The warning lights along the metal catwalk began to flash red, casting a bloody wash over the glass tanks. A dull,rhythmic thumping echoed through the concrete walls as heavy charges detonated in the upper elevator shafts.
The High Council was collapsing the mountain.
"We are running out of time!" Marcus yelled over the growing roar of falling debris. He slammed his palm against the central console, overriding the emergency locks. Hydropneumatic fluid hissed as dozens of glass cylinders rose simultaneously, spilling amber liquid across the concrete floor.
Jaxson was already moving. He plunged his arms into the freezing liquid of the nearest tank, wrapping his broad hands around an emaciated young wolf and pulling him out into the cold air. The man coughed violently, clutching at Jaxson’s heavy fur coat with trembling fingers.
"I've got you," Jaxson gritted out, hauling the man over his shoulder. He turned to Kaelen. "Get the ones who can walk to the rear escape tunnel! Marcus, keep those security doors sealed!"
Kaelen and her Fringe warriors moved like a practiced unit, slinging weakened survivors across their backs and guiding the dazed ones through the rising smoke.
Marcus stood at the heavy blast doors, his tactical rifle raised as heat-cutting charges blazed through the steel frame from the outside. The Council’s strike team was cutting their way in.
"Jax!" Marcus shouted, his voice hoarse. "The frame is giving way! If we don't drop the heavy security gate now, we all get buried here!"
Jaxson dumped the survivor into the arms of a Fringe scout near the escape shaft and bolted back toward the console.Through the viewing window of the main corridor, he could see the dark silhouettes of Council enforcers firing flash flares to clear the air.
"The gate control is manual!" Jaxson called out, pointing to a rusted iron wheel set into the wall beside Marcus.
Together, the two men grabbed the handles. Jaxson’s muscles screamed as he threw his entire weight into the iron wheel,his shoulder pressed against Marcus’s tactical vest just like they had done in a hundred pack skirmishes years ago. Steel ground against steel as the massive blast gate began to slide downward, inch by excruciating inch.
Bullets whipped through the shrinking gap, sparking off the stone floor.
"Pull!" Jaxson roared, blood rushing in his ears.
With a deafening crash, the heavy iron gate slammed into the granite floor, sealing off the Council strike team on the other side. Seconds later, a massive explosion rocked the facility, shaking dust and stone from the ceiling. The tunnel behind the gate collapsed in a mountain of solid rock, cutting off the pursuit completely.
In the sudden, heavy silence that followed, only the sound of lab lights hummed and ragged breathing filled the chamber.
Marcus leaned back against the stone wall, sliding down until his boots hit the amber-stained floor. He looked up at Jaxson, wiping a streak of black soot from his forehead.
"My life in the Western Reach is over," Marcus said, letting out a breath that was half-laugh, half-groan. "They'll hunt me to the ends of the earth."
Jaxson extended his hand, his grip solid and warm as he hauled his former second-in-command back to his feet.
"Then it's a good thing you know how to survive in the wild," Jaxson said, a faint, genuine smile touching his lips.
They made their way down the dark, narrow escape shaft, emerging into the biting cold of the mountain air just as the first grey light of dawn broke over the Ironwood valley.
Far down below, waiting at the edge of the subterranean village entrance, stood Toby. The boy was wrapped tightly in his heavy fur pelt, standing beside Elder Vane. The moment Toby spotted the dark shapes emerging from the mountain trail,he broke into a run across the snow.
"Dad!"
Jaxson dropped to his knees in the deep powder, catching the boy in his arms and lifting him high against his chest. Toby wrapped his arms tightly around Jaxson’s neck, burying his face in his father's collarbone.
"I knew you were coming back," Toby whispered softly.
Jaxson buried his face in the boy's warm hair, feeling the steady, unbroken beat of Toby's heart. He stood up, turning to look back at Marcus, Kaelen, and the liberated survivors staggering into the valley.
They hadn't just survived the night. They had brought the truth out of the dark, and for the first time in eighty years, the Vance line was no longer running.