Chapter 12: Will

Chapter 12: Will

“Where are all the women and children?” I asked, casting a glance around the clearing in the forest and seeing no signs of them. The men, who were all helping me in the field, turned their heads and shook them.

“It seems that they’ve gone back to the commune,” Vincent said.

“Hurry up, men. The sooner we flatten this field, the better,” I said. It wasn’t that we had an obligation to bury all the bodies, even though the bodies belonged to our enemies; it was that if any unsuspecting passer-by would come through the forest, they’d see an unnatural clearing with dozens of dead vampires strewn about. They’d alert the cops, the cops would come snooping by, and before anything else, there’d be a whole investigation that would eventually unravel the truth to the masses—that werewolves and vampires were real and walked amongst them.

Besides, vampire bodies made a hell of a stink if left unburied.

It wasn’t much work. The ground was already quite soft and only had to be tilled a couple of times after burying the vampires to ensure that no one would accidentally unearth them.

During this, the men talked amongst themselves and helped each other. It was grueling work, having to grab the entrails and ripped off body parts of the vampires and bury them deep into the ground, but they did it with pride and heart.

Vincent stood by me as we watched the men clear the field. I could see from the corner of my eyes that he was studying me quite intently.

“You know, no one has been able to shift into the wolf within for almost a hundred years,” he said. He spoke in a very devoted manner, as if he was talking to some celebrity. Every word he uttered had awe attached to it.

“Vince, you tell me if any other wolf has been through so much toil as I have been in the past hundred years,” I said. I didn’t say that to show off or boast; I just wanted to emphasize that it took a lot of sacrifices to be able to shift into this form.

“You’re right, but you have to understand what I’m saying. The wolf within is such a rare form that most werewolves think that it’s just a story people have been telling each other for thousands of years. No one actually expects to see a wolf within with their own eyes. We’ve only ever heard that this wolf or that wolf managed to attain the wolf within. Who knows if that’s true, even? But tonight, all the pack members witnessed a miracle when you took that form. I could see no other way that we would have won tonight if you hadn’t taken that form,” he said, still in awe, still mesmerized.

“That’s simply not true,” I said. “I trained every single werewolf of my pack well enough. I knew that even if I were not here, they’d somehow win. I trust this pack. More importantly, I trust you.”

“You’re being so modest right now,” Vince said, grinning widely. “Come on. You can take the credit for it. You know that was pure fucking awesome, right? The way you just came up from the crowd and made Maurice piss his pants. He couldn’t even believe his eyes. And then the vampires attacked! I bet even you didn’t know that you’d be turning into the wolf within, did you? How did that even happen?”

I put my hand on Vincent’s shoulder as we walked toward the path heading out of the clearing. The rest of the men, now finished with their work, followed us. “What do you think of all this?” I asked.

“You want my in-depth nerd version of things, or do you just want me to give you a one-liner?” Vince asked.

As the torches lit up once more in the hands of the men behind us, a new life was breathed into the dark forest all around us, animating each shadow with light and creating a warm orange glow around the band of men making their way through the trees.

“I want you to tell me what you, as my right-hand man, think,” I asked.

“Okay, then you want the whole nerd version. Well, the way I see it, when Edward trapped you and did all those sick experiments on you, a meter started building up in your body. We can say that it was a meter of perseverance and tolerance, tolerating everything that was happening to you until it reached a tipping point. But that meter didn’t fill itself. You escaped, and so the meter just paused there. Later, though, when you fought Blair and Maurice, and Ralph, the meter started building up again, and eventually, when you were injected with that chemical, the meter started to overflow. But you didn’t know that because you were sort of dead. Tonight, however, when you saw that your pack members were in mortal danger, the meter broke, and you attained this new form. Everything terrible that has happened to you in your life contributed to your unlocking this form. I don’t believe it when people say that just about anyone can unlock this form. I think that the wolf within is a fated form, only given to those who have been destined to do great things or have already done immense things in their life. Such as you,” Vince said and then took a long break to catch his breath.

I patted him on the back as we came out of the forest. “That was one astute analysis, Vince.”

“Thanks. I just…I think a lot sometimes, you know? Sometimes I’m overwhelmed by all the thoughts that come into my head. It’s like…some of these things I can’t even say to anyone. So, it’s good to finally have a listening ear who can take all my bullshit and just accept it as part of me,” Vince said, his voice breaking a little.

