Chapter 20: Will

Chapter 20: Will

There was so much subtext, and so many things left unsaid that when I saw Alexis for the first time back in her place, it made for an awkward encounter where I could feel neither of us could say what we wanted.

It wasn’t like I was deaf or something. I had been hearing whispers around Grimm Abode all morning. People whispering in each other’s ears, asking if they’d seen Alexis come back, wondering not so subtly why she had come back, and pondering ever so whimsically as to what the implications of her return were.

I chose to ignore that. There would have to be a better way to let the pack know that things between me and my as-of-now still rejected mate were improving. Besides, I was their alpha. I did not owe them any explanation. If anything, I should have grilled them harder in the training exercises in the morning.

Once the whispering and the muttering got worse, I decided on enacting the tough regimen. It was eleven in the morning on a hot day when the sun felt extremely generous in emanating its heat. Everybody was sweating from the heat and the exertion, all hundred-something of them standing on the training grounds, looking up at me.

“For the last exercise of the day, suicides!” I said.

“Hey, Will, that’s not the politically correct term for the exercise anymore,” Vincent said from below.

“Fine. I didn’t know. What’s it called now?” I asked, agitated.

“They’re just called lines,” Vincent said.

“Everyone, give me a hundred lines!” I yelled.

Several people groaned from the crowd, but I wasn’t bothered. If they could whisper and gossip, they could surely do a hundred lines.

And then something happened so suddenly that the entire pack looked up in shock.

Alexis appeared from behind.

“Will?”

Even though I knew her to be a woman of a brave demeanor, I could see that her face had lost all color, and her eyes were red. This was the first time I was seeing her like this.

“What happened to you?” I asked, a bit worried. I could feel all the eyes of the hundreds of pack members boring into my skin.

“I was…I was just coming back from my apartment when I met Blair,” Alexis said. Her voice exhibited signs of both petrification and fear. “He said something about doing something to you, and I thought…I thought…”

“Tell me everything,” I said, taking hold of her arm and beckoning her to follow me. I did not want the entire pack listening to what she had to say. We walked over to her home while she recounted her encounter with Blair.

“And at the end, the way he was being all elusive, it made me think that he had already deployed his whole Wolf’s Bane plan. For the rest of my ride home, and until I saw you, I thought he’d killed you,” Alexis said.

“Alexis,” I said, holding her arms. “As you can see, I am fine. And you are too. You are back home.”

Rather than respond verbally to my consoling, Alexis hugged me tightly, her hair cascading down my chest, and her arms wound around my shoulders.

I hugged her back, gently holding her body in my arms while trying to fathom this spontaneous burst of mutual intimacy.

“I’m sorry,” Alexis said when we finally broke off the hug. “He just got into my head, and given everything we’ve been through, for a moment…”

“Hey,” I said, “It’s all right. You have nothing to apologize for. I would have done the same.”

“Well, you’ve already done the same once,” Alexis said, smiling a bit. It made me feel lighter, watching her break into a smile.

“Ah. I did,” I said, reciprocating her smile. “Are you feeling better now?”

“Yes. Knowing that you’re safe and okay, I am feeling better,” Alexis nodded. “Do you wanna get out of here for a little bit, maybe?”

“Clear our heads, so to speak?” I asked. Besides training the pack, there wasn’t anything else on my docket today.

“Among other things,” Alexis said. “We haven’t really gotten a chance to talk about the things that have happened. Seems like we’ve been assisting each other on journeys that lead to closure. I might have something that could help you the same way you helped me yesterday.”

The way she had propositioned her premise was enough to color me intrigued. “Surprise me,” I said, grinning at her.

“Oh, you’re in for a good one,” Alexis grinned back.

***

“What are we doing here?” I asked her as she led me deep into Fiddler’s Forest. I was not particularly fond of the forest, given that my memories of it involved me being kidnapped, attacked, and tortured there.

“Yesterday, when you helped me get my revenge, I realized something. Hell, it’s probably the reason why I decided to come back. I realized that you never got your share of closure. Yes, you escaped from the manor and everything, but you never got a chance to go back there and see what you had managed to escape,” Alexis said.

