BLACKBIRD

I know it’s ridiculous, that a lot of this is myth and superstition.  But I need to research, to know everything so I can understand what is right and wrong.

My brother is something I didn’t even know could exist, and another was kidnapped and tortured, and another died. All I have is knowledge and the gun I keep hidden in a shoe box under my bed.

It’s not ridiculous and anyone who tells you otherwise are fuckin’ assholes. I’m a researcher and at one point I was in your shoes-- I needed to know everything. It got me in trouble a lot, but I’m better for it. 

Show me how to siphon money for myself and I think we’ll have a mutually beneficial deal.

Mine has only recently ticked over one.

Dumplin’, I’ll teach you all that and more-- my friends don’t want for anythin’.

Well if you need a sparring partner to keep up to date, let me know. Everyone I used to practise with are now werewolves, go figure.

Like I’d hurt you, you’re one of the ones I like.

Wow, no kidding-- since Wil’s a werewolf, I lost my person I’d spar with here. You’re on, I don’t want to let all the money I siphoned from people’s accounts to go to waste.

I didn’t think you could full body throw someone like that.

I’m okay, I think my ego is just wounded.

Looks like the self-defense classes I took while I was gone are paying off at least.

“And where’s the fun in that ending it so quickly then?” He wouldn’t say what they were both likely thinking, that tearing into Charlotte with his claws and teeth may constitute as a mercy killing, too swift and unjustifiable than the punishment she deserved. Wil held his initial reservations on what he actually wanted done, whether seeing Charlotte simply knocked off her pedestal could satisfy the comeuppance and it would have, given their previous close relationship. However, Wilburn was no longer that man vying towards banishment, not when his wolf could never allow a woman consumed by bloodthirst sniff in the direction of his family. He heard the voice in his head, urging an execution. “Oh, sure, Cammy, I’ll stay out of it.” Wil smirked, throwing a shade of mocking hurdling towards the woman and shook his head. “You know what happened the last time I was thrown specific instructions and took matters into my own hands. I’ll let you take the lead from here. Besides, by the time she knows I had something to do with this overthrowing the leader shit, it’s going to be too late for her.” He lifted a hand and grabbed the burner phone from Camryn, flipping it over in his hand once and pocketing the device for safe-keeping. “Haven’t had a fucking flip phone since I was thirteen.” Wilburn released a grunt of amusement, his thoughts drifting to his cousin. “I never patched up things with him properly the way I should’ve done, Cam. Can’t remember the last we held an actual conversation.” He nodded, “You’re right, though. He deserves a caravan without the hard asses ragging on him for caring too much.”

Camryn was never one that advocated for torture or the like, even when it came to the supernatural, but with Charlotte? She’d make an exception. As to who’s hands it’ll be by, she didn’t know. She rolled her eyes at Wil, punching him lightly in the arm, “I would have been really worried about you saying that if it was any other time than now, but thank you. It’ll take some time, breaking down her rapport is gonna be a hard thing but once I get the right things to use as ammo, it’ll be like dominos.” She couldn’t help but shrug as he dissed the phone, but older technology is almost unhackable. Something she learned and there was no one else in the town that was as smart as she was when it came to computers. Cam’s eyes soften as she listened to Wil talk about cousin, “I’m not going to say he will forgive you, because that’s up to Eddie... but with the way you’re going now? It’ll make it a little bit easier for him. Just... keep thinking forward and things will work out, you know?” Cam said before stepping forward, wrapping her arms around his middle and hugging him close. Wil was one of her best friends and she hated how things had ended between them. Seeing him try hard makes her want to try harder, too. “Then lets try our fuckin’ hardest to do a shake down so we can give him the best home. I won’t fail on this.”

“I knew living here and starting a family would force me out of retirement eventually. Seems poetic the reason is the fate of the caravan.” Charles hummed. Although the hybrid attacks theoretically became the man’s breaking point, Camryn’s insistence for his help proved he now couldn’t walk away until the job was done. He remembered hearing of the massacre, an Alpha and his entire pack slaughtered, unimaginable. “You know, I wasn’t there, but Charlotte called me up asking if I wanted part of it. Turned her down.” The woman did call him later after the shit show, explaining what happened. “She’s finishing what she started, Camryn, and she won’t stop until these survivors are dead. No loose ends.” Charles nodded his head in understanding, “Tell me what you need from me.”

Camryn knew what happened to the Van Warren pack from Wil and what she had managed to dig up, but it was interesting how Charles knew it-- knowing that Charlotte was a poisonous viper laying in wait in the grass. Oh, how she knew how to wield words to make herself out to be a victim or a righteous leader. “Good for you turning her down, but what I need your help with is actually starting that coup. I’m not going to let her kill the survivors. I’ve stood by and watched hunters do a lot of fucked up shit, but I’m done,” Camryn managed to say through her grit teeth. She didn’t know where this simmering anger and resentment came from. Perhaps she was done being considered the hunter who never helped lives-- she would prove Charlotte wrong. Just in the opposite direction. “I will strip her of her power, but what we need is someone to fill that spot she leaves. Either permanently or until we find someone else who will lead the hunters in a way where we don’t hunt innocent supernatural just because of a grudge.”

