Chapter 17: Alexis

Chapter 17: Alexis

I yelled in shock when Maurice pulled the trigger, but Will held me and ducked sideways.

“Are you all right?” he asked, his voice tranquil, his face the epitome of peacefulness.

“I am, but in case you didn’t notice, Will, we’re fucking trapped,” I said helplessly as I watched Maurice fiddle with his pistol and aim at us again.

“No, we’re not,” Will said, and before we could discuss a plan of action, he shifted into his new form and turned into a wolf that loomed so large that his presence filled the entire cave. With one single powerful tackle, he brought down the iron bars, clearing the way for us.

I’m going to get even with Maurice, he said, racing after Maurice, who had ditched his pistol and had decided to run away for dear life.

I’ll blow this place up to kingdom come, I said. No one’s ever going to smuggle so much as a drop of blood out of Fiddler’s Green ever again.

Good girl, Will said approvingly before breaking into a run and disappearing around the corner. As I looked, I saw the flash of gunshots come from around the corner, followed by the resounding bang that rang across the caves. I was not worried for Will. His new form was powerful enough to withstand close-range gunshots. I was worried about myself. Amid the excitement that had ensued after Will’s sudden appearance, I had forgotten how deplorable my condition was—I was dirty, starved, thirsty, and on the brink of passing out. On top of all that, I had overcommitted by saying that I’d destroy this entire lair.

How would I go about doing that?

I struggled out of the cave and came into the clearing of the central tunnel where Will and Maurice, both of them in their wolf forms, were engaged in a pretty one-sided battle. Will thrashed the hell out of Maurice, threw him around the tunnel, and mauled him brutally every chance he got. Maurice whimpered, howled, and reeled away, trying to escape but failing to. Whenever he attempted to slide away, Will latched on to him and flung him across the tunnel.

I had bigger fish to fry than being a spectator in this battle. The caves had to be brought down upon each other. It was a good thing they were connected; otherwise, bringing down this network would require more explosives than I’d be able to procure. Even now, with what little consciousness I had left in my body, I had to sift through all the hundreds of boxes and find out where, if at all, Maurice had kept the firepower.

I needed dynamite, and I doubted if Maurice had a crate of dynamite just idly lying about. As callous as he had become, he wasn’t going to be so careless as to just leave explosives in a series of dangerous caves. I needed something else. Anything that would help me blow this place up.

Behind me, the fight waged on harder than before, with Will beating Maurice into the crates, breaking them open, causing blood to flow from the sealed bags and pool on the floor. It was unclear whether Maurice was dripping with his blood or the blood from all the smuggled packets that had ripped open.

From where I stood, it seemed unfair that Maurice had to fight Will. Will was easily three times larger in size and stature than Maurice. Compared to him, Maurice looked like a small dog. But then I remembered how Maurice was about to have all the werewolves killed, and the punishment did not seem so unfair then.

I couldn’t just stand and stare now that I had my own mission to get to. This place had been a prison for me for just a day or two, but even so, I felt so much hate for it that I wanted to tear it down. Will had been trapped in Beckett’s manor for seventy years. How must that have felt? There were dimensions to Will that I’d never understand, but fate had put me through such wringers that even though I’d never truly understand, I could at least comprehend their gravity.

I moved from one cave to the next, uncovering the boxes and seeing what was inside. Most of them contained blood as I had suspected, but every third or fourth one was filled with cocaine, ketamine, and heroin. None of the boxes contained anything that I needed. Until that is, I came to one particular crate that was tucked away from out of sight. When I slid it out, I saw that it contained around half a dozen remote controls and, underneath them, bricks of remote C4.

Why was Maurice holding a crate of remote detonative C4 in the cave? These were far too many for just one person to use. It did not matter. After today, no one would be able to use anything from these caves again.

I decided to make short work of the otherwise long and tiring task of setting up individual explosives all over the caves. Instead, I just set them up on the pillars holding the caves up. There were ten big pillars spread throughout the cave network, all of which were bearing the entire weight of the network upon them. I put three C4 on every pillar and all the remaining ones in the boxes so that even if the cave weren’t completely destroyed, at least all the smuggling merchandise would be.

With nothing more to do except pull the trigger on the remote control, I returned to the main tunnel where Will was still fighting with Maurice. I held just one controller in my hand, figuring that one explosion would trigger all the rest.

I saw Will shift back into his human form and hold Maurice’s limp body in his hands. Maurice, also in his human form, was bleeding profusely. I could see that it was his blood as it was spurting from the deep gashes and injuries on his body.

