{09}
Julia had placed herself to Hugo’s right, making her the first thing anyone opening the door would see. Anderson was so busy staring at her that he barely had a chance to get out a stunned “What the hell!?” before Hugo finished emptying the syringe he held into the man’s arm. As Anderson yanked the syringe out, Brian and Julia rushed in, shoving him back and knocking the wind from him before he could yell, as Hugo shut the door firmly and locked it. A minute of thrashing under the combined strength of a half-breed and a wolf later, Anderson’s body went limp.
“Well, that went pretty good,” Brian said, uncovering Anderson’s mouth, getting up and nudging the unconscious man’s side. “How long will this last?”
“Ten minutes or so. We’ll have to tie him up and keep him quiet,” Hugo said, glancing nervously around. The back door led into a sort of sitting room. The elderly touch his grandparents had left on the house hadn’t been entirely eliminated yet; there were lace curtains and a knitted throw on one chair that he knew were neither Anderson nor Louisa’s touches. The house was eerily silent. Either Louisa had heard the commotion and was lying low…or she wasn’t there at all.
Brian pushed Anderson onto his stomach and went to work tying his arms with rope. “We’ll have to borrow a towel or something for a gag.”
“Shh.” Hugo’s gaze went to the ceiling, where he heard a thump. The fur of Julia’s neck lifted a moment later as she bared her teeth.
“Who’s there?” a voice demanded down the hall. “I’m armed!”
“Louisa!” He rushed toward the sound of her voice, not even registering the threat. “It’s me, Hugo!”
Seconds later she appeared in the doorway, wearing a loose-fitting nightgown, her hair tied back and the rifle Hugo had left behind in her hands. His legs went weak with relief. She was alive. His best friend was
alive.
“Hugo!” Beaming wide enough to match him, she set the gun down and threw herself at him. He caught her in an ecstatic embrace, unable to speak at first, too busy smiling through something close to tears. “I can’t believe it…” She spotted Brian over his shoulder. “And Brian! What are you…why are you here? Like I care anyway, you’re
here, you’re okay.” She held Hugo tighter. “I didn’t really believe your stepfather when he told us that he found your bodies, but– I’m sorry, but part of me always wondered.”
“It was a lie. A good one, but a lie. We made it back to San Francisco. We’ve been there all summer.”
“You must have a million stories.” She finally pulled back to study him. “And you got tan.”
“Only after a month of sunburns,” he said ruefully, studying her back. Time had only made her more beautiful in his eyes.
“I hate to interrupt,” Brian said from where he stood, “but do you have a closet or someplace we can put Anderson before he wakes up? I don’t want him to overhear anything.”
“There’s a coat closet in the hall. It used to be the water heater room.”
“Perfect,” Brian said, grabbing the man by his legs to drag him out, taking some rope with him.
Louisa glanced down at her now tied and gagged husband as he was pulled by. “What happened to him?”
“Sodium thiopental,” Hugo said.
“He probably deserved it,” she said, turned and suddenly jolted back a step. “Why is there a wolf in here?”
Hugo would have sworn Julia was grinning. “That’s Julia,” he said, wondering how to explain. “She’s–”
“The only reason we even made it here alive,” Brian finished for him, dusting off his hands as he shut the door, leaving Anderson tied up to the pipes inside. “What’s with all the guards? That can’t be normal, right?”
“Actually, it is. He’s got at least one man from every family.” Louisa’s expression turned grave. “Things haven’t been so good here. Hugo, I don’t know how to tell you this, but your mother–”
“Holden tried to have her killed, I know.”
Her eyes widened. “You know?”
“The people Holden sent to the reservation years ago survived. Fernando and his family are there, and they’ve been rescuing people who get thrown over the wall. She’s in bad shape, but she’s still alive.”
“So does that mean others are, too?” Hope shone in her face. “Ali, and Tom…?”
“Only Tom. Ali didn’t make it.” Seeing her brief optimism drain away made him feel helpless. “I’m sorry.”
Louisa closed her eyes for a moment and nodded. “It’s– it’s okay. Finding out even one of them survived is a miracle, right?” She opened them again, lifting her chin. “I wish I could see him.”
“You will soon. Tom’s coming in with us to fight,” Hugo said.
“Fight?”
Brian stretched. “You still up for a rebellion?”
A gleam came into her eyes, and a smile over her lips. “You bet. What time is it?”
Hugo checked his watch. “About twelve forty-five.”
“Perfect. Let me change, and then follow me.”
