Chapter 4. the most unlikely luck.

It was a beautiful fall morning as the young couple hiked down from the mountains. Both appeared to be in their mid-twenties as they took in the beautiful scenery under the early morning sunrise that filled the sky. The small narrow trail they followed down from the mountains north of town was maybe wide enough for a wagon at best. It was not much more than a big game trail used by avid hikers like themselves. 

The man stopped for a moment to rest, his breath coming out in ragged gasps as he dropped his pack and pulled out a bottle to take a deep, appreciative swig of water from it. "Getting tired already, Lucian?" the female asked teasingly. She appeared to be just as winded and exhausted as he was. They were trying to set a good fast pace up and down the path for fun. Always competitive when on their hikes. 

Lucian smirked, his black hair cut short with a ballcap on to block out some sunlight from his face. "You wish Evelyn, I can keep going if your slow butt can," he responded back in defiance. He couldn't let her get the better of him, not on a date. That would be ridiculous. They may be married, but he still had his pride to think about. After all, she was maybe five feet on her best day. Whereas he was almost six foot three. It would be embarrassing if he had to stop for a break before the shorty. 

She laughed full and heartily at his defiance. "You know, it is okay for a big bad husband to admit he's actually tired and wants a break before the shorty," she said, her voice light and happy.

Lucian grinned as he shook his head. "Nah, I can't have you thinking I've gotten weak or soft on you," he responded as he took another swig and placed the bottle back in his black pack and shouldered it before he took the lead again. "Come on baby, let's get going home," he said as he nudged her side as he walked past her. 

She shook her head and said nothing as she followed her sexy man beast. He was always determined to outdo her in their competitions. It was adorable, the competitive side of him. She adjusted the way the pack rested on her shoulders as she continued after him. They continued in peace for a couple of hours, enjoying the peace and serenity of the trail as the birds and insects of the forest filled the silence between them. 

Eventually, they heard some loud bangs off in the distance. Both of them froze in place. The first bang was followed with the echo of what Lucian suspected was gunshots. Then other bangs filled the silence. Within a few minutes of the first loud bang and echoes, a horrifying howl filled the mid afternoon. It chilled their blood and froze them in place as it was quickly joined by others. Soon they heard frenzied screaming through the forest as what sounded like a battle was going on. 

"Stay behind me and move exactly as I do," Lucian said quietly to Evelyn who nodded in grim determination. Lucian didn't know what was going on, but he could tell it wasn't going well for someone. Together they left the trail and crept through the woods as they could hear the sounds of the battle growing louder with each step. Soon enough a large earthen tunnel was created on the game trail that they just left. Evelyn let out a surprise gasp. As they hid behind some bushes away from the trail, they could see several men in white coats with a red anarchy symbol appear from the other side of the tunnel and started running down inside it. 

Screams and gunshots could be heard as another battle inside the tunnel was started. Lucian was horrified by what he could hear. Evelyn covered her mouth with her hand as she imagined women and children being gunned down. Some of the screams were too high pitched to be simply women. There had to be children inside as well. She started moving forward on instinct. She had to help however she could. The children had to be saved, if there were any. 

Lucian quickly grabbed his wife by the arm. She whirled around to face him as anger filled her features at being stopped. He pulled her close against his body and whispered barely audible in her ear. "We have no weapons, barely any skill in magic. These look like trained mercenaries. We would be slaughtered before we took more than a few steps." He felt her body tense against his hold. She wanted to intervene. Her body screamed at her too. 

"We can't. All we can do is hide and try to help any survivors," he said urgently against her ear. He prayed she would calm down. He wanted to do something. He yearned to do anything to help the anguished screams he could hear. But they couldn't help anyone if they were killed in the crossfire.

 He kept his grip tight around the brunette in his arms as she stopped struggling against him. He kept them low and crouched in the bushes while the screams eventually died down. Pain filled Lucians heart as he understood what that must have meant. The battle was over. As men in the white coats walked out laughing from the tunnel, his worst suspicions were confirmed. Whatever group these men were after, had most likely all been slaughtered in that tunnel. 

He pressed both their bodies down into the ground to avoid detection as the groups of men in white coats walked back and forth for a good hour or so. Eventually, a man with short blonde hair in spikes walked out from the tunnel. He had a bandage covering the left side of his face as he spoke to a couple other of the men. "Leave the bodies of the animals. Pull our wounded and dead out of here. Leave no trace we were ever here," His gruff voice issued the commands to the men nearby. 

