The cabin shuddered again, and this time, I could see smoke filling the air. Out of the corner of my eye I could see the flicker of flames. “Wyatt, the cabin is on fire!”
“Basement is hopefully fireproofed enough to withstand an attack until we get help.” He ran into the walk-in closet and stabbed the secret code into the pad designed to look like a thermostat. He pressed on the wall and the secret doorway opened up, the light from behind us showing a set narrow stairs going down into darkness. “Take this stuff down there.”
“But what about you?”
“Not more than ten wizards here. I can clear them out, hold them off until we get reinforcements.”
“Or, you can wake down here with me, and we won't leave until we have people to help you fight,” I snapped, trying to push past him to get out of the small room. He didn’t budge. “You can't fight them all by yourself.”
“Yes, I can,” he said calmly. “This is what I've been trained to do my entire life.”
“I can help.”
“I have no doubt that you can help, but the risk of you getting killed is too damn high. Do not leave until you hear shifters on the other side. Luke will be here, along with Nyria. If you need some sort of code word, ask them about our matching mark. The phone is in there. Call right now and let them know what's going on.”
“You can't leave me in here,” I cried out, trying to push past him again, but a second later I heard a triumphant shout and what sounded like a door getting broken down. A moment later, Wyatt pushed me against the wall, hard enough to disorient me, gently enough that I wasn’t injured or pushed down the stairs, and slammed the door shut between us. Outside, I heard a scream of pain, and then silence. My hand scrabbled along the door, trying to find the handle or the buttons that would allow me to leave. I could find nothing.
The phone. I had to call his pack. Luke, Nyria, the last call he’d received, any of them.
Nyria picked up immediately. “Wyatt.”
“No,” I cried out, almost hysterical. “It's Cara, the cabin is on fire and Wyatt just locked me up in the basement and he needs help. How the hell do I get out of here?”
“As much as I'd like to tell you to go out there and kick ass, you have no idea what you're dealing with. Stay there, stay safe, and we will be there to help in about fourteen minutes.”
“That's too long.”
“Hang in there. We’ve all been doing this for decades. I'm going to stay on the line so that you can update me if anything happens.”
My fingers found a switch, and I flipped it on. The entire basement was flooded with light. I sprinted down the narrow stairs and found myself into what had to be one of the most luxurious bunker I could have possibly imagined. I ran around the circumference of the room, throwing open every single shelf and content. I found food, electronics, medication, all sorts of things, but not the one that I needed.
“Do you know where the guns are in the basement?” I asked Nyria.
Her voice grew alarmed. “Cara, trust me, you do not want to become a liability in this battle.”
I was torn. On one hand, I saw her point. If I were captured, I could be used against the shifters. On the other hand, if I stayed down here and everyone died without me doing anything to help, I would never be able to live with myself. Damn. Was I about to become the dead sidekick in an action movie, or was I missing my chance to save Wyatt?
Or should I use this opportunity to escape them all? Fuck. I couldn’t walk away now, knowing he was in danger. He and I needed to have a serious talk about boundaries. And if he didn’t step up, then I’d leave him.
The mere thought of losing him, of him dying tonight, made my chest tighten. In just a few days, he’d managed to entwine himself in every corner of my life. I’d never felt more liberated, but it was also too much, too fast.
First things first, though. I was going to kick some evil ass.
I swung open a drawer to find exactly what I was looking for. Weapons and ammo. Bingo. Clearly, it was meant to be.
“If this goes horribly wrong, do not save me at the expense of others,” I told Nyria. I could hear her yelling something over the phone, telling me to wait and that they would be there in eleven minutes. I shoved the phone into the waistband of my shorts and sprinted back upstairs. The enemy expected me to run. Hopefully they wouldn’t expect me to have excellent aim.
When I figured out where to press on the wall to swing the door back open, it was like walking into an alternate dimension. The entire bedroom wall on one side had been blown out, the edges blackened and the floor covered in puddles of melted snow. There were three bodies strewn on the ground, and I tried not to puke the sight of them. They hadn't gone easily, but Wyatt had clearly made sure I would be safe.
There were huge patches of melted snowbanks and collapsed tunnels outside the destroyed wall, but most of the noise and the smoke seem to be pouring out from the kitchen or the living room. I crept to the doorway, and saw three wizards poking around the fireplace like they thought it was a secret door. Huge, blackened patches covered the floor in a failed attempt to use fire to drill down. They knew I was hiding somewhere in the house.
But, let’s just make sure…
I pulled the phone out of the waistband of my pants, ducked back out of sight. “Nyria.”
Her voice is frantic. “Yes, I can hear you. Are you safe?”
“Sorta. I'm upstairs and I've got two guns on me. I know exactly how to use them. There are three men trying to find entranceways to the secret bunker downstairs around the living room fireplace, so they’re way off. How do I know if they’re wizards or not? I don’t want to shoot shifters trying to help Wyatt.”
“They’re wizards. The shifters on foot aren’t going to be at the cabin for another twenty minutes given the snow and we’re nine minutes away. Do they smell metallic?”
“This place is on fire. I can't smell shit. Anyway, if I die, tell Wyatt he shouldn’t have moved stuff out of my apartment without telling me.”
“I think I agree enough with you that you should survive and tell him to his arrogant alpha face.”
She had a point.
I raised the gun the way I had been trained, spread my legs in a more balanced stance. I lined up the first shot to hit one of the wizards’ heads. I had never shot anyone before my life, and I knew that it wouldn't be nearly as see as I would be, but right now, it was easy to compartmentalize everything by remembering that it was them or me.
“I hope we find the bitch fast before that big yellow wolf comes back,” the one I had my sights trained on said with an ugly laugh.
Well, then. I pulled the trigger with the most surreal sense of calm I’d ever felt. He dropped like a log. The other two spun around, but before they do anything, I shot the second one in the chest. He staggered back against the wall, blood pouring, and slowly slid to the ground. The third one let out a yell of anger and pointed his palm to me. I remembered what Wyatt said about wizards and their fireballs and ducked out of the way. Just in time. A flaming sphere, one that looked like it should come out of a baby dragon's mouth in a fantasy movie, hit the spot I had just been standing in. I leaped back out and took aim. The first bullet missed, and the second one hit his arm. He howled and fell down.
I thought briefly about running off to find Wyatt, but the only way to stop these guys from coming after me again, even when injured, was to finish the job. I stepped closer, feeling my stomach quiver. It was one thing to scream at the television that the protagonist was an idiot for not killing an enemy, another to look down at an injured person and shoot them in cold blood.
“We’ll kill all of you,” the one I shot in the arm said. “I’ll fucking kill your boyfriend right in front of you. Or maybe the other way—”