Amber’s pov
“I don’t understand”
Of course he doesn’t. Explaining stuff that involves computers, programs, or technology is hard when the person you're trying to explain it to has absolutely no knowledge in those regards. But since he’s my mate, I'll try again.
“I’ll explain while you drive.” If we stand beside his truck any longer, we’ll be late to a meeting he set up. Jace was driving himself, so it left Micah and I alone for a few minutes. “When your father let me redo the entire packs census, I put everyone’s contact information, email, and phone number into a program that will send out an alert to everyone. I have some preset messages, or I can manually enter one just before sending it.”
The way he keeps looking over at me indicates he only partly gets it “So, you can alert the entire pack, with the click of a button on your computer?”
“Yes. I sent three messages, all back to back, so that if anyone was busy and didn’t immediately check the first message, they’d keep hearing their phone or whatever device they have beeping.”
“Is there a way to check if they read the message?”
I throw my hands up in annoyance. “Probably, but I was busy getting out of the lab and over to our new home. Ryan called Noah on the way, only to discover he was already here delivering our clothes and bed like he said he’d do.”
We pull up to the office building at the same time Jace does. I quickly get out before Micah can ask anything further. “Hey Jace, can I bother you to do something real quick?”
“Sure, what’s up?”
“Can you have a few of our guards go around and make sure everyone is accounted for? Micah, the worry wort is concerned that my automated messaging system may not work as well as I think it does.”
“I’m not saying it doesn’t work,” He groans from behind me.
“Why don’t I have an entire sweep of our pack lands done. The guards in the tree stands would have seen if anyone tried to sneak in, but better safe than sorry.” Jace suggests.
“That would be great. Do we have enough guards to even do that? We have a dozen cleaning up the woods, remember.” Micah asks him.
“I’ll work it out. I’m gonna run over to the security building. I’ll be back as fast as I can.”
“Good thing the one I’m left to run this meeting with is the smart one.” Micah jokes as he unlocks the door for us. “So before the others get here, what do you think about what Azariah and Jace want to do?”
Although we shouldn’t have been listening to what they were talking about behind closed doors, we did. I don’t know why Micah is surprised by how they wanted to handle this. Since the very get-go I’ve leaned towards just going up there and ending it before Malcomb had the chance to do any more damage. Even if we can manage to keep Moonwalker pack safe, the same couldn’t be said for the other packs. And if he somehow manages to take them all out, then that leaves us alone in this war. We’d be surrounded on all sides, fighting Goddess knows how many.
“I agree with not telling Bloodmoon. Alpha Tony is unpredictable, and Luna Alora might take any deal Malcomb offers her to get Alpha Fenris back. I’m undecided about Snowmoon, but I do think we should include Alpha Finn. He’s been working with Azariah, and I since pretty much the start of this.”
“And do you agree we should do this tonight? Do we make the decision to sacrifice the hostages up there?”
If my calculations are correct, there were roughly fifteen up there. Including one Alpha. An Alpha that needed replacing if you ask me. His decision-making during this ordeal has been shit at best. The Red Dawn pack was the closest to any human town, and technically, our first line of defense to keep threats at bay. Moving forward, I’m not sure we should trust him to do this. I suppose that’s a conversation for another day, though.
“Unfortunately, yes, I do. But I also don’t have anyone close to me being held up there, or I might feel differently.” I tell him.
“That’s exactly what’s bothering me. If you were up there, I’d kill anyone who even suggested doing such a thing.” He nervously paces around the room, drumming his fingers on the back of the chairs as he passes by. “I just can’t imagine someone telling me that my loved one was being sacrificed for the good of the pack.”
“Azariah did find that tunnel. Why don’t we try and come up with a plan that includes trying to free them at the same time.” I match his pacing and let my brain do its magic. “We send the rescue team in first. If they can figure out where the others are being held, it will help to prevent Malcomb from gathering them to use against us in the fight. Once they’re confident they’ve pinpointed their location, we send in everything we have to attack from the front and sides. Somehow, the rescue team will need to be able to keep in contact with the other team. It’ll be hard, but not impossible.”
