Daniel frowned and pocketed his phone. The churning at the pit of his stomach had just moved up a notch.

"Still can't get hold of them?" said Parker

He glanced at his watch. "It's been three hours. I should have stayed on the phone with Rossi's people until Murphy arrived."

Parker's mouth set into a grim line. "This is not your fault. We don't know what's happened. The battery could have gone dead, they could be dealing with an emergency, there are a thousand things that could be stopping them from answering. Don't go to worst-case scenario until we are sure."

No matter how much Parker tried to appease his mind he couldn't shake the feeling that the worst had already happened. After speaking to Murphy and Kaitlyn he'd managed to recontact what was left of Rossi's pack to reassure them help was on its way. They were frightened, unsure of what had happened to the rest of their pack and stranded without a lifeline. His last call with them had confirmed a dozen more pack members had made their way to the safety of site B.

He let out a frustrated growl. "Murphy should be there already, damn it!"

Parker sighed, got up from her laptop and made her way to where he was standing. She lifted her hand to his face and he leaned into it. Just her touch gave him some measure of comfort. "You've done everything you can Daniel. Trying to second guess yourself is not going to help."

Simon chose that moment to pop his head into Daniel's office. "I just booked out the last available rooms at the Marriot, Hyatt and Hilton hotels in Colorado Springs."

Daniel nodded. "I just hope that it is enough."

He wasn't taking any chances with his pack. After the massacre of Rossi's, he had made arrangements to get his people out of harm's way. The majority of the pack who had families would be scattered across the state. Elise had come after the New York State pack on their grounds. There was a traitor on the council. No way was he sending the pack to site B. If they provided Elise with information on his first responders and sleepers, what's to say they didn't supply information on each pack's alternate site?

Daniel glance towards Parker. While he was angry with her for disobeying his orders and coming back to Nederland, rather than stay in the bunker where she would be safe, he was thankful she was by his side. Her presence alone gave him some measure of comfort and helped to ground him. Not to mention she had nearly chewed off his ear, telling him in no uncertain terms she would never abandon the pack like that.

Simon sunk down onto the couch and rubbed his face. "Are you sure it's safe to leave our people on the construction sites?"

Daniel resumed his pacing. This was the same question running through his mind.

He was taking a gamble. However, Locke Industries was too high profile within the human world for him to suddenly shut down all their projects. It would get back to Elise faster than the media could show up. He also had too many human employees whose family relied on the income. "We've taken each site down to skeleton staff. The police have promised to have a higher visibility around the Myers complex after we advised them of a bomb threat, and somehow the press got wind of it so are camped out waiting for someone to confirm or deny the rumor. If she's going to attack something as visible as that, we have a bigger problem on our hands."

Simon threw Daniel a wry smile. "It was way too easy to fake that bomb scare. Next time give me more of a challenge."

Daniel pushed his hands in his pockets and worried that he may have missed something

"If you pace much more, you'll wear a hole through the floor," said Parker without looking up. She had returned to her laptop and had resumed monitoring the unfolding drama in New York State to give them a heads up if need be. "Stop second-guessing yourself. By tonight all the families will be out of here. Remember, the rest chose to stay here with us. You didn't force them to remain."

He only hoped their decision to stay at Nederland wouldn't be their death sentence. Daniel raked his hands through his hair. The balancing act with getting his people to safety while not tipping their hand was weighing heavily on his conscience.

"What about Alice and the CDC doctor?" asked Simon, "Do we have any answer yet?"

While Alice and Petra had made slow progress, they had made progress. "They are getting mixed results. It turns out the poison from the Lycan that attacked Murphy is more concentrated than the sample they took from Carbine's body. Right now, they are trying to work out how Murphy was able to fight it off when the others couldn't."

Simon rubbed the back of his neck. "Do you think it's safe to keep her here, considering what's going on?"

This thought had also plagued him throughout the day. "What choice do we have? If we don't have a way to combat the Lycan poison, we don't have a chance of fighting them."

"What if she continued her investigation from the CDC?" asked Parker.

"Not happening," said Daniel. "I won't risk it. Here we can keep an eye on her and contain her findings. What's to say she won't turn on us if we let her go home?"

Parker looked directly at him. "Daniel you need to have a little more faith in people."

"Faith! Don't talk to me about faith. Rossi trusted the alpha's on the council and look where that got him."

Parker sighed. "Daniel, I understand the pain you are going through. But, I think it's about time to trust another human. Something tells me Petra will do what's right. We need to keep her safe. Working with her, Alice has started to understand just how little she really knows. We cannot solve the issue of the Lycan poison without her."

Daniel was stopped from answering when his phone rang. He pulled it out from his pocket and when he saw the caller display, put it on speaker. "Did you find them?"

There was a pause at the other end before Murphy answered. "Elise got here before us."

His normally gruff voice told them what he couldn't.

Daniel felt sick to his stomach. His wolf screamed for release. It wanted out, it wanted blood. Elise's blood. He closed his eyes and clenched his fists. Murphy's tone could only mean one thing. There were no survivors.

