He nods at the bay outside her room and motions to start pulling her bed. Iâm not dreaming, and we are, in fact, staging a bust out and a heist in which Sierra is the gold, and weâre taking it.
I swallow hard, pull myself together, and throw a glance up at the roof in a silent âThank youâ to the Fates. They answered my prayers.
I do as he motions, tugging backward out the door with all my might to get it rolling as he throws machines and such almost on top of her as we move.
He picks up and dumps more items on the bed as we pass a couple of freestanding carts.
He pulls the saline drip and the bag feeding her fluids, and its cart at the end, with him while stretching all her tubes almost taut.
âI drugged the soup and pretended to eat in the canteen to watch what they did; we always eat together. I had to wait for them all to pass out. To the truck over there.â
He nods toward the truck, and I pull the bed and aim for it, gaining speed as we go.
He grabs the medical cart in passing to tug behind him, making it awkward for him to keep hold of the bed, and I end up pulling it alone as he deals with that and the other wheeled necessities heâs hauling.
Heâs dropping things as he does so.
If this is an escape, itâs a haphazard one, and heâs the worst kind of saving hero ever.
Heâs making enough noise to wake the dead, and Iâm not convinced he wonât keel over and have a heart attack with how unfit he is.
Heâs puffing, heaving, and losing more than half his body weight in sweat; I think he might need to lie down. Humans really are a weak race.
âHow are we meant to get out of here? Weâre on the lowest floor, and the elevator is that way?â
I nod with my head in the direction we came from, a tight knot of anxiety growing that maybe his plan is not the best.
He waves at the trucks again, reminding me of their presence, but Iâm unsure how they will help down here.
âThe one on the end is a medical truck, and that platform lifts to the ground above. Itâs how we store them and transport things in and out.â
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 line the steel wall in shadow, and I look up into a cavernous space that opens overhead when we get up close to them.
I couldnât see it from my room, but this space goes up some hundred or more feet to a set of closed metal doors on the top ceiling.
âAnd then what? We drive around until she wakes up?â I gasp, bumping the bed onto the platformâs edge, still helping while dissecting this absurdity, and he shoves it fully.
We come side by side with the truck we aim for, and he motions for me to keep it going to the rear. I eye him warily, real tension ripping through me as I panic at his lack of a proper plan.
âYes, sounds right. Sheâs been in a coma for eight yearsâwe need time. I need to wake her slowly, and even then, I donât know what state she will be in, physically or mentally.
âAll I know is we canât stay here and do that without getting caught, and I owe her. I wonât fail my friend again!â
He has regained some of his equilibrium and leaves the bed with me to run to a metal cabinet on the wall that houses keys, and he scoops up a set.
He returns to open the truck and motions me to bring the bed around.
âSo, what youâre saying is, thereâs no plan beyond getting out?â Itâs a dry, unamused response, and I stare at him as everything inside me grips tight.
I have to swallow the rising panic, and he half-heartedly shrugs at me.
âIâm a doctor, not a masked villain who kidnaps people for a living. I figured your Fates would somehow⦠I donât know⦠help! I mean, you came and⦠youâre here!â
âOh, my god!â Itâs the only response I have, as words fail me.
I bite down on my lower lip and try to focus everything on helping him and not on the fact that I have no goddamn idea what weâre meant to do after we get out.
The guards wonât sleep forever, and they ~will~ come after us, at top speed, with guns, and lots of them. And inform Juan.
We get to work using the ramps inside the truck to get the bed and trolley in, and he braces them in place with special metal clamps.
Then he hangs her saline bag on a hook from the interior wall, pushes the mobile one into a corner, and ties it down.
He pushes the devices into clamps, clips them along the wall parallel to her bed, and settles everything free-standing into holders or ties them in place expertly.
He makes light work of it, as I can only stand while a million ideas race through my head about what weâre going to do.
âI have a cabin, my home when Iâm not here. We should go there and try to wake her. Theyâll track us, but we have a good head start, and I donât know if we can lose them. No one knows about my cabin.â
Itâs a weird look, a half âhappy he came up with a planâ mixed with a heavy dose of a âPlease tell me thatâs a smart ideaâ look.
I can only shake my head and stare.
Heâs not thinking this through or envisioning how well a wolf can track or how much faster they can be on foot when needed.