- - -
Five minutes later they were heading across the back yard toward Forks Avenue, Louisa leading the way. The clouds had thinned, leaving the landscape lit with moonlight again and smaller shadows to hide in. She hadn’t given any explanation where they were going, only responding to Hugo’s concerns about guards that she’d had nothing better to do for the last few months than memorize their search patterns, watching them out the window at night. Clearly she was on to something; she motioned to all of them to get down at the same moment that Julia alerted them to someone coming, long before Brian or Hugo noticed anything.
Not long after, Brian recognized the shape in the distance they were heading toward. It was the burnt hotel. He grit his teeth, remembering his near escape from it; the fear that he’d collapse from his wounds and smother on smoke being all that kept him moving through the pain. He couldn’t imagine it was their destination, but it was. The building was charred and desolate-looking. No attempt that repairs had been made, a half-assed sign warning of risk of injuries to anyone who ventured in being the only new addition. Louisa led them around the back, to the door he’d used to sneak out when being trapped inside became too nerve-wracking. He’d shot the lock out when he’d left, leaving the door hanging open on uneven hinges. Now it was closed. Louisa pulled it open, waved the three of them inside, and shut it, leaving them in darkness.
“What are we doing here?” Hugo said. “Brian, can you see anything?”
“Shh,” Louisa said before he could answer. He saw her fumbling near the corner; there were a few sparks and then a little flare of light. She held a candle out in front. “Be careful walking, there’s debris and stuff all over.”
Silently they followed her down the hall. The smell of old smoke still hung in the air as they got closer to the burned area. She stopped at one of the rooms and knocked on the door. It was opened by an older woman stifling a yawn. “Honestly Louisa, I’ve been telling you you need to rest– Hugo? Is that you?”
“M-Mrs. Whelan?” Hugo stammered. The name rang a bell in Brian’s mind. He remembered Hugo mentioning her being a close friend of his mother’s. And, more interestingly, she’d been on the list of missing people.
“Thank the Lord you’re okay! What are you doing here?” she asked, gaping at him. Over her shoulder Brian saw other people crowd around the door.
“Everyone give them some room,” Louisa said, shooing people back in. She blew the candle out; moonlight from the window combined with his vampire night vision made it easy for Brian to see about two dozen people gathered around, some of them shuffling in through an open doorway to the adjourning room.
“Man, we thought you were dead!” One said, slapping Hugo’s shoulder, and Hugo gaped at him.
“Mark, you’re okay!”
“Of course I am.” Behind him, someone else interrupted:
“Hey, isn’t that other guy the rebel kid?”
“It is! Whoa, we
really thought you were dead,” Mark said to Brian.
“What’s with the pet dog?” Another man wanted to know.
Julia’s ears immediately laid back, and a second later a woman crouched on her hands and feet appeared where a wolf had sat. “
Pet?” she demanded, something of a wolfish snarl still in her voice.
Hugo covered his eyes with his hands. Brian sighed and pulled out her clothes. Louisa and the majority of the people in the room made sputtering noises.
“Wolf,” Julia said as she yanked her clothes on. “Not dog, and not pet. Got it?”
“Yes ma’am,” the man who had spoken said, holding his hands up. “How’d you turn into a wolf though?”
“I’m a shapeshifter,” she said, a fact that Brian really thought nobody ought to blink much at considering that vampires had turned out to be real, but instantly he and Hugo lost most of the attention in the room in favor of exclaiming over how cool it was and asking her what it was like to shift.
“So…the people who didn’t end up outside the wall, this is where they went? They’ve been hiding?” he asked, tugging at Hugo’s arm to let him know it was safe to look again.
Louisa nodded, tearing her eyes away from Julia and waving them to a spot by the wall to sit down. She sat against the wall, straightening out her back, Hugo across from her and Brian taking a seat beside him. “I’ve been helping them. When people started disappearing again, I started trying to guess who might be next and tried to get them into hiding before Holden’s goons got to them. Most of them are older than us. They remember how it was before Holden, you know?”
Hugo nodded.
“It wasn’t easy to convince people. I’m sure at least one person went to Holden about me, hoping for leniency. Thank god Anderson’s got more pride than smarts. When Holden’s little squad came to our house to inquire about my activities, Anderson swore up and down that I’d never left it without his knowing. God forbid word get out that he didn’t have me under complete control.” She snorted.
“You think Holden believed him?” Brian asked.
“I’m not sure about that, but Anderson was sure enough that there was no justification for taking me right then.”
“It’s good that he said what he did,” Hugo said, brows drawing together. “Or you could have ended up like the others.”
“I know.” She glanced between them. “You didn’t meet a survivor named Xavier outside the walls, did you?”
Hugo looked thoughtful, shook his head and looked at Brian, who concurred. Her face fell. “Oh. Okay. Just checking.”
