Rejected And Reborn As The Alpha King's Luna

Chapter 74: Countdown to Destruction

POV: Marcus Blackwood

Thirty years.

Thirty years, two months, and seventeen days since I'd last seen the sky. Now I was leading fifty-three prisoners through collapsing corridors toward freedom I wasn't sure any of us would survive to see.

"Keep moving!" I shouted over the alarm. "Stay together!"

Riley clung to my arm, her eyes wide with terror. My daughter. Sixteen years old and she'd never known anything but cells and experiments and pain. She was trembling so hard I could feel it through my entire body.

"Dad, it's too loud," she whimpered. "Too many people. Too much space."

"I know, baby. I know. But we have to keep going."

Behind us, the other prisoners struggled forward. Some were strong enough to run. Others leaned on those with more strength. A few had to be carried.

An older witch named Helena stumbled, catching herself on the wall. "I can't. I'm too old, too weak. Leave me."

"No one gets left behind," I said firmly, helping her up. "You've survived this long. Don't quit now."

A vampire teenager, couldn't be more than nineteen, shook his head frantically. "What if it's worse out there? What if they're lying and there's nothing but more pain?"

"Then we face it together," I told him. "Free. That's all that matters."

The corridor branched ahead. I checked the mental map I'd built over three decades of pretending to be broken while secretly exploring every inch of this place during cleaning duties and medical transfers.

"Left!" I directed. "The exit is through the loading bay, two levels up."

We climbed stairs, prisoners flooding upward in a desperate mass. The alarm showed seven minutes until detonation. Still time. We could make it. We burst into a wider corridor, and I heard it. Footsteps. Lots of them. Organized and heavy.

Guards.

I threw up my hand, stopping the group. Ahead, at a massive blast door marked "SURFACE ACCESS," a line of soldiers stood with weapons raised. Ten of them, maybe twelve. Their faces were hidden behind tactical helmets, but I could see their fingers on triggers.

"This is your only warning!" one guard shouted. "Step back from the door! Return to your cells immediately!"

"We can't do that," I said, keeping my voice calm. "The facility is set to explode in less than seven minutes. We're leaving. All of us."

"We have orders to contain all subjects. By force if necessary."

My wolf snarled inside me, still weak from the collar but desperate to protect. After thirty years, I'd forgotten how good rage could feel.

"Then shoot me first," I said, stepping forward. "But these people behind me? They've done nothing wrong. They're victims. Children. Elders. Innocents who've been tortured for decades. You really want their blood on your hands?"

The guards shifted uncomfortably. I could see the hesitation now. Zane, the young vampire who'd fought so bravely earlier, pushed through the crowd. "Let me go first. Vampires heal quickly. I can take the bullets and clear a path."

"No," I said firmly, grabbing his shoulder. "No one is expendable. Not anymore. We all matter."

I turned back to the guards. "You're soldiers. You follow orders. I understand that. But you're also human beings. Look at us. Really look."

I pulled Riley forward gently. She flinched at the attention, trying to hide behind me.

"This is my daughter. She's sixteen years old. She was taken as a baby and has lived her entire life in a cell. She's never seen sunlight. Never felt grass under her feet. Never known freedom." My voice cracked. "Are you really going to shoot a child?"

One guard lowered his weapon slightly. Then another. A third guard pulled off his helmet, revealing a young face, maybe twenty-two years old. His name tape read Mitchell.

"How old did you say she is?" he asked.

"Sixteen."

Mitchell's expression crumbled. "I have a sister. She's sixteen." He looked at Riley, really looked at her. "God. What have we been doing here?"

"Following orders," another guard said nervously. "Mitchell, don't—"

"Don't what? Don't think? Don't question?" Mitchell stepped aside, lowering his weapon completely. "I joined to protect people. To serve my country. But this?" He gestured at the prisoners. "This isn't protection. It's evil."

"Mitchell, you'll be court-martialed.."

"Then court-martial me." Mitchell moved to the blast door controls. "I'm not stopping them."

Two other guards lowered their weapons and stepped aside. The rest wavered, uncertainty rippling through their ranks.

"Thirty seconds until we're ordered to fire," one guard said. "Make your choice now."

Mitchell's hands flew over the controls. The blast door groaned, beginning to open.

"Thank you," I said.

"Don't thank me yet," Mitchell replied. "You're not safe out there either. The military knows about this place now. They're surrounding the area."

The door finished opening, and I saw it. The exit tunnel. And beyond it, through a distant opening, I saw something I hadn't seen in thirty years.

Moonlight.

"Move!" I ordered. "Everyone through!"

Prisoners surged forward, flooding into the tunnel. I kept count in my head. Fifty-three from our group. But I could hear more groups behind us, other prisoners still trying to reach the surface. Riley stopped at the threshold, staring at the distant moonlight with wonder and terror.

"It's so bright," she whispered.

"That's just the moon, baby. Wait until you see the sun."

"The sun?" Her voice was full of awe. "I've read about it. In books. But I never thought..."

"Come on." I took her hand. "Let's go meet the sun together."

