An Eye For An Eye

Soixante Et Un

The pack was gathered in the living room again.

This time Jack and Charles had claimed the sofa with Deuc in the armchair like last time. Tamika sat on the arm of the chair by Charles. This time, Jake had arrived at the house, albeit ten minutes later than he was supposed to arrive, and stood in the doorway to the hallway, ready to leave as soon as possible. Tasha had isolated herself from everyone else and stood in the doorway to the kitchen, she wouldn’t even sit by Jack.

I sat on the arm of the armchair, Deuc had asked me to before everyone else had arrived.
“I’m assuming Timothy is with his nan?”
“He’s asleep,” said Tasha bluntly. “He was up all last night and most of this morning with his nan.” Part of me was a little disappointed I hadn’t met Timothy, everything I had heard about him was positive. Everyone seemed to think he was kind.

Deuc gave her a thin smile before thanking her and looking at Jake. The sunglasses really did help, it seemed like he was making eye contact even if he couldn’t.
“It’s nice of you to show up this time, Jake, despite the tardiness,” he said. Jake’s fists clenched by his side but he didn’t say anything. “I’m sure you won’t be late next time.”

“Why are we here?” asked Tasha with a frown.
“Charles discovered who our murderer is,” said Deuc. Tasha’s eyebrows sceptically raised as she looked over at the nervous man. “Mark Hampton, he used to work at the butchers until a family of Wendigos took it over.”
“Is he a Wendigo?” asked Jake as he leant against the door frame with his arms crossed.
“He’s probably not human,” said Deuc. “But whether he’s werewolf, wendigo or otherwise, we don’t know.”

“He took out three Wendigos,” said Jack with a laugh. “I’d be impressed if he was human.” Tamika nodded in agreement.
“Why is there a pack meeting for this?” asked Tasha. “I’m sure we have better things to be doing.”
“I want someone to go follow Mark Hampton, from the offices where Charles works. Obviously, Charles can’t so someone else has to,” said Deuc. It sounded as if he was getting bored of this, as if talking to his pack was a chore.

“Can’t Tamika or Liza do it?” asked Jake as he looked over in my direction. “It would have saved the rest of us some time.”
“Maybe sending me would be a bad idea because I don’t feel like being assaulted or having the cops called on me,” said Tamika with a forced smile on her face.
“And sending a werewolf without an anchor doesn’t sound like a great idea either,” added Jack. I was glad for some support but it was depressing that Tamika couldn’t help out simply because she was more likely to have the cops called on her.

“Why don’t you do it then, Jack?” asked Tasha with a sickly smirk. Jack raised his eyebrows. “Are you kidding?” he asked. “Half of the town doesn’t like me or my family, you think I’m going to stalk someone? Besides, I’m not subtle, I’m a walk in there with guns blazing type of guy, you know that.” I watched the two of them and it hit me that they had likely been arguing a lot in the past few weeks. I wasn’t sure if they were even a couple any more.

“Which leaves Tasha and Timothy,” said Tamika, smiling at them. Those two were the ones who disliked me the most, for reasons I couldn’t fathom other than being an Argent. It felt weird to be calling myself an Argent, I didn’t feel like one. Argents didn’t live past their first full moon as a werewolf and I had experienced two.

“Well, I’m not exactly a quiet person,” said Tasha, almost sounding disgusted at the idea that she could be quiet.
“Yes, you have been rather unnecessarily vocal lately,” said Deuc. Even if he couldn’t see Tasha to glare at her, I could feel the angry aura he gave off. Despite frowning, Tasha stayed silent. “Jake?”
“I have work, I work a 9 to 5 job like Charles does, I can’t afford to call in a sick day,” said Jake.

Deuc sighed. “So how are we going to do this?”
“Well,” said Jack as he looked at Tasha and then to me. “There’s still one person who can definitely be quiet.”
“Me?” I asked. “I thought we’d established that letting a werewolf with no anchor stalk someone was a bad idea.”
“She is trained to be a hunter,” said Jake, his face hinting that he was considering saying something nice about me. “She can be quiet and follow them.”

It was silent for a moment and I turned to Deuc.
“You’re not seriously considering this, are you?” I asked him. He said nothing.
“You’re not exactly prone to anger, Liza. Unless it’s Gerard and I doubt he’ll be here,” he said quietly. It sounded like he didn’t want to ask it of me.

“I haven’t fought anyone except for you on a full moon and that did not go well,” I said, desperately. I could feel my heart beating in my chest. He had promised he wouldn’t let me hurt anyone. “If he realises and… and attacks, I don’t want to shift. I wasn’t even a good hunter, a good hunter wouldn’t have let Jack live and they certainly wouldn’t have walked into your penthouse asking to be blinded.”

Deuc still said nothing.

The pack stayed silent.

And then, finally, Deuc turned to me.
“I think you’ll be able to do it, my love.” He said it so softly and I couldn’t look at him. This was risky, that was why they hadn’t considered me in the first place. As I stared at my feet, I thought of the promises we had made each other. Deuc no longer had to worry about suicide, abut my suicide. Two full moons had passed, if I was going to do it, I would have by now. But there was still the risk that I could hurt someone or destroy something.
“And no one is going to get hurt, right?” I asked. Deuc nodded.

“If he doesn’t notice you, he doesn’t have a reason to attack you,” Charles pointed out. Charles had a point, he was a lot more clever than his nervous disposition suggested.

“Fine, I’ll do it then.”