Evelyn let out a quiet choked sob as she heard those words. Lucian kept her pinned down in the ground, hiding behind the bushes as the men on the trail worked and extracted from the area. An aircraft came down above them, and the men walked up the ramps, carrying the wounded and dead on stretchers with them. Lucian lost count of how many men he saw departing. When the last aircraft departed, Lucian waited another half hour before he lifted his body off of Evelyn and kept his ears perked ahead for any sound of movement or voices. 

Confident that they all appeared to have left, Lucian grabbed Evelyn's hand and slowly crept through the brush and stepped out onto the trail. As they neared the tunnel entrance, Evelyen let out a strangled cry as she saw the bodies littering the ground. Women, and children filled the tunnel. Some of them were in a werewolf form when they died. Hot wet tears filled her eyes as she looked on in horror and pain. 

Lucian cursed out loud as he looked down the tunnel. The bodies of women and children littered with bullets and traces of magical attacks filled the ground. Some of the bodies, both adults and children, were covered with scorching burns, or buried under earthen rubble. A grisly sight. Add in the putrid smell of death and rott and it almost made Lucian lose his breakfast, his stomach churning from the sight and smell. 

He had let go of Evenlyn's hand by now. Focused on the bodies in front of him, he didn't notice when she rushed from his side and started checking any body she could find for a pulse. She cried and sobbed with finality with each body that was still and quiet. She was desperate, even beyond reason to try and find a single person she could save in this massacre. Foot by foot they made their way through the tunnel, checking the bodies around them, and not finding a single pulse among them. 

Lucian shook his head with a sigh as they cleared another group of bodies, a mix of human and werewolf. "It looks like those men in white coats didn't leave a single survivor. They appear to be thorough in their killing," Lucian said softly. His voice was strange and hoarse to his own ears. The sound of it made Evelyn jump in surprise. 

Her face was riddled with tears that wouldn't stop flowing. She didn't know these people. The amount and scale of death and devastation tore at her heart in the worst sort of way. "There has to be one, single person alive in this. Someone must have survived," she whispered in fear as she shook her head in grim determination. She would not give up. Not until she has checked on every single body that she came across. Someone had to be alive, she just knew it. 

Lucian let out a vicious curse as he stumbled upon what appeared to be a younger woman with a young, possibly newborn child wrapped in a soft cloth sling around her body. The baby was tucked against her chest. Both bodies appeared to have been burned by what appeared to be a magical strike. He felt his stomach heave and rise as he turned to the side and tucked his head down by his knees as he braced himself. He hurled, emptied his stomach from the breakfast he had eaten hours ago as the reality of everything slammed into him with a horrible finality. The poor mother and child. No one deserved a death that way. 

While Lucian was dealing with emptying his stomach, Evelyn walked over, the smell of burnt flesh and cloth singing her nose from the pungent odor. There was a werewolf nearby that had a gunshot type wound right between her eyes, a blood trail leaked out and onto the ground where a pool of it rested. Evelyn shook her head at such a tragic loss of life in this tunnel. She hadn't heard of werewolves often. They were one of the rarer shifter clans out in the world. But for this many of them to be in one place? This was unexplainable. Her foot kicked against something on the ground and a soft child's voice could be heard crying, almost as if muffled by something. 

"Lucian, over here!" Evelyn's shocked voice called out to her husband as she knelt down and found what appeared to be a small lid of some kind with holes in the top for air flow. Lucian knelt down beside her and helped her to break the lid off and reveal a small child with beautiful black curly hair and piercing blue eyes staring up at them. The baby didn't appear to have a mark on his body as he was hidden in the ground. The child looked up at them with nothing but trust in his eyes as he cooed in his hiding spot. 

"A survivor," Lucian said in wonder and awe. He couldn't believe that out of all this death and carnage, a lone baby survived. He reached down and gently lifted the tiny child out of the hole he was in. The baby looked on at Lucian's soft face as the man held him gently in his arms. "He's all alone," he said quietly as he wrapped his arms tenderly around the little baby boy. 

Evelyn stepped closer to her husband. "We can't just leave him somewhere." she said quietly as she looked at the adorable baby, lost in his beautiful blue eyes. She bit her lip in indecision as she looked at her husband. "We will take him. We will raise him as our own," She said suddenly. A bright smile spread across her face at the thought of calling this baby hers. He may have lost his blood kin today. But he would not be alone in this cruel unforgiving world. 

Lucian thought it over for a moment. What choice did they really have? She was right, they couldn't just leave him here or drop the baby off at a random orphanage or medical facility. They would ask too many questions that they didn't have the answers for. He settled on his decision and nodded. "Let's call him… Gavin," he said thoughtfully as he turned to look at Evelyn. 

Evelyn smiled in appreciation at her husband. "Yes, I love the name," she said as she gently took the baby from him into her own arms. "Welcome to the family, little Gavin Johnson."