehicles should they need to be taken down.
It makes my blood run cold.
I donât think itâs any kind of power plant, and I shouldnât be here at all. It has more going on below, and now I know a wolf is crewing this station.
I have absolutely no chance of finding anything worth stealing and getting away without a trace. Not that I want to anymore.
Everything inside me tells me this is a bad idea, and I need to get far away from this place as soon as possible.
When the door fully closes, I walk out in front of the tree where Iâve been hiding and peer over to where he left his truck, wondering if he may have left anything of value.
If Iâm cutting my losses and running, he might have something. Maybe a medipack, food, clothes, or something I can use. He didnât lock it, and he was alone.
He probably isnât coming out right away, and I should make the most of his absence before returning.
He might not stay, and judging by the fact that he abandoned his truck and never brought it into the compound, I donât think he is. I have to be quick and go.
I run along the treeline, keeping to the inner side and within its shadow, and dash to his truck, using hyper-speed to get to it fast and look inside when I slide up against the door furthest from the building.
Itâs an off-road four-by-four covered in mud and debris and the perfect vehicle for moving around this terrain.
I can tell right away thereâs nothing in it. Nothingâs in view that I would want, not even general trash. Itâs clean and free of anything worthwhile.
It is not what I would expect for a truck used frequently, so it makes this even weirder. He obviously doesnât use it very much to come and go.
One last fleeting run-over with my eyes convinces me he has nothing of worth.
I dash back to the closest border of brush and start making my way back to my temporary camp without looking back, keeping behind the trees by two rows.
With the heaviness of mounting panic growing inside me like a warning signal, my breathing is labored. My heartbeat pounds in my ears as it batters my rib cage and adds to my terror.
I donât feel safe being this close anymore, and I should never have ventured to find this building.
I donât know what I was thinking, and the last thing I need is complications from wolves and James Bond-type buildings in the middle of forests.
This has spy movie written all over it, and Iâm in no mood to be dangled headfirst over a vat of sharks for information I donât have.
When the noise of the building cranks up again, I donât know if itâs the floor moving up again to reset or if heâs coming back. It stops me in my tracks, and I instinctively drop to the dirt and turn around.
I crouch where I am, watch and wait, peering through the trunks and bushes to see the door, until the moaning cranking noise of heavy innards moving comes to a halt. Yet the door doesnât open.
Nothing happens at all except the return to a previous hum. I donât think it was him.
I think maybe the floor comes up again when they reach a destination, and I relax a little, blowing out my breath in relief, moving again from this tree to the next to make my way back to my perch.
I almost make it all the way in when another loud thumping noise stops me and makes me look back nervously, so jumpy and on edge with all my senses heightened for more efficiency.
This time the noises are less intense, less mechanical, and more like regular people noises.