They wonât just dawdle when they find us gone; they will come tearing after us like demons on the warpath.
And Juan will, too, with his four crazy, loyal sub-packs, who annihilated my entire bloodline and got away with it. Thereâs no being safe in some cabin in the middle of God knows where.
âThat wonât work. You have no idea how well they can hunt us.
âAnd as for Sierra, if Juan killed people to keep his dirty secrets silent, heâs going to send a tsunami after her to make sure we donât wake her up,â I point out.
I tuck Sierraâs blankets tight to hold her neatly while he applies straps over her body, keeping her in place.
All I can do is keep helping, even if nausea almost strangles me with so many possibilities and ways to die at Juanâs hands.
âWell, do you have a better idea? We need to protect her until she wakes. We need to find a place we can fortify. I donât know people outside of these walls. I canât fight or shoot an army of wolves.â
No place can be fortified against a pack of angry lycans. Especially not when all you have is a bound wolf who canât use her gifts unless against a serious threat, an aging, unfit human doctor, and a sleeping witch.
We are so screwed.
I rack my brain trying to think of a million places I passed these past weeks alone and how none of them would be any good to hide in.
Besides, no amount of hiding will stop them from tracking us. It was different when I ran. I was solitary, and only Colton had reason to follow. I also had a few daysâ head start to let my scent fade to nothing.
Colton! Of course!
I canât believe how stupid I was not to see the most obvious answer to this question. Of course the Fates would bring me full circle and back to him.
Theyâve never stopped tormenting me mentally when it comes to that boy, making sure I couldnât forget him even if I wanted to. This is whyâthis moment of need.
Coltonâs 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 himâone of the most aggressive 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.
âYes, I do. I have her son and his pack, and I know he wonât leave me to fight this alone if I tell him I have his mom.â He wonât fail her; heâs been looking for her. I know his heart, and itâs not like Juanâs.
âYou can trust him? Even after ten years with his father?â He flashes me a wary look, and I nod with no hint of hesitation.
I know why he would query it, assuming under his fatherâs guidance that he might have twisted his son into a mini clone all these years, but Colton is far stronger than I ever gave him credit for.
He is his own mind, and he disagrees with how Juan hurts his people.
âColton wonât let me down. If he knows I need him, that she needs him, heâll come. I do not doubt this. Weâre linked. Itâs not hard to find him.â
Unless the Fates took that from me when he marked Carmen, I guess I will find that out.
I donât think they would be so cruel in taking away something like that when I need to use it to get Sierra out of this place in one piece.
In all of this, the Fates have been trying to address the balance and bring us back to what Juan destroyed.
âOkay, 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 help. Plan? Yes, I think so.
âI donât relish dying tonight, so we better make it snappy.â Heâs losing his adrenaline rush, his panic panting, and instead seems in the âregret and what have I done, but to hell with itâ mode.
He ushers me to the front of the truck, pulling the doors shut behind us, and locks them in place from the inside.
Without crouching, I can walk straight through the dark confines of the small space to the front seats and sit down on the passenger side with a quizzical look aimed right at him as he gets settled in the driverâs seat.
âHow do we go up if weâre in here?â I point out, assuming he forgot the minor detail weâre underground, but he picks up a heavy-duty-looking radio device from the dash and waves it at me.
âThis is a very high-tech and expensive facility. They like remotes. Boy toys.â
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 lifts.
We slowly start to rise and leave the bay level behind, not just this truck, but with all three on the whole floor.
This is when my panic sets in, and my nerves get the better of me as I realize our escape will probably go down in history as the worst attempt ever.
Itâs louder than hell, crunching, groaning, and echoing around us like crazy, probably scaring off all the wildlife above ground within a three-mile radius.
I cover my ears, cringing and recoiling into my seat, and have to resist the urge to shut my eyes in the hope this is a bad dream.
I hope to God he was right about knocking those guards out; otherwise, they will know we are running away.
âOnce we get up there and out into the open, the building no longer has any bind over you.
âThe walls work on some sort of inbuilt frequency thatâs impossible for us to hear, but it doesnât work out there. It has to surround you, you see,â he yells over the noise.
Heâs telling me facts about something I currently couldnât care less about, but it hits a nerve, and I sit up, blinking as my attention piques.