Chapter 9: Wasteland Bound
414 Words
The wastelands beyond Nova Cascadia stretched like a scar across the earth, a desolate expanse of cracked earth and twisted metal under a blood-red sky. Elias Kane led the team—Nora, Lyra, Solen, and two Lycan scouts—through the ruins, their hover-skimmer kicking up dust. The synthium compound, key to disabling his kill switch, was in a Concord outpost, but the journey was treacherous, rogue Lycans and environmental hazards lurking.
Elias’s chest ached, the kill switch a constant threat. Nora sat beside him, her data-pad scanning for threats, her presence a quiet anchor. “You’re quiet,” she said, her voice low.
“Thinking,” he replied, his eyes on the horizon. “About Jaxon. About you.”
Her lips quirked. “Should I be flattered or worried?”
He met her gaze, the beast stirring but calm. “Both.”
She laughed, soft and real, and his heart twisted. He wanted to tell her how much she was starting to mean, but the words stuck. Instead, he focused on the mission.
Solen’s voice crackled through the comm. “Synthium’s in a fortified lab, guarded by automated defenses. We’ll need Nora’s skills to get in.”
Nora nodded, her fingers tightening on the data-pad. “I’ve got it. But the file on that weapon—it’s tied to your DNA, Elias. If they activate it…”
“They won’t,” he said, more certain than he felt. “Not if we get the synthium first.”
The skimmer stopped at a canyon’s edge, the outpost visible below—a dome of steel and blinking lights. But the air carried a new scent: Lycan, wild and unaligned. Rogue pack.
Lyra’s eyes narrowed. “They’re close. And they don’t like visitors.”
Before Elias could respond, a howl split the air, and shadows moved in the dust. Rogue Lycans, their forms half-shifted, charged from the canyon. Elias roared, his own claws extending, and the team braced for a fight.
Nora fired her pistol, her shots precise, but a rogue Lycan lunged at her. Elias tackled it, his beast fully unleashed, tearing through fur and flesh. The pain of the kill switch spiked, but he fought through it, protecting her.
When the dust settled, the rogues were dead or fled, but one whispered as he fell: “The Concord… they see everything.”
Elias’s blood ran cold. The outpost wasn’t just a lab—it was a trap, and they were already inside it.
*****
- Writer
