Chapter 11: Alexis

Chapter 11: Alexis

I made sure to tell myself that it wasn’t my allegiance to Will that was driving me back to Fiddler’s Green. I repeated it like a mantra inside my head throughout the rickety bus ride. Deep down, though, where all the secret truths dwelled, I knew that no matter how many times I’d tell myself that it wasn’t related to Will, I was lying. It was about him as much as it was about Fiddler’s Green.

It came down to roots and their inescapability. Wherever I’d go, my roots would follow. Someone would ask me somewhere where I’d come from, and my instinct would be to say Fiddler’s Green. I could live in Boston or New York, or San Francisco all I wanted, but the answer to the question “where did you come from” would always be the same.

My town was in peril. As shitty as it had been to me, it needed me right now. That’s why, when the ticket lady asked me if I’d made up my mind between the ticket to San Francisco and the ticket to Fiddler’s Green, I finally asked for a ticket for the latter.

I hated myself for it, realizing in between bouts of responsibility and shame that this was some metastasized form of Stockholm Syndrome. But then, the rational thought would follow, suggesting to me that since I’d already escaped Fiddler’s Green once, I could do it again whenever I willed and that going back to save my pack was not an obligation but a choice.

When the bus finally dropped me off at Fiddler’s Port, I knew immediately where I had to go. It was more than just instinct; my bond with Will tugged at me. As much as I had tried to bury it deep somewhere within me, break it into a million pieces, or pretend that it didn’t exist altogether, the bond prevailed. At this point, the bond felt less like some fated connection between two mates and more like the voice of my conscience guilting me into getting back with Will, coaxing me into following him, worrying for him.

As if the bond knew more than I did. If it was so much a part of me, then why didn’t the bond register the terrible pain I had felt when Will had apparently died on me? Why hadn’t it acknowledged the betrayal I felt when Will said Ariana’s name? Did the bond simply not care?

“You can’t just stand there,” a voice growled from behind. “Piss or get off the pot!”

It then occurred to me that I was musing over all these thoughts while standing at the exit of Fiddler’s Green bus station, completely blocking the entrance.

I stepped to the side, allowing the old man to pass. He grumbled rudely as he walked past me, shooting me a hostile look. There it was, that good old Fiddler’s Green hospitality that I was so used to. I chose to ignore the man and focused on what was happening around me.

The night bore several ill omens. I shot a look up and saw that the stars were completely smitten by the dark red haze tinting the sky. Crows who had no business being out of their nests at this hour were cawing and flying chaotically as if rendered restless by something maddening beyond their understanding. The very air was still and heavy with anticipation of some terrible horror that had yet to come to pass.

The Grimm Abode was at an elevated plateau north of where I stood. I could see that all the lights at the commune were switched off. But there was a strange luminescence coming from the woods to the northwest. I had never seen something like that before. No matter how hard I tried to heighten my senses and perceive what was happening that far away, the thicket of trees blocked the trajectory of my vision, hindering me from seeing what was really happening. I did spot Lawrence’s car stranded at the precipice of the forest, which was all the sign I needed to know that Will was in there with his pack members.

Will might have been having trouble with shifting, but I was not deterred by such limitations. Seeking the cover of shadows ahead of me, I shifted into my wolf form and headed towards the wavering lights coming from the forest. Begrudgingly, I used my bond with Will as a compass to ascertain that I was headed in the right direction.

Once I was clear of Fiddler’s Green and was prowling in front of the Grimm Abode, the abandonment that I laid my eyes on was troubling enough to make me quicken my pace and head into the forest. How had all the pack members just blindly followed Maurice into the forest? It was as if they had bartered common sense for blind obedience. Fear could make many men do foolish things. I understood that with Will’s apparent death, the pack was thrown into a pit of tumultuousness and uncertainty, and naturally, in this ambiguous time, they looked to Maurice’s leadership.

As I passed Lawrence’s car, I caught a whiff of his decomposing body and couldn’t help but feel glad that he was dead after what he had tried to do to me. And not that I would admit it out in the open anytime soon, but I was happy that Will had been there to save me. But even that happiness had a bitter aftertaste. Whatever had transpired between us was still too convoluted for me to think about Will in anything other than a very confused and frustrated way.

But now was not the time to waylay my mind with these thoughts. With each step I took deeper into the forest, my ears picked up more sounds of cacophony coming from ahead. It wasn’t until I had reached the field that I saw what was happening and reeled in fear and shock.

