No special message today, enjoy.

Luke's POV:
"Ava?" I looked around.

"Oh no." Layne said.

"Did she go in without us since we were fighting?"

"I really hope not."

I swear the door looked partly open.

"You guys done yet?" Ava asked quietly.

"Where were you? Are you okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, your fighting was just making me nervous, and you didn't even hear me try to stop you, so I put some headphones in and listened to music to help calm me down."

"We're very sorry. We've lost about 10 minutes. Fist bumps all around, night vision goggles on, and let's go. We can do this guys. I know we can. Remember, stick together, help each other, and trust each other. They're essential. We need to remember those 3 things if we want to have any hope of pulling this off."

Couple seconds later, we were walking down the sidewalk, headed straight for the door.

I put my arm out, signaling them to stay behind me. I put my hand on the handle and slowly turned it, opening the door part way. I looked around and didn't see anything but a messy couple of rooms.

"I don't see anything currently but stay on guard." I whispered, keeping my voice barely audible.

They nodded and I opened the door more. I tip-toed in quickly and quietly, the girls not far behind.

We walked in and looked around. It was a very empty house, decent in size. Thankfully the previous owners had wanted it to look bigger than it was by opening it up with half walls and railings and lots of windows.

We saw the stairs leading up pretty quickly. They were absolutely demolished. I mean demolished. The only ways we could tell it was where the stairs had once been was the two top stairs hanging and one sticking up on the floor we were on. It would be dang near impossible to get up there. At least, for normal people. A werewolf would probably still have a lot of trouble, but maybe, just maybe they might be able to.

"I think it's safe to say it's highly improbable that they're up there with the stairs in their current, practically nonexistent state." I whispered to them.

We quickly swept the main floor.

Nothing.

"All clear." I whispered again. "Time to check downstairs."

I heard someone sigh a little and I took a deep breath.

"Come on, let's find the stairs and head down. We can do this guys. Remember, trust. It is our most valuable asset right now. Use it. Trust me, I will do everything in my power to protect you."

They nodded and seemed to relax a little.

"Come here." I pulled them both into a hug. "We got this."

"I told you you were the best one to lead." Layne smiled proudly.

"How so?"

"You came up with a good plan, knew what to get, where to get it, how to keep us from going crazy with worry, how to keep us on track and focused, and so much more."

"Well, not really, I mean I only-"

"Don't do that. You did amazing. You're doing amazing." She punched my shoulder lightly with a smile. "You need to learn to accept compliments Luke. You're gonna get a lot more throughout your life."

"Thank you." I laughed lightly. "Alright, back to Earth. Let's go save Josh."

"Either of you know where the stairs down are?" Ava asked.

"Oh I think I might have seen something over here." Layne remembered.

We followed her and sure enough, there were the stairs down. While they were in better shape than the stairs up, it wasn't by much. There were at least 4 or 5 missing in the middle.

I started to say to follow my lead, when we heard a large growl echo up at us from the basement.

"Found them." I whispered quietly. "Great."