20. Atlas

20

ATLAS

B ishop turned to Tex, who he'd tapped to join our arm of the mission. "You can shift now if you want."

Without a word, Tex mechanically kicked off his shoes, tugged off his clothes, cracked his neck in one direction and then the other, before the transformation took over.

His wolf form seemed to come so naturally to him, and I bit back my jealousy.

It was strange, missing the tenuous connection I'd been developing with my wolf. My time in The Guild labs sent me back so far in the process that I couldn't even be mad that Bishop wanted to tap another wolf for our prong of the attack.

Tex would be in wolf form, which he honestly seemed to prefer.

In all of my time at The Lodge, during all of our training together for today, I'd never heard Tex utter more than a grunt in acknowledgement.

I knew he was with Charlie's friend, Mer, but that was the extent of my knowledge.

Tex's wolf was deep shades of red and brown, as bulky and muscular as the man he shared a body with .

He shook out his thick fur, and sank low to the ground, nose pressed to the dirt and grime, assessing the small abandoned barn we'd chosen for our holding pattern. Our mark was less than fifty feet away, so once we left these dilapidated walls, there'd be no more element of surprise, no going back.

In his wolf form, Tex's senses would be stronger than ours, so he'd be the first to notice if we had company. That eased some of my anxiety.

But only some. The majority of my fear was thousands of miles away with Max.

I hated that we were all separated. Bishop's plan was a good one, but I honestly would have preferred if it hadn't been.

We were in the Midwest, somewhere between Cleveland and Detroit, where one of the satellite branches of The Guild operated. I'd been here before, as had Bishop and Wade, so we were the ideal candidates to take on this location.

Finding our way through the place wouldn't be the difficult part though.

"Never thought I'd get to go on a mission with you two after all," Bishop said, his mouth curving into a small grin, no longer looking quite as nauseous as he had when we'd finished our journey. "Kind of exciting, isn't it?"

"When I was a kid, I always hoped Atlas and I would end up on a team with you." Wade snorted. "Never imagined that our first mission together would involve infiltrating The Guild and offing a member of the council."

Bishop's smile widened and he clapped a hand down on Wade's shoulder the way he used to when he was half his size. "Kind of exciting though. Charlie almost always has me busy at The Lodge. I rarely get out into the world, a taste of the action and all that."

I smiled in spite of myself, recalling the list of ‘make sures' and ‘be carefuls' that Charlie had saddled him—and then the rest of us—with, before giving him an awkwardly long kiss that had made me feel like a voyeur to witness.

"You've made a good life for yourself, Bishop." I nodded towards the door, ready to go. We'd been the last group in the procession, so we didn't have the luxury of waiting around too long. Which, honestly, was ideal. Adrenaline had me bouncing on my feet, raring to go. "Let's get in, get out, and get you home to your family before Charlie sends a search party.

He laughed, his eyes lighting up at the mention of her.

I meant it. Apocalypse and chaos of The Lodge and all that came with it aside, I was happy for Bishop. He'd found a community, a home. I'd missed him, and grieving his loss was tough, but it warmed me now to know that this kind of life was possible—-that people who'd grown up in our family, with fathers like Tarren, had a chance at working through all the bullshit.

At finding tenderness.

It gave me hope for whatever possible future I might carve out with Max. Like maybe I wasn't as much of a lost cause as I'd told myself I was.

"You think the lab is the best starting place?" Wade asked, eyes darting around as we shuffled towards the large warehouse-like building in front of us.

The grounds were quiet, and Tex guided our path around the couple of protectors who'd been out patrolling.

He was good. Quick, quiet, and oddly adept at communicating in his wolf form.

Bishop and I both nodded.

Their lab was less sophisticated than the one back at Headquarters had been, but I had a feeling they'd used some of their time in the last months fortifying and strengthening it.

It was the second-largest Guild campus in the States, so it made sense that Evelyn clocked Rebecca, one of the oldest council members, here .

The entry hall was quiet, nothing but the dull, cobwebbed lights casting over the worn, red carpet and a few scattered chairs.

Bishop glanced at me, nodded, and we moved in, following Tex deeper into the building.

This structure was only two floors and a basement, and I knew that the second floor was almost exclusively living quarters.