Fear took hold of my body for a brief period as it dawned on me that we were heading in the manor’s direction. I didn’t think I was ready to face the horrors and the ghosts of my violent memories that haunted that place. Even if that place was abandoned. Weren’t the abandoned places where ghosts thrived best?

“Alexis, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” I said, stopping dead in my tracks.

“Come with me. You do not have to be afraid anymore,” Alexis said, holding out her hand. I hesitated for a second, thinking about what holding her hand would mean.

“Take my hand, Will,” Alexis insisted.

A familiar electricity possessed my body, subduing the wildness in me. In the wake of our shattered bond trying to find a way to fix itself, I forgot about the horror that I was about to confront.

We walked through the thicket of trees that surrounded the manor. The wrought iron fences seemed to have fallen in disrepair since I had been here last. Vines grew unchecked. Rust had started eating away at the main gate, turning the Beckett insignia a bright orange.

It wasn’t just Edward who had died when I had secured my freedom; it was this entire place.

Alexis kicked the door open. It shrieked in protest as it swung open.

My hand was still in Alexis’s, and I was following her lead rather than leading. I could see the scenes play out as if it was just yesterday they had taken place.

Here, by the entrance of the manor, I was thrown out of the cage in which the mercenaries had bound me.

From those morbid doors, Edward had appeared, looking like an ethereal spirit.

Those were the windows to the basement that had been boarded shut from both outside and inside to block all sunlight from coming in. My prison was a prison of pure darkness.

And now we were inside. I had only seen this place twice. Once when I was brought in and once when I was breaking free.

Despite the disrepair, the place maintained its regality. All those arcane symbols and Celtic emblems plastered over the walls, some hung in frames, others dangling from the roof, gave this place authenticity with regard to its eccentric nature. It had been the dwelling place of an occultist. Even after his death, it remained the dwelling of an occultist.

I could see dried blood splattered on the walls, curtains, and the checkered floor. This had been my doing. When I had set myself free, I had shifted into my werewolf form and killed everyone in sight. In my mind, there were no innocents here. Everyone who was residing here knew that I was trapped below. They were all guilty of that crime.

“It doesn’t seem like Blair’s been here,” Alexis said. It was only because she had said something after so long that I was reminded she was with me. I had otherwise escaped into a deep recess within my mind, a place where Edward loomed larger than life.

“Come,” Alexis beckoned me to the basement.

“I do not want to go in there,” I said. Being down in that basement would remind me of one of the biggest failures in my life. It would make me recall the brutal acts of torture that I had to bear.

“This time, I am with you. This is exposure therapy, Will. You’re coming face to face with the horrors of your past. I am here to remind you that you appeared victorious. You survived this hell. You do not have to let it haunt you any longer,” Alexis said, squeezing my hand.

I sighed and allowed myself to be led down into the basement.

The cage was still here, its door ajar.

Here, the smell of blood was more pungent. A carnage had taken place here, of course. When the mercenaries came to kill me, there were dozens of them. Their bodies were gone; God knew where—maybe Blair had been here after all—but the stench of their death lingered thickly in the air.

“Will?”

I turned to where Alexis was. It was a shelf containing empty test tubes, beakers, pipettes, and other lab equipment. I recognized the thick needle syringes that they had used on my body, the syringes that had hurt like hell when they pierced me. I grabbed a handful of them and threw them across the room.

“Do more,” Alexis said, her eyes wild. “Let’s do this.”

She grabbed a bunch of beakers and started flinging them at the cage.

“Let this stupid act be a metaphor for you becoming free from this place,” she said, throwing more beakers into the air, creating a cacophony of crashing sounds and shattered glass.

I liked the idea of letting loose. I grabbed the entire shelf, uprooted it from the ground, and threw it at the cage.

The cage broke in half when the shelf collapsed into it. It felt good.

“Here. This cabinet,” Alexis said, laughing.

I paused for a moment to notice how beautiful she looked, standing there in the semi-darkness, her hair undone, her eyes luminescent.

