Chapter 12

Trisha’s P.O.V:

“Where are we going?” I asked as Lucas stood up and rounded the table, heading for the door.

“You’ll find out soon enough.” He opened the door and I saw two wolves standing guard outside, their eyes holding the same golden gleam. Lucas must have had a conversation with them telepathically because they bowed their head and moved out of his way.

We walked through the same path we’d taken yesterday when he’d dropped me off at the bathroom. It reminded me of the wound I’d suffered in my own house. That wound was now completely healed, thanks to the salve the wolf Healer Dylan had whipped up for me, but mostly, it was Damien’s blood.

I pushed all thoughts of Damien at the back of my mind before they could compromise my judgment. He probably just wanted to stir up trouble, distract me from the case.

As we walked the short distance towards the bathroom, I felt quite surprised at how such huge buildings had been constructed on top of the forest giants. But one thing was certain, these buildings were fairly new. If my calculation was correct, these weren’t older than twenty to thirty years. It made me wonder where they used to live before residing here and how on Earth did they get all the supplies to this area without being noticed by any of the vampire patrol guards.

Suddenly, the hallway came to a dead end, and when Lucas tapped on the wood, it revealed a digital panel on the wall ahead that was very modern for this wood cabin in the middle of the forest. I went to ask him how he got it here, but the wall fell back to reveal a tunnel that dived straight down with no view of the bottom. This must be the exit route to the ground.

I snuck a peek from behind Lucas at the tunnel, but couldn’t seem to find the end of it. But my ears picked out the subtle sound of wind moving through the tunnel, swirling and making a distinct sound. It gave me reassurance that there was an exit. The tunnel itself was quiet large in diameter so that a wolf of Lucas’s size could easily fit through without any trouble of getting stuck.

“I’ll jump ahead and wait for you below. Do you need help getting down?” he asked.

“Guess not.” Lucas’s lips tilted up in an amused smile when I gave him a glare. And then he jumped.

I came forward to stand on the edge of the wooden floor. I could see a tiny glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel now, but the ground was too far below to predict the exact height of the fall. Taking a deep breath, I closed my eyes and jumped off the floor. The wind wooshed past me, blowing my hair in every direction. I opened my eyes a bare two seconds later to find the ground fast approaching me and I angled my legs together to make sure I don’t fall on my butt. Within seconds, I was on the ground, the foliage having cushioned my impact with the ground and Lucas was standing in front of me, making sure I was alright.

“Hate to admit it, but that was quite graceful.” He whistled.

“And why would you hate to admit that?” I frowned, looking up at all the forest giants and the houses built on top of them. And then I realized that the wolves had actually cut off the branches of the trees in such a way that the weight of the houses could be balanced by the large branches while the ones near the ground hid them from view. And the houses were built in such a fashion that two to three large as well as smaller trees around them would provide the camouflage of a canopy. That tunnel was built so that the wolves could land on to the ground without the fear of getting bruises from the branches around them, by hollowing out one side of a large trunk. And then there were the giants that were left unharmed among the buildings so that they could provide extra protection from being detected.

“Spare the wolves some pride would you?” Lucas grinned at me and then pointed towards the houses. “Clever aren’t they?”

“They’re beautiful. But how did you make them without being detected?” I asked him instead.

“A lot of hard work, blood, sweat and tears.” Lucas looked up at the aeries in admiration with a sigh. “I can’t tell you any details, but this has been here for a very long time. We’re just good at hiding and vampires are too sophisticated to set foot inside the forest.”

Lucas was right about that and as a vampire myself, I could vouch for it. Vampires indeed considered themselves too sophisticated to set foot in the forests that had overtaken the Earth after the Wipeout. We preferred tall buildings and expensive cars. I had preferred the same too…until my world came crashing down around me and my own kind are turning against me.

Shaking that thought out of my mind, I turned to face Lucas. “Now, where were you taking me?”

“That’s classified.” He told me and then pointed further into the forest. “We start walking that way.”

We both started walking deeper into the forest, skipping past tiny animals and snakes that came out of hiding in search for food or simply got too curious. I felt like I’d entered a whole new world that I never knew existed. There was so much beauty in this wilderness and a sense of peace that I haven’t felt in over a hundred years.

“Who would’ve thought that New York, the land of skyscraper would one day turn into a jungle?” I mused. There were still civilized spots in New York, as there were in the rest of the world, but there were only spots seen from outer space, like the forests had been once, nearly two hundred years ago.

This deep into the forest, the trees grew larger, thicker, with the space between them narrowing down as we moved forward. Even the sun didn’t reach the ground anymore, blocked by the thick canopy. Thankfully, both Lucas and I had proper vision.

“The Wipeout had many devastating effects, but I don’t consider this one of them.” Lucas spoke while looking up at the forest giants. “If not a supernatural war that wiped out more than half of the world’s population, then it would have been a nuclear war amongst the countries that hungered for power. And that would’ve just left the world uninhabitable.”

“I guess you have a point,” I told him before jumping over a fallen log. “Or maybe it’s just your wolfy vision.”

Lucas gave me a breathtaking grin, a single ray of sunlight penetrating the thick canopy overhead to fall on his face, and then he was sprinting ahead at full speed. “Come on sucker! Catch me if you can!”

A laugh escaped my lips before I too, sprinted after him. The wind whipped my hair on to my cheeks and the ground felt even under my feet. Suddenly, I felt young in a way that I hadn’t felt in a long time. I chased after Lucas, holding back my speed so I could keep up with Lucas and also not overstrain my leg. Soon enough, I felt the forest thin out. There were more sunny spots and the air wasn’t as dense as it had been a few minutes ago.

Lucas finally came to a halt after running for a full ten minutes and as I came to stand beside him, I saw a wall of trees right in front of us that blocked our way. “It’s a dead end.” I told him while looking up at the forest giants.

It wasn’t a literal wall, but the tall trees had been planted so close to one another that there was no way we could pass through them. There was hardly any gap between the trees and even if someone managed to get through the first layer, I could see plenty of other layers one after the other, set in a way that even a vampire would start feeling claustrophobic. The line of trees seemed to stretch on forever on either side of us and the thick canopy on top was too high to climb up unless you were to cross it via a chopper.

“This way.” Lucas started walking ahead of me, guiding me towards the wall. But he didn’t stop once we reached it; instead, he walked between the gap formed by two thick trees to enter the next layer.

We instantly came up against a roadblock, but Lucas seemed to know where he was going, so I followed his lead. Ten more minutes and four layers of trees, we came out on the other side of the wall, and my eyes widened at the sight that lay beyond.

“Humans…” I whispered in disbelief as I watched the scenery in front of me.

“Yup.” Lucas placed his hands on his hips as he looked ahead at the sprawling village filled with thousands of humans. “Welcome to the Sanctuary.”