We ran through the tunnel, feet pounding on concrete. The alarm showed five minutes. Four minutes, thirty seconds.

The tunnel sloped upward, and with each step, the air smelled less like recycled ventilation and more like earth and pine trees. Real air. Fresh air.

We emerged into a forest clearing. Trees surrounded us, their branches swaying in a breeze I'd forgotten existed. The moon hung huge and beautiful overhead, painting everything silver.

Riley took three steps into the grass and collapsed, sobbing. "It's real. It's all real."

Other prisoners emerged behind us, each one stopping to stare at the sky, the trees, the world they'd thought they'd never see again.

Helena, the old witch, knelt down and pressed her hands into the earth. "Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you, Mother Earth, for letting me feel you again."

But the moment of beauty shattered as spotlights suddenly blazed to life, blinding us. The roar of helicopter blades filled the air. I looked up to see five military helicopters circling overhead.

Armed soldiers appeared from the treeline, dozens of them, surrounding us completely. A voice boomed over loudspeakers, amplified and authoritative. "This is General Patricia Hawthorne, U.S. Special Forces Supernatural Division. You are surrounded. Surrender immediately, or we will open fire. You have sixty seconds to comply."

The prisoners huddled together, terrified. We'd escaped one prison only to find ourselves trapped by another.

"What do we do?" Riley asked, clutching my arm.

I looked at the soldiers, then back at the facility entrance where more prisoners were still emerging. Kieran and the other feral Alphas were still inside. Dozens more who'd been too weak or too far away.

The countdown showed three minutes until detonation. Surrender meant condemning those still inside to death. Fighting meant we'd all die anyway. We had no powers, no weapons, no chance.

I was so tired of impossible choices.

"Dad?" Riley's voice was small. "What do we do?"

Before I could answer, the facility entrance erupted with golden light. Not an explosion, but pure, concentrated power. It tore through the upper levels, ripping concrete and steel like paper, creating a massive opening in the facility's roof.

Xavier. That was True Alpha power, but amplified beyond anything I'd ever seen.

Thelma's voice suddenly echoed in my head, and from the gasps around me, I knew every wolf heard it too. Telepathic communication, somehow reaching all of us at once.

"RUN! Everyone runs! We're bringing the whole thing down early!"

They weren't waiting for the timer. They were triggering the self-destruct now, collapsing the facility to destroy evidence and create chaos. Giving the rest of us a chance to escape in the confusion. The ground began to shake. Not gently. Violently, like an earthquake.

"EVERYONE DOWN!" I screamed, grabbing Riley and pulling her to the ground.

The facility exploded.

Not all at once, but in a cascade of detonations that rippled through every level. Fire erupted from the entrance, a mushroom cloud of flame and debris shooting into the sky. The shockwave hit us like a physical wall, hot and violent.

I covered Riley with my body as concrete chunks rained down. Trees splintered and fell. The helicopters scattered, struggling to maintain altitude in the turbulence.

The soldiers hit the ground too, self-preservation overriding their orders. For thirty seconds, the world was nothing but sound and fury and destruction.

Then, slowly, it stopped. The explosions faded. The debris settled. The ground stopped shaking. I raised my head cautiously. The facility was gone. Just a massive crater remained, still burning, smoke rising in a column that would be visible for miles.

"Riley?" I checked her frantically. "Are you hurt?"

"I'm okay," she gasped. "I'm okay."

Around us, prisoners were picking themselves up. Some injured, some in shock, but alive. We were alive.

The soldiers were regrouping, but they looked as stunned as we felt.

I saw movement at the crater's edge. Figures emerging from the smoke and flames. Xavier, carrying someone. Thelma, supporting another person. Theo and Luna, helping injured prisoners between them.

They'd made it out. They'd actually made it out. But how many hadn't?

I started counting the people around me. Fifty-three from my group. Another forty from the group that emerged behind us. Twenty more stumbling from the crater.

Over a hundred survivors. But there should have been three hundred prisoners in that facility.

Two hundred dead. Maybe more. Riley stood beside me, staring at the destruction. "Is it over?" she asked quietly. "Are we really free?"

I looked at the military surrounding us, weapons still raised. At the burning crater that had been our prison. At the night sky above, beautiful and terrible and vast.

"I don't know, baby," I admitted. "But we're alive. And we're together. That's something."

General Hawthorne's voice cut through the chaos again. "All personnel, hold your fire. Medics, move in. We need these people alive for questioning."

Questioning. Not execution. Not immediate imprisonment. Maybe there was hope after all.

Private Mitchell appeared beside me, his young face covered in dirt. "I'll testify," he said. "About what happened here. About what they were doing to you. I'll tell the truth."

"Thank you," I said.

Riley reached out and touched his arm. "You're very brave."

Mitchell smiled sadly. "No. You are. All of you. I just opened a door."

Medics began moving throug

h the survivors, checking injuries. Soldiers lowered their weapons, their orders apparently changed. I pulled Riley close, breathing in the scent of pine and smoke and freedom. Thirty years, two months, and seventeen days. And finally, finally, I could see the sky.