Chapter 40 #4
“Then I’m glad I said something. However, I should probably try to stop taking everything so personally. I am the new kid, and I should probably expect a certain amount of hazing. This isn’t a summer job, or kindergarten roundup.” Oscar laughed.
“No, it’s definitely not that.”
* * *
At three o’clock the five of us sat at the table as the guards escorted Alexander into the room. He slid into the chair across from us and the guards left, closing the door behind them.
“Alright, Alexander, you know why you are here. Tell us what caused Xavier’s demise,” I spoke to the vampire with indifference.
“I guess I will just jump right in then.”
“Please do. The faster this goes, then the sooner we can get out of this room.” Oscar prodded.
“Well, Xavier called me because he thought that Scott was acting strange. They were sent to Columbia to monitor a situation that was ongoing. There was a group of what they assumed were newly created vamps. They were leaving chaos in their wake and weren’t making any attempts to hide anything that they were doing.
Xavier and Scott were there for a few days, and Xavier said that Scott was leaving their spot early in the morning before he woke.
He would return a little while later with food; he always used the same excuse that he was starving and couldn’t wait for Xavier. ”
“Vampires don’t need much sleep,” Maddox blurted out.
“Correct, so why was this happening every day? It made the whole thing a lot more suspicious. So, when I got to Colombia, I met with Xavier at a location that we thought was a safe place. Apparently, we were wrong. The next day, Xavier told me that Scott had been in touch with one of the vampires they had been watching. He wanted protection in exchange for information. Scott told Xavier that he would be able to tell them who was creating all of them and why.”
“So why didn’t Xavier call Ray and tell him what was going on?” Caspien interjected.
“He only had a feeling; he had no proof of any of it. Nothing concrete, anyways. I wasn’t going to call; I didn’t want anyone doubting me and tipping Scott off.
Xavier told me where they were supposed to meet the vamp.
He didn’t think his partner would harm him and he didn’t want me to get involved, but I didn’t trust Scott after everything Xavier had told me.
I went to the estate where they had set up the meeting, and I parked down the road a little and walked back.
It was surrounded with thick jungle, and I followed the road back and entered the property as quietly as possible.
I could hear a commotion and started to draw closer.
I made sure to stay down and out of sight.
When I got close enough to see, my whole body was already telling me that my maker was dead.
Xavier was lying on the ground at Scott’s feet, and there were a few other vampires lying dead near him.
I knew he had fought as hard as he could. ”
“Why didn’t you confront Scott then and there?” Matthew asked, hanging on to Alexander’s every word.
“There were more vampires than the ones that were lying there. I could still hear the others moving back toward the house. Not to mention part of me was literally dying with him, and I was in almost unbearable pain. I never regained my composure while I was anywhere near him. I laid in hiding as he pulled out his phone and called headquarters. I listened to him say that I was the vampire that created all of them; for the purpose of killing Xavier. If I had killed him after that phone call, then no one would have ever believed me. I needed Scott to be alive, and I needed him to show you that he was lying. It won’t matter if I look like I’m telling the truth if I am the only one that is left alive. ”
“You had enough time to think about all of that while lying in the jungle?” Caspien asked.
“If you aren’t a vampire that has lost their maker then you have no inclination how debilitating it truly is. No one in this room knows what that feels like, and it isn’t something that I can describe.”
“That’s a fair statement,” Maddox chimed in. “I have only heard vampires try to describe it and it seems as though it is basically the worst pain you can feel without dying.”
“Why are you just now coming forward with this information?” Oscar said, staring at Alexander expectantly.
“Scott was Ray’s friend and he trusted him.
Ray never liked me—let alone trust me. He would never have believed me, and as soon as I found out someone new was in charge, I made my move to plead my case.
I want justice for Xavier—I want Scott to pay for what he did.
It was detrimental to the organization, if not for the entire world. ”
I noticed Maddox shift uncomfortably in his seat and glance at Oscar.
Oscar picked up on it immediately and shifted his attention back to Alexander.