“You’re going to die, Will,” Maurice said, spitting out more blood.

“Irony seems to be lost on you, Maurice. It isn’t I who will die. At least not right now. Death can have me when I am ready for it. Today, death comes for you. Everything that you built has been destroyed. Your smuggling network, your relations with the vampires, and your power as the mayor and Alpha. It all ends today. Do you have any last words?” Will asked.

I joined Will, standing behind him, looking at Maurice’s pathetic face as he tried to summon the courage to utter his final words.

“You think of me as your enemy,” Maurice said, looking into Will’s eyes. For the first time ever, I could see that there was no malice or spite in Maurice’s eyes. Instead, there was just a somber sadness and defeat. “I am just a cog in the great machine that conspires against you. This madness began long before I was born. I was trained for this my entire life, but by someone who harbored ill will against you from the start. Why else would there be so many elements working against you? Why would someone kidnap you and then imprison you? Have you ever thought of that?”

I could see Will’s resolve faltering and his hands loosening their grip on Maurice.

“Who is it?” Will asked.

“Telling you that now, while I’m dying, would ruin all the fun, wouldn’t it? If there’s one vile thing I can do before I die, it’s this. I’ll make sure that you don’t find out who it was who sold you to Edward Beckett, who struck the original deal with vampires to aid in the smuggling business, and who tried to kill you the moment you escaped from Beckett’s manor.”

“I call bullshit,” I said, finally. I couldn’t keep out of it. Maurice’s final venomous words were making Will seethe from the inside. He was hurting.

“Why would you call bullshit? Your parents were killed by the same person,” Maurice said. “This goes all the way to the top. The best part is, you might kill me, Blair, and Ralph, but the real culprit will still be alive. And you’ll never know who they are!”

“Look at me,” Will said, holding Maurice by his neck. “I have vanquished demons larger than you and your purported puppet master that you speak of. I have braved through the threshold of life and death. You have no idea what I am capable of doing. You could have done better. You had a son. He looked up to you. You could have been a good father to him. You were made mayor and selected alpha. Your life had so many opportunities to good, yet you availed none!”

“Fuck you and your old-fashioned sense of morality, Will Grimm. Kill me already,” Maurice spat.

I knew that having Maurice’s death on Will’s conscience would be too much for him, given that Will was Vince’s best friend.

“You won’t get the honor of dying at the hands of the Alpha,” I said, putting my hands on Will’s shoulders and making him step back from Maurice.

“Will. Please kill me. I’d rather have my death at the hands of the Alpha. At least, that would be an honorable death. Just don’t have this fucking bitch kill me,” Maurice pleaded, holding his hands out to Will.

Will scoffed, then turned away, saying, “You deserve it.”

I grabbed the pistol that was lying around, aimed it at Maurice’s head, then said, “You have no idea how much I’ve wanted to do this.”

The last expression on Maurice’s face before I pulled the trigger was that of raw outrage. He could not perceive that someone like me, someone he had considered insignificant all his life, had the courage to kill him.

I pulled the trigger and watched the bullet lodge into his skull. I saw with satisfaction as his lifeless body fell limply into the puddle of blood. I could not believe it. Maurice was truly dead.

Finally, after all this time, the emotional burden that I had been carrying with me ever since that night at Beckett Tower slid off my shoulders and allowed me to breathe freely. The man who had been responsible for my entire life’s misery was no more. The vile person who had shot Will and had me thrown off a building had ceased to exist. Finally.

Now that he was dead, I could feel my soul and mind reclaiming Will. Now, it did not feel like he was the perpetrator of my mental agony. I no longer wanted to be away from him. With Maurice dead, I could understand that Will had been just as much a victim of Maurice’s agenda as I had been.

“No more,” I whispered.

“Freeing, isn’t it? People who say that revenge is overrated and does not resolve anything truly do not know a thing about revenge,” Will said.

“People can be such hypocrites sometimes,” I said.

“I have missed you more than you can ever know,” Will said, coming close to me, and holding my body, sending that familiar electric surge through my extremities. “The real you.”

“Do you mind doing this in a place with no blood, no Maurice, and no smuggled shit?” I asked, breaking into a tired grin.

“I would very much like that,” he said, taking my hand.

Now that there was no immediate danger—other than the explosives that I had planted all over the caves—finding my way out of the caves was easier than when I’d first tried to escape.

The second we got out, I breathed deeply and took in the fresh, salty sea air and let it revitalize me. I had never thought how much I would miss the smell of the sea.