While the wheels in Micah’s head turn, the outside door opens, and the smell of coffee creeps down the hall to my senses. Noah comes scrambling in, muttering an apology for taking so long. It would appear that Marie and Anthony forgot to unlock their doors after I gave the all-clear alert. He’s adorable with the way he runs around, setting up the coffee bar, and making sure everything is just right. Might be a little ocd, but he had an order that everything went in. First, the coffee, then cream or milk, then sugar, then stir sticks. The snacks were always on the end of the table with small plates before the platter. Thank goodness we have him. If it were up to me, everything would just be tossed on with no rhyme or reason.
“So, are we leaving Alpha Tony out of the meeting?” Micah looks over at me, giving one small nod of his head. It’s evident this isn’t what any of us wanted, but a necessary move to ensure our safety.
“We’ll contact them at the end, after we decide what to do.”He turns to Noah, “If any of them call, absolutely no information is to be relayed.”
Noah sits down, opens his notebook, and tries to appear as if he’s busy. “Sorry to ask this, but does my opinion count for anything here?” He quietly asks us.
“Of course it does. What is it you want to say?” I sit across from him, giving him my full attention.
“First, I’d like to apologize for overhearing what was said in Jace and Azariah’s room, but you guys don’t exactly talk in low voices.” Micah sits down too, snorting out a laugh. He’s probably thinking about him and Jace’s heated argument. “Ryan and I were held captive not that long ago, so it feels personal to me not to try and save them.”
“Actually Noah, we were discussing this exact thing before you showed up. We’re gonna send in two teams, one to rescue, one to kick ass.” Micah tells him.
“I’d like to go with the rescue team if that's okay.” Noah says. He taps his pen on the opened book, looking anywhere but in Micah’s face. “I know I’m not the best fighter, but…”
Micah cuts him off before he can continue, “Noah, if Jace says you can go, then you can go. He’s not aware of this yet, but he’ll be putting together both of the teams, depending on whether we include the other packs or not. So just hold tight, and wait until everyone else is gone, then we’ll talk with him about it. Deal?”
Noah shakes his head like it was the worst idea he’s ever heard. “You're the boss around here. Why does he get the final say? Remember that cat t-shirt? I’m sure he does.”
The reminder about the adorable Clueless shirt breaks the tension, and we all chuckle for a moment. I wish I was there to see the look on Jace’s face when Noah showed up to boot camp wearing it. Thinking about the interactions within our friends group gives me warm fuzzies. My pups were so lucky that they were going to be born into this beautiful family.
“I’ll put in a good word for you, how’s that?” Micah asks him.
Noah turns his cute puppy dog eyes my way and decides to try pleading with me. “Luna Amber, you have the authority to tell Jace what to do.”
I hold my hands up in a surrendering manner, “Don’t drag me into this. Jace is the new head of security here, and if I try and out rule him, he’ll turn the job down. Then where will we be?”
“Good gravy, why do you guys always have to make sense? Fine, I’ll beg him myself.”
Finn and Priya are the first to show up, and they enter the meeting room at a slow pace. It’s apparent that Alpha Finn hasn’t slept properly in days. At least, that’s what the bags under his eyes say. Priya herself looks rested, but she doesn’t have her usual confident swagger about her. Her hair is brushed but not curled or done up like usual. The biggest shock is that she has zero makeup on her face. She’s still stunning but in a natural way.
We don’t get more than our hello’s exchanged before Alpha Kreed and Becky show up. Seeing Kreed wearing Zane’s face is gonna take some getting used to. Jace was right when he said he’d have to fight the urge not to beat his face to a bloody pulp. Because for a brief second that’s exactly what I wanted to do.
“Now that everybody’s here, let’s catch them up to speed.” Micah says while looking over at me. He asked before we left the house if I could relay what happened with Alek. He wasn’t up to telling the story again after letting our best friends know what happened.
Speaking of what happened, whatever Seraya said to him upstairs made the guilty look leave his face. I can tell he’s still upset, but he now has the look of someone who’s determined, not remorseful.