Vampires were attacking the werewolves from all directions. My pack members were struggling to hold their own in battle. But what was even worse to behold was the sight of the women and the kids. While the men had shifted and were fending off the vampires, the women and children of the pack stood not too far behind. I could see that some of the women had shifted to protect their children, but this was not going to be enough, at least not with the way the battle was going.

I could not spot Will anywhere in the battle ahead. My bond told me that he was still there somewhere and that he was alive, but other than that, I could not sense him fighting or shifting. Maybe the bond had realized the rift between us and was slowly dissolving itself.

Knowing that the women and children stood no chance in this one-sided battle, I quickly broke through the tree line and headed to where the women and children were stranded. The vampires outnumbered the men of the pack, and some of the stray vampires were headed straight toward the women and children.

There was only one thing I could do: Make the women and children follow me out of the clearing and back to the Grimm Abode.

But before that, I had to take care of the vampires.

As I quickly grouped with the women, those of them who had shifted in their wolf forms joined me, and together we advanced on the vampires coming toward us. Just as we clashed, I noticed a loud commotion coming from the main fight, and it was here that I saw Will emerging from underneath a horde of vampires in a form I had never seen before.

Taller, broader, fiercer, he had shifted into the legendary wolf within, a form that was revered by all and was considered to be Fenrir’s living avatar. Very few werewolves had ever unlocked this form, and seeing Will take this form emboldened the rest of the wolves beside me and me to fight more bravely.

Now we knew that the vampires were not going to stand much of a chance against us, even with Ralph on their side. It was as if the vampires had sensed the same thing because the moment we clashed, there was fear in their attacks, and their strategies seemed to be all over the place.

Still, they outnumbered us, and there would be no recourse for the rest of the women and children if our current line of defense were breached. With this realization, I finally let go of all the frustration, anger, fear, confusion, and depression I had been feeling and poured all my emotions into the fight. The more I channelized these emotions, the more berserk I felt myself going till a point came that I was singlehandedly taking on all the stray vampires, driving away most of them.

Some of them stayed, undeterred by their scramming comrades. I recognized these vampires. They were the ones that I had fought at Beckett Tower. No doubt, they were looking for some retribution for their murdered brethren. At any other time, I would have given these vampires a run for their money, but right now, I was tasked with protecting the women and children. This put me on the defensive.

I looked at the pack behind me, saw the troubled faces of the kids and their moms, noticed the panic on the older women, the ones who couldn’t shift anymore, and understood right away that their place was not on this battlefield. They belonged back home. It was my job to escort them back, but not while the vampires still loomed so near.

The three female wolves beside me nodded in acknowledgment, letting me know they had my back on the field.

With this bolstering, I attacked the vampires ferociously, clawing at their faces, necks and chests. Perhaps it was that I was unfettered from all emotion, or maybe it was that I was feeling particularly vengeful because my attacks landed on their bodies so forcefully and tore them apart so easily that it felt like I was fighting paper-mâché dolls.

They crawled away from me, screaming for mercy, their hands held high. They would get no quarter. My fellow wolves and I ensured their swift deaths, and only after all the vampires in our vicinity were taken care of did we turn our attention back to the pack.

Behind me, the battle was waging hard than ever. With Will’s feral form dominating the battlefield, it was apparent that the fight was going in our favor. The fact remained, however, that this was a fight and, therefore, an unsafe place for the women and children.

I shifted back to my human form and went to the pack.

“Lexie! You’re alive?” an old woman called from the pack.

“Yes. I…it’s a little complicated,” I said. “But please understand that we have to leave. We can’t stay here in this ambush.”

“Maurice betrayed us all,” another woman spoke sadly. “Why must those whom we look up to take advantage of our allegiance in such a manner?”

“That’s a long story, Cindy,” I said. “Right now, we all have to get back to the commune.”

“But don’t you see? Will’s alive? He’s over there, fighting the vampires,” Cindy said.

“As admirable as that is, this is a dangerous place. Think of the children, the pregnant women, and those of you who are too old to fight or shift. We have to get back to safety,” I said, hoping they’d understand that this was not a place to spectate from but to run away from.

At last, they finally gave in and followed me out of the clearing into the forest. Before we left, though, I had to look back one more time and see the ensuing fight between Ralph and Will. Will was fighting so devotedly, with such finesse and power, that I could not help but feel drawn toward him. The only thing stopping me in my tracks was the pain that his death had given me and the sorrow that his last word had sown in my heart.