“You make it sound as if you know of something that may need a combined force of the five. Would you like to offer up some more information, or would you rather remain untrustworthy?”
Alexander’s head snapped as though the statement disgusted him.
“Why would Scott have Xavier killed? What would his reasoning be? That is the question I want answered. Who made the vampires that killed him and why would they be listening to anything Scott said? Someone else is behind this and I think it’s bigger than we think, and we need to find out who and why sooner, rather than later.
” His eyes were pleading with us, darting from one face to another, begging for someone—anyone to believe him.
“Yet you wait twenty-three years to come forward with any of this information,” Oscar stated flatly.
“I didn’t wait because I didn’t think it was pertinent information. I told people about it; I know that you have all heard rumors. I wasn’t going to sacrifice myself when it was obvious that was a bet I was going to lose. You have to see that much, at least.”
“I do see it. It doesn’t automatically cancel out the fact that if the situation is as serious as you are leading us to believe, you sacrificed valuable time that we may have needed. That part is yet to be determined. If you are indeed telling the truth.”
“Oscar, I am not fucking lying. That douchebag has been walking around doing who knows what for the last twenty-three years and I can’t imagine that he was doing anything good.”
“Yes, and that is partially your fault. You could have at least stated it directly, and then the seed would have been planted. Ray wasn’t a stupid man, and he would have started to pick up on things. You never gave him the chance to do that, though. Did you?”
I remained quiet throughout the entirety of the meeting thus far.
I was letting the men hash this out because I had already heard Alexander’s story.
In my mind, it was black and white. Scott did it and Alexander didn’t.
Oscar wanted him to pay for his negligence in the aftermath of Xavier’s murder, and he was making that very obvious.
“What do you want me to do? I can’t take it back. I did what I thought would be best. I can’t change anything, so I guess you are going to believe what you want to believe. You want to make me pay regardless if I am guilty—or not.”
“Don’t act like a scared little bitch and put yourself above everything else. Then maybe I wouldn’t have a reason to be so pissed off. You weren’t worried about the big picture; you were worried about your hide.”
“You’re damn straight I was. I wasn’t going to die without the whole truth coming out and if I had turned myself in then it’s possible the truth would have been buried with me.”
“Fucking coward!” Oscar spat.
“That’s enough.” I calmly looked at Oscar.
“You need to calm down if you want to continue asking him questions. This doesn’t need to escalate any further and we need to try to see where he is coming from because he isn’t exactly wrong, is he?
We are here to decide who killed Xavier at the moment.
If we choose to impose a punishment on the other person, then that needs to be discussed behind closed doors between the five of us not the six of us. ”
Oscar’s shoulders loosened slightly as he relaxed into his chair.
He was beginning to calm down, and that was going to make all of this a whole lot easier to work through.
Maddox rose from his chair and went to the door.
The two guards that were waiting in the hall entered the room.
Alexander stood up from his seat across the table, and the guards flanked him as he made his way to the door.
“I would have saved him if I could have,” was all he said as he disappeared through the open door. Maddox shut the door behind them and returned to his seat.
“What do you want to do, Oscar?” I said, turning to my left to face him.
“I don’t know; I don’t know if I want to do anything. I just feel like he could have done more—that part pisses me off.”
“Yeah, I think we got that. Do you want him to be punished? I’m not asking if you want to end his life. I think we can all agree that would be a bit much. However, if you feel that he didn’t act as he should have, then are we within our rights to dole out a lesser punishment?”
“Of course we can. The thing is, he refrained from coming forward because he didn’t trust Ray and from everything that transpired, I have to at least be slightly sympathetic to his plight.”
“So, does anyone else have anything to say? Anyone think that he needs to be punished in some way?”
“Normally we would not punish an innocent for coming forward, no matter how long it took them to do so. Especially, if they didn’t actually have anything to do with the crime,” Caspien stated.
“Then I guess that settles it. He was a witness of sorts, but he was not the perpetrator. Therefore, he will not be held accountable for something simply because someone believes they would have handled it differently.”