Werewolf Academy Book 5: Lost (18 page)

Alex’s stomach twisted. “What choice?”

Drogan flicked the little girl’s hair out of his fingers. “We’re going to throw this child out the window.”

The girl’s mother began to cry. She tried to reach her daughter, but a guard pressed a gun to her head. She collapsed sobbing to the floor.

“Can you smell their fear, Alex?” Drogan asked, his voice low and filled with anticipation. He pointed a gun at Cherish’s head. “You have two choices. You know this girl. You can either stay here and I won’t kill...” His eyes narrowed and he looked at Cherish. “Your name?”

She refused to give it to him. At her silence, Drogan slapped her hard across the mouth. “Your name?” he repeated in the same deadly calm tone.

“Cherish,” she replied, tears in her eyes and a bright red mark growing on her cheek.

Drogan continued as if he hadn’t just assaulted her. “You can stay here and I won’t kill Cherish, or you can jump out the window in an attempt to save the child, in which case I might just shoot your friend. It’s really a lose-lose for someone so prone to heroics as you have shown to be.” He sighed. “I would recommend staying here to save the one you really can.”

“No,” Alex protested. “Don’t do it.” He inched toward the window, knowing Drogan wouldn’t listen to him no matter what he said.

“Jenkins,” Drogan said.

The man threw the little girl out the window as easily as if he was tossing out a ball. Alex jumped out without hesitation.

Chapter Twenty-one

Alex grabbed the little girl and pulled her to him, wrapping her in his arms. She screamed, her little voice whisked away by the air rushing past them. The ground sped toward the pair. Alex jerked his head back, forcing his body to follow so he could be feet first. He hit the ground a second later with a jarring thud.

“Alex!”

Hands touched his arms. Alex willed his legs to hold. He blinked to chase away the daze from the abrupt landing and recognized Officer Dune. The officer slipped his hands beneath Alex’s and took the little girl from him.

“What is going on?” Officer Dune demanded.

“Drogan’s a madman,” Alex replied. He turned to go back inside the hospital.

“Don’t go back in there,” Officer Dune said. “The whole place is on fire. We’ve taken out the men we can in order to rescue patients. The hospital is going to collapse.”

“I’ve got to go,” Alex replied. His eyes burned. “Drogan may have just shot one of my close friends.”

He ducked back through the hospital doors.

Flames were everywhere. A fireman rushed past with a boy in his arms. Several others were busy helping patients out the back door where the flames had less of a hold. Alex saw Jaze helping two officers pushing wheelchairs.

It was hard to run in the opposite direction. His instincts screamed for him to join Jaze in getting patients out of the hospital. Jaze was his pack mate, his father figure. To leave the Alpha and the rest of the pack felt completely against everything he had been raised to do.

But Cherish, if she was still alive, and other helpless humans were on the fourth floor with Drogan who was acting insane. Alex was the only one they would let back up. He had saved the child. Maybe he could do something else to rescue the others.

Alex took the stairs four at a time. The elevators were down, and he had to hold to the walls several times to avoid hindering the descent of patients, officers, doctors, and nurses. Firefighters hosed down the second floor from the street, but it was clear that Drogan had set the fire to do the most devastation possible. Officer Dune was right. The building would collapse.

Alex burst through the door to the fourth floor only to find it empty. He looked around, his heart racing. He hadn’t passed any of Drogan’s men on the way, which meant they only had one direction to go. He ran to the stairs and continued up.

The door to the roof was open. Alex rushed out in time to see one helicopter leave. He could make out the forms of the humans and the news team crammed into the chopper. A second helicopter sat on the roof with its blades spinning.

“Get in, Alex,” Drogan called from inside it.

Alex knew the helicopter would be a death trap. It was the last place he wanted to go. His heart slowed when Drogan shoved Cherish forward. Tears streamed down her cheeks as Drogan pressed a gun to her head. Relief filled Alex that Cherish was still alive. He didn’t know how to save her, but he vowed to do anything to keep her from harm.

“Get in,” Drogan said, his voice low and mismatched eyes burning into Alex’s.

Alex crossed the roof to the helicopter and climbed inside.

“In there,” Drogan said.

Alex looked behind him. A cage stood where one of the seats should have been. The bars were thick and the door was open.

