Chapter 25 Help Is Not That Far

—Kaden —

I’d spent most of the week at Monaweard. Organizing with the Alphas, putting things in motions, getting more information, and preparing for an imminent battle.

That part had been the hardest to convince the others of.

Most wanted things to be taking care of rapidly and as peacefully as possible. Which was understandable, I’m pretty sure it’s the main option to small packs. Unless they are facing an equally small pack, and that is not getting reinforcement, then violence is too dangerous an option.

But the facility we found. After another reconnaissance mission, we figured it was a trafficking outpost. We found signs of organ harvesting. And we suspect the healthy females and pups were sold on the black market.

For the love of me, I can’t figure what type of profit could outweigh the massive amount of work and risks such an operation would garner.

I was sure that there was something else behind this. It’s the only way it made sense, but I just didn’t know what, and it bugged me to no end.

It took a little too long for my taste to convince them to make a move and as most of the information gathered from the scouting was not visible on cameras, it didn’t help much. But we had some footage of prisoners. It looked mostly like a distorted version of a concentration camp. You could nearly smell the reek through the screen. But the moment they saw young children, whatever hang ups they had, dissolved. There is one thing about the mind. The moment you hurt a child, there is an inescapable outrage that comes over you, and it has nothing to do with thoughts and everything to do with instincts. It’s not surprising that pedophiles are amongst the most despised criminals, even amongst some of the worst prisons in the world. The moment you touch a child, for most of us, a switch flips, and reasons fly out the windows, and all we want is to make them stop, permanently.

I don’t like what was happening to them, but I did appreciate the fact that it got things rolling.

There was still preparations needed, and I went home for the following weeks, until ideally we knew more, and mostly, where the pack was, as they were not living full time at the facility. We also needed to know if there were any other facilities too. It pained me not to move quickly, but if we did, they could just move to set up shop elsewhere, where we wouldn’t know and couldn’t interfere. We had to wait.

The plane hit the ground before noon.

It was slowing down when everything began moving roughly.

We were on the ground, it couldn’t be turbulence.

I rushed to the cockpit. Knocked twice, then got in.

“Is something wrong with the plane?” I asked the pilot and co-pilot.

They were looking at their instruments and repeating commands at one another, so I waited.

“I found nothing wrong, sir,” the pilot told me after a while.

The co-pilot pointed at people coming out of a building, shaken. “I think it’s the ground, sir. I think it was an earthquake.”

I looked at what he was pointing at. It made sense. So I moved out and called Brandon.

“Was this an earthquake?” I asked when he answered. He’s used to me having little decorum when speaking on the phone.

“Yes, sir.”

“Send a message to all rank members of all the packs to assess damages and prioritize any injuries or rescues if necessaries. Once you have the details about the damages, you’ll contact the insurance company. But first, all first-responders and rank members.”

“Yes, sir,” he said and I hung up.

I rushed out and made my move towards the house.

I saw no major damage along the way which is nice.

I got a call fifteen minutes in.

“Yeah.”

“There’s been an accident at the Celia offices,” Tahmina told me, my Delta. Her husband was CEO, so he probably called to tell her.

“What happened?”

“The crane from the construction next door fell and crashed into the building. Ben says it’s bad.”

“Change destination to Celia offices.” I told Sam and he swerved the car in the other direction. The airfield was a little closer to the city than home, so I might get there a little faster.

“Is he okay?” I asked her. She was pregnant and I preferred it if she didn’t have to deal with a seriously injured husband at the same time. She insisted on keeping up with work until the very end, but that would definitely go beyond her. And I’d need to replace him, at least temporarily. And besides, I just hate when my people are hurt. They’re my responsibility. I swore to protect them. I take this seriously.

“He said nothing bad,” she answered anxiously. “I’m on my way.”

“This is not a good idea,” I told her carefully.

“He’s my husband,” she said with a finality I couldn’t argue with.

“Be careful, you don’t need a premature pup along with all this,” I told her.

“Yes, Alpha,” she said. “Thank you.”

“I’m on my way,” I told her and hung up, at the same time my phone rang again.

For a second there, I thought I didn’t push the right button, but Eva’s name appeared on the screen.

“Kade, there just was an earthquake.”

“I know, I just landed, I felt it.”

“I heard things are bad at Celia.”

“I heard too, I’m on my way.”

“It’s everywhere in the chat room. Darren is there.” I could hear the pure terror in her voice.

“I’m on my way.”

“Me too,” she said.

“Be careful,” I told her. “Don’t drive like a maniac. Get someone to drive you if you need to.”

“Kade—, there’s at least one body.”

Those words hit me in the chest like a wrecking ball.

There’s a body. How bad is it?

“Let’s wait until we can verify information,” I told her. “And be careful,” I repeated.

“What if it’s him,” she asked, her voice small, fragile.

I wanted to say it wasn’t, but I didn’t know.

“We’ll know soon enough.”

When we arrived at the site, the street was completely blocked.

There were firetrucks, ambulances and police cruisers everywhere.

People walking around like zombies, dust-covered zombies.

The office was one square section that was thirty floors high, and at the back, adjacent to the main building was a long rectangle, going all the length of the main office and protruding on the right side, and it was seven storeys high.

The crane fell directly against the wall of the office building, then slid backward to crash into the seven-storeys section at the back, ending its fall in a wreckage pile.

