Chapter 157: Rescue Mission
Nina
The antidote shined up at me like a beacon of hope from Tiffany’s medical bag. Even just while looking at it, I felt a few tears of joy begin to well up in my eyes but the mission still wasn’t over. I needed to find my friends and cure them, then get everyone to safety.
Once I finished that, my priority would be to find a way to get back to Enzo and get him out of Selena’s grasp before it was too late. Without Enzo, I wouldn’t have a chance at saving our campus.
Enzo had mentioned that he saw Lori and Jessica as rogues… My best guess was that he saw them in the tunnels when he was fighting the rogues off. Even though the last thing I wanted to do was to go down into those dark tunnels again, I knew that I would have to go; and it was starting to get dark, which meant that there would be more rogues coming out soon. I would have to be quick, but thankfully the forest entrance to the tunnels was close by.
Checking to make sure that the coast was clear one last time, I quietly climbed to my feet – trying my best to ignore the shooting pain in my leg – and began to limp toward the tunnel entrance. Admittedly, I was a bit shocked that the Crescents didn’t seem to be looking for me after I stole the medical bag; maybe they just assumed that the rogues would get me since it was getting dark out.
Somehow, after limping through the rapidly darkening forest for what felt like hours, I made it to the hatch in the woods. I checked once more to make sure that I wasn’t being watched before I slowly opened the hatch and climbed down, swallowing my fear as I descended into the dark tunnels.
The last time I was in these tunnels, I had developed a sudden ability to see in the dark, but that ability seemed to have disappeared now that my wolf’s presence was gone. Thankfully, there was a small emergency flashlight in Tiffany’s medical bag, so I flicked it on and began to make my way down the tunnels.
I wasn’t walking for long before I was suddenly hit with a wall of musky stench that made me gag. Stumbling backwards, I quickly pulled my shirt up over my nose as my eyes began to water from the smell. There were rogues down here; I was sure of it. And there were lots of them.
I held my breath as I slowly creeped forward. Eventually, I rounded a corner and realized what the horrible smell was coming from: dozens of rogues sleeping, scattered around the tunnels and the adjoined rooms in big, furry piles. They must have decided that the tunnels would be a good place to sleep… But how could I possibly find Lori and Jessica like this? I had to push forward, though.
Somehow, I knew that Lori and Jessica were in here; I just had to find them. Taking a deep, shaky breath, I slowly began to make my way forward. I took an abundance of caution as I painstakingly made my way around the piles of sleeping, fetid rogues. Thankfully, they seemed to be sleeping deeply and didn’t notice as I quietly made my way through.
At one point, I felt my toe bump into a rogue’s leg. I instantly froze, feeling my heart leap into my throat as I waited for the rogue to jump up and kill me. Thankfully, it only snorted in its sleep and moved its leg out of the way.
Letting out a silent sigh of relief, I kept going. Eventually, the tunnel began to break off into offshoots of small rooms, each filled with rogues. I took my time in the doorway of each room to peer in and scan for Lori and Jessica, but somehow I knew that they weren’t there. I couldn’t explain it, but I just knew that I would be certain when I found my friends.
And I was finally came to the last room in the hallway. I was just about to give up and head toward another offshoot, or even leave the tunnels and get to safety for the night, when my eye suddenly caught two sleeping forms in the corner. They were curled up tightly together, sleeping deeply with their limbs intertwined.
It was Lori and Jessica. I was certain of it. Biting my lip, I slowly and silently made my way over to them. I could hear my heart beating out of my chest as I set down the medical bag as gently as I could, cringing at the quiet sound of the zipper, followed by the sound of the glass bottle of antidote clinking as 1 picked it up and inserted one needle
into it. I pulled the plunger up on the A needle, filling it, then filled another needle. Then, taking one needle in each hand, I held my breath and quickly injected both of the rogues at once.
The rogues wriggled, their eyes shooting open in unison as I pricked them. As their eyes focused and they began to realize that there was a human amongst them, they began to bare their fangs and growl quietly, their wretched breath blowing into my face.
All I could do was hold my breath and stay still, quiet, waiting for the antidote to work as I prayed that I was right about this being Lori and Jessica.
Suddenly, just as I was certain that the antidote wasn’t going to work and that they were going to kill me, the rogues began to shift back. Fur turned into flesh, fangs turned into regular human teeth, and growls turned into confused whimpers as my friends looked around wildly.
A tear rolled down my cheek. I quickly put my finger to my lips, silently begging them to stay quiet, then pulled my friends in for a tight group hug. For what felt like a long time, we just held each other, silently sobbing as the rogues slept soundly all around us. Somehow, my intuition had been right. My friends were cured.
But we weren’t safe. I couldn’t explain anything to them now, even though they were utterly confused having not remembered anything about being rogues, but I had to get them out of here first and get them to safety. The rogues would be waking up soon, and if we weren’t out of here by then, we would all be killed or turned into rogues. At this point, I couldn’t decide which of those fates would be worse… But I also knew that if I died, I would never see Enzo again, and that, along with saving my friends, gave me the
strength to keep going despite the horrifying pain in my leg and the deep pit in my stomach.
Thankfully, my friends seemed to understand the severity of the situation as I silently gestured for them to follow. I grabbed the medical bag in one hand, taking Jessica’s in another as she held Lori’s hand, and together we slowly made our way back to the tunnel exit.
Toward freedom… Or something like it, at the very least.