Drogan pressed the gun harder against Cherish’s head and she gave a small cry of pain. “Get in, Alex,” Drogan commanded in a growl.

Alex stepped inside the cage and one of Drogan’s men slammed it shut. Alex set a hand on a bar. He winced at the sudden burning sensation and pulled his hand back. A glance at his palm showed red welts already forming on the skin.

“Liquid silver,” Drogan said. “Something my father used to use.” His voice twisted slightly. “He was a genius when it came to inventive ways to torture werewolves.”

The helicopter began to lift off the roof. Alex knew if Cherish stayed on the chopper, there was no way Drogan would let her live. On instinct, Alex grabbed Drogan’s arm and yanked him forward. The Extremist’s face touched the bar. He yelled in pain and jerked back. Drogan bumped into Cherish, pushing her out of the helicopter. She landed on the roof a few feet below.

“Run, Cherish,” Alex yelled.

Cherish climbed to her feet and took off for the door to the hospital. His two guards moved to jump out after her.

“Leave her,” Drogan said, clutching his face. “Get us out of here.”

The helicopter rose into the air.

Alex studied his half-brother in silence for a few minutes. “How long have you known you were a werewolf?” he asked, his eyes on Drogan’s face.

Drogan lowered his hand, revealing an angry burn down his cheek. Alex thought the Extremist wasn’t going to reply, but after a minute, he said, “Not long.” The disgust in his voice was clear. “I phased after you killed Dad.” His face twisted. “It gave a form to my rage. I went on a killing rampage. It felt so good, tearing the throats out of humans. I’m so strong, so...blood thirsty.”

Alex remembered Trent mentioning them trying to track down a werewolf who was killing humans. “Why are you working so hard to wipe werewolves from this nation when you are one?”

Drogan reached for Alex’s throat, but pulled back before clearing the bars. “Werewolves are savage, disgusting creatures driven by animal instincts and basic laws of survival.” His lips twisted in an ugly snarl. “I deserve to die as much as you.”

“Just for being what you are?” Alex asked.

“Werewolves killed my mother,” Drogan replied. “They tore her apart in front of me. I was four and I couldn’t stop them. When father found us, he vowed to wipe all werewolves from the earth.”

It all fell into place. “Even his brothers,” Alex said.

“Especially his brothers.” Drogan’s hands clenched into fists. “They’re the reason she was killed. They were trying to rehabilitate the beasts and they turned on us.” His voice lowered. “Now I’m one of them.”

“It’s in your blood,” Alex said.

Drogan glared at him. “So I’ll purge my lineage from the earth. But first, I have something for you to do.” He nodded at his men.

One of the guards ran a scanner down Alex’s body as the helicopter flew above the buildings. It beeped at the sleeve of the new hoodie Trent had made for him. At Drogan’s motion, the guard cut the sleeve from the shirt. The seven on the sleeve tore away to reveal the seven tattoo on Alex’s arm.

Drogan crossed his arms and regarded Alex levelly. “I knew Jet.”

Alex refused to be baited.

Drogan ignored his silence and continued, “Dad showed me the video of when Jet killed his men.” He leaned closer to Alex. “He killed hundreds of men with nothing more than his bare hands.”

“He protected hundreds of werewolves doing so,” Alex replied, unable to stay silent.

“What do you think they’d say?” Drogan asked. “What would the humans you revere so much say if they saw Jet tearing other humans apart? I’m going to air the video so your so called beloved brother is known for what he really is, a murderer.”

Rage flooded Alex’s body so sharp he could barely breathe. Blue surged through his vision. He morphed and punched the bars of the cage. They bent outward, giving him room to step through.

Drogan scrambled to the side. One of his guards aimed a gun. Alex ducked and the bullet struck the back of the pilot’s chair. The helicopter tipped sharply forward. A guard screamed and fell out the side of the chopper. The ground rushed toward them. One of the other men reached for the controls, but there wasn’t enough time to right the helicopter. Alex braced himself and the helicopter slammed into the ground.

Pain forced the fog from Alex’s mind. He blinked and tried to move. Something pinned him down. He lifted his head and stared at the bar that pierced through his stomach. He could feel the burning of the liquid silver that coated the bar along with blood running down his side. Something dripped in his eyes. He lifted a hand and found a gash on his forehead.

