Chapter 26: Will

Chapter 26: Will

My mouth was dry. What Alexis had just shown me beggared belief, defiled all logic, and hurt me deeply. My brother? So what my own story came down to was as simple as the biblical tale of Cain and Abel? Perhaps fate was feeling lazy the day it decided to write my destiny, plagiarizing from the commonest of tropes out there.

When I came to think of it, all that had happened to me so far in my life—the war, the hunger, the famine, the migration from one continent to the other, the unrequited love, the kidnapping, and torture, all of it proved to be such a derivative tale that the gods had written for me.

“Will? Will you speak something? You’re scaring me,” Alexis said. My mind was so far away that I did not notice that her face was strained and she was holding my hand. I was thinking as far back as I could, realizing in the biggest of all hindsight epiphanies that Fred had been conspiring against me all along. When we were about to set out for America, the only person in the pack who had vocalized his disdain at my decision had been Fred. When we came ashore in America, he despised my decision to settle in Fiddler’s Green. At every turn, my brother tried to resist my decisions. What a fool I had been to believe that he was just displaying the spirit of brotherly rebellion. Had I known that Fred had been so vile as to conspire against me, to lock me away and throw away the key, and to destroy the life that I had built for my pack, I would have taken the necessary steps back then.

But what steps were those, precisely?

“Will!” Alexis tugged at my arm.

“You went without telling me,” I said. It wasn’t a matter of her betraying my trust. I was not angry. I was just shocked at finding out that she had done this all on her own without even letting me know what she had intended to do. “And you managed to find out that Fred had been covertly doing all these misdoings all the while. I bet that somewhere in those call logs, there’s something about him having your parents killed.”

“I did what I had to. I knew that you’d never choose to willingly go to Beckett Pharma’s building,” Alexis said defensively. I raised my hand to let her know that I wasn’t planning on reprimanding her. If I weren’t reeling from the heartbreak that my brother had been deceiving me, I’d be impressed at Alexis’s resourcefulness.

“You’re right,” I said. “It’s against the code of the alpha. I do not blame you for choosing to keep me in the dark. You did an excellent job, and I couldn’t be prouder of you.”

“I understand how hard this must be. I do not pretend to know what it feels like, because I do not know how something like this would feel. I don’t have any siblings. I was never betrayed in the way that you are. My heart weeps for you,” Alexis said.

“Mine doesn’t. I’m not sad about Fred. I’m angry. He took away years of my life, all for what? He was my brother, goddammit. We came from the same womb. All my life, I blamed fate for weaving this web of horrors that’s my life. Edward, Blair, Ralph, Maurice—they all mean nothing now. It’s always been, Fred. I should have known. How foolish could I have been?” With my hands holding my head, I let myself be consumed by all the many emotions that were surging through me as I remembered the events of another lifetime.

“I have to tell you something,” I said, looking up at Alexis. “A truth I never shared with anyone before.”

***

This was around 1941, when Hitler’s forces were in full swing, and the war was seemingly going in his favor. We were just young brothers back then, brothers with two different ideologies about the world. There was Fred, ever the pragmatist, looking for the best in the worst situation. And then there was me, who knew that evil was evil and that there was nothing subjective about it. Hitler, the Nazis, and the SS were all abhorrent. The hunting of the Jewish folk, the gas chambers, the concentration camps, and the destruction of Germany from within. It was all downright abysmal.

Fred did not see it like that.

Fred, younger than me, believed that Hitler was a prophet, a manifestation of divinity sent to wipe the earth free from all evil. Fred wanted to join the Nazis. For a while, he was working for them as a part-timer, spreading their propaganda in the streets, recruiting soldiers to the cause, and even hunting down those that the Nazi party dubbed reprehensible. There was no stopping Fred. With our mother and father both dead, I was the head of a family comprised of just two people, and there was no way Fred would ever listen to me.

Even though I was the Alpha.

I had explicitly prohibited the Grimm pack from taking part in any of the Nazi activities. While all the pack had agreed, Fred had chosen to rebel. He strutted about, doing as much as he could without ever formally signing up for the Nazis. This was his way of mocking my authority. He was showing me that he could always get away with whatever he wanted to do.

At first, the damage he was doing was not serious. It wasn’t so bad that the pack deemed him an outcast. But when on a few occasions, he nearly murdered some poor villagers who were in the way of the Nazis, we, as the pack, called for a tribunal and judged Fred for his crimes.

