An Eye For An Eye

Quarante-Quatre

There were three missed calls on his phone and I told him they were from Jack. He sighed and then there was loud knocking.
“That would be Jack,” he said as he headed to the door. He was already dressed while I sat on his side of the bed by the bedside table, still in pajamas. If Jack was here, I probably should get dressed.
“I’ll be down in a minute or two,” I said, watching him leave.

I put his phone on his bedside table, I’d felt a little rude looking at who the missed calls were from, even if he had asked me to look. Still, I needed to get dressed and headed to the guest bedroom where the majority of my clothes were being kept.

Once I’d changed into clean clothes, I headed downstairs. I could hear a voice who I presumed was Jack’s before I even reached the stairs.
“Two wendigos, dead. This is weird!” he exclaimed.
“It is unusual.”
“Unusual? It’s almost unheard of! What’s killing them?” asked Jack.
“You’ve been here with Timothy while we were in Beacon Hills, what do you think it is?”

I started to head downstairs with a frown on my face. Two dead wendigos? Something was definitely weird about that. Wendigos were as powerful as Alpha werewolves and Alphas were fairly hard to kill.
“I don’t know, that’s what scares me,” said Jack. There was an emotion that I could smell as I walked into the room. Fear. He glanced at me before looking at Deucalion. “We don’t get wendigos around here, Deuc.”
“I know, Jack. We’ll find out what’s killing them and we’ll deal with it before whatever it is kills someone else.”

“You think it’s one person?” I asked.
“I doubt it’s hunters but I suppose there’s a possibility it’s a group or a pack,” he said with a slight shrug.
“What do we do then?” asked Jack. He was tall and muscly with relatively short, bleached hair.
“We take them out one by one,” he said rather coldly. Jack just nodded.

“And um, there’s something else,” he said, a little more nervously. He glanced at me again but I didn’t leave the room, I had no reason to. “Tasha’s been more agitated and angry since you’ve come back from Beacon Hills. Do you want to explain that? And whatever the hell else happened? You’re blind, Marco is dead, so’s Becca and the Argents killed the others?”

Deuc took a deep breath and motioned for Jack to sit down. Jack shook his head and stayed standing.
“I tried to make peace with Gerard Argent, he killed three and blinded me.”
“How?”
“Flashbang arrows,” he said. There was that coldness again, the anger. And I winced. I’d seen them used to temporarily blind and stun werewolves. “Directly into my eyes.”

“And Marco and Becca?” Deuc didn’t answer Jack.
“Self-defence,” I said for him.
“I didn’t ask you,” he snapped. “But self-defence?”
“They thought I wasn’t suited to my current position and tried to relieve me from it,” he said with a chilling smile. He hadn’t been lying when he had said he was still angry.

Jack slowly walked towards him, his fists clenched at his sides.
“Becca was my best friend,” he said.
“I know,” said Deuc. “But I think being a blind man suits me more than death at the moment.” Jack huffed like a child and stopped a foot away from Deucalion. I had the feeling he was only doing it because Deuc couldn’t see him.

“And the Argent current standing in your living room?”
“Is no longer an Argent,” he said.
“She tried to shoot me. In fact, if I’m recalling correctly, she did shoot me,” said Jack. He shot an angry glare in my direction.
“In the arm,” I said. I couldn’t expect to rely on Deucalion all of the time. He wasn’t always going to be there, I had to stand up for myself. “But I was told to shoot you in the head.”

“And I’m supposed to be thankful?” he asked, scoffing. “Tasha said she’s part of the pack.”
“She is, did Tasha tell you why?”
Jack took a sharp inhale but shook his head. “No, she didn’t.”
“Gerard Argent shot me,” I said.
“Right, daddy issues, so what? You gave her the Bite… why?” he asked. There was a different emotion now. Disgust. He was disgusted with me and with his choices. Then he spoke louder: “She’s probably not as sweet as she seems, the Argents are just liars.”

I wanted to argue that point but currently that only applied to only half of my direct family. But Chris was honest, and seemingly so was Victoria. And Allison was just a child.

“If you’re using her then I get that but-”

Jack was cut off by a claw slashing across his face. I just stared at what happened in front of me.
“I can do much worse than that, Jack. If I had held your family against you, you’d currently be decaying in the ground,” he snarled as he wiped the blood from his finger with a handkerchief. Jack gingerly touched the cut on his face, it hadn’t healed like it should have. Deuc tucked the handkerchief back into his pocket. “I cannot judge you apart from your family and not offer the same for her.”

“You’re just fu-”
“I suggest you don’t finish that sentence,” Deuc said sharply. “See if you and Timothy can figure out who or what is behind the wendigo killings, I’ll deal with the newest pack member and I’ll do my own research.”
“Okay,” Jack said quietly, bowing his head slightly.
“Leave then.”

Jack did as told and wasted no time in leaving, not even looking at me as he walked past me to the front door. I just stared at Deuc with wide eyes.
“What was that?” I whispered. I made no attempt to walk over to him and stayed by the doorway.
“What?” he asked, closing his eyes for a moment. Did he really not realise what he had done?

“You cut his face.”
“It’s a scratch,” he said dismissively.
“It didn’t heal,” I protested.
“Because it’s from an Alpha, it’ll take a little longer but it’s just a scratch.” He took a step towards me and I wasn’t sure what to do or how to feel.

“Liza, Jack has made a habit of not stopping until he feels pain. And then he tends to realise he’s going too far,” said Deucalion calmly. He walked towards me but stopped a step away. “Jack is from a family of criminals, narcotic dealings, theft and armed robbery. A lot of things like that and he learned to be violent to stay safe. Despite rejecting that lifestyle, he can be a very violent man, it’s best to not let him go too far.” That was what he meant by not judging Jack by his family.

“Was it really necessary?”
“To stop him from being too violent and aggressive? Yes.”
Shakily, I nodded. “And that makes it okay? I guess?”
“No, but it works. Nothing else has and I’d rather he didn’t hurt you.”
“Me?” I repeated, furrowing my brow. He had seemed more angry at Deucalion than me.

“He’s not going to attack me, not now he knows I killed Marco and Becca for the same thing,” he said and I nodded. That did make sense. “He would have gone for you. It was only a small scratch, Liza. It will be healed by the end of the day.” Jack would have tried to attack me simply because of my family.

“They don’t like me,” I said quietly. Tasha and Jake and now Jack. All because of family.
“Jack will realise he’s being stupid before the end of the day, I know him well,” he said as he took a step towards me and held my hands. I didn’t doubt he knew Jack well, he was a part of his pack. “I just wasn’t letting him hurt you.”
“Thank you,” I said but I could hear the lack of conviction in my voice. “I think I need a coffee, without milk.”