#Chapter 182 – The Trump Card

Inside the house, Ian, Emma, and Delia jump when they hear the sound of the bombs.

Mrs. Walsh just sits still. It’s a sound she’s heard before, one she was expecting.

“Wha-” Ian says, his mouth open and his head turned towards the windows, wishing, desperately, that he could see out. “What was that?”

“Bombs, darling,” Mrs. Walsh says from her spot in her armchair by the unlit fire, her head resting back against the fabric, exhausted. “That is the sound of the battle beginning.”

Ian grimaces and Emma knows that he wishes, above all, that he could be there. Ian is a boy who needs to be in on the action – he will be absolutely restless until he feels that he’s at the center of it all, helping his side.

Keeping him here, safe and sound, is torture for him.

“Mom,” Emma says softly, turning her face to her mother, trying again. “This can’t seriously be what you want for your pack, for its future.”

Mrs. Walsh turns her face away, as she did before.

They had tried, earlier, to persuade her. To convince her that a pack with Emma and Evelyn at the head, instead of John and Joyce, would be the better choice for everyone. But she had simply sat down in that chair and not responded – not at all – to anything that Emma had to say.

Delia hadn’t said anything, had merely sat quietly on the sofa. She knows that it’s not her fight. Eventually, Emma had given up and went to sit with Delia. They had sat in silence until the sound of the bombs started.

Ian surprises them all, though, by going to sit in his grandmother’s lap.

She welcomes him there, wrapping her arms around him as he curls up with his head against her chest. She rests her chin on his head.

“Grandmama,” he says softly. “Why does my grandfather hate my dad so much? Why does he want to kill him?”

Her face goes pale at that and she looks down at her grandson. He’s clever enough, she knows, to realize that the two forces going at each other outside are, indeed, his father and his grandfather. So she can’t lie to him to make it any better.

wants to kill

to take away the control?” Ian asks, looking up

her husband is, in fact, the aggressor in this situation – even if Victor is the one to come to the property, Walsh started this fight.

be combined anyway. This all seems…” Ian takes a moment, staring

finally, his voice very soft. “If people are going to get hurt, even die. When these packs are going to unite anyway, in the

surprised, and then stares at the

she says softly, stroking his hair in the same way that his mother does. “Perhaps

across Victor’s face as he sees that his plan has worked. The final dregs of the wolfsbane smarts against his skin and his eyes as he blinks, surveying the damage done to his enemies. But his scientists had been perfect in their

to their faces, their eyes, their backs arching in agony as they fight against the chemical attacking their

but he wipes it away, knowing that the men will be grateful, in the end. He doesn’t

have likewise turned back towards their foe. A few have fallen, writhing in agony themselves – likely those who hadn’t turned before the wind had carried the wolfsbane amongst them – but the vast

of the battle has turned now. With the majority of Walsh and Willard’s forces

situation, Victor opens his mouth

they surge forward, picking up speed again as they hurtle

hundred yards between Victor’s army and the enemies. His Betas have been ordered to take care – to go for a wound at every opportunity, instead of a kill. To press the advantage, but to be aware that they’re fighting amongst

machine guns to accurately shoot, and Walsh’s uninjured forces are scrambling to man the front lines. Victor’s smile deepens as he runs, knowing that the odds are in

encampment, knowing that Walsh is no fool. That he’s not going to just let Victor dash in and take over without a fight. He will have something up his sleeve, and Victor is on the lookout for

of the ranks, a flurry of activity just inside the chain-link fence surrounding a watch tower. Betas run all over it, swarming like ants, moving equipment and people

watchtower, Victor thinks, confused. Why the hell do they need to concentrate on manning

the Beta black climbing the steps of the watchtower, Victor notes

s**t.

going to play his

ring of static runs over the field and then the sharp piercing noise of an amplifier being attached to a microphone. Several of Victor’s

from a gigantic speaker that swings to the front of the watch tower. Victor ignores

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