An Eye For An Eye

Soixante-Sept

Almost everyone in the room was nervous. I could feel it, it was almost overwhelming. Out of everyone, only Deuc and Jack seemed fine. But Deuc could hide his emotions, he had hidden his anger before, it wouldn't have surprised me if he was feeling nervous or anxious.

“So what's going to happen?” asked Charles. Everyone but Timothy was here, as per usual.
“I want to try talking first,” said Deuc. It was partly him and partly me. I didn’t want him to outright murder the man.
“Do you think it’ll work?” asked Tasha.
Deuc shrugged. “I don’t know, but it has to be worth trying.”
“He’s killed three people,” said Tamika. “I don’t think he’s going to listen.”
“We don’t know for certain that it’s him,” said Jack. “Even if he is suspicious and the most likely suspect.”

“Liza is going to stay here, I can’t risk taking her in case he thinks she’s still a hunter and I can’t risk her shifting and losing control,” he said. While Deuc could do his Alpha roar to turn me human, it would likely just be inconvenient. And I would be a weak link. “If something goes wrong, Charles and Tamika will get out first. They’re the least able to fight. We get them out first and then we don’t have to worry about watching out for them.”

I wondered if Charles and Tamika would be offended or if they were alright because they knew they weren’t great fighters. Charles seemed okay with it but Charles was a rather nervous person anyway.

“I’m hoping he won’t try and fight but if he does attack one of us, don’t try to negotiate or talk him out of it. He’s most likely a wendigo if anything. If he was an Alpha, he’d have a pack.”
“Why can't he be another Alpha?” asked Jake.
“Because wendigos are stronger than us at the best of times when we have a pack, if he didn’t have a pack, he’d never be able to kill three wendigos,” Deuc said. It sounded like he had thought about this a lot.

“How are we getting in?” asked Tasha. It was a good question to ask.
“Deuc has my keys,” I said. He had promised he wouldn’t lose them, otherwise I could be linked to the murder, if a murder did happen. While I hoped it didn’t, I was expecting it to happen anyway. “And should you need to, you can go into my apartment, there’s not much in there but it might be helpful. Just try not to make it look like I’m a murderer.”
“You kind of are,” Tasha pointed out.
“I haven’t killed anyone,” I said. While I had been a hunter, I had never killed anyone, even when I was supposed to.

“Anyway,” Deuc interjected. “We are going to try negotiations, if they fail, we are unfortunately going to have to resort to killing them. If something goes wrong, we get Charles and Tamika out first and then we fight. Don’t try negotiating with them afterwards.” Deuc looked in the direction of Jake who just rolled his eyes. “We fight to kill them afterwards, do you understand?”

“Yes,” said Jack and Tasha at almost the exact same time. Charles gave a nod and Tamika nodded as she confirmed that she understood what was happening.
“Jake, you always try to negotiate, do you understand that you can’t afford to try to talk with them this time?” Deucalion asked, looking directly at Jake. I couldn’t tell if he could see Jake with the strange vision being an Alpha gave him or if he was just looking in Jake’s general direction but Jake cleared his throat and nodded.
“I understand.”

“Good. Liza, you’re okay with staying here?” I nodded. We had talked about it before the meeting. I knew I would be a risk.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I said.
Deuc smiled. “If something goes wrong, we either reconvene in her apartment, or we try to get here.” Pretty much everyone nodded. It seemed as though they understood and that everyone was ready.

Deuc stood and kissed my cheek.
“We’ll be back soon.”
“I know,” I said, smiling as I kissed his lips. “Stay safe.”
“I will,” he promised.

It didn’t take too long for them to get ready. The house felt empty as they all left together. Sighing, I sat down on the sofa and curled up into a ball. Hopefully, they would stay safe.