If Rebecca wasn't in the conference area that team leaders frequently used to debrief, then she'd almost certainly be in the basement.

That's where the most security was, and where the inner workings of this station usually went down.

It was also where I'd spent the majority of my time during my brief stays at this branch.

Tex froze, a low growl emanating from him—a growl my own wolf felt and responded to.

I grabbed my blade and nodded to Wade and Bishop to be on alert.

We weren't as alone as we thought we were.

Rather than stay and find out, or get caught by whoever was close by, we took off at a run. Better to find what we came for as quickly as possible—fewer chances for fucking up or getting caught off guard that way.

But when we turned into the hall, we met two people. Both looked to be in their late twenties and both were clearly not expecting us.

"Who are you?" The shorter one asked, his curiosity melting almost instantly to terror when his gaze snagged on Tex. "Fuck."

His friend took off in the opposite direction, running as fast as he could.

Tex glanced back at Bishop, whose lips were pressed in a grim line, and at his nod, eclipsed the distance to the runner, until he overtook him completely.

The attack was quick and brutal, and the protector's corpse lay mangled on the floor, the red carpet beneath him turning a darker shade as it absorbed his blood.

Wade knocked the other guy out, who'd let surprise cannibalize any chance at responding forcefully to our presence.

Unconscious, not dead. Probably. I didn't much care either way, if I was being honest. Not anymore.

But when I looked back, I saw three sets of eyes disappear around the corner.

Fuck. More of them.

Before I could take off after them, a sharp, loud alarm reverberated through the building, echoing through the hall in tandem with a blaring red light that flashed in the ceiling.

Wade exhaled. "Guess there goes the element of surprise."

"Check the room, quick," I yelled to Tex, my voice competing with the siren.

The debriefing room was a few feet away from him and he'd shoved the door open by the time the rest of us caught up to him.

"Empty," Bishop muttered, turning back to me with a sardonic smirk, "suppose it wouldn't have been fun if it had been that easy. Lead the way to the labs."

Loud footsteps sounded above as protectors swarmed from their rooms. Ignoring them entirely, I rushed us down two more halls, through a back room, and down the stairs to the labs and medical ward.

We were only challenged by four more protectors who had the sense to notice we were running in the opposite direction from everyone else and therefore not friendly. But we took them down quickly and discreetly.

"It's locked." Wade cursed. "Suppose that we should have expected that." He turned to me, eyes narrowed. "One quick jump shouldn't hurt, right?"

We were only to use Max's powers in desperate need, to help preserve them for whichever team needed them most, but we both knew we had no other option here.

"Might as well shift us to the center of the lab if we're using it anyway, give us the best advantage," I said. "You remember where it is?"

Wade nodded then held a tentative hand out to Tex, not entirely sure how he'd respond to being pushed through space in his wolf form. There'd been a reason he'd waited until the barn to transform.

"Please don't bite me," he gritted as he grabbed the wolf, then clasped me and Bishop into an awkward hug, before teleporting.

One of the main control rooms was usually situated where we landed. But clearly, they'd made some changes since the last time I'd been here.

"Fuck." I got my bearings as quickly as possible, but then did my best not to move. We were surrounded by cells, the glass walls encasing them the only thing separating us from the demons thrashing around on the other side.

Tex was growling, and stiffly put as much distance between us as he could, clearly responding poorly to his first shift in this form.

"Um, Atlas," Wade muttered, at my back, "isn't that her?"

I spun around, not exactly sure which ‘her' I expected to find.

One glass wall was wider than the others and revealed ten faces on the other side.

The farthest one on the left, a short woman with streaks of gray woven through her blonde hair, watched us with the promise of pain in her eyes.

"Rebecca, I assume." Bishop's jaw was clenched as he watched the panel of protectors. "Never seen her in person before, but no mistaking those dark lines down her neck."

The series of faces watching us weren't demons. They were in an observation room. And we were in the center of some weird arena they'd boxed in for some reason.

Behind them were a series of security screens revealing various rooms from the building. All of them revealed still and calm loops, where I knew there was really panic and chaos above.

Rebecca followed my focus, brows arched.

