Werewolf CEO 4, page 20
“Well, the doctor can kiss my ass,” I growled as I gritted my teeth and turned my head toward the door I knew they were heading for.
It was the one on the right, the one we hadn’t gone through. By the sound of it, there were at least ten guards heading our way, and we still needed to get these people out of here.
“Hallie, take as many of these wolves as you can and lead them to the manhole,” I said. “The rest of you, you’re gonna help me hold these assholes back.”
“You got it, Alpha,” Luke said as he cracked his neck.
“Sam, you need to go with Hallie,” I said as I pulled her fingers from my arm and guided her to the reporter.
“No, I want to fight,” she protested. “I can fight, Josh.”
“Not these guys,” I said as I tucked a lock of her dark hair behind her ear. “What’s important right now is getting you somewhere safe.”
“But--”
“Please, Samantha,” I said. “There’s no time for arguing right now.”
The Omega sighed but reluctantly nodded her head. Hallie offered her hand to her again, and she took it, and the reporter gave me a nod of reassurance before she started to run down the hallway with Samantha.
“All of you, get up!” I shouted as I checked in every cell. “This is your chance to get the hell out of here!”
The cowering wolves still stuck inside looked up at me in confusion, and I banged my hands on the metal bars to get their attention.
“If you don’t go down that hallway right now, you’re gonna die,” I said bluntly. “This is your one chance. Don’t throw it away.”
One by one, the cowering wolves started to tentatively stick their heads out of their cells. As soon as the first one started running down the hallway, the others followed, and it wasn’t long before we were left in the red room with nothing but the dead bodies of the wolves that had already fallen.
The footsteps of the guards were getting closer and closer, and it was only a matter of time before they burst through the glass door and rained hellfire on us.
But we were ready.
And we were pissed.
Chapter Fourteen
As the footsteps thudded closer, we remained in the corridor of cells with our clawed hands out and ready at our sides.
I could feel my heartbeat in my ears as I finally let my anger come to the surface. Everything that had happened to these people in this place, everything they had been put through… the people partly responsible for it were about to run through that door.
And I was gonna make them pay.
The glass shattered as they burst through, and ten men dressed in black riot gear charged down the hall with their guns pointed at us.
“Duck!” I shouted before they could fire, and every member of my pack dropped down onto all fours and started running at the armed guards faster than I’d ever seen them move before.
We pounced on the armored men one by one, and their thick chest pieces cracked against the ground as they hit the floor. I snarled as I wrapped my hand around the neck of the guy I was straddling, and I saw his mouth fall open in horror before I pushed down with all of my weight. My hands went through his tender flesh like it was nothing, and his head separated from his shoulders with a sickening squelch.
I turned to see my other pack members were tearing apart the ones they’d tackled with their claws, but there were still some stragglers who were starting to point their guns at my friends.
So, I leaped up from the body I’d just decapitated and ran at them with my arms out. The men hardly had time to raise their guns before I barreled into them and knocked them down like a set of bowling pins.
I slammed my fist down into the closest one’s chest, and it left a crater in the riot gear which had a piece of metal embedded in it. I could see his eyes widening behind his visor as the metal warped into his chest and broke his ribs. His breathing became shallow and crackly, and I knew it’d only be a matter of time before he died.
That gave me enough time to deal with the others who were quickly scrambling for their guns. The one on my left managed to take a shot at me, but I blocked it with my arm. I felt the bullet tear through, but I was so amped up on adrenaline right now that I didn’t care.
“Big mistake,” I growled before I wrapped my hand around his throat and pulled him up.
“Drop him!” the remaining guard shouted in a trembling voice.
I slowly turned around to see him pointing his gun at me with shaking hands. His heartbeat was erratic and running a thousand miles a minute, and I smirked as I smelled his fear.
“You want me to drop him?” I asked in a gravelly voice. “Fine. I’ll drop him.”
I swung the guard around like a shot put and launched him at the man pointing his gun at me. The idiot fired out of instinct, and I saw the bullet tear through the head of the one I’d been holding. With the weight of a dead body on top of him now, he was pinned to the floor, which allowed me to leisurely stalk over.
He desperately attempted to shove the dead guy off him, but he was too heavy. I guess that was a pretty big con of wearing full riot gear. There were no quick escapes, and he was about to find out what happened when you fucked with the wrong wolf.
“Please don’t kill me, I--”
I cut him off by ripping his helmet from his head. His face was exposed to me, and I was surprised to see he wasn’t in wolf form. He was just a regular human, with normal plain features. His brown eyes bored into mine, and I frowned in confusion.
“You’re not a wolf?” I asked.
“N-No,” he stuttered. “Mitch has a human division. He told me he’d turn me into one if I worked for him long enough.”
“You want to become one of those monsters?” I growled. “Because that’s what he’ll turn you into.”
“That’s better than what I am now,” the guard said as he raised his chin and swallowed the lump in his throat.
“You’re deluded,” I spat angrily. “Do you know what he’s planning? Who you’re working for?”