Then I dug my nails into the medicine cabinet and tore it free from the wall. It created the loudest bang as it crashed on the floor, its contents leaking out, permeating the smell of sulfur and ammonia in the air.

“Will, go long!” Alexis said, handing me a long piece of wood that had come loose from the broken cabinet.

I complied, running to the far end of the basement.

Alexis chucked a huge blue canister at me.

I instinctively rammed my makeshift bat into it.

The canister exploded upon coming into contact with the bat, throwing salt into the air.

“That was fun!”

“Hey, we’ve got all day. We can burn this place down to the ground if you want,” Alexis said.

Suddenly, the image of Beckett Manor in flames conjured itself in front of my eyes, and at that moment, I knew it was the only thing I wanted to do right now.

“Will?” Alexis was bent over the broken cabinet. “There’s something here.”

I walked over to her and found her holding a diary.

I took it from her hands and opened it.

“The Journal of Lord Edward Beckett” was written across the first page in cursive.

“What’s this journal doing here?” Alexis asked.

“Beckett, in all the time I knew him, was a notoriously precarious person. Sometimes he would conduct an experiment on me five times in a row just to get the results exactly right. He would starve me so that my body would be more receptive to the chemicals in my body. He was the devil himself, but he was also a detail-oriented devil. I don’t doubt that this is just one of the many journals he left in this place,” I said, rifling through the pages.

I needed more light. I excused myself from the basement and went outside of the manor to read the contents of the journal. It was like talking to Edward one last time. I was shivering as I read each word.

Alexis wasn’t here. She was still inside the house. I guess she realized that I needed my privacy while I read the final words of my captor.

After going through page after page, it dawned on me that these were not just lab notes of his experiments. These were diary entries detailing his life. I turned the journal to the last page to see what he had written before he died.

It read:

This is to be my final journal entry.

I can feel it in my bones. At the age of a hundred and twenty-six, I no longer have it in me to fight death anymore. I set out on this journey, built my manor in this place, to study the more fascinating life forms to divine the secrets that nature held. I wanted to create a masterpiece of my own. Play God. I wanted to cheat death. I wanted a miracle. That creature I have trapped in my basement, a werewolf of all things, has been an interesting subject, to say the least. In all my experiments with supernatural creatures, none have survived the harshness of my methods. Except for him. His body has taken to every single chemical I injected into him.

I am afraid at this point, given all the strange concoctions that are running wild into his body, he is no longer man or werewolf. He is another creature entirely. I seem to have rendered him perpetually youthful, stronger than the strongest of beasts, and more powerful in resolve than even myself. That’s why I must kill him before I die. I cannot let loose a being such as himself into this world. And what would be the point of it? All whom he knew are probably dead.

I have created a strange breed. I, Frankenstein. Will, my monster. May Lord have mercy upon any soul who comes across him if he escapes. There is simply no hope for him.

He took the best parts of my life. I was a mere man of fifty when I first found him, barely able to cast a spell, unable to scry. For seventy-six years, I conducted my studies, doing my experiments, trying to create a serum from his blood, his lymph, and his ether that would make me immortal.

While the experiment has not failed entirely, it has not succeeded either.

I have outlived every person I ever knew. I have been periodically injecting myself with the serums that I crafted from wolf blood and wolf lymph, and I have prolonged my age. At the age of ninety, I was a spritely fellow when others my age dwindled in old homes. At a hundred, I could run a hundred miles without breaking a sweat. I knew this was because of the serums. I also knew that this was not a permanent fix.

Now it’s time to pay the piper.

I cannot inject myself any longer.

My body has rotted from the inside.

At the age of a hundred and twenty-six, I feel the scythe of death slithering across my bedroom window. I leave it to my son to finish my work if it can ever be finished.

And I am doing this mercy upon Wilhelm Grimm. I am ordering my men to kill him swiftly. The world is not ready for him, and he is not ready for the world that awaits him.

All in all, one of my greatest failures.

I know for certain that an eternity in hell awaits me for all the sins I have committed. I have made my peace with that. I have transgressed against God and nature and man and beast in only the most fiendish way. Was I given another chance, I would do it all again.

My fingers trembled as I held the journal.

