Page 38 of Hunted By the Wolves
“This is it,” Dorian said.“Inner section.”
They stacked outside the barrier, bodies tight to the wall, weapons trained forward.Rafe could hear shouting on the other side now—raised voices, hurried movement.Prepared.Waiting.
“Razorbacks, on me,” Rafe ordered quietly.“Leopards, hold overwatch.”
He took position at point, shoulder brushing cold concrete, weapon steady despite the adrenaline hammering through him.He caught Dorian’s eye across the narrow space.
No words.Just understanding.
Rafe lifted his hand.
The breach was seconds away.
****
The sound hit beforethe picture did.
A sharp, concussive crack tore through the speakers in Command—metal ripping, pressure thudding through concrete.The breach.Riley was already on her feet before she realized she’d moved, hands braced on the edge of the console as the body-cam feeds flickered, then stabilized.
Rafe’s view filled the largest screen first—dark corridor, muzzle flash, bodies moving in disciplined lines.The camera shuddered with each step, each impact.Riley’s heart lodged in her throat and everywhere else at once.
“Contact, right,” someone called, distorted through comms.
A man stumbled into frame, weapon half-raised, eyes wide with shock.The shot was clean.The body dropped.No drama.No hesitation.Just cause and effect.Riley flinched anyway.
They didn’t slow.
The feed split—Dorian’s angle, then Kairo’s, then a wide feed from one of the Razorbacks.The room became a blur of movement and sound, short commands, boots scuffing, the crack of gunfire contained and relentless.The E.S.E.moved like a single organism, every team slotting into place with purpose.
There were too many of them in the next space.Riley counted without meaning to—ten, fifteen—then lost track as more spilled in from side corridors.Over thirty by the time the room was fully in view.
They cut through them.
Not recklessly.Not brutally.With intent.
The leopards were ghosts—there one heartbeat, gone the next, blades flashing in tight arcs, bodies dropping before alarms could fully form.Razorbacks were force—shoulders driving men back into walls, weapons barking in controlled pairs, space clearing around them like a tide pulling out.Lions hit like a closing vice, coordinated fire breaking resistance into fragments that the others absorbed and finished—methodical, relentless, no wasted rounds, no hesitation once a target was marked.
Gorillas moved through the chaos with frightening calm, anchoring the line, stabilizing angles, stepping over the wounded without a glance as they secured lanes of fire and finished threats where they lay.Wolves were everywhere—Rafe at point, Dorian moving through gaps Riley could barely see until they were already closing.They didn’t shout.They didn’t waste breath.They ended the fight.
Riley’s stomach knotted, her chest burning with something that was part fear, part awe.
The room fell silent in pieces—gunfire tapering, shouts cutting off mid-word, the last of the resistance collapsing to the floor.The cameras kept rolling over bodies and broken equipment, over blood darkening concrete, over the controlled, efficient movements of the teams as they secured the space.
Riley drew a breath that felt like it scraped her lungs.
Then she saw what they had been protecting.
Chains bolted into the walls.Medical equipment pushed into corners, IV stands, restraints, scorched marks where something had gone wrong and someone had tried to erase it.Tables stained and scrubbed and stained again.The sickly, sterile brightness of surgical lighting hanging over a room that had never been meant to be clean.
Riley’s hands curled into fists.She’d seen hospitals.Trauma bays.This was neither.This was purpose-built for something that should never exist.Hybrids had been developed there, but there had been no hybrids among the forces the E.S.E had fought.
She turned to Ivan.“Don’t you think it is odd that they are not using the hybrids they are creating to guard this place?”
Ivan and Victor shared a quick look.“That is a fucking good point.”
Elara, who had stepped into the Command Center halfway through the battle for the inner sanctum of the facility, stepped forward.“Maybe they see humans as expendable, and don’t want to waste their creations?”
Riley frowned as she thought that over.“I have no doubt that they believe humans to be expendable, but they did not know that E.S.E were going to storm that place tonight.”