“Before we do anything, just witness this,” I said, holding out the detonator in my hand. “This ought to be satisfying.”

Will’s eyes lit up as he realized what I was going to do. We eagerly ran away from the caves until we were a safe distance away, tucked behind the tree line.

“Press it,” Will said a little too excitedly.

I pressed the detonator.

Nothing happened at first. I came out from behind the tree line, followed by Will. Just as we had both stepped outside, the ground started quaking, followed by a deep rumble that resounded heavily until, all at once, an explosion happened, sending flames billowing out of the cave entrance. At first, the fire was just coming out as if from a furnace, but then another series of explosions took place, and right before our eyes, the cave imploded, falling upon itself.

“Holy shit!” I yelled, unable to hold myself back after witnessing such a spectacle. It was even more fantastic and chaotic than when we’d burned down Beckett manor.

I turned to face Will, who stood looking at me with the most sincere expression on his face.

“I would like to begin by saying how sorry I am for everything that happened,” he said.

I hurriedly went to him, putting my fingers on his lips. “Listen. Fuck the apologies. I am so done with the sorrying and the apologizing. We’re human, after all. Humans err. I do not hold you responsible for whatever it is you did. It wasn’t even anything that big, either. It was just me being a huge drama queen. In that cave, when Maurice had imprisoned me, I had so much time to reflect on my behavior. I was wrong. You love me. You’ve only ever loved me. I know this now. I love you too. Just…let’s just move past the apologies.”

“I never should have called out her name. I never should have died and left you alone. I am your mate, your protector, and I love you so much. You know this. I would move heaven and earth for you,” Will said, holding me in a delicate embrace.

“Come kiss me. I have longed for your touch,” I said, placing my hands on his face. “I…”

I couldn’t finish my thought. I didn’t even know what I was going to say. At long last, after such trials and tribulations, here was Will, kissing me again. And here I was, relishing the taste of my mate in my mouth, feeling the warmth and wetness of his lips as they plucked my lips, sucked on my tongue, and caressed the inside of my mouth.

I moaned quite loudly as he held me strongly and pinned me against a tree while still kissing me.

“I love you,” I said between the kisses.

“I love you so much,” Will responded, feeling my back and my breasts and planting his hands firmly on my hips as he kissed my neck, licked my chin, and then resumed kissing me with unending fervor.

There we stood, in the aftermath of the madness, amidst the flaming wreckage of the caves and the smoldering carcasses of the smuggled goods.

“Maurice is no more,” Will said after we managed to let go of each other. “This leaves only Blair.”

“Yeah, but what about all the fucked up shit that Maurice said before he died?” I asked, my heart made uneasy by thinking that if Maurice’s statements had any underlying truth to them, it meant that someone far more ancient and bigger than we had imagined had been toying with our lives all this time. Who could it be?

“I am not worried about such a person,” Will said, and I could tell he had reached into my mind through our bond. “If such a threat exists, it should know by now that we are a force to be reckoned with. We have forever changed the topography of this place. Look around you. The vampires have fled. The evil werewolf who had wreaked havoc on this town is no more. I killed Ralph myself. What good is a puppet master without his puppets?”

“What about Blair?” I asked.

“He has fled as well. There is no sign of him in the city,” Will responded gravely. “As to where he’s fled, that’s unclear.”

What mattered most to me was that I had accepted Will back as my mate and had chosen to let go of the trauma that was serving as a hindrance in our relationship. It did not matter anymore. Not in the face of life and death. Not after what we had been through.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Will said, taking my hands in his and pulling me close. “I have a way of putting your mind at ease once and for all. I open my mind and soul to you. Use the bond and see within. I will hold back no secrets from you. Just access my consciousness and see for yourself whom I love, want, and desire.

It was so sudden, this invitation, that I didn’t fully understand what he was offering me.

“Are you serious?” I asked once the enormity of this commitment dawned on me.

“I will hold back nothing. You may see for yourself,” he said.

And so I did. I closed my eyes and traveled within his psyche using my bond, exploring everything. The violence of the war, the journey from Germany to America, the imprisonment under Beckett, and everything after that. I explored his feelings, just as he had asked me to, and nowhere in them did I find any adoration or love for anyone else other than myself. His entire soul throbbed like a heart, a heart that was in love with me. Now, I could see that he was telling the truth all this time. There was no Ariana in there. I saw the memory of him standing in that afterlife plain, talking to Ariana’s spirit, telling her that he was in love with me.

When it ended, this intimate connection, I felt nothing but love for him, and I knew that he had been telling me the truth all along.