“Why, who’s that?” Hugo asked. She waved the question off.
“Someone I knew. Hey, while everyone is distracted with Julia, tell me about San Francisco. What was it like? Is it like the stories?”
Hugo hesitated, which made Brian tense up against his will. His thoughts flashed through every bad thing that had happened. He wouldn’t begrudge Hugo saying that it hadn’t exactly been paradise.
“Unexpected,” Hugo said. “It would take days to tell you everything. The rumors were partly right. It is kind of militaristic, but the rebels are more…well, they’re just people, you know? They’re not just vampire hunters. There’s this one woman, Charlie, who can repair an engine like magic, and I saw their construction workers remodel a whole warehouse bay in an afternoon. And they have penicillin!”
“It sounds like you liked it there,” Louisa said, grinning.
He nodded and shrugged at the same time. “It took some getting used to. I’m not saying it was all good. They have a very different outlook on some things, and some of what they go through is terrifying, but I’m glad I went. There were some pretty great things I never would have found here.”
Brian looked at him from the corner of his eye, wondering which things he was referring to. He was determined to keep a straight face, but the tiny smile at the corner of Hugo’s mouth made him relax again, and want to give a grateful one back.
Because it was true, and it was something he needed to remember. For all the bad that the last few months had held, there had still been good moments. Maybe they were small and scattered, but they counted. They made the days in-between seem survivable, and the notion that things
could be survived was sometimes all that he had. Knowing that Hugo thought of it the same way encouraged him.
“Did anyone want to come back with you?” he heard Louisa ask.
Hugo shifted his weight. “Well…besides me and Brian, four.”
“Four?” He didn’t imagine the disappointment in her tone.
“I’m sorry. We had more, but some things went really bad before we left, and most changed their minds. But the shifters are all in, and so are a bunch of people from La Push,” he hurried to add.
“What do you mean, things went really bad?”
Hugo looked at him, clearly uncertain how much to say. Brian took over: “I was…I guess exiled is a way to put it. People suddenly didn’t want to be part of our trip. Sorry.”
Louisa opened her mouth, but before she could speak, two of the group walked over to join them.
“So what’s the plan?” a man who reminded Brian painfully of Daniel asked. The woman Hugo had called Mrs. Whelan had also come to join them.
“Brian, this is Molly and Christopher,” Louisa said – evidently Hugo needed no introduction. “They’re kind of the parents of our little hideout.”
“Nice to meet you.” He started to salute, then turned it into reaching out to shake their hands. “You’re the leaders?”
“Oh, no, Louisa’s the leader,” Christopher said. “She found all of us, convinced us to hide, and filled us in on what’s really happening. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for her. We just keep everyone else from getting into it. I used to be a teacher, it comes with the territory.”
Louisa rolled her eyes. “They’re the real leaders,” she said to Brian and Hugo. “I spend more time listening to Anderson yap about how he can’t wait to join Mitch’s team than I do here.”
“Yeah, why isn’t he on the squad?” Hugo asked. “It’s right up his alley.”
“He has to babysit me,” Louisa said, holding her arms out.
“James knows she’d shout his sins from the rooftops if she should,” Molly said. “That’s why he put her under twenty-four hour watch.”
“They call it marriage, now,” Louisa said. Molly snorted.
“Marriage my ass,” she said, making Hugo look rather stunned. “It’s detention and nothing else.”
“It’s helpful, though, having an in,” Louisa said. “Anderson’s not as smart as Holden. He thinks I’m just a dumb pretty face and lets things slip in conversation. It’s how I was able to figure out I could use this place for a hideout, and who might be in danger.”
“Why were you in danger?” Hugo said. “Mr. Reinhardt, you’ve been a teacher since before I can remember. Everyone loved you. And Mrs. Whelan, you were going to Holden’s church before the war even began.”
“Things change, Hugo,” she said gently. “And it’s Molly, now.”
“And Christopher,” the other man said. “There is no need for titles in this room.”
He looked conflicted, but nodded. “So, Mrs– Molly, what happened? You loved the church.”
“I still love my God and Christ,” Molly said. “I did love the church. I believed James brought us all closer to them. I wanted to believe in him, and did. For too long.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know what happened to your mother, right?” Hugo nodded, but before he could say anything, Molly had continued. “Rachael spoke to me about her doubts, shortly before her…disappearance. It had seemed that vampires had begun to breach the walls, and I was trying to convince her to come back to church. She refused to believe you were dead, and that the disappearances were due to vampires. I wanted to tell her that we could trust James, but the more she said, the more I saw holes in his story appearing. I watched you grow up, Hugo. I saw the note you left her. It was not faked.” Christopher nodded as she spoke. “James’ sermons began to take strange turns after you left. He’d always emphasized loyalty, but looking back, I can see that around the same time your mother walked out he became almost manic about it. I used to help clean inside the church, but his sermons had grown so…so
vitriolic that I began working in the gardens to avoid them. I was working there the day James brought Rachael to the church. He didn’t know; I had come to enjoy gardening so much that I would go help out without being asked. I never saw her leave. The next day, he told us she’d been killed by a vampire.”