I have a feeling that being the leaders of a pack this size is going to be a lot of putting our personal feelings aside. Maybe in the privacy of our own home, we could show sorrow, or anger, or frustration. But in the public eye, we’d have to keep our game face on. Now I understand why Micah’s father made him perfect the ‘polite smile’ thing he does.
I retell the story in a very clinical manner. I leave out any personal feelings or emotions in general while telling them what took place. The only person here who knew better was Noah.
“Every time I come to one of these meetings, I tell myself that nothing can shock me anymore,” Alpha Finn says while letting out an annoyed groaning sound. “And once again, here I am shocked. What in the actual fuck is going on? Why would any wolf think that joining him is the right answer?”
“Fear,” I simply reply.
“Power,” Noah adds in.
“If you have to kill, terrorize and force people to do what you want, then that’s not the kind of power I’d want.” Alpha Kreed declares. “I’d rather have people follow me because I’m a great leader, not whatever the fuck Malcomb has become.”
“I feel it’s best if we don’t send anyone up there, Alpha Kreed.” Micah addresses him. “We can’t be sure how much he knows. Alek knew you were here, and that we had a meeting with you. I’m guessing he knew how we rid you of Zane, because he knew about Alpha Jason’s removal. And to be perfectly honest, none of us has any clue who in our packs may be working with him.”
“So how do we do this then?” Priya asks. “If we can’t trust our own pack members, how do we fight him?”
“I only have a small number that I trust completely, and out of those even fewer are capable of fighting.” Micah tells her.
“My pack wants action now. They’re not gonna wait any longer to launch a rescue mission.” Kreed announces. “They want it done tonight.”
“Do you have enough wolves to launch a rescue mission?” I ask Kreed.
“I do. Just in family members alone of those who were taken.”
I give Micah a questioning glance. Do we suggest what we were planning on doing, or do we keep our mouths shut?”
“It’s almost five in the afternoon, I’m not sure that’s enough time to pull this off.” Finn says.
I come up with an idea to buy us enough time to decide what to do. “We should do it early in the morning. They’ll probably expect a night time attack, or rescue. By four or five in the morning they’ll think they’re in the clear.”
“That’s an excellent idea darling,” Micah gives me a grateful look. “Okay, so why don’t we each choose a small handful of wolves we trust completely, then meet up here in the middle of the night. We’ll divide everyone into two groups, so there’s pack members from each group on each team. This way we won’t have to worry about one pack in particular turning on the others.”
“So one team will go to rescue and one will fight?” Becky questions him.
“Yes. This needs to be done.”
“And what if we can’t get the hostages out?” Kreed says with narrowed eyes.
“We need to end this either way.” Finn firmly states.
“So we just say fuck it? Let them die?” Kreed angrily shouts. “Most of the hostages up there are Snowmoon pack members. How many Moonwalker? Two, maybe three? And Ambersy?”
“They have our only Doctor and three nurses, plus four others. So don’t be telling me about how many are from where up there.” Finn calmly replies.
Watching these two males get worked up brings back that guilty feeling from earlier. Alpha Kreed was right to not want to sacrifice his people. Deep down, we didn’t want to either. “The longer he has them up there, the less chance of survival they have anyways. He’ll use them to attack us sooner or later.” I say loud enough to be heard overtop of their arguing. Not wanting to do something, and having to do it are two different things. Nobody here wanted to make the decision to give up on them, but the longer this goes on, the greater the chance Malcomb could possibly win.
“We can’t sit around and wait for another attack. Are you forgetting about the new concoction he came up with?” Finn points out. “It means that when the new deranged wolves show up, we can’t even fight them without dying ourselves.”
“You both have guns, and tree stands, and whatever the hell else Alpha Fenris gave you. My pack is the only one completely unprepared to handle an attack. So guess what? I need my pack members back now! Then we take them out. Why is it so hard to agree on a plan, then execute it?” Kreed snarls.
“Because we’re not all on the same page.” I answer.
“So then let’s get on the same page,” Jace loudly calls out as he enters the room.
