Chapter Ninety Eight: The Breach

The alarm tore through the facility like a blade  shrill, metallic, relentless. Red lights strobed against the concrete walls, painting everything in flashes of blood.

Mason pulled Evelyn toward the stairwell, his pistol raised. Emily covered their backs, her rifle spitting sparks as the first wave of wolves rounded the corner. Snarls and claws thundered against the floor.

“Move!” Mason shouted, dragging Evelyn through the doorway. Bullets sparked against metal, wolves shrieking as they fell, but more kept coming.

Evelyn stumbled, her chains clattering around her wrists. Mason lifted her against his side, his grip steady. “I’ve got you.”

Her breath was ragged, her voice breaking. “Don’t… don’t let them take me back.”

“Not happening,” Mason said, his tone iron.

Emily tossed a flashbang down the hall. The blast lit the corridor white-hot, wolves yelping as the echo shook the walls. “Go, go!” she barked.

They slammed through a steel door into another wing of the warehouse. Here the air was thicker, hotter  the stench of fur and blood stronger. Rows of cages stretched along the walls, some empty, some still occupied. Half-formed creatures pressed against the bars, their eyes glowing in the strobing red light.

Evelyn froze. “God…”

“Don’t look,” Mason growled, pulling her forward. “We’re not here for them.”

But one cage door rattled open on its own. A wolf hurled itself out, bigger than the rest, its muscles straining against scars stitched into its hide. Emily opened fire, but the thing kept coming, bullets punching through flesh but not slowing it down.

Mason shoved Evelyn behind him and charged. He emptied his pistol into the beast’s chest, then drove his shoulder into it, slamming it against the wall. The wolf clawed his arm, tearing through fabric and skin, but Mason didn’t stop. With a roar, he jammed his last round point-blank into its skull. The wolf dropped in a heap.

Blood dripped down Mason’s forearm, his breath ragged. He turned back. “Keep moving. Now.”

They barreled through another hall, the exit door finally in sight. Emily kicked it open, and cold night air hit them like salvation.

But outside wasn’t freedom. The yard swarmed with more wolves, their eyes glinting under the floodlights. Dozens of them. A whole pack waiting.

Evelyn’s heart lurched in her chest. Mason steadied her, his voice hard but steady. “Stay behind me. Emily  left flank.”

Emily nodded, teeth gritted. “We’ll never make it through all of them.”

Mason scanned the yard containers stacked high, a half-loaded truck by the fence, guards’ vehicles still running near the gate. His mind clicked through options like gears in motion. “We make them choke on the fight. Keep moving, no matter what.”

The first wolf charged. Mason fired. Emily fired. The yard erupted into chaos gunfire, snarls, screams, the metallic taste of blood hanging thick in the air.

Evelyn crouched low, chains cutting into her wrists, fear burning through her veins. But as Mason and Emily fought tooth and nail, something else stirred in her chest  not just terror, but rage. Rage at Rhodes. Rage at being caged. Rage at being hunted like prey.

The wolves closed in from all sides. Mason shouted over the chaos: “We’re not dying here!”

And somewhere in the shadows above the yard, unseen, Rhodes watched with a smile as though every step of this escape was part of the plan.

The alarm blared before they even reached the first stairwell. Harsh red lights bathed the corridors, painting every surface like spilled blood. The sound was deafening, bouncing off the concrete walls, vibrating in Mason’s chest.

“Move!” he shouted, pulling Evelyn close against him as Emily swept their rear with her rifle.

The hallway stretched ahead, long and unforgiving. Shadows flickered behind the flashing sirens. Then the growls came low, guttural, answering the alarm like a chorus.

Emily swore under her breath. “They’re letting the whole pack loose.”

Mason’s grip tightened on his pistol. “We just need to make it out. Stay close.”

They bolted down the corridor. Evelyn stumbled, her wrists still raw from the shackles, but she kept pace. She hadn’t said a word since they pulled her from the cage her silence was worse than panic. Mason could feel the tremors running through her body, every step weighed down with exhaustion and fear.

The first wolf burst from a side hall, claws scraping sparks off the concrete as it lunged. Mason fired three rounds, the recoil punching up his arm. The beast crashed to the floor but twitched, trying to rise. Emily stepped in, finishing it with a clean shot to the head.

“Keep moving!” she yelled, chest heaving.

They rounded a corner straight into a second wave. Two wolves, leaner, faster, their eyes glowing with hunger. Mason shoved Evelyn behind him and fired, but his clip ran dry. The wolves leapt.

Emily dropped one midair, but the second slammed Mason hard into the wall. Claws raked across his vest, tearing fabric and skin beneath. Mason grunted, shoving his forearm into the beast’s throat, keeping its fangs inches from his face. He could smell its rancid breath, hot and feral.

Evelyn, still shackled, grabbed a loose pipe from the floor and swung. The metal cracked against the wolf’s skull. Once. Twice. A third time, until Mason shoved the limp body aside.

For a heartbeat, the three of them just stood there, gasping in the red glow, blood pooling at their feet.

Then Evelyn spoke for the first time, her voice raw. “She wanted me to watch. She wanted me to see what I’d become.”

Mason turned to her, his hand gripping her shoulder. “You’re still you, Evelyn. Don’t let Rhodes twist that.”

But Evelyn’s eyes flicked away. She didn’t believe it not fully.

The sound of boots thundered from below guards, armed and closing in. Emily cursed. “We’re out of time.”

They reached the fire exit at the end of the hall, but the door was chained shut from the outside. Mason slammed against it, frustration burning through him. The chains rattled but held.

Behind them, the growls grew louder.

Evelyn stepped forward, chain still dangling from her wrist, and pressed her hand against the cold metal door. Her knuckles bled, her chest rising and falling with shallow breaths.

“Stand back,” she whispered.

Before Mason could stop her, she swung the pipe into the chain with everything left in her. The first strike bent it, the second cracked it, and the third sent it snapping loose.

The door flew open, the night air rushing in like salvation.

They stumbled out into the cold, the city lights glittering faintly across the river. For a moment, freedom tasted real.

Then the howls followed them into the night.

Rhodes had opened the cage for a reason. And as Mason realized, dragging Evelyn into the dark, it wasn’t to test her, it was to unleash what was coming for the entire city.