Instinct made him search his surroundings. The helicopter had crashed in the middle of a road. Black vehicles were surrounding it. Drogan was nowhere to be seen. For a brief moment, Alex hoped he would see Agent Sullivan from the Global Protection Agency step out of one of the cars, but instead, Drogan’s men rushed out with guns pointed at Alex. He let his head fall back and welcomed the rush of darkness.

***

“You cost me a good pilot.”

Alex blinked at the bright light that pierced his eyes. He sat in another cage with thicker bars than the first.

“I won’t make that mistake again,” Drogan said.

Alex looked past him at the rest of the room. The human hostages from the hospital had been chained along one wall. Sitting against another was the Greyton news team.

“Time for your next task,” Drogan said.

Alex sat up and gasped at the pain that knifed through his stomach. His shirt was gone and someone had crudely attempted to bandage the wound from the bar.

“Jenkins tried to stop the bleeding, but he figured the silver inside keeps it from healing.” Drogan’s tone said he could care less. Jenkins stood next to the Extremist leader with his arms crossed and a look on his face that said the task had been distasteful. “At any rate,” Drogan said, “You’ll hopefully have time to do what I need before you bleed out.”

Alex climbed gingerly to his feet with one hand on the wound. Every move hurt, and he could feel blood pulsing against the bandages with the movement. Already, the edges dripped with warm liquid.

“Let the humans go,” he growled.

Drogan’s mouth lifted at the corners. “That would defeat the purpose.”

Alex made himself ask, “What purpose?”

“You didn’t let the girl die. My options of defaming the honorable Demon of Greyton have become limited to forcing the Demon to kill humans on national television.”

Gasps sounded around the room. Someone began to cry.

“I won’t record that,” one of the cameramen protested, rising to his feet.

Drogan lifted a gun and shot the man without warning. He fell back against the wall next to his companions. “Anyone else have a life-altering surge of conscience they need to voice?” he asked amiably.

No-one else spoke. Members of the news team stared in horror at their slain companion. It was clear everyone was at the Extremist’s mercy.

“I won’t do it,” Alex said.

“Oh, you will,” Drogan replied. “I’ll soon have collateral you can’t deny.”

His confidence sent a shudder down Alex’s spine.

Chapter Twenty-two

“What do you think he means by ‘collateral you can’t deny’?” one of the news crew asked Alex when they were left alone that night.

“I don’t think I want to know,” Alex replied. He tried to find a comfortable position lying on the floor of his cage, but the pain in his stomach made it impossible.

“Are you okay?” the mother of the little girl he had rescued asked.

“I’ll be better when I get you guys out of here,” Alex said, keeping his answer vague on purpose. The amount of blood that puddled on the floor around him bothered him more than he wanted to let on. If he wasn’t careful, he wouldn’t be around to save them.

“Keep pressure on it,” another woman said. At Alex’s questioning look, she explained, “I’m a nurse from the hospital. You need to keep pressure on it to slow the blood flow. If you can slow it enough, the wound can try to clot.”

“Thanks,” Alex replied, touched that she cared enough to give advice. He put a hand on the bandage and pushed. The pressure hurt enough that he had to grit his teeth to keep any sound from escaping at the pain.

“What if the collateral is like he said, enough to keep you doing what he wants?” a man from the group asked in a tight voice filled with fear.

Alex forced himself to sit up and meet their gazes. He read on several faces that the same fear occupied their thoughts. It pained him to see it.

“I’m not going to kill you.”

“But what if you have to?” the man pressed.

Alex let out a slow breath. He realized the red light from the camera was on and the cameraman was recording the conversation. He searched for a way to reassure them. “You know I’m the Demon of Greyton, right?” he asked.

A few of them nodded. Alex tipped his head to the side. “Do you know why I saved those girls from the gangs?”

“You like to fight?” someone guessed.

A few of the others gave small laughs in return as though they needed to do something to stay sane.

Alex smiled. “I do like to fight.” A few more smiles answered his. “But that’s not it.” His smile faltered. “Drogan’s father, the General, killed a friend of mine. We were really close.” He reached up his free hand and rubbed his eyes. “He shot her before I could save her. I tried to do everything I could, but it wasn’t enough.”

“And you could save those girls,” an older man said gently.

