Page 164 of The Wolves of Forest Grove

It took far longer than I would’ve imagined, but eventually I was able to stand. To walk.

Not that it helped much. In the pitch dark of the cellar the only things I could find were cobwebs and mouse droppings. They’d been careful, it seemed, to remove everything from the space.

There wasn’t any way I could reach the hatch above, either. I’d tried. If I could shift, then maybe...but my wolf lay dormant inside, leaving me all alone.

For so long, I’d wished to never have been changed. In the beginning I’d fought that new foreign part of myself. Hated it, even. But without her I felt lost now. Bereft.

Abandoned.

Though that wasn’t the reason I’d begun to pace. Nor was it the reason my skin was crawling, my heart fluttering against the bones of my ribs like a bird beating against a sealed window. No escape.

No escape.

Panic twisted my guts and made breathing so much of a chore that every few moments I had to gasp for it, to force it down into my lungs just to keep from passing out again.

He’s going after them.

Piper had told Devin what I was thinking, what I planned, and now he was going to kill them. He would kill them all.

I choked as bile tried to force its way up my throat, my stomach heaving, but there was nothing in there to be expelled. It didn’t stop my body from trying though, making fresh tears sting my already burning eyes.

I need to get out. Get up, Allie.

Get. Up.

My head spun as I found my footing again, going back to the wall to search for any sort of handhold nearest to where I could see the tiniest bit of light filtering through a fissure in the wooden hatch above.

Judging by the light, it was day. Had been for some time, though I could only recall a few hours.

I’d passed out not long after Devin locked me inside.

My body folding to the first wave of anxiety like a cheap tent.

I wouldn’t let that happen again.

I knew they were still alive. I could feel it in my bones. And as long as my mates drew breath on this earth, there was no way in hell I was going to stop fighting to save them.

My shaking hands brushed over the rough wooden surface of the wall, catching a couple of splinters I ignored. There were no shelves. No tables. Nothing.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d have to assume I was in an oversized wooden coffin. Sure as fuck felt like one.

Getting an idea, I steeled myself, spreading my legs wide and swinging my clenched fist into the wood paneling. The wood splintered and snapped and my fist went through. My triumph was quickly muted as my knuckles smashed into hard brick.

“Fuck!” I cradled my fist to my chest, testing the knuckles for breaks. It seemed fine, but the pinky was questionable. I’d have to worry about setting it later.

I gripped the edge of the wood, and a small grin pulled up at the corner of my lips. I’d made a handhold. If I could just do that about eight more times, I could reach the hatch.

My smile faltered.

Then what, genius?

The hatch was chained shut. And every twenty minutes or so someone entered the cabin above, did a sweep, and then exited the front door again. I had to assume there were at least two out there at all times.

If I made a ruckus trying to break through the goddamned hatch, they’d just come and stop me. And the commotion from that would draw even more of them.

Doesn’t matter, I told myself. You still need to try.

I shook out the sting still lingering in my split knuckles, giving it another couple of seconds to heal before throwing it through the wood again.

I whimpered as my knuckles struck the brick, the pain radiating up through my forearm.

I could use a little help, I whispered inwardly, still drawing on my inner wolf. I’d all but forgotten how bullshit human strength was. At least I was healing quickly though, at least there was some sign that the alchemist hadn’t succeeded in binding my wolf. At least not fully.

Footsteps charged inside from above, and I crouched, eyeing the hatch, holding my breath.

“You hear that?” one asked another. A pause.

“Nah, what was it?”

“Not sure.”

Silence.

“It’s gone now. Probably just the bitch throwing herself against a wall.”

“A lot of good that’ll do.”

They shared a laugh, and rage burned through my veins as they retreated back to their posts outside the old hunter’s cabin.

There was no way I was going to be able to punch seven more holes in this damned wall to reach the top without them coming to investigate. But...maybe that was a good thing.

If they opened the hatch…

Ugh.

Without my wolf, I was useless, who the hell was I kidding.

I leaned back against the wall and sank, pulling my knees into my chest and closing my eyes to focus.

“I can feel you,” I whispered. “I know you’re still in there.”

She was in pain. We were in pain.

But we would keep being in pain for the rest of our miserable lives if we did nothing to save them.

Please.