He asked for one last chance. I, being his elder brother, saw the good in him and hoped that he’d turn right from then.

Fred quit working for the Nazis and even helped in rebuilding our village as best as he could. But by then, the war had waged so terribly that there was no chance of repairing the village back to its old splendor. The war crept closer and closer till the bullets were flying over our heads and our village was being used as a battleground in a fight against the British.

That’s when I made the move.

No one initially knew where we were going. Not even Fred. It was only after we had traveled several leagues that I disclosed that we weren’t heading to some reclusive part of Germany to escape the war, instead, we were headed to America, the land of opportunity and freedom.

There had been a terrible argument between Fred and me on the ship. He even threatened to question my leadership, but the other pack members calmed him down. He was never the same as me after that.

Once we reached America, Fred and I pretended that he’d never lashed out at me. That he hadn’t worked for the Nazis. For a while, I even forgot that Fred had an evil streak in him.

If only I had known then what I know now, I’d have saved myself.

I’d have lived another life entirely.

***

“You pardoned his war crimes?” Alexis asked, inquisitively looking at me, her eyebrows cocked speculatively. “Everything that Fred did, the pack just forgot?”

“No one forgot. We just pretended to forget. You weren’t there. You don’t know how it was back then. So many Germans moved from Germany and came to America after the war, many of them being Nazis who wanted a second shot at life and wanted people to forget who they were. I gave Fred one last chance to prove himself, to see if my brother wanted to redeem himself or not. It turned out that he did not. Back in those days, before political correctness and the distinction between the right and left wings, it was easy for someone to hide. This was before the era of computers and phones. People could take on another identity. I just hoped that Fred would change, be better,” I said.

“And for the most part, he has been an exemplary citizen, hasn’t he? I mean, if no one found out about his ruse, he’d have fooled everyone into believing that he was a redeemed man,” Alexis said.

“It boggles my mind. And to think that the man is sitting there, just a few feet away, in his cottage. I cannot kill him in cold blood, knowing very well that he’s so sickly and old. Yet I also want revenge. No. More than revenge, I need justice,” I said, battering my closed fist on the coffee table, making everything on it shake.

“Vincent needs to know this before anyone else. He’ll be able to help us,” Alexis said.

“You go and look for Vincent. Tell him everything while I go confront my brother,” I said, heading out of my home.

As I took the steps to Fred’s house, I saw the lights were out. It could be another ruse. He could be hiding in there for all I knew. There was no point knocking. I kicked the door open and went inside, not caring that whoever saw me do such a thing. The pack members would be made aware of Fred’s treachery sooner or later, and we’d have a trial for him. A proper tribunal, in which we’d punish him for his crimes. For all of his crimes, past and present.

But Fred was not in his home. I scoured the entire house and looked into every room, but there was no sign of where he was or where he had gone.

I stormed out of his home, unclear as to what I was going to do next, when suddenly Alexis and Vincent came rushing to me.

“I heard everything,” Vincent said. “But there’s something that you have to know too.”

“What is it?” I asked, heading back into my house.

“Tonight is the election’s result call,” Vincent said. “All of the towns are going to be assembled in the town square. Already, there’s a huge procession going on with people parading in the streets and everything. It’s fucking mayhem out there, and we can’t just sit idly by. The pack needs to be mobilized into the town. Anything can happen.”

“What is going to happen that hasn’t happened already?” I asked grimly as I sat down on the couch, racking my brain about Fred’s whereabouts.

“Will, my love, now is not the time to feel morose. We need you. The town needs you. Vincent just means that the entire population of the town’s assembled in one place, and anyone, such as the vampires or even Blair, might attack them. Both the vampires and Blair have ample reason to do such a thing. Blair might retaliate with some chemical agent. The vampires might want revenge for us having killed Ralph. We did strike them pretty hard, what with killing their leader and ending their smuggling operation,” Alexis said.

What she said made sense. Nights like this didn’t come by often. This would be the first time in a long while that the town would be gathered in a single place, making the people vulnerable.

“What are we to do?” Vincent asked.