“Is there a particular issue you’re talking about, Vince?”

“Of course, there’s the matter of my father being this villainous personality, but that’s not exactly what I’m talking about. On that particular matter, I’m very polarized. He’s on the bad side, as we’ve seen time and again. I have no sympathy for his actions. I couldn’t be more different than him. It shames me to call him my father. I hope that he gets what’s coming for him,” Vince said, breathing heavily. I could see that he was having quite an emotional moment and that it was not easy for him to talk about what was bothering him.

“You can talk to me,” I said. “I am your friend.”

“You’re more than that, Will. I consider you my brother.”

I stopped walking and turned Vince around so that he’d face me. Then I hugged him tightly. “You are my brother as well. And from this day forth, you are my permanent second in command.”

Vincent’s face lit up, and any signs of stress and worry that were lingering on the corners disappeared as he smiled at me.

“Your second in command? Are you for real right now?”

“I believe I’m being totally real with you,” I said, inflecting jokingly on that slang. “Now, would you like to talk to me about what’s bothering you?”

“I can’t really get into it, what with the whole thing being wrapped in layers of secrecy, but I’ll tell you this much. There’s this girl whom I’m in love with. And she’s…well, she’s having a hard time with things. Her family has kicked her out and banished her. They’ve also prohibited people from meeting with her. You know, they’re treating her like a pariah. And, well, she’s trapped, sort of. That’s as much as I can say without divulging more details. I can’t seem to help her break free from the curse of her family,” Vince said. I watched him closely. It was as if the weight was being lifted from his shoulders as he shared this dilemma with me. I wondered for how long he had been keeping this to himself.

“Is this a literal curse or something metaphoric?”

“It’s a little bit of both.”

“In that case,” I said, trying to dispense my best wisdom to my friend. “If you truly love her, you must believe that your love will be able to conquer any hurdles in its path. She will see that in time. Whatever is straining your relationship, whether it’s her family or the banishment, it’s not stronger than your feelings for her. Love is very much a tangible thing, capable of moving mountains. Let it guide you. There are few things as strong as love. Fate is one. Death is another. But wherever there is true love, you will see that it can conquer fate and death.”

I spoke from experience. I held strongly to the belief deep in my heart that the real reason I hadn’t died wasn’t because of some built-up immunity or luck; it was because I was in love with Alexis. It was why I fought so hard in that afterlife to come back, conquering fate and death in one move and coming back. Somehow, I had to trust my love for her to guide me in doing the right thing to make her see that I was sincere and that I hadn’t lied to her. It ached me to be away from her, both physically and emotionally. Instead of taking it as a brutal rejection, I reframed it as a challenge to my faith and love. This was merely a hurdle, and sooner or later, my love would have to overcome it.

“Your words console me,” Vincent said. “And I thank you for your discretion. Especially that you didn’t prod deeper into the matter.”

“I do well to stay out of other people’s business, especially when it’s a matter of love. However, if someone such as yourself asks me for counsel or advice, I give them the truth. When you look at me, you might see a warrior, a werewolf, a captain of the sea, but what you don’t know, what many people don’t notice at first, is that I’m at my heart a fierce lover,” I said.

“Speaking of which, I didn’t see Alexis. I thought you were going to find her. What happened?” Vince asked.

What happened, indeed? I had been so immersed in the battle that I had failed to consider the worst possibility. Alexis had been on the fence about returning when I left her in Bangor. Could it possibly be that she had not shown up to save the pack? I hadn’t seen her during the battle. It was possible that she might have been there, but I must have missed her due to being flanked from all sides by vampires.

“If you truly love someone, Vincent, you have to let them go. If they come back, they were yours all along. If they don’t come back, they were never yours, to begin with,” I said with a heavy heart.

“Tonight was a very important night for the pack, Will. You’re just overthinking it. Of course, she had to be there. I just know it. You wait and see. We’ll come across her at the commune with the rest of the women and children,” Vince said.

That tethered some hope to my heart. I did not want to appear overexcited or overzealous at the possibility that she might be there, so I remained quiet on the matter. By now, we had walked out of the forest and were heading toward the commune. On the way, I prodded Vince on the small of his back and aimed my finger at the car stranded outside of the forest.

