Alpha Nicholas I get to the opening of this hellhole and haul myself up to find around 20 of my men standing around the entire doorway protecting it while another 20 or so are waiting to help us move the women and children, and I'm instantly filled with pride. I doubt that most of the men even know why they are here, but it hasn't stopped them from coming here and being ready to guard and fight. It then hits me that I can't hear any fighting. The place is eerily quiet with just the hush of small voices talking, and it has me quickly scanning my surroundings. "They're all down, Alpha. Well, everyone except for the Alpha of the pack. We managed to keep him alive, and he's secure in the back of an SUV." Ryan says as he comes to stand beside me. "Perfect!" I chime. Even though my instruction was to take everyone down, all of my men also knew that if the man/woman that was running this place could be captured rather than killed, then that was to be done. "I look forward to having a chat with him." Ryan smiles as he nods before looking behind me at the open doorway. "What's going on, Alpha? What are we protecting?" I look around once more, satisfied that there are no more of the enemy lurking, and clear my throat before calling out to my pack members and instantly getting their attention. "Firstly, good job here today! We will have a full briefing once we are back on our parklands, so for now, I'll make this quick. Some of you may already be aware of what's going on down in that hell hole, but for those of you who don't, we have found around 50 children down there and around 20 women, some heavily pregnant. We need to get them out of there and to safety, now!" Angry snarls and growls blast through the air as my members share the same disgust as me as everyone makes their assumptions as to what has been going on here. "What do you need, Alpha?" Despite Ryan trying his best to keep his cool, he fails as he visibly shakes with barely controlled rage. "We already have enough SUVS to get them out of here. It will be a tight fit but we will make it work. They have just left the road that we parked ours on, and will be here any moment. We will take them to our pack and work out a plan from there." "Are all the women willing to go?" He asks. "They are. I have already offered them to stay if they want to but none of them want to. Some of them wanted to stay because they were scared that they would slow the rescue down and risk the children being caught, but once we reassured them, they were more than happy to come with us. We have also given the heavily pregnant women a personal guard to help reassure them.""Fuck!" He growls as he kicks the dirt underneath his feet. "How many of the women are pregnant?" If he's pissed now, he's going to be livid when I answer him, and rightly so. "All of them, Ryan. All of the women are pregnant and five of them are very heavily pregnant." He lets out a loud growl as do several of my pack members who overheard the conversation. He takes a moment to gather himself before turning his attention back to me. "OK, let's do this!" This is the reason the guy is one of my top warriors and one of my best friends, and if I didn't have my brothers he would most defiantly be a higher-ranking wolf, and that's not because he's one of my best friends, but because he is one incredible fighter, fiercely loyal and holds incredible morals. Thinking of him being my best friend takes me back to who's in the tunnel. How's Ryan going to react to seeing Adrian again? Maybe I should give him the heads-up. Wait... Cole is down there, and he didn't mention a thing... maybe he didn't reconsider him? Goddess only knows but either way, I can't worry too much about that right now. "Ryan..." "What the fuck!" He suddenly shouts, cutting off my words. "What the... How is he..." I follow his line of sight to be met with the face of Adrian as he climbs out of the hole, I'm assuming ready to help everyone get out. "Please, tell me I'm not imagining this?" He practically begs me. I shake my head, completely understanding how he's feeling. "No, you are not. I understand how you feel, trust me I do. There is a lot to talk through, but for now, we are choosing to trust him somewhat while always watching him while we get them out of here. We will be discussing everything later on." "Can I be there?" "Of course. I already assumed that you would be." He nods as he thanks me, before looking back over at the drain, his face a mask of confusion. "Let's get these women and children out of here." He nods agreeing, and we quickly make it over to the door. "Ryan... is that you?" Adrian looks a mix of happy and nervous, but I understand why. "It is, but as I just told Ryan. We have a lot to discuss, and we will at a later time, but right now we need to get things moving here. We don't know if anyone else is going to turn up and the last thing we need while protecting the vulnerable is to be blindsided." "I don't think there was anyone away from the camp, but I can't be sure," Adrian says. I think he's trying to show us we can trust him and I want to. I do, but I have to be careful, at least for now anyway. "That's good to know." I look down the hole to find Robbie at the bottom of the ladder. He was at the very back when I left, and I can't help but find it strange. "Are we ready, Alpha?" He shouts up to me. "Yes, children first." He nods and that's when I notice that they already have the children lined up. He's down there to protect the pregnant women, so the fact that he's organizing the children makes something feel even more strange. Maybe I'm just thinking about this too much, but I can't help but think of his strange behaviour earlier. I shake my head and bring my attention back to the little faces that are now staring up at me looking terrified and that is enough to snap me out of my stupid imagination. "Let's go!" He starts by handing me several babies that range from newborn to 1-year-old before sending the rest up from youngest to oldest. One by one, he lifts the children as high as he can before helping them onto the ladder while I take hold of them as soon as I can to help speed up time. We would be here way too long if we had the children climbing up the whole length of the ladder. I look at every single child as I help them up, and I swear my heart breaks more and more each time. Just looking at them takes me back to when Lottie was their age and to think about what they have possibly been through kills me. There is no excuse for it. Fuck, I was 16 when Lottie came along. I was 16 with a 3-year-old daughter and while adjusting to becoming a dad was one of the hardest things I've ever had to do, I wouldn't have ever neglected her. These poor children are dirty, smelly, and very underweight, and it makes me feel sick! As soon as I lift them out, I pass them to Ryan, who passes them on to the next warrior, and I don't miss the looks of sadness and anger when they see the sight of the children. Most of the warriors here are parents themselves and I think it hits just that bit deeper for those of us who have children of our own. There's a line of them that reaches all the way to the SUV. They haul them in there and as soon as one is full the driver leaves and heads for the road where we hid them when we got here, and the next one arrives to get more of them. It's like a fucking conveyor belt, but it works. Thankfully, it doesn't take us long to get the smaller children out, and we're soon left with the pre-teens and teens, who can get up the ladder fairly quickly. "OK. That's all the children out of here. I counted 54," Cole shouts. Fuck, 54 children! "OK, let's get these ladies out of there and get the hell away from this hellhole!" He nods and helps the first woman climb onto the ladder. She's not too heavily pregnant, so she makes it up fairly quickly. Soon we have 10 women out of there, but now we're getting to the ones with bigger bumps, and it starts to become a struggle for them to climb up, but between Ryan's pushing and my pulling we manage to keep a fairly fast pace. "OK, now it's time for the last 5 women." These are the women who are going to have a challenge getting out of there, but we will figure it out. The first woman tries, but she can't keep herself up on the ladder because her bump gets in the way, and we can't get her up the same way that we did the children for the same reasons. "Are you ok with me picking you up?" Warren asks her. She looks a little nervous, but she gives him a nod. He scoops her up in his arms bridle style, being careful to be gentle with her bump the whole time, then he balances her against the ladder while supporting her with one arm as he steps up on the ladder and this is how he gets her out of the hole. One step at a time, balancing her against the ladder as he takes a step up, then lifting her higher after every step until he eventually reaches me enough that I can take her from him. It's not easy and takes longer than we would like, but it's the safest way to get her out and, quite frankly, the only realistic idea that we have, so that is exactly what we do with the rest of the women and, soon enough, we have them all above ground and on their way to the SUVS while I take a step back and take a deep breath. Fuck, what a day. We came here to get Tony's boys but instead, not only are we leaving without them, but we're also leaving with over 70 women and children and I haven't got a fucking clue what we're going to do with them. Fuck, what a day!Chapter 85 Finished