Chapter 27: Alexis

Chapter 27: Alexis

For the second time on the same day, I found myself standing disdainfully downtown amidst the claustrophobic crowd of anticipating people waiting to see who’d be elected as the mayor. The City Hall’s government officials, distinguishable from the rest of the crowd in their black suits, were roaming around, making sure that the perimeter was well guarded. But they seemed to be doing a rather superficial job of it. Or so Vince had pointed out once we’d gotten to the town square.

The five or six mayoral candidates who had miraculously all stayed in the running even until the end were waiting with bated breath in the frontmost row of spectators in the town square. I both pitied them and envied them at the same time.

The pity, for the most part, was because they were going to have to take office after Maurice, and who knew how much Maurice had fucked the office in his tenure as mayor? What of the books that balanced the town’s budget? What of regulations, zoning laws, codes, conduct, and municipal development? The past few years when Maurice had been the mayor were some of the worst years the town had seen—trash on the roads, a dirty beach, and no management of the roads and buildings. The town had become a third-world slum. Whoever of these people would end up becoming mayor would have to deal with the mess that Maurice left.

Envy because these people were innocent, regular people who didn’t know about the world of vampires and werewolves. Their lives were banal and boring, bordering on uneventful. I wished for a life like that for most of my life. If I could have some shred of normalcy in my life, I’d jump at the first chance for it. Instead, I was being made to serve as the town’s silent guardian, its secret protector.

“Lexie, why are there so many people here? I am sure this is more than the population of Fiddler’s Green,” Vince whispered in my ear.

“It’s because people from other smaller towns and counties have come to see this procession. This makes it even more dangerous and raises the stakes to an all-time high,” I said, combing through the crowd to make my way to the front, where the stage and the dais were placed. There was a big rope separating the people from the stage. From the front vantage point, I saw the cameras that were located all around the square. All of the cameras were focused on the square, and none were pointed in the alleys, streets, and roads diverging from the square, creating an opening from eight directions that could be used in case of an attack. There were no guards stationed at the roofs either. The only guards and police officers stationed in the square were around the stage and at its entrance. “This simply won’t do.”

“And what are we supposed to do in all this?” Vince was just as clueless as I was, and neither of us had a game plan or a contingency for when everything would go wrong, assuming that everything would indeed go wrong.

“Let’s set up our perimeter. The wolves have to go into each of the buildings around the square and see if they’re vacated and secure. Anything suspicious gets reported to me. Tell everyone to spread into the buildings. You can go behind the stage and see if everything’s in order there. I’m going to the radio tower on the building behind the stage and use it as my vantage point,” I said. “From there, I’ll have an eagle-eye view of everything.”

The truth was, given how packed this place was, the cell phone signals were exceptionally weak in the crowd. If I could be there, right under the radio tower, I’d have better coverage and would be able to get in touch with Will if he were to call me. My heart and mind were tied to him, concerned about what he was doing at this very moment. Even then, I chose not to use our bond. It would be a violation of his privacy, especially after he had insisted that this was a personal matter between him and his brother.

But I knew that my plan to use the radio tower was not going to jeopardize my job. I could do both at once. And, my being so high above would allow me to scout for any vampires or soldiers coming our way. I could warn the wolves.

Now that I thought about it, there was a good chance that Blair was going to march in here with his mercenaries. Whatever his intentions may be, it was dubious that he had disappeared so suddenly. A man only disappears like this if he’s planning a temporary retreat only to come back with more force. Blair wasn’t the sort to just disappear without a trace. He wasn’t that kind of person. While he still had his vendetta, he’d lurk around somewhere near, hoping to catch us off-guard. Perhaps, he thought that tonight would be an off-guard night for us. What he didn’t know was that the full force of the Grimm werewolves was here in town, ready to defend the people against any calamity.

I watched as the wolves dispersed in the buildings, scouting them for anything suspicious. I headed to the radio tower and began my ascent to its top. While I was midway, it occurred to me that such a crowd would be a perfect target for a mass shooting. Or a mass hunting by the vampires. So many humans in such a close vicinity could just as easily attract the reeling vampires and prompt them to retaliate against both the town and the wolves in one fell swoop. From their point of view, it would be a move that’d help them take the entire town instead of just the commune.

All of these possibilities were likely, but which one was more likely? I had no idea. When I was lost, all I knew was that I had to trust my immediate senses. I’d have to use my eyes and ears to weed out the dangers.

