"Do you think they know we're here?" Artemis asked as she crouched down behind a tree, peering out from behind it as the wolves started sneaking under the fence.

He placed a hand against her waist as he looked over her shoulder. "No," Sol whispered back to her even though he highly doubted that the humans would be able to hear them all the way from over the barbed wire fence, but he wasn't willing to take any risks in that moment.

There were wolves positioned on all four sides of the human base.

The two spies that had remained while the third took the human Harry back to the Lupine Woodland pack earlier that day were smart and loyal. They had managed to create gaps in all four sides of the fence so by the time the werewolf army arrived, all they had to do was remove the wired part that had been cut out but left in the same position so as to not raise suspicion and shuffle through under it.

It didn't take long before Artemis crawled under the fence easily, Sol following behind her closely.

She stood up and dusted herself off even though there was no point. She was sure to get dirty again very soon. Sol stood close behind her as he had crawled under the fence, the heat from his body warming her back.

While they waited for elder Jackson -the other two were with the two other groups while the third was being led by one of the Alpha's- to give them the signal, Sol placed his hand on her shoulder and turned her around so she was facing him now.

Artemis blinked up at him. "Don't play the hero, okay?" He leaned down and pressed his forehead against hers, his eyes unblinking as he stared into the grey orbs which he had come to love so much. "Stick to the plan and don't get hurt."

"I could say the same to you." She hummed against his jaw where she placed a light, feathery kiss.

Sol closed his eyes before bringing her into one last fierce hug, his face buried in her hair as he clutched her to him, almost as if he was afraid that he would never see her again. "I don't know what I would do if you got hurt." He admitted honestly, his voice raw and gruff, the desperation for her safety clear.

She buried her face in his chest, wrapping her arms around him in what felt like the last time. "We're going to win this and then we'll have the rest of your lives ahead of us."

He pulled back to look at her face. "Promise?"

She grinned and sealed the deal with a kiss. "Promise," she mumbled against his lips.

He hummed and allowed himself to indulge in the sweet, homely taste of her mouth he had grown quite fond of in a short span of time.

They pulled away as the elder indicated that now was time, directing where everyone was expected to go with his arms.

Artemis tightened her arms around him briefly, mumbling something so quiet and discrete that even he couldn't make it out before she pulled away and ran towards the back of the lab, the one that Harry had told them of. She took four warriors with her. Their job was to try and free the werewolves, to release them from their cages and on the other side of the fence where it was safe.

Sol watched as she run, his chest now empty as she had taken his heart along with her.

He sent a silent prayer up to the Mood Goddess to keep her safe. He needed her safe.

The rest of them were attacking the base, destroying every human that was not a child along with one of the other werewolf groups. The other two groups were supposed to attack the other building, the residence where hopefully, most of the humans would be asleep.

Sol planned to go for the commander but there was also a bounty for Alpha Eaton, either dead or alive.

As soon as he had crossed them and teamed up with the humans, he was no longer one of them. Alpha Eaton was a classic example of what happened to a person when they let the power go to their head.

Sol was hoping that he would be the one to find Alpha Eaton. He had a personal agenda with the man. When Harry had mentioned earlier, Alpha Eaton had also played a part in destroying both his pack and his people, stripping him of everything that had ever meant something to him. Because of that Alpha, he had been destined for a life of destitute, aimlessly wondering around looking for a purpose, a reason to stay alive.

There were a few times when he had considered joining his parents and his fallen pack in the afterlife, but he had never been able to bring himself to do. Not just because he would be leaving Clark, his best friend behind and not even because his parents would be absolutely horrified if they knew that he had ever entertained the horrendous thought, but because he wasn't ready to go.

He hadn't been ready then and he certainly wasn't ready now, especially since now, he actually had someone anchoring him. Artemis made him feel like he was needed, that there was someone other than Clark that would actually care and grieve for him if anything ever were to happen.

He would throw himself completely into the battle. For once, he would allow his wolf to lead him, to take over as he hunted for both the human commander and Alpha Eaton. Those two had made this personal as soon as they had laid their fingers on the first pup.

Sure, it would be difficult and everyone was braced for casualties, but Sol was determined to survive. If not for himself then for Artemis.

His beat for her and as long as she would have him, it would continue beating regardless of what anyone said or what happened. Even on his death bed when the rest of him was dying, his heart would still beat for her.

Back at the Lupine Woodland pack, Sol had made it clear by shouting at the top of his lungs that Alpha Eaton was his, and whomever stood in his way for retribution for his parents, his pack and for Artemis and every other wolf they had hurt would face his wrath.

He wanted to be the one to kill the Alpha. The one whom had been an acquaintance to both his parents and his pack. The Alpha that had come to every pack event just like every other Alpha. They were a community who lived in peace and spread love, contrary to popular belief and Alpha Eaton had been the one to rip his life away from only then to spend the next fifteen years of his life acting as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn't done anything.

Sol had spent the last decade and a half blaming himself for everything that had happened to him, and now he had a target at hand.

Murdering Alpha Eaton with his bare hands would be closure to him, sweet closure which he didn't know he needed until now.

Charging towards the base in a large group of werewolves, Sol turned his head up to the moon and howled. He howled louder than the screams of the humans from the residential whom were murdered in their beds by the wolves that had already reached them, louder than he had done when he had, had his family viciously ripped away from and louder than the alarms that blared as soon as the first werewolf had broken into the base.

He hadn't known it before but he had spent his whole life in anticipation for this moment.

As the multiple groups of werewolves broke into both the human buildings, blood and revenge being the only things on their mind, a small group of werewolves walked underneath their feet in the basement, both Artemis and Apollo making up half of the group.