The side of the main building had serious damages and I would have to close nearly all of it for repairs. I’d have to wait on expert assessments, but the structure didn’t seem compromised.

The back building on the other hand, was a mess.

If people were in there when it hit—.

It was at least two floors shorter, more where the crane was sprawled broken through it.

There was rubble on the land all around it. I’m going to have to level this section completely. There’s nothing salvageable.

I moved towards it in a daze.

There was a body bag on the ground, that some EMT was zipping up shut. They were people everywhere, some being treated, wrapped in blankets, looking dazed at the damage, or just onlookers hanging around or crying.

There was a chain of people taking some rubble out, and a firefighter slipping inside the carcass of the back office.

I went to the concrete ruins and spotted a member of my pack named Randall, I believed. I went to him.

“What’s the situation?” I asked him.

“There some people trapped down there,” he said, then raised his head and turned around. When he saw me, he froze for a moment. “Alpha,” he said inclining his head.

“What do you know?” I asked.

“A few of us went to help some of the people trapped here. One guy took charge, but as it got further below, he told us to stay clear and wait for his signal. He said it’s too unstable for many of us to walk in. And now the firefighters are taking charge and they’re not letting us back in. So we clear the way from the outside. So that they can move in and out.”

“So, there are still people inside?”

“Yes, sir.”

I looked at the firefighters and waited for them to look away, then put my finger on my lips in a shush signal to Randall. He nodded, and I slipped in.

I had to climb up on the debris, until I found an opening and slipped in.

I’m not a small man, and some sections were pretty hard for me to pass through.

Randall was also right, this was definitely not structurally safe.

I used my nose to guide me and the sounds of a moaning woman. As I approached I heard a man grunt in effort.

I slipped in further. There wasn’t much light here. Daylight couldn’t pass through except in small spots.

When I reached them I saw one man, pushing some smaller rubble away, a woman holding the hand of another, clearly in pain, pinned to the ground. She didn’t look entirely crushed there, which was good because otherwise the release of pressure could get her into shock, make her faint, or simply bleed out and die. My guess was mostly a few broken bones. A big concrete piece was atop her, and was probably locking in place one of her legs, at least. A second man was trying to lift the piece. It was huge and probably ridiculously heavy, and it moved. Not enough to free the woman, but it moved regardless.

The woman on the floor and the man moving smaller pieces were both human, the one kneeling at the head of the woman was a shifter, feline, cat is my guess, but the dust in the air made it harder to know without getting closer. The other man was a wolf. Clearly a strong one to move that much mass. As I looked at him, I recognized him.

Darren.

I went to the other man, he was bleeding from a few cuts. I put my hand on his shoulder and he squeaked and turned around in a terrified little jump.

“You’ve done enough man. Let me take over here,” I told him.

He nodded dazed.

“Leave, be careful on the way out, it’s not stable.” I gave him a simple run down of the direction I took. “When you get closer, call out, help his not that far.”

He moved slowly, but some parts were so dark, I didn’t think his human eyes could see enough.

I bent down to the wherecat woman.

“Go with him. Guide him,” I murmured to her. “But if you can, come back. We’ll need help to drag her out.” Her eyes were huge, looking at me, but she nodded and went.

Darren had lowered his charge and went to move a bloc that was putting pressure on the segment he tried to move.

I went to help clear as much as possible, then took my place on the other side.

When the werecat woman returned, I waited for her to take her place above the other woman’s shoulders, ready to drag her out.

“Ready?” I asked.

We positioned ourselves.

“Ready,” said Darren. And we pulled for all that we were worth.

That much effort couldn’t be done without letting our wolves reach the surface, but slowly the slab began to rise up.

I could feel my muscles on fire, but I only redoubled the effort.

Werecat-girl slowly moved the other woman whimpering painfully out of harm’s way. Once she was cleared, we lowered it slowly. I feared if we let it drop down too fast, the crash could lead to shifting the rubble, maybe even causing a small avalanche of bits of building to fall atop us.

I could feel the skin of my fingers tear in the bend, scraping against something sharp.

When it was back in place, I had to hold myself against it not to fall down in exhaustion. Darren didn’t bother and landed on his ass with a grunt. He was sweating profusely.

Werecat-girl, dragged the woman out slowly, supporting her weight most of the way. Werecats are not as physically strong as werewolves, but they’re extremely flexible and agile. And she should be able to get her out. She’d get help soon enough anyways.

“Are there any others down here?” I asked Darren a little out of breath.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “It’s hard to smell anything here. I found them because of the noise. Do you smell anything?” he asked me.

“Hard to say. There’s a lot of smells here. Give me a minute.” I strengthened up and moved a little to sniff. It took me a few minutes. Darren waited in silence.

“I think there might be something there.”

“Okay,” said Darren in a grunt and began to move in the direction a was looking in.

I went first.

It was even harder to reach.

I smelled the difference first, a few seconds later, I heard Darren make a noise. He smelled it too. I reached out. There was a shoe, it had a foot in it, but I saw no leg attached.

I emptied my jacket pockets in my pants pockets and laid it on the ground. Then I put the shoe on the jacket, and moved to see what else I could find. Darren turned his head aside. For an instant I thought he would be sick, but he shook himself up and came to help me.