The Walkers: The Return

Chapter 12

Chapter 12

"Hurt" – Johnny Cash cover

I stared out at the waving grass that coated the ditch interior, trying to catch a glimpse of whatever or whoever was waiting for us. After leaving my talk with Carlisle, I met with the others and learned that Tobin had failed to return. Rix had sent him on an errand, and due to the possibility of an attack, he had insisted Tobin return in half an hour. When my older brother no-showed, Rix grew worried. So we waited as a group, hoping he would casually saunter into the sewer, but as three hours passed, he was nowhere to be found.

"Are you sure he's not just late?" I asked, barely believing the words as they exited my lips. "He's been tense lately. Maybe he needs some space."

"In your time with us, have you ever known him to leave without telling one of us?" Collin asked. I had no answer for him. "Something's wrong. I can feel it."

"Are you sure?" I asked. "Is it possible he went to wake up Shiloh and Dex?"

Una laughed humorously at my suggestion, saying, "Dex would flog him and send him back to us. He hates insubordination."

While my brothers and sister tried to think of where he could be, the only thing I could think of what Tobin. Of all my brothers, he was the most like me. He and I connected due to the violence with which we became Walkers. Moreover, his inability to release the memories of his lost family paralleled my own. While a part of thought he was cooling off somewhere, a darker part of me realized there was another likely culprit.

"Could they have taken him?" I asked softly, silencing the others. I turned back to them, my words becoming stronger, angrier. "The leech's coven. Could they be responsible."

"Why would they do that?" Collin asked, the tension in his voice rising as the implications spread through our group like wildfire, creating a burning rage within us. "Why would they willingly piss us off?"

I balled my hand into a fist and punched the wall softly, satisfied with the crumbling concrete it left on my knuckles. "Maybe they don't know about us. If they don't know us, they have no reason to fear us."

"I find it unlikely," Collin said, shaking his head. "If that leech knows about us, it's reasonable to assume his coven does, too."

"Not necessarily," Rix said, levying me with a curious expression. "If he is not lying, his alliance with the Walkers is ancient, significantly so. Vampire memories are as fallible as ours. Certain things take hold while others drift away. It is entirely possible that he had not thought of our kind in centuries. Did you learn anything from him?"

Rix looked to me expectantly, and I immediately felt my sister and brother's eyes on me. I wasn't afforded the opportunity to share Rix's order that I find out what I could about our captive leech. I didn't feel guilty; it was just odd that I had not shared it with them. I knew they were thinking the same.

"I did," I said.

Rix nodded and sat on a stone outcropping, saying, "Report."

I sighed before beginning, wondering exactly how much I should tell; however, I answered that question quickly: everything.

"I learned a lot from him, more than I realized," I said. "His name is Carlisle Cullen and he came here from Washington, North of Seattle. He's one of the sympathetic leeches. His coven and he, they pretend to be human and feed on animal blood, which is why his eyes are that color. Including him, his coven has seven leeches."

I paused and glanced around at Rix, Una, and Collin. Would they think differently of me after I revealed all I had gleaned? Would they cast me out? I quickly shook my head, knowing better. They were my family, through and through. There was nothing that could divide us.