"I see Arnell has disrupted our feeds again. Truly seamless work." Her voice filtered in above us, grainy and voluminous through a speaker. She shook her head. "Shame we lost that boy's skills, though I do hope we'll welcome him back soon. I thought after the last time, we'd tightened up our security. I'd been assured that hacking in again would be an impossible feat. Clearly not. Thankfully, we've been expecting some kind of breach, so the alarms gave us enough time to collect ourselves. Just barely." Her eyes narrowed, head tilted to the side. "I must say, I wasn't expecting your teleportation abilities. Interesting, truly."

All four of us remained silent, with Tex prowling the perimeter of the cages, hardly reacting as the people inside pounded and screamed against their barriers.

"A shame the girl isn't with you." The lines of her face were etched with disappointment, and the other protectors clustered around her seemed to all be alternating between either a strained, anticipated excitement, and fear. "I've been hoping to meet her, to speak to her. Another time, perhaps."

"I don't sense anything here," Wade muttered to me, ignoring her and the other protectors entirely.

His focus darted briefly to Tex and back to me and I knew he feared the same thing I did. Wolves didn't like being contained. And we'd effectively brought Tex into a cage through one of the most disorienting ways of travel conceivable.

If we weren't careful, it was entirely possible he'd attack one of us.

I didn't blame him. My lungs were struggling to pull in full breaths of air as I fought my panic. All I could smell was the medicinal cocktail of chemicals they pumped into the demons they kept here. Well, that, mixed with blood.

I knew that they often injected demons with things to suppress their power, but it felt like that shit was in the air here. My wolf was uneasy too and I could feel myself on the verge of transforming.

My flesh stung at the mere memory of living locked up in these cells, even if this wasn't the branch where I'd been kept.

All cages were the same in the end.

"Do you?" Wade asked.

I swallowed back my fear, trying like hell to ignore the panic flooding my brain at the memories of being one of The Guild's prisoners. My thoughts had already started cycling back to the terror that the Drude had played in my mind on loop.

Closing my eyes, I took a deep breath, then tried to sense the shadow magic. But I knew if Wade didn't feel anything, then chances were I didn't stand a chance. He had a much closer connection to shadow magic than I did.

Nothing.

Until all I saw were flashes of visions I hadn't suffered in weeks: Max dead at my feet. Wade with his head lying four feet from the rest of his body.

My eyes sprang open and I swallowed back the hot bile bubbling up in the back of my throat.

I took a deep breath, pressed the images down as far as they would go. Fuck this.

The shadow magic wasn't here. We needed to kill this woman and get the fuck out. A wrongness hung in the air, and I could feel myself on the edge of losing the small facade of composure I'd built up these last few months.

"The stone," I said, my voice loud and echoing off the walls. "Where are you keeping it?"

If I were a council member, I wouldn't bother answering such a question.

Which was why it was shocking as hell when she did.

"Now Atlas," she made a tsking noise that crackled through the speakers above us, her pedantic disdain raining down on us all, "you didn't really believe that we'd keep the thing you could use to control us somewhere you'd think to look, did you? The thing you want most? Tarren had his faults, but I thought he taught you boys better than that."

Wade stiffened at my side. A careful glance down revealed his fingers clutching the handle of his blade with far more force than would be useful in a fight.

He was just as on edge as I was, and I wasn't sure if it was because there really was something in the air—something that messed with our minds, or just because she was fucking with us. An entirely different kind of psychological warfare.

"And you." Rebecca's eyes narrowed as she studied Bishop. "Your face, it's familiar. I've seen you in reports." She tilted her head to the side, considering. "Not as dead as we thought, are you?" Her lips spread into a gummy smile that looked uncannily like a wolf preparing to snap. "We'll rectify that today." Then, turning to a man at her side, she added, "The girl's not here, I'm done with this. Release them so we can finish up our work for the day. I'm famished."

For a moment, I thought she meant to release us, which didn't make sense. We weren't trapped here. She was the one who'd need releasing.

But just as quickly as the confusion arrived, it dispersed.

The tandem puffs of airlocks released in cadence around us, followed by the heavy click of bolts I couldn't see .

And then, the thick glass windows separating us from the locked-up demons surrounding us were gone.