“The information you need, it means putting a target on my back. Nothing new there. This smells like a coup, Cam.”

“You want to know if she has a history of unethical practices and to answer your question, yes, she does. I’ve known Char a long time and it’s hard to believe she wasn’t always like that. Something just…snapped.” Charles scratched at his beard in contemplation. “Do those rumblings have something to do with that werewolf pack years ago?”

“I understand that I can be asking a lot and there’s a reason why you stopped hunting, but this... this is bigger than me. It’s for the good of the whole caravan,” Camryn said, listening to the man as he began to talk about Charlotte. Cam knew that four out of five hunters had something shitty happen to them in order to become hunters, she wasn’t oblivious. Camryn nodded, “I had a little bird tip me off to what happened. I checked the information... Charles, there are two survivors from that massacre and I checked their locations via GPS. Charlotte’s location directly correlates between them. She’s stalking them.”

“I’d probably rip her to shreds without stopping, which kind of works in our favor.” Camryn’s comment served as a reminder the full moon was fast approaching and along with it arrived the experience unleashing his wolf completely in its element for the first time. Wilburn counted down the days with anxiety and the only reprieve were Griffin and Calliope as well as their mother. “I haven’t heard from him in a while, but I think he’d be willing to help the cause.” The name Sinclair reverberated in the caravan since Wil’s introduction into hunting, a family lineage for the job wasn’t a common happenstance, and basing an opinion on the stories, he was pretty fucking fantastic at it before the small snag of the older man’s retirement. “You’d have him singing like a canary in the palm of your hand.” He flashed a playful grin before his expression turned somber. Her concerns were valid, fair, and a whisper of a thought that entered his realm as the plot against Charlotte materialized. “Not downplaying the possibility someone just as bad will swoop in for the opportunity of a lifetime, but we choose the leader ourselves. I’ll always vouch for Eddie and even if I was in the running, I know there’s always going to be this fear I’ll turn out like her. Jaded and bitter.” The wolf’s brow furrowed pensively, everything within him believing Eddie would make a great fit, but aware the caravan did indeed need a leader’s expertise and years’ worth of experience. “Okay. We’re at an official agreement, it needs to be Charles. Now all that’s left is floating the idea by him.”

“Is it bad that I’m still voting for that option?” Camryn asked with a shrug before she finished jotting her notes, storing her phone away into her bag. This was a dangerous course for her, but Charlotte’s reign needed to come to an end, and what better way to end it than by her hands? Undermining and destroying empires had always been her goal in life ever since her parents told her she was a criminal. Time for her to ascend and become a double agent. “I can handle Charles and Charlotte, but I need something from you. I need you to stay as far away from this as you can and let me handle it,” Camryn leveled her gaze at Wil, “I don’t want any of this ‘sure, Cammy, I’ll stay out of it’ bullshit where you do exactly the opposite. I need you to remember what you are now. What your family is and the fact that Charlotte wouldn’t stop and take you down for meddling. I need you to trust that I know what I’m doing.” Camryn opened another compartment of her bag, bringing three spare burner phones out and handing one over to Wil. “From now on, we’ll communicate through these phones. I’ll update you on how it goes with Charles and the next steps if I need your help with anything. If Eddie... when he comes back, I’ll give him one, too. If he wants to help us with this all.” She frowned at the phones that were in her hands before storing them back in his bag. Camryn really didn’t know what Eddie would say once he came back and uncovered what she was doing; she wouldn’t have been able to keep a secret from him. He’d see right through her. “All I want to do is make something of the hunters that he would be proud of being a part of, regardless of if he was leading it or not. He deserves to breathe without guilt or being told he’s soft.”

You’re blaming the loss of life on me now? And for the record, my vision of what the caravan needs is the same as everyone else’s. Human survival.

You know what, Camryn, we’ve always been honest with each other, why stop now? I thought you had great potential when Wilburn and Eddie rescued you from that vampire attack. You showed promise, but even if those boys adored you, they never realized the caravan had no use whatsoever for a researching computer hacker. You don’t save lives where it matters. And in your innate fascination to poke and prod every button I own, Cam, it almost makes me wish Wil and Eddie had left you at the mercy of those vamps.