Alex nodded without looking at them. “I could make a difference. If at least one girl was saved from fear and pain, perhaps Kalia would know that I tried. Maybe their living would make her death mean something.”

“You helped so many of them,” the mother of the child said. “I’m sure she would be proud of you.”

“I hope so,” Alex replied. He looked up at them. “If it comes down to my life or yours, you have my word that I would rather die than let you do so for Drogan’s cause.”

Silence filled the room. It was broken by the mother’s voice a few minutes later. “How old are you, Alex?”

Alex looked at her, curious as to why she was asking. “Seventeen.”

“Drogan said he killed your parents.”

Alex nodded. “When I was eight.”

The mother gave him a warm smile. “They would be proud of you.”

He refused to let his emotions surface at her words. He knew Drogan might be watching on cameras, and refused to give the Extremists any satisfaction.

“Thank you,” he said quietly.

Jenkins threw open the door. “No more talking!” he yelled.

Alex settled slowly onto his back. The position hurt too much, forcing him onto his side. He kept pressure on the wound, unable to sleep for fear that his hand would fall away and he would bleed to death without regaining consciousness.

Drogan and Jenkins walked back into the room a few hours later. “We’ve had a development,” Drogan said.

Alex stood up gingerly, worried about what the Extremist’s tone implied.

Jenkin’s phone rang and he answered it. “Cassie is here,” the man reported to Drogan.

Alex’s legs felt weak. He reached for the bars to steady himself, and remembered at the last moment that they were coated in liquid silver. His stomach hurt. He wanted more than anything to curl up in a corner and forget all that was happening. Instead, he stared at the door, terrified that the footsteps he heard on the stairs would bring his sister into the living nightmare he experienced.

Instead, Siale stepped into view with half a dozen of Drogan’s guards around her.

“She was running outside the Academy walls,” a guard answered at Drogan’s questioning. “We picked her off without a problem.”

“Good work.” Drogan grabbed Siale’s arm and led her to the cage. She looked tired and her face was pale, but she locked eyes with Alex and held his gaze. “Now do you see why you’ll comply with my plan?” Drogan asked with cruel glee on his face. “Jaze wouldn’t save his mother by killing the werewolves, but I have a feeling you’ll kill humans to rescue your twin sister.”

Alex couldn’t speak. He glanced back and found the news team and humans watching them. Several of the humans had expressions of defeat as if they knew Drogan had the upper hand. The cameraman who recorded what was happening had tears in his eyes. Alex wondered if he had a wife and children back in Greyton.

Jenkins’ cellphone rang again. He answered, and after a moment, he lowered the phone.

“We have a problem.”

“Not now,” Drogan replied with irritation. “I’m in the middle of forced manslaughter.”

“There’s a problem with the northern factory,” Jenkins said.

The muscle beside Drogan’s right eye twitched. “What problem?”

“The mutants have gotten out. They’ve overrun the top floor. Krade has the place on lockdown.”

Drogan’s jaw clenched and for a moment it looked as though he would shoot Jenkins. Instead, he motioned for a guard to unlock Alex’s cage. When Alex stepped forward, six guns aimed at his head. He stopped and Siale was thrown into the cage. Drogan held out his hand for Jenkins’ cellphone.

“If anyone does anything, execute the humans,” the Extremist leader said. He stormed out of the room and slammed the door shut behind him.

Siale hugged Alex tight. He winced at the pressure against his stomach.

“What’s going...” Siale gasped when she stepped back and saw the blood-soaked bandages across Alex’s stomach.

“It’s the least of our concerns right now,” Alex said.

“Not if you’re bleeding to death,” Siale replied. “Let me see.”

Alex put a hand over it. The bandages squished beneath his touch. “I was impaled by a bar coated in liquid silver. There must be enough in the wound to keep it from healing.” He forced his voice to remain steady. “I think this bandage is all that keeps me from bleeding out.”

Siale’s eyes brightened with tears. She helped him to a sitting position on the floor. He put an arm around her shoulders and asked too quietly for the humans’ ears, “What are you doing here and why does he think you’re Cassie?”

She whispered in reply, “There were Extremists in the forest. I knew they were searching for your sister. I didn’t want them to find her. I told Trent was I was up to and he helped me.”

Alex stared at her. “He helped you get captured?”