This was a rare sight and one to behold. On most days, the town was the dictionary definition of desolate, with seldom to no people in the streets, barely any interactions taking place downtown, and the entire place felt like it was lost in time and space. A pocket dimension of depression. But today, what with the bustle and the crowd and the celebratory atmosphere, for the first time, Fiddler’s Green looked and felt like the proverbial paradise it was named after. What mattered more than all the greenery in the world, than all the skyscrapers in the tallest metropolises, and all the wealth in the banks were the smiles on the faces of the people gathered below, the lightness in their laughter, the liveliness in their voices, the hope in their eyes, and the promise in their stride. Everyone who had gathered here had done so to see a new day dawn on Fiddler’s Green.

I also hoped for a similar new day to dawn on my life.

My life with Will.

We’d get married and then move to another city.

Our children would have his eyes and my hair.

Somehow, we would save enough money to get a house.

Our children would grow old and go to college.

One day, we would sit old and content in our backyard, arm in arm, reading novels and drinking tea.

Now that was the kind of day that I wanted to dawn. It would be a well-deserved day after all that I had been through. Not to mention the literal hell that Will had been through.

My phone rang. I looked at the screen, hoping it was Will’s number, but it was just Vincent.

“What is it?” I asked, feeling disappointed. Will should have gotten in touch with me and told me what was happening with him. Why hadn’t he called me yet?

“So, you’re comfortable up there? Can you see me down here, waving?” Vince asked.

I looked at the crowd below and saw Vincent waving at me from almost a mile away. I waved back, unsure if he’d be able to see me from behind the sea of humans.

“I’ll ask again, Vince. What is it?”

“A couple of our guys found some anarchists holed up in the building with pistols and masks. When asked if they were part of a larger organization, they laughed and said that they were anarchists and, as such, held no regard for any organization. We handed them over to the police. Upon detaining them and interrogating them, it turns out that they were some far-right nutjobs who wanted to assassinate the would-be mayor. They’re taken care of. We dodged a big one,” Vince said.

“Holy shit,” I said. “Be that as it may, this was not the reason we were sent here by Will. These anarchists were townspeople. Ordinary townsfolk. Not werewolves, not vampires, and not Blair’s men. Everyone must keep their ears perked up, and their eyes focused and be on the lookout more now than before. You know, these anarchists could be just a decoy distraction to divert us from something bigger. Ask the wolves to keep scouting the buildings. I have a feeling the evening has more surprises in store for us.”

“Roger that,” Vince said, then hung up, leaving me to stare at the police procession in the back, taking the anarchists to the cop cars and stowing them away. What I felt at that moment was reassurance in Will. If he hadn’t sent us here, these anarchists would have attempted to assassinate the mayor. Will knew what he was doing. He operated with wisdom that eluded us all, given how old he was and how experienced his years and his trials had made him. I had to trust him to know what he was doing when it came to Fred because the only other person alive to have almost as much experience as Will was Fred. They were an even match, even if one of them had aged normally while the other hadn’t. Will lacked the evil necessary for beguiling people, something that Fred seemed to have in large reserves.

As the proceedings of the evening went on, with television vans appearing on the scene with reporters, the sky darkened to a deep black with no moon on the horizon. In the absence of the moon, the stars came out by the hundreds, shining like tiny slivers of glass in the sky. If it had been any other night, Will and I would have been immersed in some romance. I made a mental reminder to myself to take Will out on a nice nighttime date the next time such a night would come. A moonless night lit with stars.

My phone rang for the second time. I picked it up immediately, hoping this time around, it would be Will, telling me that all was well and that he had captured Fred without a problem. But it was yet again just Vince.

“I thought this line was just for emergencies,” I said impatiently. “What is it this time around?”

“Oh, I think you’re going to want to see this,” Vince said. For the first time, there was genuine fear in his voice. He was breathing heavily. I had never known him to lose his composure like that.

“Tell me what you found.”

“Lexie. It’s bad. It’s way worse than any of us imagined it would be. Sixteen of the wolves who scouted the buildings on the right and twenty who scouted the buildings on the left found bombs planted in the basements of the building, perfectly placed to bring down all of the buildings in the square, killing everyone standing there. I’m backstage, and I’ve found one myself, right under the stage. They’re nondescript, so it’s very difficult to say if they’re bombs or not. But Gunther, he’s an ex-Marine in the pack, recognized them immediately. Told us that these bombs were used back in Afghanistan by the terrorists. So far, we have found fifty bombs, all of them geared for remote detonation. There’s no timer on them,” Vince said.

