We walked in silence down the stairs. I was watching my feet, Mike was looking to his left, away from me. We reached the bottom and turned to our right, we walked a few paces before we could hear Wolfie whining, mournfully it seemed. I looked at him first, not noticing anything wrong. I frowned at him.
"What is it, boy?" Mike asked the wolf.
We both looked up at the gate before us. My heart sank as I let out a blood-curdling scream, instantly beginning to sob. Mike winced at the sound that pierced his ears before wrapping his arm around me. My hand shot up to muffle my screams so his eardrums didn't bleed as he pulled me to him, knowing I needed something to cry into and he didn't mind if that was his chest.
"Oh, fuck," he said gravely, obviously just as disgusted and hurt as I was at that moment, "son of a bitch," he muttered to himself.
"No! No," I cried, turning toward him, hiding my face in the place where his chest met his shoulder, my arms struggling to wrap around him.
He pulled me close, the shotgun jabbing at my thigh before he holstered it beside his leg through a loop attached to his jeans. He pulled away from the sight toward the right, taking me with him. "Wolfie, buddy, come on, we gotta go," he called for the living wolf, painfully so.
"Wolfie, please," I cried, coming up from Mike's jacket for air, "don't leave us," I added.
The wolf growled lightly, whining softly. He pressed his nose against the other wolf's nose, saying "goodbye....," before quickly catching up and moving ahead to protect us.
We stopped at another entrance to catch our breath, mostly Mike just wanted to make sure that I was okay and could walk on my own, and to wait for his ears to stop ringing from my scream I let out a few minutes earlier.
I wrapped my arms tightly around him, crying softly into his jacket; it felt like my heart was being ripped in half. I could scarcely breathe without Mike in my arms, I felt safer, better, in his arms.
"Vee?��� He said his nickname for me in a gentle voice.
"No," I only whined at him.
"Vanessa, come on," he winced, not wanting to make me detach from him but knowing he had to.
"I-I can't-" I cut myself off, my tears soaking him by now.
"Vee, please, we have to keep moving," he told me, nudging my side, gently of course.
"Mike, I can't," I whined.
He sighed in defeat, and sat his chin on my head, wrapping his right arm around me tightly. If we had to waste a few minutes to get me to calm down, then he would endure it because if I was in pain, he wasn't happy. If I wasn't happy, he wasn't happy. That's how he felt now, and that's how he would continue to feel, no matter how much of a secret we had to keep it.
I cried softer now as he began to rub my back with his hand, calming me down. It seemed so natural, I never understood why he hadn't done it before and neither could he.
I peeked over his shoulder in fear, the tears subsiding and I sniffled. I could see shadows, that was not good. I slowly pulled away, showing him my fearful eyes. He nodded, merely kissing my head and taking my hand. We continued at a quickened walking pace into the next room.
As we walked, I noticed something moving outside of the window and it made my heart skip a beat. I moved closer to Mike and he merely quickened our pace. We continued, losing sight of Wolfie, walking under a staircase, and to a hole in the wall. We moved through the hole and out of a doorway into B-Wing, turning left. We never let go of each other, not at all.
We kept walking down the hallway until we reached on my right, we entered the room and looked around, detaching as we both veered off in different directions. He moved toward the wall where the light was shining through cracks. He gently pushed against it finding he had to break it down, he pushed with all the strength in his shoulder and it came swinging open, he almost lost his balance.
I spun around, hearing him let out a startled breath, "are you okay, Mike?!"
"Yeah," he strained to reply, "yeah, I'm fine, Vee," he said, noticing that there was a lock again.
I relaxed, "okay," I let out the breath I had been holding.
Mike furrowed his brow and turned toward the open door, coming back toward me, "Vee, I need your kit," he said, "there's another locked door over here."
I quickly nodded, shifting to open my bag, finding the kit laying there on top. I pulled it out and placed my bag on my shoulder, moving toward him. I went to look at the lock, to see which tools I would need and then opened the box, I picked out what I needed and handed the box to Mike, so he could hold it while I worked my magic on the lock.
Finally, the lock clicked, unlocking. I quickly pulled it off the door and turned to Mike, putting the tools back into the box before taking it from his hand and shifting to put the box back into my bag, zipping it up and putting it back on my shoulders.
"Done," I told him, smiling
"Good job," he smiled back, shifting to get in front of me before opening the door.
We slowly entered but upon seeing a rotting corpse, I squeaked and grabbed onto his jacket, just like I had when Wolfie startled us when we first met him.
"Holy shit," that was Mike, "who is this guy?"
"How the hell should I know?" I retorted.
Mike moved in closer to the body, I hid my face in his back as he leaned down to pick up the piece of paper from his thigh, "sorry old dude," he lifted the paper to read it, it was a note, a very final note, like a suicide note, "okay, then," he said straightening his torso and moving away.
I was still attached to him as he turned us around and headed back the way we came, I walked perfectly behind him, even while still holding onto his jacket and hiding my face in his back.
Once we were away from that room, I let go.
"Better?" Mike.
"Yeah." Me.
He moved to open a drawer only to find a file of a man that was turning into a Wendigo, he didn't much like what he was seeing and moved away. I laughed at his choice of words but he took my hand and steered me out of the room. We moved back down B-Wing and continued forward.
As we turned a corner, we found Wolfie waiting for us, growling. We all continued forward, we passed under a grate above us and a shadow of one of those things moved over our heads.
I jumped into his side, "no...."
"What the fuck," he held onto my waist.
This was for just a moment but then we returned to our previous position of hand-holding and walking quickly. We reached the area where Wolfie was waiting for us but he was just standing there, growling lightly. We weren't sure what he was growling at but I was not sure I wanted to proceed.