She folded her hands in her lap. “I remembered the day you stood up to tell us Brian had been murdered. Back then I thought you had lost your mind. But sitting there that day, hearing him tell us what my heart knew was a lie, I understood what made you do it. I didn’t have your bravery. I didn’t say a word. But under my silence I was furious. I didn’t go back. Someone like him, who could lie to people who trusted him, could never show us the way to God. I continued to tend the gardens and assumed he wouldn’t notice if I wasn’t in the pews as long as he saw me around. When I had a chance, I went to Louisa. I wanted to warn her–”
“And I ended up warning her,” Louisa said. “I knew from Anderson that Holden was starting to make lists of people to keep closer eyes on. Sooner or later he would have realized she defected, too.”
“She told me about her little group, and here we are,” Molly finished. “Christopher was already here.”
“My story’s not as inspiring,” he said as both Brian and Hugo looked at him expectantly. “I caught some kids, all children of Father Holden’s favorites, picking on some others, at least one of whom was the child of someone who had gone missing. They were saying the vampires would come for them next for not being as good of Christians as they were.”
“Yeah,” Hugo said quietly. “I…saw a lot of that when I was in school, too.” His downcast manner reminded Brian of that day on the docks, and Hugo explaining that everyone back home had made him understand, from a young age, that some people were lesser than others. It was better to stay ‘broken’ and liked.
“It’s grown worse,” Christopher said. “I told the children off and told their parents. The next day Holden came to me and informed me that I should not be encouraging sinful behavior in my students. That those children were simply trying to save the others by telling them the right way to live. He said the words their name-calling derived from described blights on our society anyway, and we should encourage them to see those sort of things as undesirable.”
Brian wanted to ask what the words were, but didn’t. Hugo looked miserable; clearly he knew exactly what they were.
“He made his point, perhaps better than he thought. Teachers are experts in unraveling bullshit, and I read between the lines easily. Not long after, Louisa came to me.” Christopher nodded to her. “I took the opportunity to disappear on my own terms.”
“What about your families?”
He shrugged sadly. “My wife sided with Holden when I told her what he said to me. I knew I wouldn’t convince her. Our son will be safe as long as she is loyal.”
“My husband is one of the hunters,” Molly said. “He was away with them on an extended trip and I couldn’t risk waiting for his return. As far as he knows, I’m dead.”
“I’ve been trying to catch him,” Louisa said. “But he’s always surrounded by others.”
“It’s all right.” She said, strengthening her tone. “I’m okay, and his position seems safe so far.”
Hugo looked between them both. “I’m sorry,” he said, his tone desperate. “I didn’t know I was going to cause all of this.”
“It’s all right, Hugo,” Molly said. “We understand, and your mother understood, too.”
“Understands,” he said quietly.
“I’m sorry?”
“She understands. I hope. I mean, she’s not dead.”
“What do you mean?” Christopher asked, eyes growing wide. “You’ve seen her?”
Hugo seemed to struggle for a moment with words, so Brian took over. “There’s a settlement at La Push. There are others like Julia, who can turn into wolves. They’ve been patrolling the area and saving those they find alive. We met the survivors.”
“Rachael’s alive?” Molly said, a smile splitting her face.
“She was badly hurt,” Hugo managed, some of her optimism seeming to revive him. “But she’s alive.”
“I can’t believe it. Oh thank God! I thought there was no hope for any of them, and now…”
“What’s going on?” Mark asked, wandering closer.
“Hugo and Brian just told me they’ve met survivors. Not all of James’ victims were lost.”
“Really?” His eyes lit up. “You mean Tom and Ali are okay?”
“Tom is–” Hugo didn’t get a chance to elaborate as Mark’s excited shout had attracted everyone else’s attention, and the next thing Brian knew, they were both being bombarded with questions.
“Did you meet anyone named Cody–”
“What about Emily, she’s about my age, blond hair–”
“My brother and his daughter went missing two months ago, were they there?”
“Xavier, did you meet an Xavier–”
“Was there a couple by the surname of Schorr?”
