Another Half
BLADE -- Chapter 22 Pt 1

Azul Springs

July 2012

Between Rex’s beatings and the large gash Blade had left on his thigh, Jonson had lost a lot of blood and he passed out soon after his admission.

Ax and Sergio unshackled him and sat him on a chair. A guard brought Blade a first aid kit and a small basin of water with soap to wash her hands. She ministered to Jonson’s wounds while Rex stood next to her and watched over her. He used the large bottle of hydrogen peroxide to wash his own bloodied hands.

What kind of monster kills innocent children and a pregnant she-wolf, too? He asked her while he stared at Jonson through narrowed eyes once his hands were clean.

Blade stood up next to him and looked down at Jonson. His dark hair was still matted to his head and face, and even in his sleep, he looked terribly haggard. He was still young, albeit weathered. He looked to be in his mid to late forties, although she suspected he was much younger. She cocked her head to one side while she thought.

Either a very sick one or a very desperate one would be my guess.

Or a very evil one, he said.

Sergio and Ax went to get enough chairs for everyone else to sit. Not long had passed when a she-wolf appeared at the torture chamber’s door with a medium-sized basket full of eight-ounce bottles of Rojo and different flavored Azul.

Once Jonson’s wounds were clean and dressed, Rex handed her a small bottle of Azul.

To wake up the piece of shit, he said when she raised her eyebrows in inquiry. I would never give you Azul to drink. I might as well give you hand sanitizer.

She giggled. Such strong opinions about vodka, Alpha.

He’s not worthy of Rojo, he said, so hand sanitizer it is.

Blade grinned at him. I’m not sure he’s worthy of any of your products.

True, but I don’t make shit alcohol and this is all I have.

Blade opened the bottle of Azul her mate had given her. She put the open bottle under Jonson’s nose and hoped his wolf’s keen sense of smell would kick in. It didn’t take Jonson long to wake up.

All five of them sat around the table with Jonson sitting on one side alone and facing the rest on the other. Rex and Blade sat in the middle and Sergio sat on the other side of their alpha. Rex had already set several bottles in the middle of the table.

Blade glanced at Jonson. His eyes were glazed over as he stared dejected at the bottles on the table, his mind lost in space.

“This is a first. We’re boozing in the torture chamber now?” Ax opened a bottle of Rojo and took a long swig.

“No glasses?” Sergio asked, taking a bottle of Azul Mint. “How are we supposed to drink this?”

“Never offer a glass to a poisoner,” Rex said, looking at Jonson pointedly.

Jonson chuckled and nodded in agreement as he leaned over and slowly opened a bottle of Rojo. He smiled as the red cap clicked several times as he broke its seal. “Very true, Alpha.” He drank, amusement briefly lighting his eyes as he glanced at Blade and nodded.

“Why not?” Sergio asked. “What’s wrong with drinking out of a glass?”

“Nothing if the glass is from your own cupboard.” The small bottle of Rojo in Jonson’s hand was already half-empty.

Smart move bringing alcohol, Blaze said to Rex.

It never fails to loosen lips, he said, winking at her while handing her a bottle of Rojo. I don’t know why he chose Rojo. Did you see that? He didn’t even sniff it! Rex said.

Blade grinned and patted his leg under the table. It’s okay. Not everyone can be a bourbon connoisseur like you.

Rex gave her a side glance and rolled his eyes. You’re so funny, mate.

Stop flirting with each other! Ax said. And I saw that, Blade. Stop feeling him up like that in public. It’s weird! We get it, you’re both in love, but it’s fucking annoying even me!

Rex broke his usually detached expression to flash a smirk at Ax.

Breaking Jonson was like breaking a damn. With a small bottle of Rojo in his hand, he couldn’t stop himself, it seemed, once he started to share information.

Jonson’s job had been to destabilize Azul Valley Pack. To do this, his first task was to assimilate into a group of prisoners that would accept him as one of their own, he would help them escape, and then they would serve as a front for him to insert himself into the Azul Valley Pack. He made friends with Alfredo and the rest by providing them with larger rations of food, bottled water, pillows, and blankets, and listening to their grievances and fears. He empathized with them. Of course, he didn’t tell them that Nightshade’s Alpha Optimo himself had come up with the plan. Yes, Jonson admitted, he laced their food with the White Lady, but it was only half doses. He didn’t want to kill them, he just wanted to make them sick. Admittedly, he had miscalculated the doses with the children and with the pregnant she-wolf.

