The Wannabe Warrior
Chapter 197

Madison POV

The pantry was stocked to the brim with so many things that I could use to make traps and little bombs for this fight. I was excited about getting started on them.

I was not sure how much time I had and some of the items I wanted to create would take at least four hours and I was not sure if we had that much time, but I would start it anyway and hope I had the time.

Once I got the potion, that would take the longest cooking underway.

I moved on to making the sleeping gas. I could make about thirty canisters with what they had here and it would not take long. I took my time with this, I did not want any to leak and fall asleep on the job. It happened when I first tried to do some in my early years of chemistry at school, I put the whole class to sleep.

The hour flowed by, and I barely noticed, as I made the canisters and placed the triggers on them and put them aside carefully and started the next one.

I worked nonstop.

Someone walked in and stopped to watch me make a canister.

The scent told me it was my mate, but I paid little attention to him. He knew time was short and could not afford to stop what I was doing.

‘Madison?’ Zane called softly, breaking into my concentration, as I placed a canister into the box and was glad he waited till the dangerous part was finished.

I looked up to see a tired Zane looking back at me tenderly.

‘Eat.’ He offered me a plate with sandwiches on it, and my stomach decided to grumble at the sight and let me know I needed to take a break, that I felt we did not have time to take.

‘There are twenty-five canisters ready to take to the tunnels and set up. Are any of the Blue River men available to set them up? I don’t trust anyone else to set them the way I like them set.’ I asked as I stopped making the next canister and grabbed a sandwich and bit down into it, giving a soft g***n of appreciation as the flavours hit my mouth and my stomach reminded me to get it down there fast.

‘Yep, we have finished with the darts, we can do no more till the other men arrive with more. They should be close. Dad told them to jog here as fast as they could.’ Zane answered and I saw his face glaze over as he mind-linked the guys to who said were experienced in setting up the canisters and to speak with Peggy to replace out which tunnels they wanted them in.

‘Dad mind-linked me earlier today.’ Zane looked around the room and made sure no one was nearby that would hear him speak.

I waited for him to continue and ate the sandwich, watching him closely. I had a feeling I might not like what I was about to hear.

He changed mind-linking so only I would hear, those in the kitchen were too close, and told me that Gladys knew that Peggy was gone, and that did not surprise me, it would only take someone turning on the camera and seeing nothing, to trigger the need to get into the room. But what he said next nearly made me chock on my sandwich.

‘Gladys is crazy if they think they can synthesize that water or even remove the toxic part of it. I know it can’t be done, even though I did not want to touch the stuff, my nose told me enough and my knowledge of chemicals. Seeing those men and women and children dead, and those we saw crying out in pain, in the last throws of life, is such an awful way to die, that was enough for me to never want to see that toxic water again.’ I could not believe it, after all that had gone on before that she thought she could cheat nature’s own kitchen.

‘We all know that Gladys is not in the right state of mind, and her greed will cause her to make a mistake sooner or later, and this toxic water may just be her biggest mistake.’ Zane said, as he handed me a cup of coffee.

‘Regardless, it is not a nice way to die, and even though she is a nasty woman, with a twisted heart and lacking any regard for anyone else, I still do not wish that kind of death for her.’ I said and meant it, no one deserved to die that way. It was, by the look of it, a very painful death, and even I could not heal.

‘We shall replace out soon enough. Should I warn Peggy? Or wait and see, I do not want to put more pressure on her.’ Zane’s kind-hearted side shone through at that moment, and my heart melted.

‘Leave it alone for now. She has enough on her plate, and I would not want to give her false hope, and if her stupid mate uses it, we shall see Peggy suffer from his pain, and I can help her with that. My wolf, if you remember, can heal a person who has lost their mate, let us just keep an eye on her, maybe let our Blue River warriors know, so they can be prepared.’ I thought briefly, I don’t want to lose any one, but with the fight coming, we are going to. If Gladys is stupid enough to have everyone drink the potion, then that would save a lot of innocent lives and I, for one, would be glad that it was finally over.

Could it be that simple?

We will have to wait and see.

Zane gave the canisters I had prepared to three Blue River warriors and sat and watched me finish the last five, and took them, heading off to replace one of the Blue River men that knew where to put them and how to place them for best effect.

I started making more darts. We are going to need a lot of these. I wanted to put some outside near the entrance, a large number of them, that would be triggered differently to those in the tunnels. I could not risk an animal accidently triggering the darts. These were easy, making the shafts was slow and monotonous, but that was what I needed at the moment, as I thought of all the places that needed reinforcements, and where I could place men for the best defence for those that got into the caves. Peggy would collapse many tunnels if she had to, but I wanted to avoid that if possible. Thinking about close quarter fighting, some of the tunnels were four men wide, others only two, and so far I have only seen one that is bigger and that was the one that headed towards Alex’s pack. The diorama suggests that that is the main tunnel to the other packs.

This would be close fighting, hand to hand. I don’t think even being in wolf form would be of any benefit. No, it has to be human form and hand to hand, or knife or whatever the different warriors skill had. I know Peggy said, most of her warriors had tunnel training, to fight in a tunnel, but are they able to put that training into actually fighting, different when training with friends, than when you are fighting for your own life? Would they freeze up under pressure?

Again, another thing we will only replace out once it happens.

We never know what we can handle till we are faced with it.