This Is Not The End.

Chapter 34

If we'd have been given vehicles, the two days it took Kai, Jack and I to walk to the compound could've been done in hours. The forest backdrop switched out into the dull highway; cars continually stuck to our righthand side. Every time I saw something flinch in the maze of Toyotas and Audis, I put on a needed burst of speed and tailed my friends. It was still daylight, but I didn't like the thought of having to use my not-so-perfected powers whole going eighty miles an hour with a parade of vehicles and Shifters behind me.

We were close. So close.

Someone shouted up to us about a Mumbler and one of the drivers behind me told me to keep going. I could only guess it was taken care of, but when I looked over my shoulder I only swerved my bike, so I kept my eyes on the road ahead and hoped for the best.

The six hours passed me by in a blink of trees and road, and before I knew it I saw the sign for WESTPORT-LAHEY US ARMY PCD CONTROL ZONE – ESTABLISHED 2023 – AUTHORISED ACCESS ONLY again. It didn't seem right, a second ago we were headed through the forest away from the compound, and now I was staring at the entrance to my personal prison.

His arms still awkwardly wrapped around Jack, Kai shot a look to me and offered a not-so reassuring smile. It didn't matter, because I was just happy he'd given it to me. Without him, and Jack, I'd have never stepped a foot towards the place ever again. Although, without him or Jack, I'd have been dead a long time ago.

It began to hit me, what was happening. My foot bounced against the footrest and my stomach began to churn. We had one shot, one chance, and if we fucked it up... well, we weren't the only ones who were screwed to hell. Every Snuff I'd ever spoken to or pissed off, was depending on me, they just didn't know it yet. If they did know it, I think it would've thrown the whole operation out.

After all the time psyching myself up for it, I still didn't trust myself to pull it off.

My father stopped his van and held a hand up outside his window to stop the rest of us, signalling for us all to park up too. A lot of the trail turned around for an easier getaway, I didn't feel I had to, after all, it wasn't like I'd be taking anyone back with me. Surely, after who-knew-how-many modified vehicles, we'd be able to transport a facility's worth of kids.

"Alright, you know your jobs," he climbed onto the bonnet of his car and addressed us all. I felt bad for the van. "We want to get in and out of here before dark, well before if we can help it. Team A, wait here while Team B and the Shifters create their diversion, and then I leave it up to Mr-"

"-Farren-"

"-To get you to the bunker. This isn't a drill anymore, people, we are going in to get those kids, and we better be out by dusk," He nodded once and took a shotgun from Travis. My stomach jolted at the sight of it, and the sound it would undoubtedly make. "Dyani, Cheyenne, are you ready?"

Cheyenne had switched back from a cheetah and gave her uncharacteristic grin to my father. "We were born for this moment,"

Her tribe, a group which must've consisted of ten people, stepped out from their place on the road, and each nodded to my father respectfully, before beginning to contort their bodies into various creatures. A woman who I knew was Cheyenne's aunt, Dyani, stepped through the crowd of Shifters and stood before my father. I watched her in silent awe.

"We do not kill. We do not maim. We are a diversion, and we will remain as such. Wea are here for the children, not for revenge or a war,"

"I understand," my father promised.

She nodded once out of respect and placed one foot perfectly behind her as her ribs broke out of her chest and she began her shift. I never knew how much it must've hurt for the Shifters, and yet here ten of them were doing it for our cause.

Cheyenne was already halfway through contorting her human-self into some sort of reptile. She grinned with bloody teeth at Beck, to which he let out a triumphant laugh.

"She's gonna be a fucking dragon," he smirked, covering Cara's ears which she just pushed against.

Bones cracked and shattered beneath splintered skin. Her mouth dripped with blood, but she didn't seem to care. Behind her eyes, she screamed out, but her face remained unbroken and deadly. Her irises split into cats' eyes and her elongating neck was overrun with thick green scales. She stretched out and her limbs grew until her fingers were replaced with deathly claws and her palms gained pads. She pushed her body to its capacity and towered over us as a great green dragon in a sea of individually marked wyverns and hydras. I laughed as she let out a puff of deep smoke.

"Oh, this is what I'm talking about," Beck grinned, leaning back against the guardrails and folding his arms over his chest. "This is the good shit,"

My father jumped from his bonnet as Dyani finished shifting and nudged Travis, "No pressure here, but you've got a lot to follow,"

He huffed, "If you think we can beat that? God, I feel like Game of Thrones,"

"Embrace it," David clasped Travis on the shoulder and pushed him towards the dragons, "Towers, remember!"

"How could I forget, with you shoving it down my throat at every damn chance!"

He chuckled as Travis edged through the Shifters, careful not to get too close, as he made his way to his group. Most of the people we'd brought with us were with him, but the rest were sticking to my father to help us get the kids out.

We were to go in and open the main doors while evacuating kids by the dorms and not being seen at all. As a group, we hadn't talked about tactics yet, and I doubted we would until we were in the heat of the moment. Then, we'd probably monumentally screw up which would cost the whole operation.

Travis took his people in four groups and each headed to a corner while Dyani and Cheyenne gathered their tribe and stuck to the treeline, keeping as surreptitious as they could as they made their way to the west side of the building for their distraction. If the entire building set on fire, we knew who to blame.

"We need to come up with a plan," I said, trying to draw my attention away from the unsettling nerves. "Like a plan for the main plan – a plan plan,"

Kai raised his eyebrows at me as if I'd gone insane, but I ignored him.

"Okay, so?"

"Are we splitting up, or-"

"No," Beck sat straight like someone had replaced his spine with a metal rod, "We don't split up. We go in the bunker and through to the main building, wake kids up on our way to the door, and then head back in as a group,"

"But wouldn't it be easier if we split into two groups and one took the door and the other the dorms?" Jack added, parking his bike closer to the guardrail which we all congregated on.

"Easier, yes, but if we split up it's gonna go to shit," he didn't meet any of our eyes, his gaze trained on the cracked tarmac.

I stared at him, at the deep lines creasing his forehead and the tremor in his hands which he tried to hide by holding them tight in his hands.

"What did Sam say?" I asked quietly.

He shook his head, "You know Psyches, they're not one-hundred-percent accurate,"

"What did he say, Beck?"

Beckett took a shaky breath, but met my eyes, "He said four. Only four of us would make it out of there, so we can't split up, Skye, because we cannot let him be right. We're all making it out of there, I don't care what Sam said."

"Okay," I nodded, placing my hand over his on the railing, "Okay, we stick together,"

He nodded, but the lines didn't go away. I glanced over to Jack and Kai and clenched my jaw. Psyches weren't often right, but Sam had been right before. Numbers were his speciality, and I wasn't one to go against him.

We'd stick together; in as a five and out as a five. What did Sam know, anyway?