“And their execution?” Blade asked.

“Optimo fucked with their minds on that one; he likes to do that to people. He announced their execution so our so-called escape would happen that very night. By the time I proposed an escape plan, they were all in ’cuz they had nothing left to lose,” Jonson said.

And so the refugees’ “escape” to Blue Ponderosa wasn’t an escape at all. It was a well-organized ploy to get Rex to accept and even sympathize with Jonson and his companions. None of the others were aware of Jonson’s plan, of course, least of the pregnant she-wolf he had called his sister.

“Wait,” Rex said. “How did he know I was the alpha of Blue by then?”

Jonson sat back on the chair he was sitting on and looked at Rex for a considerable time before responding very slowly.

“This is the part that gets interesting, Alpha. But before I respond to you, I want a promise.”

Sergio snorted. “After fucking over so many people, you are in no position to ask for shit, least of all promises.”

Jonson crossed his arms and looked at Sergio with disdain. The vodka had made him bold, and reckless. “See, the smart thing here would be to ask me what I want first.”

He has a point, Blade broadcast to Rex, Sergio, and Ax. Let’s listen to what he wants. We can send him to hell if it’s unreasonable.

What the hell, Blade?! Sergio said. You’re going to agree with him?! He’s obviously going to ask for his freedom!

Ax quickly responded, Not necessarily. After telling us all this, he knows he’s fucked out there. He’s fucked in here, too, but my guess is he wants to be the less fucked possible.

Blade glanced at Rex, who sat with his arms crossed. He looked inscrutable on the outside, but inside Blade saw him calculating the odds of listening to Jonson going wrong.

“What is it you want?” Rex asked.

“I will tell you everything I know in exchange for a speedy execution,” Jonson said.

Rex remained impassive.

Jonson continued. “I have murdered enough people in your pack to merit a decent execution, and after what I will tell you, you’ll be even more motivated to get rid of me.”

“How do you know your sentence wouldn’t be a nice lifetime stay at our five-star dungeons?” Ax said.

Jonson shook his head. “Not interested. I really want out of this life.”

“Why?” Rex unfolded his arms and set them on the table.

Blade saw a vein in Jonson’s forehead palpitate rapidly and he started to rub his hand on his uninjured leg.

He’s afraid of something and it is not us, she privately relayed to Rex.

“What you are afraid of?”

Jonson looked Rex square in the eyes. “You cannot guarantee me that Optimo will not get to me. You can sink me in the deepest hole in your dungeons but, trust me, he’ll replace a way to get to me and make me pay in the worst way possible for what I’m telling you. I’d rather get an ax to the throat by your hand, which will be honest, than whatever Optimo has in store for me.”

Rex’s mouth twisted into a sarcastic smile. “And here I thought I was a big bad alpha.”

Jonson nodded appreciatively. “You’ve done in a couple of years what it took Optimo three decades to accomplish. I’d say you’re big and bad enough, but he’s one twisted mother fucker who loves to watch people suffer. Gets off on it, I’ve heard. He doesn’t give a shit about his people or the people he takes over, he sees them all as animals. Doesn’t matter that we’re all wolf-kind. And that is all I’m going to say until I have your promise.”

Rex looked at him, calculating.

“Why should we trust you?” Blade asked.

Jonson shrugged. “I have a personal debt with Optimo, one he has to pay. He’s been holding my mate hostage as collateral for me doing this job.” He looked down at the bottle still in his hands. “I felt—I felt our bond break two nights ago. She’s dead. It doesn’t matter if he killed her or if she committed suicide because of whatever he was doing to her. Dead is dead and I know she suffered plenty.”

Jonson’s shoulders slumped slightly before he sat up erect again, and Blade continued to observe him.

He’s lying! Sergio said.

I dunno. That’s one heavy lie, Ax said. Lying like that about one’s mate is—it’s more fucked up than I’m used to seeing, and I just saw Blade almost scare this guy to death with a cup of tea.

Blade? Rex asked.

Blade watched Jonson’s defeated countenance a few moments longer before responding. There was no light in his eyes. Jonson’s face reminded Blade of how she had felt when she finally realized that Nick would never love her, that all she had ahead was a lifetime of being alone since Nick would sooner or later officially reject her.