“Will?” Alexis stood with a red canister in her hands. “What did you read?”

“He knew. The son of a bitch knew what he was doing was wrong, and he didn’t care. He confesses in the final pages that he’s created a monster. I’m his monster! Says right here. Look!” I threw the journal at her.

Alexis read the final page with a shocked face and then stayed quiet for a long time.

“You know what, fuck him. He’s dead. Despite using your blood and lymph or whatever to prolong his life to live for more than a hundred years, he couldn’t outrun fate. He’s dead. That’s what matters. And we’re going to make sure that this place goes to hell with him!” Alexis yelled.

She threw the journal into the house.

I walked up to her and took the canister from her. It was empty.

“I doused the whole place while you were reading,” she said, looking up at me. Alexis procured a lighter from her pocket and handed it to me. “Will you do the honors?”

I lit the lighter and threw it into the house.

The place caught in flames immediately. At first, there was a sound akin to a loud implosion. A loud whoosh. Then the windows exploded, throwing painted glass in every direction.

Alexis and I stood far from the burning house, hand in hand, watching as the flames leaped into the air, enveloping the entire manor. Black fumes billowed from within the burning manor, reaching the afternoon sky.

“Fuck you, Edward Beckett!” Alexis yelled. “Now you try.”

I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and yelled, “Fuck you, Edward Beckett!”

“Now tell me that didn’t feel good,” Alexis said, smiling at me.

“I feel as if a part of me has been set free in those flames. As if my spirit was still trapped in that prison, and the only way to release it was by burning this place to the ground,” I said, looking deep into Alexis’s eyes.

“I am glad. Hi, Free Will. Nice to meet you,” she said, holding her hand out and smiling at me.

“No. I am serious,” I said, taking her extended hand and placing it on my chest. “I made a mistake. I can see it clear as day now. I know now why fate bonded us together. You are the balm of all my pain. You are the cool rain to the fire that burns within me. You were meant to heal me. You have been doing that ever since I met you, even after I rejected you. I was a fucking fool to do that. Feel my heart.”

I pressed her hand harder against my beating heart.

“I am sorry, Alexis. For rejecting you. For treating you in that uncouth manner. You are the most special person I have ever met. I regret that it took me this long to see that. You are winter fire, you are monsoon rain, and you are the sweet release of all the best emotions. None of the excuses that I made for rejecting you were legitimate. They were all folly. I was blinded. You helped me see. I was enraged. You soothed me. I was lost. You found me,” I said, drawing her closer to me.

“Will. I am so afraid,” Alexis whispered. “My emotional faculties are not equipped for more heartbreak. The pain would be too unbearable. Having lost people close to me before, I know what it feels like, and the thought that it could occur again terrifies me. But the thought of being mistreated terrifies me more, Will…” Her hand still rested on my chest. Her body, so close to mine, beckoned temptation, but I held back. There would be a time to give in to temptation. Right now, there was a need for something else. Reassure. Promise. Consolation.

“For as long as I am alive, and if you will have me, I will make you this promise right here. I will not break your heart again,” I said, wrapping my arms around hers. “Everything that you have done for me is so great a debt that I know I can never repay it. But I can try. Let me begin by apologizing for the way I have been.”

“It’s okay, Will,” Alexis said, her cheek brushing against mine, her hand still on my chest, undoubtedly picking up my elevated heart rate. “I forgave you then. It’s forgotten now.”

“Then let me be your mate,” I said, holding her by her shoulders, our faces just an inch apart. “Would you be my mate?”

“Will…” Alexis whispered, then kissed me on my lips. I embraced her fiercely, lifting her in my arms, and kissed her furiously back, our tongues clashing, our lips pressing, our mouths warm and wet with each other’s passion.

“Please be my mate again,” I said one last time before our kiss could turn into something more.

“Kintsugi,” Alexis whispered.

“Kintsugi?”

She placed her soft palm on my coarse cheeks and held my face in her gentle hands.

“I will be your mate, Will Grimm. Will you be mine?”

“Yes,” I spoke softly and kissed her again, this time letting the electricity of fate surge through my body.