"Fuck." Wade shifted so that he was at my back as the demons poured into what was now very clearly going to be used as an arena for the sick fucks on the other side of the observation deck. The room filled with snarls and screams as the creatures fought for their freedom, for resources—most of them probably so drugged they had no conception of what they were doing. Tex was across the room locked in a fight with another wolf, and Bishop was fending off attacks left and right as he struggled to get closer to him. "We need to kill her and then get the fuck out of here."

But we couldn't leave Tex and we couldn't leave Bishop. I wouldn't return to The Lodge without them.

"Kill her, quickly," I muttered from the side of my mouth, hoping she wouldn't hear me, "she won't expect you shifting to her while the rest of us are fighting. Attack her from behind, go straight for the heart. I'll get them," I bit out.

Wade cursed, then nodded. "Don't die."

I didn't wait for him to dematerialize, instead I took off at a run towards the far end of the room, where Tex was locked in a fight against two wolves now.

One of the prisoners latched onto me, claws digging through the muscle of my shoulder, but I shoved them off without too much effort.

Bishop reached them almost as soon as I did.

In tandem we raised our blades, ready to join in the fray, but then I froze.

The larger of the two wolves, with fur a shade of black that looked almost blue, caught the attention of my wolf. It took me a second to realize why, but my stomach dropped when I did.

"Mavis."

Bishop froze. "The kid who used to hang around you guys all the time? "

I nodded.

I knew from Sarah that Mavis had turned, that he was feral, and that The Guild had been torturing him with their experiments. Neither of us had been in a position to find him when Max and Darius broke us out of that place, and by the time I'd come to, it was clear that he hadn't made the trip with us to Bishop and Charlie's set up. He must have been transferred before that night, to this facility. That, or he'd run, as had several other captive demons, and found himself in Guild control again somewhere down the line.

His yellow eyes snagged on mine briefly as he sank his teeth into Tex's shoulder, but there was no recognition there.

"Fuck." Bishop ran a hand through his hair in frustration, then fell to the side as a battle between what looked like two vampires shoved too close. "We can't kill him, Atlas. I can't kill him."

I nodded, frozen with indecision for a moment, but then I grabbed the other wolf attacking Tex—the one I had no connection with—and threw him a few feet away.

He snapped and snarled, then crouched low in preparation to attack again. This time I had no doubt I would be on the receiving end of his temper, but another creature jostled him, drawing his ire instead.

Bishop wrestled with Mavis, trying like hell to get between him and Tex. It was a dangerous, reckless thing to do. If Mavis didn't attack him, it was entirely possible Tex would.

Before I could intervene, I went crashing into the nearest wall, across from the observation deck..I strained my eyes through the throng of demons, trying to get a look at Wade.

Rebeccca was dead, her body collapsed like a doll in a chair, a hole in her chest where her heart used to be, and Wade was fighting the only four protectors who remained in the booth. The rest had either fled at his dramatic arrival or were dead.

A vampire snapped at my neck and I knocked him to the ground, only to get attacked by two more creatures I couldn't identify.

From the corner of my eye, I saw Bishop holding Mavis, pulling him away from the onslaught, his skin caked in blood.

Mavis bit Bishop's hand, but he didn't let him go. Raw determination lined my cousin's brows as he tried like hell to get Mavis back to safety.

Tex was preoccupied, locked in a fight with the werewolf I'd torn off him.

Two more demons were behind Bishop, preparing to attack.

Fuck.

This counted as an emergency.

I focused on my bond with Max, on conjuring her fire, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get it to materialize. Was it because of whatever shit they had pumping in this room? The distance?

No. We'd been able to teleport.

Or was Max or someone else using it? Were they in as much danger right now as we were?

With a grunt, I knocked one of the demons back as I slid my blade into the chest of the other.

Not waiting for the others to react or respond, I ran back towards Bishop and Tex, trying like hell to get to them.

"Behind yo—" I screamed, the sound half grunt as a wolf knocked into me. I shoved him away and stood back up. "Drop Mavis, he can handle himself. Bishop, your six."

Wade rematerialized in front of me, his eyes wide as he momentarily tried to decide who to help. He shoved a blade into a demon on his right, his face caked in sweat. "Took me a second to teleport. Someone else must have been."

I tried to pull fire again, but couldn't. "Can you access her hellfire?"