I don’t think he’s lying. As Ax said earlier, he knows he’s a dead man walking outside of this dungeon. That’s why kept egging me to kill him earlier. My guess is he wants his death and that of his mate to mean something before he joins her.

So he dies anyway? I don’t see how that’s a win for him, Sergio said.

Blade made an educated guess on what Jonson was getting out of this deal.

His win is an almost painless reunion with his mate and the satisfaction that Optimo didn’t kill him first.

A quick death is too good for this bastard, Sergio said. I say we burn him at the stake after he tells us everything. Make it the most painful death possible.

Ax rolled his eyes at him. Dude! He’s not a witch. He deserves better for that alone.

Rex quickly added, And I will not go back on my word once I give it.

“Agreed,” Rex said. “I promise you will have a swift execution on account of all the lives you have taken if the information you provide us will help me protect my mate and my packs. Double-cross or lie to me, my Luna, or any member of my pack, and my word is forfeit.”

Jonson closed his eyes and nodded. “Thank you,” he whispered. When he reopened his eyes, they had a calm and clarity that had been missing before.

“My name is Zedek Johnston. I am from what used to be the Foxglove Pack and, by lineage, I am the rightful gamma of that pack. I have no pups, and no heir, so my lineage ends with me. I would have been gamma had my father, our alpha, and our beta not been brutally murdered twenty years ago by Alpha Optimus from the Nightshade Pack after several years of war that left our pack weak and poor. Ten years ago, I was forcibly recruited and trained to serve Optimo as a spy and poisoner in exchange for the continued life of my Fated Mate, Milka. I was one of many.”

Sergio and Ax shifted uncomfortably in their chairs.

“What was your main objective here?” Rex asked.

“To assassinate you,” Zedek said. “Optimo wants to take over Azul Valley just as he took over the packs from the Northern Valley and all the other packs spread out north of us. He knows that killing the alpha is the fast way to achieve that.”

“He’s done this before?” Sergio asked.

Zedek nodded. “He has spent the last three decades refining the art of taking over a pack. Our valley, previously the Northern Valley and now renamed the Nightshade Valley, was made up of five large and powerful packs, all of them had their own solid leadership, and all of them were free and prosperous. Optimo started with Nightshade’s neighbor, the Oleander Pack, but Oleander was too strong and it resisted for many years. He gave up, built up his army again, and moved on to the next pack he thought was weak, but that one was too strong, too.

Unfortunately, Optimo got smart. He went in with a peace treaty and assassinated the Alpha using the Red Lady as they supposedly toasted to a celebration that would last for many generations. It scared the shit out of everyone, including the Alpha’s family, the Beta, and the Gamma. He quashed a rebellion before it started by promising the Beta that he would become the new Alpha, and the Gamma went along with the promise of becoming Beta, and because Optimo promised to spare the Alpha’s family. He had them all murdered with the Blue Lady that night.”

There were times when Blade hated it when she was right, and this was one of them. She glanced at her companions. Both Sergio and Ax were pale and wide-eyed. Rex, on the other hand, looked as stoic as ever, but he felt as alarmed as she did.

“I was twelve when he did the same thing to my pack,” Zedek said. “My father took me to the meeting as part of my gamma training. I did not drink of the wine Optimo gave them because my father thought it not wise to start me drinking so early.” Zedek’s voice became a whisper and he stared at the bottles, lost in his terrible memory. “I knew something was wrong when our Alpha fell to the floor and started to shake and spout out blood. A week later, my father and the Beta went to a meeting with Optimo. He ordered my father to take me with him, and—.”

“It’s okay, Zedek. You can stop there,” Rex said softly.

Zedek looked directly at Rex. “My father died in my arms that day.”

Blade felt as Rex’s mind froze over and fell into deep reverent silence. She didn’t need to see that his eyes had glazed over because she saw images of whom she guessed had been Rex’s father broadcast from his mind, and she heard a soft “I love you son. Always remember that.”

Realizing what was happening, she immediately put her hand on Rex’s thigh and squeezed hard.

Stay with me, Rex.

He blinked and put his hand on top of hers, and Zedek began to speak again, his voice tight but determined.

“If there’s one thing you should remember about Optimo is to never trust him. Whatever he’s saying, it’s all a fucking lie.”