“What’s your thoughts, golden boy?” Finn teases him, but there’s no malice behind his words.
“It’s not up to me to think” He grins at Finn, “It’s up to me to put the plan in motion.”
“How many do we want for the rescue part?” Micah asks Jace.
He thinks on it for a moment, “Four, and they need to be armed.”
“And to attack?” Kreed asks.
Jace looks at me, “You're the smart one, let’s do the math on how many are up there.”
“At one point he had thirty-nine, I believe. However you’ve taken out about half of them. So now, it’s gotta be around twenty, maybe twenty-five.”
“Okay, so us against twenty-five. Do we want even numbers, or two to one?”
“Can we even find fifty people we trust to not be working with him?” Priya asks with wide eyes. It’s obvious she’s just as concerned as we are about him finding out what we were doing.
“Let’s not forget that Malcomb also has a good amount of weapons at his disposal,” Noah reminds us.
“Fuck,” Micah groans.
“Yup, that about sums this up.” Finn agrees.
“How many smoke bombs did Fenris give you?” I ask Finn.
“I’m not sure, maybe half a dozen.”
“Great. Now can anybody here fight without being able to see?” I half jokingly ask.
Everyone’s head towards Jace, making him let out a nervous laugh. “Maybe if I had a few days to practice, but certainly not in twelve ish hours.”
“We can use the smoke bombs to distract them as we get the hostages out. Then when the smoke clears, “ Finn laughs at his own pun, “We go in and whoop ass.”
“Jace, where the fuck did Azariah go? We could really use her input right now. Those tunnels are our best chance at getting them out, and she has first hand experience with them.” The little lines between Micah’s eyes scrunch up as he speaks. His foot has been tapping nervously under the table the entire time, which was close enough to my own foot for me to feel.
“She’s gonna meet us back at the house in a couple hours. Sorry pal, she asked for some time alone, and that’s all I know.”
Most people wouldn’t be able to tell he was lying. I however can see it like a lighthouse beacon guiding a ship safely during a massive storm. He kept his face unreadable to a point it was almost robotic. His lips moved, but his eyes stayed dead still, not even blinking. His hands were folded on the table in front of him and he made sure to keep his fingers from squeezing together during this fib. His entire demeanor was just too perfect.
“We can set up the team, and let Azariah lead it. We don’t necessarily need her here at this exact moment.” Finn tells Micah, who is still staring Jace down.
“Your right Alpha Finn” I say since the other two weren’t going to answer him. “She’s more than capable of doing this. That’s why she’s Moonwalker’s Beta.” I give Micah’s leg a good swift kick under the table. “Right Micah?”
“Right,”
“Okay, we have a lot of planning to do, so let’s get the first part over with. Each pack will come up with eleven people we trust. One of them will join Azariah’s team, the other ten with us.” Jace says.
From there, we all manage to come up with a tentative plan, and agree to have a fast video chat at ten o’clock tonight to confirm we are all set. From there, we will meet up here, around two-thirty and finalize everything. It was the best we could come up that everyone here would agree on. Alpha Kreed was the only one to give some push back, but all things considered I don’t really blame him. He has an entire pack who were thirsty for blood, and he needed to deliver, like yesterday.
“One last thing before we go our separate ways,” I say as they’re all pushing back their chairs and getting ready to go. “I feel it’s best if we pick the eleven people, but not tell them why. Once we meet up here, we take any device they have on them, and lock them in our meeting room. That way if we make a wrong choice they don’t have a way to contact Malcomb.”
“Excellent idea.” Kreed agrees. “As a matter of fact, I’m not even going to give them a heads up. I’ll go to their houses personally around one-thirty and collect them.”
“That should go over well,” Becky jokes with him.
“I’ll say there’s a security threat and I need extra muscle.”
“I think I may just do the same,” Finn looks over at Priya to see if she’s on board. She nods her agreement, then kisses his cheek.
We all walk out together to see them to their cars. Becky and Kreed leave first, with Finn and Priya in their car and pulling out behind them. They pause until Kreed is out of sight, then Finn opens his door and comes back over to us.
