unfortunate ➸ primeval

Chapter 11

A/N: you may need your tissues for this one, folks. I apologise in advance.

"What the hell have you done, Helen?" Clara hissed, stepping closer to her.

"I thought it would be stupid to pass up an opportunity like this," she shrugged easily. "I needed all the extra help I could get for my plan."

"What plan?" Nick exploded, but he was ignored by Helen.

"To infiltrate the ARC," Clara answered plainly, her eyes never leaving Helen's. "But why bring Michael into this? He had nothing to do with any of it."

"Oh, you're so naïve, Clara. Don't you see?" Helen raised her eyebrow menacingly. "It wasn't Leek who told your dear little brother all he needed to know about the anomalies. It was me."

"What?" She stuttered. "But Michael barely even knew you! It was me who was always around with you and Nick, not him!"

"I found him," Helen answered casually. "He was looking for answers, I had questions. I made a deal with him: he would give me all the information he could find on you, Nick and the ARC in exchange for my information about the anomalies and what you really did for a job." She chuckled. "He was a very sweet boy."

"Don't you dare talk about my little brother," Clara seethed. "You didn't deserve to know him."

"Neither did you," Helen deadpanned, the smirk falling off her face. "But I made him a promise before he died, and I intend to carry it out." She turned back to her husband. "You see, you don't know it yet, but I do."

Nick sighed, rubbing his face with his hands in exasperation. "Know what?"

"Your work will lead to predators being created here in this precious ARC," Helen informed them, her tone bitter.

"I'd never sanction that," Nick shook his head.

"I've seen them," Helen retorted. "In the future. Troops from the ARC."

"No, no, you've got it wrong," he replied.

"You haven't done it yet, maybe not," Helen shrugged. "But sooner or later you will, and it has to be stopped. You have to be stopped, now. Before it begins."

"If you're so sure of this, then why didn't you get your creature," he nodded to his clone, "to kill me when he had the chance, or why don't you just shoot me now?"

"Because there is something I still don't understand," Helen whispered, bringing a cylindrical case off her shoulder and taking an object of the exact same shape out of it. "Tell me what this is." Nick didn't answer; he just stared at it in fascination. "Well?" Helen raised an eyebrow. "Do you know or not, Professor?"

One side of Nick's mouth lifted into a smirk. "Of course I do," he lied. He turned and took a few steps away, while Clara watched Helen put the artefact back in its case and sling the case on her shoulder.

"Tell me," she ordered, her eyes wide with the anticipation. Nick turned back around to face her, the knowing smile still plastered on his face.

"No," he said simply. "You can go to hell." Clara bit her lip to suppress a wide grin.

"Give him ten seconds then shoot him," Helen commanded of the Nick clone. The clone stepped forward, bringing out a gun and pointing it directly at Nick's forehead.

"Stop it!" Clara shouted.

"One," the clone counted. "Two."

"Don't do it," Nick told him softly.