My hands hit the door, jarring them with the force as I burst onto the roof. Ava screamed and ripped the kids behind her body, using herself as a shield, and I twisted, slamming it shut.
The racket coming from the stairwell was deafening as I stared at the door where I had just abandoned my mother pulling my gaze from the door. Ava rushed over, jamming a piece of a broken pipe she ripped off from somewhere through the handle and line that ran to the vents on the roof above the door.
Yet all I could think was, I left her in there. I ran and left her behind. Ava whimpers as she secures the bar; I didn’t have to tell her. She knew because mum didn’t come out behind me. Yet as she turned to look at me, I could see her heartbreak.
My entire body shook with adrenaline and shock. I left her. I thought when a tiny hand slipped into mine. Looking down, I find Valarian looking at me.
“Grandma will be okay,” he says, only I knew she wouldn’t be. I swallowed and blinked back tears before turning to him and picking him up. “Yep. She found another open door,” I tell him while walking over to the girls. I placed him beside the girls, where they were huddled on the ground by the air conditioner vent.
Ava moves to the ledge of the building, and I follow her, checking over my shoulder to make sure the kids don’t follow. She looks over, and so do I, and the City was in utter chaos and ruins. Buildings in the distance were on fire, screams rang out loudly, and a frenzied battle could be seen from here on the main street. Warriors were trying to hold the forsaken back from the borders. Valen was right. There were hundreds of them. They just kept coming.
The street directly below us was a scene from a horror movie as our men tried to keep them back. Two forsaken were dragging another wolf off, and I didn’t want to think what they were doing to him as they yelped loudly.
“Her tether?” Ava asked me, and I swallowed.
“Not broken yet. She is fighting,” I whispered, staring out blankly. I noticed from up here that not one of those forsaken were trying to get into Nixon’s pack directly across from us.
They were targeting ours the Slasher pack.
“How was the city outnumbered?” Ava gasps when an explosion goes off down by the cafe on the main street.
There was no other way to describe it, and the Pack warriors were outnumbered.
Slashers Packs men were trying to stop them from getting in, but a few slipped through, and just like our men, they couldn’t hold them back, they just kept coming It should be impossible that so many could go unnoticed, but when one of the sky-rise apartments across from us caught on fire, more screams rang out from the apartment building as Forsaken got inside, and I just hoped the roller shutters and the locked stairway door held.
The mind-link opens up, and I hear Zoe.
” Is Casey alright?”
the roof,” I answered while peering over my shoulder to look at the children, and she
get a hold of anyone,” she asked, but I couldn’t lie to her
a battlefield. “As long as Casey is safe,” she says. “Are you
in the basement with some of
what? Zoe?” I asked,
doors and bolted out. We tried to
no service in here, and
her. My heart was beating faster at her words. “We think
hit yet,” Zoe tells me. Yes, because they were all over here trying to access
mind-link is stretched when I feel Valen force it open, and Zoe
to hold tight a little longer,” he said, though pain radiated through the
Marcus? Zoe is trying to
the mind-link cuts off abruptly only for Zoe to reopen it, having felt the
“Marcus?”
would have felt the tether break,” I tell
felt helpless as I watched our pack getting slaughtered on the streets
Tatum POV
them back. I was screaming through the link for Valen to get here when a few slipped past me. Men called through the link that they were on the way. Yet as one fell, another replaced
taking a beating. The venom in my system was starting to make my muscles ache and lock. The only thing keeping me on my feet was adrenaline and knowing that Taylor, Valarian,
twist, nearly ripping my
claws ripped through my fur, making my back arch, and his teeth were like a serrated knife as they tore into the back of my
release me long enough to fling him off. I turned, running for the stairwell, my vision blurring as I ran when forsaken were suddenly running back out of the stairwell. My heart jolted seeing the rabid creatures running when one dropped as a huge, molten-colored wolf tore into its
blood-red eyes were savage, and venom was oozing and dripping from her teeth. Panic coursed through me, knowing if she turned on me, I
skidding on the slickened, blood-soaked floor, only to
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