Wade reached Tex, dodged a blow from a vampire who was attacking the wolf. He shook his head. "I can't. "

Fuck.

I shoved another demon away, but the crowd between me and Bishop was even thicker now.

I teleported to him, just as a vampire sank his fangs into Bishop's neck.

He let Mavis's thrashing body go at the shock of it, and I slammed my blade into the vamp's back, between two ribs, with enough force to pierce his heart.

He collapsed, taking Bishop down with him.

"Get Tex and bring him here," I yelled to Wade. They were about fifteen feet away, their fight taking them further and further from us. "We need to get the fuck out of here, now."

Bishop stood, shaking his head. "We aren't leaving Mavis here to die. That kid deserves better. We're bringing him home with us."

Before I could stop him, he took off after him.

"He's feral, Bishop, you can't get to him while he's like that." I tried to follow and froze.

Darkness swirled around the edges of my vision and a figure stood before me.

Unlike everyone else in the room, there wasn't a speck of blood or gore on her. She had dark hair that fell across her face, and when her eyes met mine, I lost the ability to breathe.

A drude.

No.

I took a few steps back, tripped on a body, and completely ignored the jolt of another falling into me.

"I won't go back there, I won't go back," I whispered.

Grab your blade, Atlas. Come on.

My hands were stiff, my fingers frozen in a claw-like grip that I couldn't budge.

Suddenly, I didn't see the white room, splashed in shades of red, crowded with demons just fighting for a chance at survival.

All that I saw was my team .

Max was in front of me, her throat sliced, blood trickling to the ground around her. She gasped, eyes wide with fear as they found me.

"Atlas," my name was a blood-laced gurgle on her lips. "Help me."

I crawled towards her, pressed my hands to her throat as I tried like hell to stem the bleeding. My vision blurred and my heart beat so rapidly that I was half-convinced it would bruise my ribs.

"No. Not again. Not again."

Her body stilled beneath me. Gone.

Wade was next to me, indigo eyes leaking tears of red as he crouched over her. A blade was submerged in his chest as he sank down around her.

We were losing. It was over.

I screamed until my throat went hoarse from the force of it.

Wade stood up, the dagger gone, his eyes dry. "Atlas."

I blinked. The two scenes smashed together as I watched the drude collapse in front of me, her neck snapped at a bad angle as Wade's mouth moved.

The ringing and echo of my scream dissolved into the chaos of the room. "Wade?"

"Atlas!" He was crouching over me now, Tex at his side, snarling a warning at a demon who got too close. "Where's Bishop?"

Bishop.

Shaking my head, I stood. I dug my fingers into my palm, focusing on the pain to ground me.

Bishop was across the room, surrounded by two wolves, neither of which was familiar.

"No." My chest gripped at the sight of the wolf at his feet. Mavis. Still. Too still.

The wolves lunged at Bishop, just as Wade grabbed me and teleported the three of us to him .

When we rematerialized, the larger of the two wolves had Bishop's throat in his mouth.

I grabbed onto Bishop with one hand, and buried my hand into Mavis's fur in the other. We'd bring his body home, at least. Mavis deserved that much. For a moment, I thought I felt the soft pulse of the wolf's heart.

A tendril of hope spurred in my chest.

Was he somehow still alive?

In another breath, Wade pulled us out.

I fought for breath, my lungs tight as our new surroundings came into focus. We were back in the barn, but we'd brought the other wolf with us too.

In one fluid movement, I pulled him away from Bishop and snapped his neck. He wasn't dead, but he wouldn't be able to attack us for a while. Maybe when he woke up, he'd stand a chance at a new life, away from the fucked-up depravity of Guild imprisonment.

Tex began to shift back, the loud cracks and pops of his bones a painful soundtrack.

"Atlas," Wade's voice was low, laced with panic. "Atlas!"

When I turned around, Wade was clutching Bishop's throat, trying to stem the blood from where the wolf had hitched a ride.

For a moment, I was disoriented by the similarities of this scene to the one I saw conjured in the drude's nightmare.

Like Max's had been, Bishop's eyes were wide open.

Only Bishop's eyes were empty.

Wade shook his head, eyes glazing over slightly as his jaw clenched in an attempt to swallow back his emotion.

My own throat tightened with grief.

Bishop was dead.