“So what is the actual game plan? I got the feeling this isn’t the plan you guys wanted to go with.”
Smart male right there. I love how he can read a room almost as well as myself.
“We hadn’t really made our minds up, but tonight is definitely the time to wipe them out.” Micah confirms his suspicions.
“It would be an unwise decision to do anything other than what we just planned at this point.” Jace solemnly says. When I give him a questioning look, he proves that he also reads a room. “Kreed’s pack is in turmoil right now. If we go in before our designated time, we’re basically saying fuck your feelings, and fuck your pack members. We’ll not only make an enemy out of Alpha Kreed, but from his entire pack as well.”
“We’ll basically be trading one enemy for another,” Finn agrees.
“Okay, we go with the plan we all came up with. However, “ I look at each of them, “We finish this tonight. That’s whether they get all hostages out, just a few, or none at all.”
“And if the people Kreed put with us decide against that?” Micah asks.
“We do whatever it takes to make sure this ends tonight.” Finn says while implying that we take them out too, or incapacitate them if they get in our way.
“Agreed.” We all say in unison.
Just as Finn is about to get back in his car I call out to him. “Hey, just wanted to say that if we did choose to go with something different, you would have heard it directly from us. We’re in this together Casinova. Always.”
He chuckles at a name he hasn’t heard in a couple months being thrown his way.
“Never doubted you for a minute.”
As his car finally pulls out of sight, we all let out a collective breath we’d been holding.
“There’s only one thing I’d like to set into motion without anyone else knowing,” Jace says.
“What’s that?” Micah hesitates a second before asking.
“We get a back up team in place. If things turn to shit, either from us underestimating our enemy, or if one of our allies turns on us, we need to be prepared. I’ll go in with the main team, and Micah can stay with the back up one.”
“The fuck I will” Micah voice thunders across the small parking lot.
“We’ll need to make sure that none of them tip Malcomb off either. We take their phones, and tell them there’s a security breach near one of the road blockades by Bloodmoon. Tell them whatever you need to, just not the truth until the time comes.” Jace keeps talking like Micah didn’t just shut his plan down without hearing it.
“You hard of hearing, asshat?” Micah resorts to grabbing his shoulder and spinning him around so they can argue face to face. “If you think for one second that I’ll sit this one out while you, Azariah, and two other Alpha’s fight this battle, then you're about as stupid as your face looks.”
“We need someone we trust to be with them. If my team fails, then who the fuck is left here to protect our pack?” Jace snarls right back at him.
Watching these two argue shouldn’t be as comical as I was currently finding it. All they know how to do is bicker and try to see who could yell louder. Neither one knows how to use their brain.
“Umm, hello, “ I interrupt. “The answer you're both looking for is Matias.”
“See, there you go. Problem solved,” Micah grins at Jace like he just won the fight.
“I was going to have Matias stay with my pups.”
“Your house is a fucking fortress. He built it to basically survive a bloody hurricane or bomb. Have Noah, Ryan and Amber stay with them. We have a good security system in place for the pack borders. I’ll put extra on saying we got a tip that there might be an attack. We don’t have to tell them what we’re up to.”
Jace starts to pace back and forth, agitation clear on his face and also in his movements. I hadn’t considered who was going to be with the pups tonight. With both him and Azariah going to fight this battle, someone had to protect them in their absence.
“Looks like we have a bit more planning to do.” I reach out and stop him from making another circle around us. “Let’s regroup with Azariah and come up with a plan for how we protect the pack in the event that you guys lose. Not that it’s gonna happen, not with our golden boy on the front line.” I tease him.
“Well isn’t this just fucking awesome. I love coming up with plans so much that now I get to make a backup plan for the original plan.” Jace groans. He puts his hands on his hips, and tips his head back, looking at the sky. “Alright, let’s get this done.”
It might be the stress, or the magnitude of this situation, but either my brain tells me it’s the perfect time to laugh my ass off. At least it was better than crying. Because to be honest, that’s exactly what I really feel like doing.