Moonlit Dangers

Chapter Seventeen

When I awoke the next morning my mind was bombarded with images from the previous night. Everything had been going swimmingly until Kory had asked me if I were in love with him. It had been like a bucket of ice had been poured over my head. Why would he ask something like that? Still anxious and perplexed, I took care of my sleeping bag and got dressed to meet the team in my living room.

I walked in with coffee in both hands, passing one to Robert as I sat down. We were all outfitted in the Guardian uniform, standard for completing missions. It was black, with fine silver mesh lining the inside of the fabric so it had a light sheen to it, made to simultaneously hamper a lycan's bite as well as burn their mouth. The shirt covered our throats and went fully down our arms to meet our gloved hands. The pants were likewise tucked into black steel toed combat boots. Kory told me that the Ailis had originally had helmets for the uniform, but had discontinued the practice of wearing them when a guardian had had their skull smashed by a lycan who had squeezed the helmet. He said if a helmet made no difference, the guardians may as well not wear them, that at least their vision wouldn't be hampered. Instead of helmets, we had ear buds with a small microphone positioned by our mouths so we could communicate quietly.

Kory stood in the middle of the room, and was going over a schematic of the building that he had found online. "We are going to enter here, at this portion of the gate. We will have scoped out the grounds before we enter. Once through the gate we will move through this side door here." Kory gestured at a thin rectangle on the schematic. "We will then go room by room, clearing them as we go until we find Adam. Upon finding him we will backtrack through the cleared rooms as fast as possible to bring him to the compound, where will then interrogate him before we snuff him out."

Evelyn raised her hand, getting Kory's attention before drily saying, "I'm assuming you are taking point?"

"Of course. We need you in the back Evelyn. If it all goes to hell, you are our ticket out."

"Fine. Are we sure that there is only one lycan inside? Will we be staying together?"

"I am pretty sure. Usually a lycan under intense interrogation doesn't lie. Especially if they know we will be keeping them alive. So, we will split up as needed ok?"

Evelyn gave him a dirty look. "Great. Once again, I'll miss most of the action." I swung my head between the two of them, wondering what they were talking about.

Kory, seeing my confusion, said, "I'll go over it with you on the way Elle." I nodded my agreement. "Okay guys. Grab your weapons, put in your buds, and let's go."

***

At the factory, we checked our weapons. We were currently parked in the woods surrounding the huge, decrepit looking building while Kory snuck around the grounds and made sure we would be okay to go in.

"I don't like the plan." Evelyn muttered to no one in particular.

Lee sucked his teeth as he stared at her. "You know that Kory knows what he's doing. You're just irritated because you're used to being point man."

"Yeah so?" Evelyn said grinning. Her grin abruptly disappeared. "I'm also not too happy that we have Robert here. No offense Rob." She said to him.

"It's okay, I get it." He said unhappily. "I'm not good with this sort of thing. I'm the hound, made to sniff people out, not fight."

Lee looked irritated, "Why do you think he's the middle man? Get over it Evelyn, and get your head in the game."