“He’s going to turn New York into something great,” the guard said in a proud whisper. “And there’s nothing you can do to stop i--”
I reached down and covered his mouth with my hand to stop his screams before I used my claws to puncture through the soft spot at the temples of his head. His eyes widened as he tensed for a moment, but then his body went still and limp.
What an idiot. A completely brainwashed and naive idiot.
Part of me wanted to feel bad, but he’d made his decision. He’d made it a long time ago by the sounds of it, and anyone who was okay with what had been going on in this lab, let alone the master plan to turn New York into Zombie Town, was getting what they deserved.
My pack had finished off the other guards, but I could hear tires screeching to a halt above us again.
And this time, there was more than one car.
“Shit, we need to go,” I said. “Like right now.”
“We’re not gonna fight?” Luke asked in confusion.
“There’s too many, and we’re not prepared for those kinds of numbers,” I said as I started to usher my pack down the hallway. “We came here for the missing people, and we’ve found them.”
“Josh’s right,” Katie said as we all started to race down the hallway and back to the manhole. “This isn’t a fight we can take on our own.”
“There’s no knowing how many more men Mitch has on standby,” Amy said as she tugged on her brother’s arm to make him keep up.
As we rounded the corner, there were still some more wolves waiting anxiously by the manhole, like they couldn’t decide if it was worth going down.
“All of you get down there,” I said to my pack. “Get back to where we started as fast as you can.”
“God, I hate sewers,” Emily grumbled as she dropped down the hole, and I heard a splash as she hit the bottom.
“See you on the other side,” Mia said as she quickly followed suit, and the rest of my pack followed after her.
“Get down! Go, go, go!” I shouted as I ushered as many of the remaining wolves as I could down the manhole.
I could hear the footsteps of the guards getting closer, but this wasn’t a fight we could have on our own.
We’d finish this, but not today. We’d need the full force of the treaty packs to finish this, and I wasn’t about to sacrifice my pack for something that could be avoided for now.
So, I helped lower the last weak wolf down the hole before I climbed down myself and pulled the manhole cover back over it.
“Head down that way,” I said and pointed the way we came. “Keep going until you find everyone else.”
The ones who were able to walk on their own rushed off down the vile passageway, but there were two wolves who were pressed against the curved brick walls of the sewer.
“Come on,” I said and wrapped one of their arms around my shoulder so I had one of them on either side. “No one’s getting left behind today.”
“Thank you,” one of the wolves said in a breathless voice as I started to pull them alongside me. “We… We thought we were done for.”
“Not on my watch,” I said, and I kept a firm grip on their thin waists and kept trudging through sewage.
“Thank you,” the wolf on my right rasped out. “Truly.”
“Don’t mention it,” I said as I focused on getting all three of us out of the sewer as quickly as possible.
I couldn’t hear anyone following behind us, so that put me at ease a little, but I still wanted out of this sewer before they could get any bright ideas.
We finally reached the manhole we’d come down, and Katie and Finn’s heads were peeking over the side waiting for us. I hoisted the two wolves up, one by one, on my shoulders so the two Betas could haul them out. Then I jumped up and grabbed a hold of Finn’s hand so he could pull me out, too.
“Cover the manhole with that dumpster,” I said as I caught my breath. “And guard it with your life. I need to call Hutch.”
“You got it, Josh,” Finn said as he put the cover back on while Katie dragged the dumpster over.
I did a quick scan of everyone outside to make sure they were all safe. The number of wolves we’d let out had dwindled, which probably meant a lot of them had fled in fear. But there were still a good amount trying to recover in the surrounding alley and street.
All of my pack were safe and sound, and I looked over at my girls, who were comforting some of the wounded wolves. After I knew they were all safe, I slipped out my phone, called the police department, and got them to patch me through the Police Commissioner.
“Hutch, I found most of the missing people,” I said as I wiped my brow with the back of my sleeve. “I followed Samantha’s scent down the sewer on West ninety-fourth. Can you track my location?”
“On it,” Hutch said. “Just stay on the line. What else did you find?”
“A lab,” I said. “Mitch’s lab. He’s been picking these people apart to make the perfect super serum.”
“Jesus Christ,” Hutch mumbled. “Did you find any physical evidence?”
“Yeah, Hallie’s got the file detailing his big plan to gas out New York and turn everyone into mutants,” I said. “This is bad, Hutch. Real bad.”
“Yeah, you’re telling me,” the Police Commissioner said with a humorless puff of laughter. “I’ve got your location. I’m on my way there now, and I’ve got my boys on the way to help get the freed missing persons.”
“Wolf-boys?” I asked.
“Yes,” Hutch confirmed. “We need to handle this situation with care. As much as I want to reunite these people with their families, it’s important we make sure it’s safe to do that.”
“Lunar Corp. can supply the drugs you need,” I said. “Talk to Victor and tell him I gave it the okay. If they want shift stoppers, they’ve got them, and they can have a week’s supply of aggression regulators if they need that, too.”
“That’s very kind of you, Josh,” Hutch said. “But I don’t expect you to give them away for free. We’ll do it the proper way, and I’ll purchase as many as we need from Victor, off the books.”
“Alright,” I said. “If you’re sure.”