They tried to answer as best they could, with Julia – who had been part of the searches – adding confirmations where she could. Xavier and Emily were presumed dead, Cody was alive, they had seen the niece but no sign of her father, and Mrs. Schorr had made it. It was a simultaneously cheering and heart wrenching conversation; split between seeing someone light up in happiness while another’s last hope crumbled from under them. Brian noticed that Louisa gave a tiny flinch at the sound of Xavier’s name, and her arms, which had been folded, pressed in closer to her body.
“Will we get to see them soon?” A woman named Trisha asked.
“As early as tomorrow,” Brian said. “That’s when we put the plan into action.”
“Which is?” Christopher inquired.
Brian didn’t answer that one. During the meeting at La Push he had done a good bit of the talking, but at this place, he thought that the words should come from Hugo. He’d had a point during their fight; Brian didn’t know these people, and they didn’t know him. In San Francisco, if he was leading a mission he could expect that people would obey whether they liked him or not, but these people weren’t bound to obligations of rank. Hugo stood a better chance of rallying them.
His partner squared his shoulders. “We’re going to offer Holden a chance to end this without violence,” he said.
“You’re kidding,” Emily’s sister Lori said. “I was thinking more like twenty bullets in his head.
“No.”
“I kind of like Lori’s plan,” Mark said and everyone else seemed to agree. Louisa looked uncertain. Brian said nothing; Hugo had been adamant about trying a non-violent method first.
“I don’t think so,” Hugo returned. “Do you think anyone is going to react rationally if we just go in and shoot him?”
“We’ll just explain to them,” Jared, whose niece was one of the survivors, started to say, when Hugo cut him off.
“When I yelled at Holden in church and punched him at Brian’s funeral, did any of you feel like listening to me explain?”
Nobody answered that one.
“Everyone here has been kept in the dark for too long. Their loyalty to him has been completely built on lies and being told he’s right and they’re wrong. I don’t want to be a new version of that. We explain our motives first. We offer proof first. The survivors are coming in with us to share their stories. You guys are proof that Holden lied about you being vampire victims. There are people in La Push who will attest to him leaving them outside the wall, and the shifters can give their stories.”
“And what’s to stop Holden from breaking up this little demonstration before it even starts?” Another man said skeptically.
“We’re going to have it in the middle of church,” Hugo said. And while some gaped at him, Brian noticed some others seemed to suddenly perk up. “We all go in as a group in the middle of his sermon and show people the truth.”
“It’s too risky,” Trisha said. “He could just have his guards open fire on us. Most of us are hiding because we were becoming too noticeably disobedient. He could just claim he’s defending everyone from us.”
“And if we go in with guns blazing, they’ll open fire on us anyway,” Hugo said. “Anybody among us who can shoot will be armed, and visibly so. We’ll have people with us who were loved by this town before “vampires” killed them. Holden’s made some desperate moves, but he’s not stupid enough to think he can mow us all down in the middle of church and have everyone accept it.”
“It’s a gamble,” Lori said.
“Yes. It is,” Hugo acknowledged. “I’d rather take this gamble than go right to a violent takeover. You don’t have to go in with me.”
“You think he’ll just step down?” Molly said.
“I don’t think he’ll apologize, but I do think he’ll know when to cut his losses and take the opportunity to leave,” Hugo replied.
“So he gets away with everything he’s done?” Jared said. “That ain’t fair. He needs to pay.”
“Do you want revenge or do you want to be able to go back to your lives?” Julia asked.
“Both would be nice,” Lori said, several others agreeing.
“Look, I hate him too,” Hugo said, his voice turning sharp and raising to be heard over the conversation. “Ali was practically family to me. He took Brian’s dad from him and he’s treated all of you like shit. He tried to kill Brian, and me, and my mom and for all I know he might still succeed at her. That’s what he does. Holden killed, or tried to kill, people who got in his way. I will not be part of a coup that starts out by using the exact same methods.”
Brian had only heard that kind of steel in Hugo’s voice a few times before. It evidently made an impression on the others as well, as for a moment there was silence in the room. Even Louisa looked a little stunned.
“He’s right,” Christopher said gently. “Revenge won’t help any of us heal, or bring back anyone who’s already gone.”
Molly nodded. “Let’s focus on making Forks a
real haven, where everyone’s welcome to be safe from here on out. What do you say?”
Gradually, everyone agreed, even Jared and Lori, though the latter still asked: “What if he decides to fight?”
Brian exchanged a glance with Hugo, who nodded at him to go ahead. “Then we make him regret it.”
- - -
Notes: Louisa is back! I missed her. <3 Mark is also alive. ;3 Bunch of new people in this one. It sure would be a shame if anything happened to them...