Parker inhaled sharply and her hands covered her mouth as she held back a whimper. "They were mainly women and children," she said in a broken whisper.

"We found..." Murphy's voice was thick with emotion. He cleared his throat. "It looks like they were herded into one of the shafts in the cave network and some sort of bomb was thrown in with them."

Kaitlyn was breathing heavy, like she was out of breath. "They didn't stand a chance."

The line went quiet, and Daniel battled to come to terms with what this all meant.

"W-why?" Simon asked. The question hung in the air.

Daniel's shock slowly gave way to anger and he could feel a vein in his neck twitch. His jaw ground together as he held back the desire to lash out. This was not only on Elise. It was on the Alpha traitor who was working with her. They might not have physically taken the lives of Rossi's pack, but they were equally to blame, if not more.

He could not allow this to continue. They needed to stop letting Elise have the upper hand. "Murphy, I'm going to conference Alpha Morgan in."

Morgan and Clara took the news as well as could be expected. After the initial shock had worn off, Clara's grief at the loss of an entire pack consumed her. It took Morgan a few minutes to calm her down enough to return to the conversation.

"How did we not see this?" asked Clara. Her breath caught as she wept. "Those poor babies."

Daniel clenched his fists. His rage was spiraling out of control and it was becoming difficult to keep it reigned in. He felt the weight of each lost life bear down on his shoulders like a dead weight.

Simon voiced the question on everyone's lips. "Which bastard betrayed us?"

"Yesterday, I would have said that wasn't possible. But now..." Morgan trailed off. "...now we can no longer trust anyone on the council. Who's to say it's just one?"

Daniel's heart sunk. One traitor in their midst was bad enough. But to have two—possibly more was unthinkable.

"As much as I am loathe to do it, I feel it is time to limit our dealings with the Alliance," said Morgan.

"Are you sure?" Daniel asked, knowing it could not be an easy decision for Morgan, considering he was one of the original architects of the Alliance.

Morgan let out a deep breath. "We have no choice. From now on, what we do is on a need to know basis, and they do not need to know. I will inform the others of the situation in Philadelphia and with the latest with Rossi's pack. I suspect that many will also withdraw until this mess is over."

Daniel sifted through the ramifications. "You know as soon as you announce there is a traitor among us, the knives will come out, don't you? It will be chaos with each alpha accusing the others of being in Elise's pocket."

Simon shook his head. "But we cannot sit back and just watch her decimate our people."

"Did I say we would do nothing? As far as the rest of the packs are concerned we are burrowing in just like the rest of them and cutting ties." Morgan took another deep breath. "From this point forward, beyond those on this call, no one is to be privy to what we are up to. This is our new security council. We have one purpose and one purpose only—to take Elise down."

Daniel's gaze shot to Parker. Their entire future rested in the hands of two alphas, an overprotective frau, a grumpy F.B.I agent, a bean counter and two humans. He didn't know whether to be reassured or frightened.

Well, if they were going to start their new council, there was no time like the present. "What do the F.B.I know?" asked Daniel.

"The powers that be are still stumped," said Kaitlyn, "They are trying to piece together how that much firearms could have been acquired by a middle-class neighborhood. So far they are thinking its neighborhood watch gone a little extreme."

Daniel took a seat behind his desk. "The damage has been done. We can only hope that Rossi was careful and left nothing suspicious behind. We need to focus on Elise. What we need is eyes and ears in Philly."

"But how can we? We will be spotted in an instant," said Simon.

"I'll go. They don't know me from a bar of soap," said Kaitlyn.

Murphy let out a disapproving growl. "Over my dead body. You are not going without me."

"We need a werewolf that can blend in and not arouse suspicion. I hardly think you would blend in the best of situations," said Daniel.

Parker fidgeted with the pen she had been holding. "What would they need to do?"

"Nothing, just keep their ear to the ground and feed us information. Now we know there is a traitor on the council, I can't send any of my first responders or sleepers. It would be suicide."

"What about Michelle?"

Simon's brow rose. "Who?"

"Michelle, Carbine's friend, the bounty hunter. She's not known, not aligned so won't arouse suspicion, she'll blend right in."

Simon snorted. "Wasn't she the one with all the tattoos and piercings?"

Parker nodded. "That's why she'll blend in."

"What do you think Daniel?" asked Morgan.

While he was loath to risk more lives to Elise's reign of terror, he had to admit Michelle was an ideal candidate. She wanted revenge for her friend's death, no one would ever think she was working with them and Parker was correct, she would blend in. Not to mention she was a pureblood Werewolf and would fit right in with Elise's acolytes.

"Bring her in. If she agrees to do this, she needs to be aware of the risks."

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📎A/N. Elise is some special kind of evil :(

Looks like we are taking the fight to her!! And it looks like we will taking her on without the rest of the Alliance. I wonder who the traitor is?

Next chapter will be out next weekend.

Till then, take care,

❤ ℳ