She gave him a small smile. “I didn’t give him a choice. I told him my plan and said that he could either help me or be an accomplice to my death if I go on by myself.”

“You drive a hard bargain.”

“You have no idea,” she said. “So I went running through the forest, careful to have him call me Cassie before I left. It didn’t take them long to pick me up.”

“So what’s the plan? They would have checked you for tracking chips before bringing you here.” Alex shook his head. “How can you put yourself in danger like this?”

“Because you’re not going to die at the hands of a crazy lunatic,” she replied.

Alex gave a small smile. “How are you planning to prevent that?”

“Trent got Brock to program the drone to recognize my heat signature.”

That made Alex sit up straighter despite the pain in his stomach. “So they can follow it here!”

Siale nodded. “Security’s tight, so they’re going to make their own entrance.”

“They’re going to bomb this place?”

Siale smiled. “Exactly.”

“And it recognizes your heat signature...”

“So they know what side of the building not to blow up,” she finished.

Alex wanted to pull Siale close and kiss her, remembering only at the last minute that Drogan was no doubt watching them on the cameras and such a display would convince him that Cassie wasn’t Alex’s sister.

“Stop talking,” Jenkins said, walking to the bars. His eyes narrowed and he aimed his gun toward the humans. “Maybe I’ll pick one or two of them off just to keep you in line.”

The humans cowered away from the gun, but were kept from moving very far by the chains.

“Don’t do it, Jenkins,” Alex said, rising to his feet. “Drogan will be angry if you kill the hostages.”

Jenkins smiled. “I’ll say you tried to escape.”

Alex looked around quickly for anything he could use to stop the man from shooting the humans, but there was nothing within reach of the cage.

“Jenkins!” he yelled as the man’s finger tightened on the trigger.

An explosion shook the building, throwing everyone to the floor. Walls cracked and pieces of the ceiling fell. A crack ran near the humans and their chain pulled free. One side of the cage was smashed. Guards ran for the werewolves, but Alex shoved his way through, careful to keep Siale behind him where the guards couldn’t reach her.

“Kill the humans,” Jenkins yelled. “I’ve got the werewolves.”

Guns were lifted. Blue-tinged rage flooded through Alex.

He crossed the floor in a heartbeat. His claws found one guard, then another. He spun and swiped across the gun hand of a third, then buried his fist deep in the man’s stomach. He threw the guard into two others.

“Stop!” Jenkins barked.

Alex glanced back and found the man with a gun pointed directly at Siale. The ground shook beneath his feet from the explosion. Dust filled the air. Every beat of Alex’s heart sounded loud in his ears. He couldn’t reach the man before he shot Siale. Alex had left her alone, vulnerable, like he had promised he never would.

A shot rang out. Jenkins jerked and when he squeezed the trigger and the bullet went wide, missing the werewolf. Siale punched him in the throat, then the stomach. She followed with a backhand across to the man’s jaw that spun him halfway around. Alex was there to meet him. He slashed Jenkin’s throat followed by his stomach. Jenkins took two steps back, then collapsed to the floor.

“Siale,” Alex said, his voice deep and gruff from morphing.

“Protect the humans,” Siale replied. “I’m fine.”

Alex glanced back to see the remaining guards running for the humans. He grabbed a bar from the cage as he ran past. He swung it and took down three guards. Another swipe caught the last two before they could reach the hostages.

The surge of energy had cost Alex. His body morphed back to normal. His mind registered that his hand was burning, and he let the bar fall to the ground. He rubbed his hand on his pants in an attempt to wipe away the liquid silver that coated it.

“Are you okay?” Siale asked.

Alex nodded, seeing the image of Jenkins almost shooting her again in his mind. The sound of a gun falling to the floor caught his attention. He looked over his shoulder to see the mother of the girl he had saved step away from the gun she had dropped.

“You saved Siale,” he said, his thoughts racing as he tried to come to terms with what had happened.

“You saved my daughter,” she replied. “Thank you.”

Something hit against the door. Alex moved so that he was between the door, the humans, and Siale. His hands clenched into fists. A bang sounded and the door blew inward. Jaze stood in the cloud of smoke. Relief filled the dean’s eyes when he saw Alex and Siale.

“Let’s get you guys out of here,” he said.