“I’m sure,” Hutch said. “I’ll be there as soon as possible. Just try and keep them all in one place, if you can.”
“You got it,” I said before I hung up and slipped my phone back into my pocket.
Finn and Katie had rolled the dumpster over the manhole and were standing next to it to keep watch. Meanwhile, all of the wolves we’d saved were sort of just resting against the side of the building and laying down on the sidewalk in an attempt to catch their breaths.
“The cops are on their way,” I said. “They’re gonna take care of you guys from here.”
“Josh,” Samantha said as she left Hallie’s side and tentatively walked up to me. “I don’t want to go with the cops.”
“Sam, it’s for the best,” I said. “Now that you’re a wolf, things are different. They just want to make sure you’re not going to hurt your mom when you go back--”
“I’m not gonna hurt her,” the dark-haired Omega said firmly. “And that’s not me being naive. I’ve had nothing to do but deal with this new ability for the past however long I’ve been missing. I can handle it. What I can’t handle is being away from my mom any longer.”
“You really think you can control yourself around her?” I asked as I gripped her shoulders and looked deeper into her normal dark eyes.
“Yes, Josh,” she said without hesitation. “I wouldn’t put her in danger if I wasn’t sure.”
There was not a single hint of doubt in her eyes, and her heartbeat remained steady. She was telling the truth, and judging by what I’d seen of their relationship in her family home, I knew Samantha would never do anything to hurt her mom.
“Okay,” I said after a few moments of silence. “I’ll take you back home.”
“You will?” she asked as her dark eyes shimmered with tears.
“Yeah,” I said. “But I want you stay in contact so I can make sure you--”
I grunted as Samantha wrapped her thin arms around my waist. It took me a moment to process that she was hugging me, but when I did, I slowly wrapped my arms around her and held her close to my chest.
“Thank you,” she whispered against my shirt.
“It’s alright,” I whispered back and squeezed her shoulders in reassurance. “I’ll take you there, but I need to see the Police Commissioner first, alright?”
“Okay.” She nodded and pulled away with a sniffle.
“Tyler, can you go and grab my car for me?” I asked the Russo who was leaning against one of the brick walls.
“You’re letting me drive her, looking like this?” he asked in surprise and motioned down to his dirty clothes.
“I’ll take her in for a deep clean after this,” I said as I threw him the key fob. “But either way, I’m gonna need to use her.”
“Alright, if you’re sure,” he said and held his hands up. “I’ll be right back.”
“Thanks, man,” I said, and I gave him a grateful nod as he started to run down the road.
“Excuse me?” a husky voice asked from beside me.
I turned and saw one of the wolves I’d helped get down the sewer looking kind of anxious as he toyed with his hands in front of him. He must have been in his early twenties. He was malnourished, and his human features were sharp and gaunt thanks to what Mitch had put him through. His brown eyes were sunken and had dark, heavy bags underneath them. His dark brown hair looked like it could have been curly at one point, but was now matted and filled with knots.
“What’s up?” I asked.
“I was wondering if you…” He cleared his throat to steady his trembling voice. “I was a wolf before this. But I… I never had a pack. I think that’s why he targeted me. He… He knew there was no one out there who would come looking for me.”
I frowned at the thought, and I waited for him to continue.
“I know I don’t know much about you, and you don’t know much about me, but… I was wondering if… if I could join your pack,” he said. “You saved us. You risked your lives to save us. That’s all I need to hear to know that I want to be a part of this pack. If you’ll have me.”
“What’s your name?” I asked and tried to ignore how touched I felt at his words.
“Elliot,” he said. “Elliot Hernandez.”
“Well, Elliot, I’m Joshua St. James,” I said with a warm smile. “But I’ve got to warn you, my pack and I are usually in the thick of some trouble going on in New York. That’s how we found all of you.”
“I don’t care about trouble,” Elliot said with a lopsided smile. “I care about having a family. Or, at least, people who will care whether I live or die.”
“You really want in?” I asked. “Even though things could get hairy?”
“I want in.” He nodded firmly. “If you’ll have me.”
“Well, then, welcome aboard, Hernandez,” I said.
The moment the words left my mouth, I felt our consciousness snap together and bridge. Elliot’s thoughts became my own, and I could feel how elated and relieved he was that I had accepted him.
The kid let out a shuddering laugh, and his brown eyes widened as the new bond formed.
We have a newbie? Emily’s voice asked down the bond.
We sure have, I replied. Guys, meet Elliot Hernandez.
Welcome to the Brady Bunch, Elliot, Katie joked. It’s good to have you.
Thank you, Elliot said down the bond with a wide smile on his sallow face. I-I promise, you won’t regret letting me in. I know I look weak right now, but I’m a good fighter. Or, at least, I will be once I’ve had a good meal and some rest.
And we’ll get you one, I said and put a hand on his shoulder. And we’ll get you back to however you were before Mitchell Moore.
“Thank you, Josh,” he said out loud with a teary smile.
“Don’t thank me,” I snorted and shook my head. “You’ll be sick of us by the end of the week.”
“I highly doubt that,” Elliot said with a soft chuckle. “Do you guys have a den?”
