Mine to Protect Chapter 98: EXPLOSION

*Hazel*

The air fills with smoke and dust, making us cough our lungs out, while the floor trembles shaken by the multiple explosions.

“Come on, we need to get out of here!” Derek yells. He wrenches the door open, and the smoke outside the room is even worse, the air is so black we can’t practically see anything.

I place a shield on each of us, so that we won’t have to worry about stuff falling on us, and we run as fast as we can towards the stairs, we manage to run up the first flight, but the second flight of stairs is completely missing, there’s no way we can climb up there, and the elevators are definitely out of service.

How are we going to get out of here?

“Hazel?” Derek asks me urgently, “do you think you can destroy this whole place with your powers?”

I look at him astonished. “I suppose so, I burnt the forest down, I think I can do the same with this building.”

Derek nods in approval, a small smile on his face.

“Then follow me!”

He starts running from the direction we came in, down the stairs, one flight after the other, until we reach the bottom floor, which is the 15th floor underground. It is a storage room, filled with equipment and other random stuff. Luckily, they thought about exploding the upper grounds, with the aim of not letting us out, but they did not put any explosives there.

Ok, this is it, now it’s time to see what I am capable of.

I summon my powers, feeling them grow within me, it’s like inflating a balloon, it grows and grows until the power is so much it can’t be contained anymore.

“Ready?” I asked Derek and Cindy.

They nod in response, although I can see the tension on their faces. There must not be any room for mistakes, our lives are at stake, I must succeed.

I breathe in and out to calm myself a little, and then I let my power go, I let it explode from me, a growing white bubble that destroys everything it touches, turning it into dust. Derek and Cindy are still shielded, so they won’t be affected, but everything else turns into ashes, floating to the bottom where we are standing.

It takes just a few moments, but to me it feels like a lifetime, everything happens in slow motion, and when everything is over, we find ourselves knee dipped into black dust, at least 60 meters underground. The hole left by the facility is huge, but it is also very steep, how are we going to get out of here now? We have trapped ourselves into a hole…

“Ermm, Derek, did your plan also consider how the escape from this huge hole?” I ask sheepishly.

“I honestly didn’t have the time to think it through, but I am sure we’ll find a way,” Derek replies with a confidence I don’t really share.

He reaches the side of the hole, and tries to climb up with his claws, but the terrain is too soft, and just crumbles under his hands, so he just gives up, and comes back where we are standing, sitting on the black dust, without a care in the world.

“I have mind-linked Ryder, he’s sent our warriors to fetch long enough ropes and a pulley, it’s going to take a while, I suggest you get yourselves comfortable.”

That said, he lies down on the dust covered ground and closes his eyes.

“Are you seriously going to sleep in a moment like this?” I asked him bewildered.

“As a matter of fact, yes. I have been shot with poison and got a number of bullets stuck somewhere in my body, I am not really feeling awesome, so I need to rest to recover some energy. And there is not much I can do anyway.”

I feel immediately guilty, he’s been suffering this whole time, and I haven’t even noticed, too focused on rescuing my friend.

I kneel beside him, inspecting his body, and noticing a number of bullets still stuck in his flesh on his torso, legs and arms.

“Stay still, don’t move, I am going to take them out,” I tell him, wishing I had something to let him bite for the pain.

“Don’t worry kitten, you won’t hurt me,” he says calmly, his blue eyes on me, a look of determination and assurance in them.

I gulp down my fear, and shift one hand, ready to carve out the bullet in his right arm.

“Let me help you,” Cindy says, kneeling beside me, and keeping Derek’s arm still in her strong grip.

I nod to her, to tell her I am ready, and sink my claw deep, pulling the bullet out. It smells of wolfsbane, how was Derek able to keep fighting and running around with all this wolfsbane in his system is a miracle.

We take out five bullets on his front, and I make sure of cauterizing all the wounds, to avoid any infection, then I ask Derek to lie on his stomach, so that I can take out the ones on his back.

When he turns around, I gasp in horror, there’s a blue dot just over his left shoulder blade, and blue veins have spread from it, like roots of a tree.

“What’s this, Derek?” I ask him, while touching the blue spot; he winces at my touch and worry spikes up tenfold. He didn’t complain at all when I pulled those bullets out, but one light touch here, and he winces, it must really be painful.

“That’s where they injected me with some substance, I think it might be some poison, I am not sure.”

A poison? No! What if it is lethal, and it is slowly killing him? While we are stuck here for hours, maybe days without a doctor or an antidote.

Panic hits me full force, I feel so stupid for thinking we had defeated them for once, in the end they always manage to win. They have poisoned Derek, I can’t believe it, he could be dying right before my eyes.

Tears start streaming down my face at the thought, and my breaths become shallow, the telltale of an incoming panic attack.

Derek rolls on his back and gets on his knees, pulling me into a tight hug, one hand caresses my hair gently.

“Shhh, kitten, no one is dying, ok? I am sure they just hoped to slow me down, that’s it, but they had another thing coming, hadn’t them?”

“You don’t know that! It’s spreading on your back, what happens when the blue veins reach your heart?” I ask getting more and more desperate by the second.

Derek’s heart thumps loudly at my words, and I know he didn’t think about this possibility, he is worried too, only he doesn’t want to let it show, not to make me panic even further.

“Look, they’ll get us out of here soon enough, and I’ll have a doctor look at it immediately. I have already asked Ryder to fetch a doctor for the injury. Don’t worry.”

Derek voice is calm and composed, giving nothing away, but he is blocking his emotions from the bond, and I know he is hiding his worry and fear from me, he is not sure he can make it either.

“Lay back down, your back to me,” I tell him bossily.

“What are you planning on doing? You have that glint in your eyes, that only promises you are going to do something crazy and reckless,” Derek asks suspiciously, an eyebrow raised in an attempt to intimidate me.

“Don’t make me command you,” I reply sternly, hoping he’ll listen without putting up a fight, as always.

“You know that it’s not right to abuse your powers like that…”

I don’t let him finish what nonsense he’s spouting, I Alpha-command him to lie on his belly, and he complies against his will, then I move closer, shift one finger to claw, and command him to stay still. I make an incision with my claw on the blue dot on his back, and Derek screams in pain, my heart aches for him, but I know this must be done, it’s for his own good.

I place my lips on the incision, ready to suck the poison out, but suddenly Cindy pulls me back forcefully, her firm gaze telling me to listen.