“I’ll tell you what you two are going to do,” I said, rising again. “Alexis, you and Vincent will go to the town square with the pack and blend in with the rest of the people. Just look out for anything suspicious. Set up a perimeter around the town square and search the empty buildings. This could be anything. A shooter holed up in some building wanting to kill the mayor, a series of bombs planted to cause mass murder, or even some chemical agent like tear gas. Both of you are right. This is indeed a call for urgency and caution. I depend on both of you. Make sure that it’s all sorted out.”

“And where are you going to go?” Alexis asked, holding me by my arm.

“I’m going to have a tete-a-tete with my brother,” I said. “I’m going to find him, sit him down, and have him confess word for word for everything that he did. This I swear upon my title as the Alpha of the Grimm pack. This I swear upon my name.”

I couldn’t help but feel that there was an air of finality around everything right now. I could see it in the faces of my mate and my friend. I could feel it in every breath I took. I could sense it on my fingertips. After today, things would never be the same again, for better or worse.

“I can’t let you go alone,” Alexis said, not letting go of my arm. “This entire thing started with both of us. I found you in the forest on that day. Ever since then, our fates have been intertwined. Everything that has happened since then has revolved around you and me. If you must confront Fred, you will do it with me by your side.”

I held her hands in my hands and squeezed them, drawing her closer to me till I could feel her breathe on my face and see myself reflected in her eyes. Vincent coughed uncomfortably and shifted to the side, understanding that this intimate moment required him to shift away for a while.

“I love you dearly, and there is no denying that. Every day my bond with you strengthens to the point that I feel like we’re inseparable in our souls now. That is the truth of it all. However, this thing with Fred concerns me and me alone. Fred may be dangerous. He may have something planned for me. This sudden absconding on his part might be a trap he has laid out for me. I have to do this alone,” I said, now hugging her tightly.

“If this is indeed a trap, wouldn’t it be better for both of us to go together?” Alexis asked, her voice breaking a little.

“I trust you more than I trust myself. I need you on the lookout in the town. If there’s something dangerous cooking up in the square, you will have to deal with it. I trust you will be able to do so, with or without my help. You are the brightest woman I know, and it has been nothing but a privilege to love you and to live with you. The people rely upon you today, even though they do not know it. You have to be there for them. As for me, I will deal with the man who has turned my life into a living nightmare.” I had more planned out for what I’d do to Fred, but it wasn’t something that I was ready to discuss with Alexis. I knew what she was going to say to me if I divulged my plan to her. She would tell me to practice restraint. To calm down.

There was no way I was going to calm down, at least not when the true culprit was finally revealed to me. It wasn’t Edward Beckett. Edward Beckett hadn’t found me on his own. It was all Fred’s doing.

“Will. The pack will need you today,” Alexis said, running her fingers through my hair.

“I have trained the pack well. I trust every one of them to do their part. Vincent,” I said, turning my attention to Vince, who was looking out the window. “You have to delegate the task of protecting the commune to someone as well. Have ten members from the pack stay behind and protect the Grimm Abode. There’s no telling what anyone can do tonight. Neither of you has to worry about me doing something irrational. I am as sane as I’ve ever been,” I said.

“Well, see, that was just what I was about to say. If my father was any indication of the evil that runs in my family, imagine how truly cruel my grandfather would be. You can be sane all you want, but what I want you to be more than sane is careful. Promise me you’ll be careful,” Vince said, shaking my hand firmly as I embarked on my quest to find Fred and bring him to justice.

“Careful, cautious, restrained, and sane. I shall be all of that and more,” I said. “But where would I find Fred at this time?”

“Back when he could still walk, he used to go over to the cliffs and sit there, looking at the sea longingly. It was his favorite spot. Who knows, he might even be faking the fact that he cannot walk or breathe. Perhaps he’s there, at the cliffs,” Vincent said.

“Perhaps. Or perhaps he has run away finally. Maybe he got wise to the fact that we were onto him. I don’t know who tipped him off, but maybe that’s what happened,” Alexis said.

“The time for speculation is at an end,” I said firmly, knowing that we had no window of time to stand around and discuss possibilities and probabilities. “This needs to happen now. I will track Fred while you two secure the town square. With any luck, we will meet in the evening when all is said and done. Hopefully, all of us will still be alive by then.”

I cast one last look at Alexis as I left and saw the worry in her eyes.

Don’t worry, my love. I will come back to you yet. We have to marry each other, don’t we? I said in her mind.

Alexis rushed out the door and flung herself at me, kissing me deeply, unwilling to let go.