“Come, all of you,” I said loudly, addressing all the women and children as I headed deeper into the forest. I could not resist getting one last glance. After all, Will was fighting Ralph.

As the kids and the girls passed by me, I peeked around the thicket of trees one last time, just in time to see Will killing Ralph. Such satisfaction coursed through my veins upon seeing Ralph die that I had no way of putting it into words. A vile vampire, an evil conspirator, and a most malicious and cunning man was finally dead at the hands of my mate. The man responsible for killing my parents, for pitching this town into total darkness, and for terrorizing the people of Grimm Abode and Fiddler’s Green had finally fallen.

I wanted to go to Will and congratulate him for vanquishing one of his three foes, but I barely held myself back. I did not want him to know that I had been there. That I had seen him fight and considered him very brave and admirable on the battlefield. Sharing those thoughts with him would only make him think that I’d forgiven him, accepted him, and wanted him back as my mate. If anything, I wanted more distance between us—but why did that last feel like a lie I kept telling myself?

“Where were you, child?” Cindy asked again. “When Maurice came with Will’s body, we thought you’d be with him too. But when we didn’t see you, we assumed the worst. That you were dead.”

“Oh. It’s not so easy to kill me, Cindy,” I said, taking the lead once again and leading the pack back to the commune. “But you must know that Maurice was conspiring with the vampires and some other terrible people all this time, using his powers as the mayor to bend the town to his will. Tonight, he meant to wipe out all the wolves. He wanted to give the Grimm Abode to the vampires so that they’d use our home as their new headquarters.”

“Headquarters?” a little girl from the crowd asked.

“Yes, dear. They wanted to smuggle blood and drugs from the Grimm Abode all over America. The vampires have been running a smuggling ring from this very town for the longest time.”

As we came to the precipice of the forest, I filled the women of the pack on the events that had taken place in Beckett Tower, not mentioning the part where Will said Ariana’s name. I did tell them that I escaped to Bangor for a little while and what I did there. The women of the pack patted me on the shoulder and thanked me for helping them come out of the culling fields.

“I must go back and see if anyone needs my help,” I said once we had left the forest. “I trust you all can head back safely to the commune on your own now.”

The older women nodded, the children grinned at me, and the girls waved their hands at me as I headed back into the forest one more time. This time around, I reached the culling fields quite quickly, as I already knew the way and was certain that there was no more danger lurking around.

I hadn’t exactly gone there to see if anyone needed my help, as I had said to the women and children. The truth was, I wanted to see Will again. Seeing him in battle and watching him take that feral form had stirred something in me. Something that I was too afraid to admit.

It was love. Despite the pain and tragedy that I experienced, I could feel my love for him resurfacing. I didn’t want to fight it anymore. I wanted to go to him, embrace him, greet him, and share the joy of killing Ralph. Most importantly, I just wanted to see his face.

The face of a man who would do anything to protect his pack.

If he’d apologize to me again, I would accept it. If he’d told me that he never meant to call out Ariana’s name and that he was not in love with her, I would believe him. Eventually, I would let my love for him conquer any other conflicting feelings and forgive him for everything.

The bond within me throbbed ecstatically as if realizing that I had finally given in to my feelings of affection for my mate. I let it have its moment, not fighting the urge to calm it down.

But the real reason I wanted to go back to the field was to show Will that I had not abandoned him or the pack. I needed to tell him that I had come back, even when my feelings were on the line. That I deeply cared for the pack and this town despite all the things that had happened to me in the past.

I wanted this reconciliation to be a public matter so that everyone would know that we were still mates.

Once I had reached the clearing, I tried to take a step forward, to go into the moonlight and meet Will, but I found myself unable to move. This was not some paralysis brought on by the sting of some venomous snake or a scorpion. It was an emotional paralysis caused by sheer conflict.

Upon seeing Will standing there with the men of the pack, talking and laughing and patting them on the shoulder, I felt like an outsider. Even though I had joined in the fight and had rescued the women and children, I couldn’t help but feel that I had been selfish when I’d run away to Bangor. If I had been here, Maurice would never have had the gall to take anyone to the culling fields. I could have alerted everyone to what Maurice had been doing. This entire thing could have been averted.

With all these negative feelings resurging, I could not gather the courage to go to Will.

Did he even want to meet me? With his strength returned tenfold and with such a victory under his belt, would he want to apologize and make things right with me?

My heart sank as I realized he would not care to see me anymore.