Chapter 168: The Plan
Nina
“It’s settled, then,” Matt said. “Let it be known from here on out that Enzo Rivers is the Alpha of our new pack. Enzo… Bring us into a new age in which humans and werewolves can be allies against evil.”
There was a long silence after Matt spoke. I could feel my heart pounding excitedly in my chest at this new prospect of being one unified team; not just a team, but a pack, regardless of who was a werewolf or who was a human. Somehow, this gave me hope that we really could save the town on our own, without the Fullmoons or the Alpha King’s help. But Enzo still needed to agree to be our Alpha.
“Well, Enzo?” Matt said. “What do you think?”
Enzo paused for a long time, mulling over this opportunity, I almost fell as though I could hear the gears turning in his head. Finally, much to the group’s relief, he finally nodded.
“Alright,” he said finally. “I’ll do it,” I couldn’t help but smile. Without a moment of hesitation, I felt myself jump up out of my chair and throw my arms around Enzo, I heard laughter, followed by the feeling of the rest of the pack crowding around us and joining in on the hug. Even Enzo let out a chuckle, and when I looked up at him I could see that there was a bit of a smile spread across his serious face.
Finally, everyone sat back down at Enzo’s request. “We need to come up with a plan,” he said, “Nina, you said that there might be more of the antidote in the infirmary, are you sure about that?”
I nodded. “Tiffany mentioned that there was still some lett. She only grabbed some of it, just in case. If we can get into the infirmary somehow without the Crescents seeing us, we can take whatever’s left.”
“Yeah, but then what?” Matt chimed in. “The antidote needs to be injected to work, right? We don’t have the time or the manpower to go around injecting all of the rogues. The Crescents could just create more in that time.”
I furrowed my brow. There was the possibility of going into the tunnels and doing it as fast as we could, but… No, that was too risky. We still wouldn’t be able to get to all of them before they would wake up and start alerting each other to our presence. Suddenly, Jessica spoke up. “Who says it has to be injected?” she asked.
Enzo frowned, shaking his head. ” Tiffany injected it into that one student,” he said. “And Nina injected you guys, right? I feel like Tiffany would have mentioned it if it could be administered some other way.”
Jessica pursed her lips. “It’s an antidote, not a vaccine. She might have injected it to make it work faster, but it can probably be ingested. It might take a little longer, but I could see it as a possibility.”
“Okay, so… We still haven’t answered the question of how we’ll administer it to all of the rogues in time,” Matt interrupted. “What are we gonna do? Run around giving them shot glasses full of the stuff and tell them ‘Hey, drink up’?”
Jessica rolled her eyes then. “I wasn’t saying that,” she insisted, but then her shoulders drooped a little bit. “But… I guess I don’t really have a plan, anyway. ”
There was a long silence. No one spoke for a while as we all puzzled over how to administer the antidote to the rogues all at once. I started to feel my heart sink as I slowly realized that there really was no realistic way to do it.
“The sprinkler system.”
We all looked up and at Lori, who was standing there with her hands on her hips and a righteous look on her face. ” We can use the sprinkler system. I saw that the tunnels had a whole system on the ceilings. If we infuse the water tank that feeds the sprinkler system, then pull the fire alarm, it’ll go off and soak all of the rogues.”
“Babe…” Jessica said, sitting upright with wide eyes. “You’re a genius.”
“I know,” Lori replied, flicking her black hair over her shoulder with a smirk. I glanced over at Enzo, who was only nodding to himself with his hand on his chin. He caught me looking and met my gaze, and as he did, a smile spread across his face.
“I think that’s an excellent idea,” he said. “If we go during the day, all of the rogues will be in the tunnels. We can trap them in there. Of course, it might not work, but… It’s better than nothing.”
“So it’s settled, then,” Matt replied. But if we’re going to do this, we need to get it done today. I have a feeling that those Crescents that were looking for us last night are preparing to do something. They might even know we’re here and went to get more backup, for all we know.”
Enzo nodded, then looked back at me. Nina, how many Crescents do you think you saw in the infirmary yesterday?”
“Five, maybe six?” I replied.
“Okay,” Enzo continued, then turned to Matt. “Matt, can you and the rest of the hockey team lure the Crescents away? Just get them to start chasing you, then run and don’t stop running. I trust that you guys can handle them if you need to.
“Sure thing,” Matt replied. “Those guys aren’t the smartest. We’ve already dealt with them a couple of times.”
Enzo nodded approvingly before turning back to look at me. “I’ll go with you to the infirmary. We’ll close up the tunnel doors, assuming they’re still on their hinges, then infuse the water tank like Lori suggested. I know there’s one in the alleyway between the infirmary and the hockey rink, and I’m sure it supplies all of the sprinklers in those buildings.”
Suddenly, Jessica spoke up. Her voice shook a little as she glanced nervously over at her bedroom door, where Bryce had locked James up earlier. “What about… him?” she asked, lowering her voice.
I frowned, following her gaze, as did the others. It seemed that we almost completely forgot about James, and it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to leave him alone here. Finally, swallowing, I turned back to look at Jessica and Lori.
“Can you guys stay here and watch him and the apartment?” I asked. I didn’t want them to think that I was excluding them, but someone needed to watch James and I knew that Lori and Jessica would never separate. All of the hockey players needed to be focused on luring the Crescents away, and I needed to go to the infirmary just in case the sprinkler system plan didn’t work and I would potentially have to inject some rogues.
Thankfully, both of them nodded. ” We’ll stay,” Lori said. “It’s probably the most help we can offer, seeing as