Harry the human had also mentioned that there was a door down to the basement from the labs. No one would know it was there unless they were specifically looking for it and so, after she recalled what the human had told her regarding the location of the trap door. The wolves pushed a shelf that was stood in the corner of the room to the side. As soon as it had started to move, an old trap door became visible. The gap between the door and the tiled floor was very little, the only thing that distinguished it as a door was the little circular handle that Artemis knelt down on the ground and grabbed, pulling hard until finally, the whole door lifted.

It was dark and small, the top of a ladder only visible from where they were all standing at the entrance of it.

Lucky for them, Harry had also mentioned this so they all came prepared with torches that would light the way.

Artemis sat back as the two wolves started down the ladders, holding the small torches between their teeth as they climbed down. Artemis was next, followed closely by her brother.

The lights weren't as bright as they hoped and it was darker than they anticipated, though being a werewolf with enhanced sight helped immensely.

It was just as she expected, a dark and dingy basement. However, it was empty.

Empty as in no wolves and certainly no cages.

Harry hadn't mentioned this.

He had said that there would a door which would lead down a small corridor to where the wolves were being kept, but what he had forgotten to mention that the door was not easily visible to the naked eye.

They all split up, tackling a wall each, feeling around and using the barely there light from their small torches to find an opening of some sort.

"Guys!" One of the guards called over, his voice slightly louder than it should have been if they wished to remain secret. "I found a door." He murmured more quietly. By then, all four wolves were huddled around the door as he yanked it open to reveal a thin, long hallway that wasn't exactly shining with light, but still far more significantly brighter than the darkness they had just been blindly searching in.

None of them had any doubt that they were in the right place.

They had all split up and decided to tackled a couple of rooms each. Helping out her brother, Apollo, as he ran across the room, breaking off the locks from the cages while she opened them after he was done, allowing him to move onto the next one while she helped the wolves out of the cages and directing to wait for everyone in the dimly lit hallway.

Thankful murmurs ran across the room and there were many tears shed as they threw themselves out of the cages and into her arms but she didn't have time to dwell because they needed to get everyone out. There was even one that dropped themselves in Artemis' arms, sobbing hysterically. As much as she felt for the youth in her arms, there wasn't time to waste. She dragged his body over to the door where the other wolves were before she helped the remaining wolves out.

There were some that had jumped out of the cages almost instantly after Apollo had broken the locks while others were more hesitant, remaining in the corner of their cages, disbelief shining in their eyes as they eyed the pair of twins in suspicion, almost as if they thought that this was a trick or a test of some sort. Those were the ones where Artemis had to dive into the cages and drag them out. All of them struggled at first, but once they had calmed down and realise that they were also werewolves, hope shined in their eyes.

"Artemis!" Her brother called out to her in a harsh whisper, urging her to work faster as he had finished breaking off all the locks with the hammer that he had swiped from the desk at the front of the room. He was now helping all the wolves out and leading them out of the room where a small group of them had already formed and were huddled amongst each other.

Artemis was sure that more than the half the wolves didn't know each other but, in that moment, they were friends and they were allies in their bid for freedom, for escape. And she was one of them.

It was so overwhelming.

It didn't take too long to herd all the wolves out of the small, dingy corridor that was only dimly lit with the barely visible lights from their minuscule torches. The other two guards were at the front, leading the group while Apollo remained in the middle. Artemis found herself trailing at the back, not feeling right about leaving while there was still a room that they hadn't entered to check if there were any wolves in there.

She knew it was a bad idea but she headed towards the room anyway even though her brother and all the guards had insisted that she wait for them as they led all the wolves back to the ladder where they would finally be free, finally be able to enjoy fresh air for this first time in a decade for some of them.

It had been more than a decade for Artemis.

And anyways, by the time they had managed to get all the wolves up the ladder and out of the basement where they had spent most of their life forcefully confined in, she would have freed all the other wolves from the remaining room and would join them shortly.

She was actually doing them a favour, saving them time.

Walking towards the room, she applied pressure to the door handle before opening it slowly, wary of what could be on the other side of it. All the other rooms had been either on the left or right of the hallway, but this one was by itself, right at the end of it.

Her eyes gathered tears as her eyes ran over the multiple bodies on the table. All dead.

She recognised a few of them. A boy she had fought against one, only being allowed to stop after he had attained a serious head wound from her slamming his down on the ground. Another that she had shared punishments with multiple times; collective punishment was something that the sadistic humans enjoyed. She didn't know the others as well as the first two, but that didn't mean that their lives didn't matter.

All she knew was that any one of these wolves could have very easily been her but most of all, they didn't deserve such a fate. They were all taken as pups, forced into this life of cages, fighting and multiple beatings a day to build character. They had no control of what went in and came out of their bodies. They were simply puppets that these humans had turned into weapons of war to destroy their own people, to destroy so many innocent live just because a few rogues had gone wild and killed.

None of them had asked for this but having their deceased bodies stripped naked and laid out on cold tables with multiple incision marks and injection points littering all over their bodies. Artemis had no doubt that the humans were testing on deceased wolves too.

Even in death they couldn't escape this life.

How was she supposed to leave them here? Surely their families deserved the closure of knowing that their loved ones were no longer suffering, that they had something bigger and far greater planned for them.

She couldn't leave them but she couldn't take them with her either.

The cages wolves were easier as most of them could walk and run for themselves, but these wolves were dead. But they mattered just as much.

She walked backwards out of the room, her eyes still on the bodies lying on the table until she finally closed the door, a gasp escaping her.

She would come back for them.

A second gasp escaped her as she felt a prick on the back of her neck. She didn't have time to react nor fight back as felt her body go limp before dropping to the group with a thud, hitting her head on the brick wall on her way down.

-

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Layla Knight

03.10.18