"You have ten minutes," I said, taking the cup of coffee from Darren; we sat down inside Le Morsel.
"Thank you, Al, you won't regret it, I promise." He replied smiling.
Everything he's done in his life was for his own survival nothing more, why would I regret wasting my time listening to the person who perhaps has betrayed me most in life?
"Stop kissing ass and tell me the story. You have ten minutes starting now." His smile faded, and he looked down, recalling a memory.
"I need to go back to the beginning for you to understand. I never knew my father, which you already know, he bailed on us before I was even born, my mom remarried before I could even walk. On the night of my sixteenth birthday, we were on our way back from the movies. . ." I interrupted.
"I already know all this; your sister Natasha wasn't with you; she was at a sleepover." I commented impatiently.
He ignored me and just continued; I had a feeling this was going to take a lot longer than just ten minutes.
"I started to transform into the wolf for the first time, I didn't know what was happening; it was the single worst moment in my life."
This was news to me, all I knew was his parents died in a car accident and he, against all odds, survived. I was intrigued.
He continued with his story.
"I killed my own parents, my stepdad lost control of the car, they died, but I survived. After that Tash and I lived with my uncle Matt in New Haven. That's when I enrolled in New Haven high where we met for the first time in Biology. . ." I interrupted him again.
"Yes, I know how we met Darren; I was there."
He continued.
"I was turning into a monster and I had no one to talk to. I mean who would believe me? You know the worst part of turning into a wolf, your mind is a subconscious in the wolfs' body, but you have no control, you only have primal instincts to eat, kill and survive. That's when Nikolai found me."
"How? How'd he find you?"
"I don't know, he knew my father or something, they were old friends. He started mentoring me, teaching me control. I soon learned that I was one of a kind, a born wolf. Most born wolf's die within the first year after birth but against all odds I survived. They called me the true Alpha. Nikolai was like a father to me. I was young and naïve. And honestly I was alone, and he was there for me."
It all made sense now, how he's the only Lycan in control of the wolf. I also slowly started to understand how he could have worked for Nikolai. Nikolai is a master manipulator that preys on one's wants and weaknesses using it to his advantage. He was playing Darren from the very start, using the dad card to draw him in. But it still didn't excuse everything Darren did which ultimately led to Jay being discovered and killed.
"The first time I realized I was trapped in a web of psycho was when he tortured a witch for information on some magical box or something."
"What magical box?" I asked curiously as the detective in me was making mental notes on all the Nikolai information for later use.
"I'm not sure most of it was in Russian, but Al it was brutal. His second in command Maurell is a Thousand-year-old Djinn, her specialty is torture. She uses your fears to torment you until you completely lose it and break down; she gets into your mind. After that, they forced me to kill the witch."
His second in command was a Djinn; they are like a type of genie except they don't grant wishes. I've never encountered one, so I don't know much about them, I have some reading to catch up on.
"After that I tried to distance myself from him, he threatened Tash. So, I was tasked with spying on a girl in my school in exchange for my sister's safety. It wasn't that easy inserting myself into her life, she was different, she didn't fall for my charms."
Was he really talking about me in the 3rd person? He continued his story about how he tried hard to get my attention, I found myself wandering off to a distant memory.
I found myself back in high school once more. I was in Biology with my other best friend Adam. Mr. Daddario, our teacher, was pairing us up with our new lab partners. Adam got Regina Adley; she was extremely popular amongst the males if you know what I mean. She had long blond hair, brown eyes, and tanned legs and to top it all off she was a bit busty.
And I got paired with Darren, the High school quarterback. Joy now I get to do all the work, he was one of those guys who needed three pages in the yearbook for his hair alone.
I walked over to his desk and sat down.
"Alexandria Da Silva right?" he asked.
Wow, the idiot remembered something Mr. Daddario read five minutes ago.
"Obviously," I answered in a sarcastic tone.
He smiled at me.
Maybe he didn't catch the sarcasm in my voice. It's not rocket science well, in his defence anything harder than trying to tie his shoelaces was, well, above his abilities. I gave him a quick sarcastic smile and took out my books.
His smile disappeared, O goody a light went on.
The rest of the class was filled in silence, Mr. Daddario had us write down: how crimsons carry traits from parents to off-springs. Also known as Heredity. For some weird reason, I felt a tension between Darren and me. When the bell rang signalling that the period was over, I dashed out of the classroom trying to avoid any awkward confrontations.
"Hey! Wait up!" I looked around and it was Darren. He ran towards me.
"I know what you're thinking," he told me enthusiastically.
"Oh? Yeah and what am I thinking?"
"You like me, and that's why you avoided making eye contact with me, it's my natural pheromones, women can't help but be attracted to all this. It's chemistry. " He smiled, making a gesture to his body.
I rolled my eyes. Good lord this guy clearly saw himself as God's gift to women.
"Look, I know you're used to people falling all over you for attention but that will never be me, I think talking to a fruit would be more meaningful, so if you don't mind, I'm going to be late for my next class." I started walking away; I looked back and saw him standing there motionless with his jaw clenched tightly. . .
"Alex? Are you listening?" Darren asked, looking at me confused.
"I was recalling a memory, continue." A deep frown crossed his features.
"Okay, I fell in love with you; I tried to distance myself emotionally from you, being a jerk actually worked for me with most girls."
I couldn't help but smile at that.
"But you weren't most girls. That night Jay got killed, I had no idea what was going to happen, you have to believe me."
My smile faded. He took my hand in his; I felt the warmth of his fingers through my gloves.
"Why should I believe you? Because of this sappy story of how the young naïve little wolf was tricked into working with Nikolai?"
I could see my words had an impact, a part of me felt bad for him, but the other part still blamed him for Jay's death.
"Jay was killed because he wouldn't leave Nikolai alone, Nikolai found Jay to be a nuisance, so he sent Dominic to kill and make an example of him. He wanted you and me to see what he was capable of. I haven't heard from him since that night, but I don't think he just let me go without a price. I dread the day he'll call me and force me to do his bidding again. That's why I reached out to you; I want to help you kill Nikolai."
I almost choked on my coffee.
"You want to help me kill him?" he looked at me surprised.
"Yes! You can't do this without me, you know nothing about him, and I spent two years with him, I'm the best shot you've got."
He was right Nikolai was a ghost to me, but here I had someone who knew how he operated and was willing to help. Would I really turn away help after nine years if this was the lead I needed to finally get ahead of Nikolai?
"The only problem is I don't trust you; how do I know that this isn't one of Nikolai's plans?" I said removing my hands from his
"Al, I know I haven't given you many reasons to trust me, but I need this, I need to be free from him. I can't live the rest of my life looking over my shoulder. Please?" He begged.
I sighed.
"If he finds out you're helping me he'll come after you Darren, I don't want another casualty of war on my hands."
"To win a war you need soldiers Al." He commented.
"I need to know that I can trust you with my life Darren?"
"I promise you can trust me Al." He replied sincerely.
We were really going to do this.
"We'll meet here every morning at seven. Make sure you're not followed; we need to be covert with this." I said standing up.
"So, does that mean I won't be coming to your apartment anytime soon?" He said in a flirtatious voice, back to his old self.
"Absolutely not," I said walking away.
After all these years, after all the pain he caused would I really trust him again? How could I even believe that the intel he was giving was real? Was this just some ploy to get me to trust him again? I would have to check out every lead he'd give me to ensure that his intel was accurate.