“I need you to take care of this car for me, please,” I said. “You’ll find that there’s a dead body of an assassin in the trunk. Be discrete with it. You may bury it in the clearing, or you can throw it in the sea. Wipe the car of all fingerprints and everything. Change the plates. If possible, give it a paint job.”

“Umm, okay,” Vince said. “Is there something I should know?”

I briefly told him about Lawrence and how he had tried to kill Alexis. I told him just enough to give him the context without oversharing any details about how Lawrence had met Alexis.

“So this is like a revenge token,” Vince said, nodding slowly.

“Revenge token? I don’t understand,” I said.

“It’s like when you take revenge from someone, and you want to prolong the revenge-taking part of the process, you take something belonging to your enemy, and you make it your own. That’s what a revenge token is. In wars, soldiers sometimes take their opponents’ guns as revenge tokens. Sometimes, a person will wear his enemy’s clothes as a token of revenge. And in your particular case, you’ve decided to make Lawrence’s car your own,” Vince said, grinning at me.

“Well, it would be a damn shame to let this excellent automobile go to waste,” I said, putting an end to the matter.

When we had traveled through the forest after the battle, there had been no signs of any vampires in the vicinity, making it seem that they had momentarily fled their nearby home in the cove. It made sense that they’d leave, given how brutally they had been thwarted and how mercilessly their leader had been killed in battle. But something was not right. Even with the vampires gone, it was quiet all around. Too quiet. As if there was something heavy in the air weighing down the sounds. Like some evil presence still lingered nearby.

“Vince, where do you think Maurice has gone?” I asked after a long pause.

“There’s no way of knowing for sure. The last we saw of him was him running out of the forest. My two cents? He’s run away somewhere far off so we can’t catch him. But that would be giving him too much credit. He’s got ties in the town. So, if he hasn’t run away, he’s bound to be bunkering somewhere close by.”

This did not appease me as I had expected. Maurice was a man of methodological evil. He calculated everything precisely. He must have calculated this outcome as well. As such, he would have a contingency for this possibility. The question remained—where was he?

But it was not the right time to worry about this. We had just entered through the commune gates. The men rushed to their women and children, hugging their kids, kissing their wives, and holding their loved ones close. The air in Grimm Abode was one of relief, celebration, and joy.

As I was left alone at the gate, I scanned the crowd hoping to see Alexis somewhere. With my powers back, I could feel my senses heightening. I could see and hear better, but neither of those faculties was of any avail to me right now. Alexis simply wasn’t here.

I tried to get her out of my mind, but the lingering sensation of some oncoming danger never left my thoughts. Something was wrong, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. To distract myself, I walked around the commune, greeting the women, playing with the children, and giving words of encouragement to the men who had been with me in battle. Even still, my eyes strayed here and there, hoping that Alexis would appear out of some corner and confront me, talk to me, have a verbal spat with me, and then finally utter the words I was dying to hear. That she had forgiven me and that she believed me. That she knew that I loved her.

I even passed her house, hoping to see a light or two coming from the window. But her home was, unlike all the other houses in the commune, covered in darkness with not a single ray of light coming from inside.

“Will!” Vince came running up to me, his face red. “The women and children are telling me they were escorted here by Alexis. She had come here after all.”

I could not contain my glee upon learning this. I immediately grabbed Vincent by his shoulders and squeezed him. “Well, where is she?”

“See, that’s the thing. The women said that she guided them back to the commune and then went back into the forest to help with the fight. But I’ve been asking around, and no one has seen her since,” he said.

Worry replaced my newfound glee in a manner of seconds as I joined Vincent in search of Alexis. At first, we scoured through the entire commune, but upon finding no signs of her there, we headed back outside to the forest.

It was only after we had combed through the entire trail and clearing that both of us gave up in defeat and came to the unanimous conclusion that Alexis had only come here temporarily.

“She must have seen that we won the battle, and then she must have left,” Vincent said.

I said nothing. Sitting on the trunk of Lawrence’s car, I closed my eyes and tried to tug at my bond with her, hoping to get some reply in return, some semblance of communication.

It broke my heart when all I heard back was pure silence.