I felt the life give away from my legs, but I held onto the railing of the tower and clasped my phone tighter in my hand.

“Can we disarm them?” I asked.

“Gunther says that even if we manually disarm them all, there’s no telling how many there are in the square. One of them could blow up at any time when someone pushes the detonation button. We have to jam the signals somehow,” Vince said.

I looked up at the radio tower, thinking how easy it would be for me to end this by just disabling the tower and killing the signals in the vicinity.

“I know what you’re thinking, Lexie, but these remote detonation bombs don’t work on the same frequency. Disabling the tower won’t do a thing,” Vince said.

“I have to try,” I said, climbing the stairs that led to the top of the tower. I could already see a control panel at the top with wires coming out of it that were going into the antennas. But when I climbed to the top and came to the control panel, I stopped in shock.

The control panel was taped with black duct tape, and right there, on top of it, there was a black bricklike bomb attached with a green light blinking rhythmically.

“Vince, there’s one hell of a big one right where I’m standing,” I said. If whoever had planted the bombs pushed the button right now, I would be blown to bits. “I’m coming down right now.”

“You have to stay there. All of us have to stay where the bombs are planted. If not for nothing, we can at least get a jump start on manually disabling the ones we have discovered,” Vince said. “How did Will know something like this would happen?”

“I don’t think that’s what we ought to worry about for now. Tell me how we can disarm them,” I said, trying to keep myself calm. The height of the tower, my vicinity to the bomb, and the uncertainty about what Will was doing right now were all pushing me to panic right now, but I maintained my calmness in the face of all the chaos and inspected the bomb from up close.

“More wolves around the square have reported finding more bombs placed in buildings. I think right now, it’s beyond our ability to locate any more of them,” Vince said.

“We have to locate all of them. They might have an internal timer on them to set off automatically in case the culprit doesn’t push the detonator,” I said.

“You’re right. We’ll get right on it,” Vince said.

Now that I wasn’t on the phone any longer, I could use both my hands to dismantle the bomb and see what was inside. The only person who could help me right now was Maliha. She’d know how to deal with these things. But telling her that there were bombs planted all over the square would result in mayhem that I could not control.

Below, the people started cheering loudly as the commentator came on stage and started rousing the crowd by telling them that the results would be announced within an hour. Then, some local band from town came onstage and started singing a terrible cover of Linkin Park songs. At least the crowd was distracted by it.

I dialed Will’s number. This couldn’t wait. I had to tell him what was going on in the square.

“Are you okay, Alexis?”

I told Will everything that had happened, including the anarchists and the bombs. When I mentioned to him that there were more than fifty or so bombs that the pack had discovered all over the square, Will gasped audibly. I had never known him to gasp like this.

“You all have to get out of there,” Will said immediately.

“We cannot just leave the people,” I said.

“If those bombs are triggered, everyone will die. What good is an Alpha without his pack, a mate without his partner? We have to evacuate the town square,” Will said.

“I believe it was you who taught me to stand up and fight my troubles instead of running away from them. How is this any different? We’re going to save these people, Will,” I said, feeling resolute.

“Save the people by having them abandon the square,” Will said. “That’s the only way, isn’t it?”

“If we tell these people to flee right now, they’re always going to live in fear. How is that any different from the lives they’ve been living up till now? Tonight, things have to change. We have to take a stand for ourselves. It doesn’t matter who planted the bombs and why. What matters is that we disarm them and make this town safe for the people, and you’re going to help us,” I said.

“I will insist that it’s still safer for everyone to evacuate the square. The town can announce the mayor in another way. Without the people, who will the mayor govern?” Will was being cautious, as was his right to be. But he wasn’t here. He couldn’t feel the spirit that people were in tonight. They were hopeful. It would be one of the worst thefts in the world to rob them of hope tonight.

“We’re going to disarm the bombs. What are you going to do?” I asked.

“Well, I looked for Fred everywhere in the commune and the forest, even in the abandoned Beckett mansion, but I found no sign of him. I am just as lost as ever. I’m going to go to the cliffs and see if he’s there like Vince said, then I’m coming back to the town to help you,” Will said.

“I love you,” I said.

“I love you too. Please stay safe,” Will replied.

I hung up on him, not wanting to tell him that I’d just taken the lid off the bomb and was looking at the timer inside.

The bomb was rigged to blow up in half an hour.