A scratching sound, like tiny claws on wood, brought me back out of my head.

I squinted into the dark, trying to figure out where it was coming from and wondering absently if I was hungry enough to eat a raw rat. Shudder. I may not be, but if my wolf would cooperate, she wouldn’t hesitate to gobble it up.

Feeling my way, I crawled across the dirty floor, listening intently as the sound came again. Louder this time and followed by the familiar sound of dirt and small stones trickling down to the ground. Along with the knock of one brick being set atop another.

A dim light shone through one of the hollow knots in a panel of wood, and I gasped, hearing someone grunt on the other side.

Hurriedly, I pressed my eye to the notch, peering through to see the silhouette of someone moving. Behind them I could make out what appeared to be a stretch of space and stairs leading up.

It was another entrance to the cellar. One the hunter would’ve used to haul in big game so he wouldn’t have to track it through the house. I wanted to smack myself for not thinking to check for it, but clearly this entrance had been sealed up a long time ago.

I tried to get a better look at who was attempting to burrow into my makeshift cell, but when they moved, dirt sprayed into my eye and I fell back, trying to blink it clear.

The wood panel groaned as though they were pushing on it, and I scrambled to my feet, readying myself for a fight.

It looked like there was only one. Even without my wolf, I could take them. I had to.

The panel snapped free, and I clamped my jaw shut to silence the sounds of my haggard breathing, praying the shifters guarding the cabin upstairs didn’t hear.

A slender shape slipped through the opening, and I blinked into the second-hand light, bending low in preparation to tackle them.

Piper held up her hands, her eyes going wide at the sight of me. She put her finger to her lips.

I looked past her to the short tunnel and stairway, unable to stop myself from moving toward it.

The girl launched herself at me, gripping my arms frantically to stop me from leaving. I shook her off, resisting the urge to shout. Couldn’t draw any more attention than Piper likely already had.

She moved her hands, trying desperately to tell me something that I wasn’t understanding. I shook my head, confused. “I don’t understand.”

Not just what she was trying to tell me, but what the hell she was doing here. I had to assume she was helping me, but...why?

“I need to go. He’s going to kill them if I don’t.”

She shook her head, and I cocked mine at her in response. She clenched her jaw and tugged a tiny chunk of pencil shaved almost all the way down to the eraser end out of her pocket. She searched for something to write on, and I hurriedly pulled off my nightgown, thrusting it at her.

Her eyes lit up, and she pushed the gown against the wall, beginning to write something.

Not safe yet. Need to wait. Trust me.

My brows drew together as I glanced between her and my freedom. The leafy pattern lying in shadows against the stairs told me she was at least smart enough to have camouflaged the opening. But the covering was sparse. If someone looked too closely…

“Is there someone on patrol nearby?” I asked in a whisper.

Piper squinted at me and I realized she was looking at my mouth, trying to understand what I was saying. I repeated the question more slowly, giving her ample opportunity to read my lips.

She nodded and held up four fingers. Four of them.

In my wolf form, maybe I could take them. But definitely not like this.

She then held up two fingers with one hand and made a zero with the other before pointing to her wrist as though she were wearing a watch.

“Twenty minutes?”

She nodded again and went back to writing on the white shift for a painfully long minute before turning it to face me again.

He was never going to let any of them live no matter what. I’m sorry. I thought he was different. I didn’t know how far he would go.

I remembered how Devin knocked into her in the tent and how he warned her off ever touching him again.

She definitely got a good earful of his thoughts during that quick exchange, and it was obvious he’d never allowed her to read him before.

Otherwise, I was willing to bet she wouldn’t have been so eager to help a psychopath.

I held up a hand. “It doesn’t matter. I just have to get back to my pack. If I’m fast enough, then maybe I can still save my mates and the rest of them.”

Her lips parted, and she hurriedly scribbled out two more words.

Still alive.

“I know,” I replied, confused. “I would feel it if my mates were dead.”

She shook her head, flustered.

The other ones, she wrote. He said he killed them, but they are not dead yet. They are still alive. He sold them to the witch.

My wolf stirred within.

Still alive?

“Are you sure?”

She nodded and I tried to count the hours between when the witch cast his spell on me and now. Would that be enough time for him to arrange pick up and transport of that many shifters?

“Do you know where they are?”