Supernaturals

40. Declan's back

SHAWN

What's worse than losing lives and having to flee a place we have built as a home? Well, I guess being scared that our lives even meant much more little than we thought.

We, werewolves, weren't always like this. Every pack stayed on its own and was responsible for the actions of any of its members— and no one else. No. One. Else.

That's how we were. Unfortunately, traditions, just like literally every other thing, broke apart with the emergence of the global “pandemic”. Now the last eleven packs survived together, and while this screamed of love and togetherness, it wasn't quite so. Putting all those aside, what mattered was that we were able to stick together and maintain and protect the territory we called our little town.

News flash, that was gone now. We didn't have that anymore. Our home, that we spent month slaving ourselves to make what it was, has been taken from us and burnt to ashes in our presence. There was nothing I could do, there was zilch any of us could do. To add salt to it all, we lost lives. Innocent lives.

“I can't seem to get the image of Ichabod laughing and toying with us out of my mind. It was beyond humiliating," Mike said, anger filled in his whole being.

I nodded in agreement. “I understand, it was maddening.”

Eve wiped her tears away. “Maddening is just one of the things it was. It was terrifying, humiliating, dehumanising, and a couple of other adjectives I can't remember at this moment.”

“The worst thing is that we are not safe here either,” Mike let out. “If they get us this time, not even one of us will survive. There will be no monologue, it'll just be die, or submit to Ichabod, and that's a fancy line meaning: die.”

Truth be told, Mike and Eve were not exactly being realistic. There was no damn way the demons will find us in three or four days. We all escaped quickly, and we werewolves being hunters ourselves, left not even one thing that could lead them to us.

So we were safe. For now. Probably a week at most, a little more if we didn't move. But could we risk staying here for a month? No. Curse the thought of thinking of living here permanently. We needed to think— and damn, time wasn't on our side.

We were in a compound that was no less than thirty-seven miles away from our previous territory. We had discreetly prepared it as a place we could stay if we ever got attacked. Well, let's say it definitely wasn't time wasted.

The sad part was that we needed to act smartly because it was all in our hands now. Any mistake we made would decide whether our kind would remain in this dying world or not.

Eve began to sob. “This is . . . not . . . we are so doomed.”

She then began to say, “we are f*cking doomed” over and over again. Man, who could blame her? If it wouldn't kill the little hopes everyone managed to have, I would have cried myself. This was too hard.

I went over to her and laid a strong hand on her shoulder. “Babe, I'm here, don't ever forget that. I'm here today, I'll be here tomorrow forever. I will always be here for you, don't forget that, darling.”

Mike also said some words of comfort to her and assured her that somehow, it would be alright. From the tone of his voice, it was apparent that he didn't believe one word he was saying. But then the intention was good, so that was fine. It wasn't t bad to occasionally tell a lie or two, i it was for a genuine or decent course.

Eve calmed down for a bit. Her breathing was still far from being stable, but she was much calmer, and her face was no longer wet with warm tears.

“He will never be forgotten," Mike blurted, looking at me with a serious face on to show that he was playing. “Look, I know that I wasn't keen on him staying with us, but in the short time he stayed with us, I saw a different side to him. Better put, I saw a different side to what I blindly assumed of him.”

I simply nodded, hard to tell whether I was agreeing with him or just acknowledging that I knew his mouth was running.

If Declan died for us, then of course, he would have achieved a very noble thing, I guess. Not everyone would think that a stranger will put his life on the line to save people who he didn't know, and people whom he was largely detested by. It took a very big heart to die for your friends and family. It took a heart of spotless gold to die for strangers, just because you couldn't afford to see them suffer.

Not all vampires were monsters. That I knew now, for sure. Some were just victims of their own nature.

“I still can't believe he died for us all,” Mike uttered. “I'm not sure I can do that for people I don't even know.”

“We don't know that he is dead, when I left he was very much alive.”

“That's a whole new level of denial, bro. No damn way he's not six feet under. I mean, no one would take the time to bury him, but you get my point.”

I whispered underneath my breath “Rest in perfect peace, Declan.”

“Declan," Alex said, quite excitedly. Or terrifyingly. Couldn't say which.

“What's it? Any problem?” I inquired, speaking in more or less the same manner as he did.

“Not exactly,” he said. “Declan is here, he's at the gate, should he be let in?”

Wait . . . what on this bloody Earth?

“Declan is here, like actually here?”

“Yes, he is.”

Mike was speechless.

This was quite disturbing and scary. I knew that I was just talking about him but now I felt he was working with the enemies. No one ever told him about this safe house. Only a few werewolves knew about the existence of this safe house. Now the short question was, how did he know here? And the pressing one was: What the glorious f*ck was going on?

Eve, Mike, Alex, three other werewolves and I went to the gate to meet Declan. And there he was, looking all tired and worried. Lo and behold, he wasn't dead.

I didn't waste any time at all. I plan to interrogate him a little and then decide whether to accept him or not.

“I can't recall telling you about this safe house," I said serenely. “Yet somehow you are here, that's a little disturbing, won't you say?”

“Good thing I don't know where here is,” he replied warmly. “Some fairy directed me here, the same one that saved my life.”

A fairy? Am I expected to buy this?

But then I stared at him, deeply. I couldn't say what it was that made me believe him, but I did. I gave him a quick look and something in me told me that this man wasn't lying. He didn't have any reason to lie. If he said he saw a fairy, then he saw one.

“Come inside, we have a lot to chat about," I said.

Mike widened his eyes at me in disapproval but I was only too used to him doing that. At times, this his never-trusting-anyone attitude was very much needed. This wasn't one of those times.

As we got in, Declan spoke for a solid half of an hour, telling us all that happened. He was rarely generous with his words, that was why he used such a short amount of time to tell us everything that happened.

On account of his story, he got killed. Yes, you heard me right. Ichabod killed him and some fairy—whom he had met before—saved his life. So she saved him and took his body from where he was to another place entirely. This same fairy told him where we were so he could join us.

Yes, my brain was so close to burning out. How was I supposed to take this all in? A fairy? So what's real and what's not. Someone tell me ‘cause I can't keep up.

Mike flung his hands in the air. “You know what, I'm tired, can't deal with all this now.”

Mike exited the room we were all in. Shortly, Eve left too, leaving only Declan and me. I couldn't even think of blaming them. It was too much. Sadly, as a leader, I didn't get to find anything as “too much”. I had to think and make decisions on everyone's behalf. ‘Cause if I didn't, who would?

I asked Declan to start from the top and I listened to him more carefully. His story was solid and unchanged. That was never an issue for me, I knew he wasn't a liar from the very moment I saw him.

“I'm sorry you had to die, feels so weird saying this,” I muttered, my voice low and tender.

“I’m happy the fairy saved me.”

I was equally happy. We needed him, for more than just his abilities. We needed his spirit and heart. Fine, by a large margin, his abilities were his greatest asset to us, but it was never bad to have a good person around.

Just as I was about to step out of the room, he said, “I haven't gotten to the important bit.”

By everything worth swearing on, the “important bit” was VERY important indeed. In fact, after hearing him speak, I had a smile on my face. Was it because I was delighted in the least? No. It was because I had hope. Yeah, I had hope.