She listened to the woman spew her toxicity and knowing that Charlotte would drag Eddie and Wil into this and the time that they saved her. Tried to get under her skin by undermining her worth, but Char played her hand. Only Cam knew her true worth, and Charlotte seemed to forget what she brought to the table. Camryn couldn’t help but laugh, a hearty chuckle in the very presence of the devil. Wiping at her eyes, Camryn shook her head, “Wow. Wow -- you are almost believable. You strive to be this woman of protection and savior to humans when you admitted to someone who doesn’t fit your mold of a typical hunter that you almost wished they’d died for pushing your buttons. When in reality? I’m the one who is bold enough to ask questions. To stand up for something that I believe as right.” Camryn could feel it now, the anger simmering beneath her skin. Everything she had done for this caravan, her life’s work, had saved numerous lives. She may not have been one to wield a gun and run out into the field, but she had saved human and hunter lives. Before her, the caravan was prehistoric. “How incredibly narrow minded you are, it’s pathetic,” she spat out, “you seem to forget who funds this caravan, while other caravans are forced to cheat, lie, and steal in order to get money-- not only being on the watch list of the supernatural but also human agencies. You’ve also forgotten my inventions and my intel that help save more lives than you give me credit for. I am far more useful than a bitch on a power trip who isn’t able to discern friend from foe.” She dared take a step closer, her gaze leveled at the woman with a fierce determination, “I have the power to take away everything I’ve done from you so that you really understand what I do for this caravan. You may be running this show in outside world, but I am the ground beneath your feet. Without that, you’re nothing. Check your privilege that I’ve handed you before you dare to talk down to me.”

I stand corrected. Sorry.

I was a lawyer and before that, you knew my profession, you need a sixth sense for both. What’s going on?

Take offense or not, I won’t bat an eye, but it’s about unity with the caravan. We’ve lost many of our hunters since coming to this town. I can’t afford to lose another because she needed a mental break.

I wonder why we’ve lost so many. Maybe it’s because you don’t listen to the basic needs of the caravan if it doesn’t align with your vision.

Are you always this jumpy?

You should know that answer to that, Charles, given what you know my profession as.

“I’m the one technically starting shit from afar, but I won’t let her lay a finger on you, okay? We make certain she doesn’t know it was us.” Charlotte wasn’t an idiot, she would realize how the secret passed between the hunters, trace the leads until it pointed in the direction of Wilburn and Camryn. Hence why the logical solution for Wil, at least, was keeping his distance while nature took its course. “Figured that’s the obstacle. I used to be one of those die hard followers.” Wil pressed his lips together in thought, attempting a recall of any memory he shared with Charlotte, anything that would help their case. “I remember a few missions, she’d send us after a coven of vampires and give some bullshit reason why we should take them out. They killed a hunter friend of hers, they terrorized a town, anything she knew we’d believe. I bet you anything she was lying.” The very notion struck a sour taste on his tongue. “We could ask Charles Sinclair. They were pals back in the day.”

“That only works for so long, but I’d love to see you go wolfie on her. I’d actually pay for it,” Cam said with a sly grin before she went back to writing on her phone. Despite her best efforts to keep her tracks hidden, Charlotte would eventually catch on. No one is that blatantly insubordinate to her than she is. Camryn just hoped that by the time that happened, then Charlotte would be in no position to go after her. “Sinclair? That makes sense,” Camryn echoed. She couldn’t even remember the last time she spoke to the man but this time it would be a necessity. The lives of her fellow hunters were on the line. “I’ll just work my good ole southern charm on him and get him to spill his guts, but that’s also not the thing I’m worried about the most,” Cam said eventually, the top of her pen tapping her chin, “if we get rid of Charlotte, then there will be a power vacuum within the caravan. Who’s to say that someone worse than her won’t take her place? We need to dethrone her and put someone in her spot. I would have said you, but you’re not exactly hunter material anymore. Eddie would have been a logical choice given his sentiment for supernatural; honest and fair, but he would have hated it. The only other logical choice would be someone who has as much influence and experience as Charlotte. We need to replace her with Charles.”

There’s that shimmer of small hope that would always be there, his cousin and his best friend potentially engaging in a relationship. If someone like him, someone as stupid and head over heels in love, could find the happiness, then those two would prosper through even the darkest of days. Wilburn’s gaze dropped to his hands, scratching incessantly at a spot on his palm hard enough to remove the small top layer of flesh. The sting was annoying, but not overly unbearable. “She had this way of making you feel like you mattered. I know that had to be some level of manipulation when she immediately shuns you for a mistake. I saw what I wanted to see and no one could convince me of any other opinion.” Wil thought about Spencer in that moment, knowing he recommended him to stay out of it and limit the target on his back, but he wouldn’t stand by as others suffered the same fate. “I want you to spread the word, Cammy. Someone like Char shouldn’t be in charge of the hunters and if they know who she really is, they’ll push her out.”

Camryn.

I understand if the situation was too much for you to handle, but the caravan can’t survive if none of us are being honest with each other.

It is my business to know where every hunter is and should be at all times. You would think it’s my job or something. Oh, yeah, it is.

You left without a word or a text after the attacks, Camryn, what in your right mind would make you believe I’d be less pissed than I am? I don’t need to add you to my growing shit pile.

Okay, General Mom, I get it.

Well, a gal allowed the notification she was back in town to slip her mind.

What’s the excuse this time, Camryn?

Didn’t think I needed to, it’s like you’re always laying in wait for me. Notifying you is always a moot point.