Helen's POV
Beginning later the night Jessie gets back home from Rubble Beach
Julie knocked, opened the door and walked into the room they all called the command centre, looking disapprovingly at her friend and boss. "You must get some rest. Let someone else take over for a little while."
Helen took a deep breath and rubbed her forehead. "Things are going to hell right now and you want me to sleep ... just how do you expect me to do that?"
Julie made a rude noise. "By trusting the people you've known and worked with for years, that's how. You take on too much, and it's not good for you. You know that, we know that ... its way past time you left the minute-to-minute crisis juggling to others and just focused on managing us all."
Julie sighed, "I know those three are important to you. Everyone worked hard to place the twins in a safe place, but did you really think it was going to work? It lasted less than a year. Those two just can't get a break, it's like they are living under a curse or something."
Helen groaned, "Don't say that, especially to them. This time they've got something good along with the bad. Maybe that will help?" She looked at the folder open on her computer and selected an image file. A picture of Jessie Taylor appeared on the monitor. She murmured "Just when I thought there was nothing interesting left in this world, the world surprised me ..."
She stretched her arms above her head and shrugged her shoulders, trying to shake out the tension that had settled in her back during this crazy day. "Are Lennie and Tina still up? Can you ask them to come in here and I'll fill them in on the situation. Then I promise I will go to bed."
Julie nodded, "I will hold you to that boss. I want you out of here within the hour. We will also go for a run tomorrow, you need that too."
A few minutes later, Helen was updating the two people she thought of as her senior Betas. "Annie and Emma Jordan have arrived on the island and were accepted into the sea-wolf pack by their new Alpha. That group will stay on high-alert. I was hoping the Richards would not find out where Emma went, but they'll know the general area now and there are only so many options out there. At least an island is much harder to enter than mainland pack lands, so if any wolves are sent to get to Emma they should be caught before they can harm her."
"Tony Richard is still alive, currently being looked after at the Jenkins Pack's medical clinic. I'm told he'll recover but he's lost an eye. Apparently he can't remember what happened to him. Under Alpha Jenkins' questioning all he can say is that he remembers driving down the highway and then waking up in a truck after he was rescued. Everything else is a blank."
Lennie and Tina looked at her in astonishment. "Yes, I know ... it isn't possible, but somehow Jessie Taylor was able to compel a wolf she is not bonded to and her commands are currently sticking. The real test will be when Tony gets back to his pack and faces his own Alpha. If he continues to say nothing, and breaks the bonds to his pack and his family, I'm going to have to rethink everything about what we were planning to do with Ms. Taylor."
Tina frowned, "What do the Richards know right now? From what I understand, Tony made a phone call for help before Jessie could get back to him. What did he say on that call before she messed with his memory?"
Helen shook her head, "I don't know yet. I'm hoping he was in such rough shape at the time that all he did was ask for help and didn't talk about much else. I'm sure everyone knows now that Andrew Richard is missing and is likely dead. The only targets for revenge will be whoever was transporting Annie and Emma, and the pack that took those two women in. I'm hoping we get some information from our sources in the Algonquin Pack soon so we know what we are dealing with there."
Tina sighed, "How were Tony and Andrew travelling without their babysitters for god's sake?! Idiots, both of them ... always have been."
Helen answered, "I think when Annie panicked, getting quickly on a truck rather than waiting for her scheduled ride, the cousins followed and got separated from the rest of their entourage. That was ultimately bad for them, but it saved Jessie and the others at the beach. That area is neutral ground and that should have prevented any violence, but if someone foolishly started something those "babysitters" would have made sure there were no survivors except Algonquin wolves."
"How did we not know that Annie was being tracked? That worries me ... our sources are not as reliable as we thought. We need to find out why we didn't know, and fast. I put Jessie in terrible danger because I thought she was safe ... that can never happen again."
Lennie nodded, "Let me work on that. At the moment, we have to be concerned that there are now three more Algonquin wolves in that area trying to sort out what happened. I'm assuming one is with Tony?" Helen nodded. "... and the other two doing what they can to find out what happened. Julie's removed whatever digital evidence of Jessie that she can but we are going to have to assume they'll at least find out the driver was a woman. Where it goes from there, I don't know."
Helen sighed, rubbing her eyes, "I'm sure we'll find out more tomorrow. One last thing ... has anyone heard from Paul? When is he due back here?"
Lennie nodded, "He called earlier today. He was meeting with an old friend who might have some suggestions for further research regarding the jewellery collection, then he was coming back. You'll be able to get a report on that sometime tomorrow I think. Paul was quite excited ... said there were important things he'd managed to find out so far, so it should be very interesting to hear what he's got."
Helen sighed, "Good. That's it for now. You know all the other actions we've got going on, and the log file is up to date. I'm under orders to go to bed now. Call me if you need me though, yes?"
Lennie and Tina nodded. They each picked two of the four phones that received calls from various sources so they could monitor things through the rest of the night, and left the room.
Helen turned down the lights, pushed her chair away from the desk and rolled over to the large floor-to-ceiling window that looked out over the property. She stared at the stars for a few minutes before she caught sight of her reflection in the glass. A white-haired, one-eyed woman in a wheelchair looked back. She was aging rapidly now, a result of an attempt on her life 20 years ago that had left her a paraplegic and the subsequent, ongoing struggle to keep her wolf from fading away. She was grateful that her mind and memory remained sharp -- she could still do what needed to be done. She had beaten the odds and survived something Were usually didn't manage to do, but it had taken an enormous toll.
"Never give up, never surrender" she whispered. It was still a great motivational mantra. It came from the movie
Galaxy Quest
they had all enjoyed watching the year before the car crash that had been deliberately planned to kill her. The movie poster was prominently displayed in her office, a gift and daily reminder from her group ... her family.
They had lost so much, all of them, that day and in the months and years that had followed. Helen had wondered many times since then, if she hadn't been so badly hurt would she have done as Jacob, Liam, Julie and others had -- tearing a swath of death and destruction through those who had attempted to wipe them all out? All those lives lost, a long & painful negotiation that finally stopped the war, an uneasy truce that had lasted almost 12 years ... and now two spoiled, undisciplined idiots had been sent to kill a ten year old child.
What were the Richards thinking? Surely they didn't really fear girls so much that they'd risk the precarious cease-fire for the first Richard daughter born in over 132 years, whom almost no one knew was Tony Richard's child? Emma was unmarked, just as Silvie had been -- there was no curse for heaven's sake! It was the Richard family's own damn fault that Andrew was dead and Tony was, if Jessie was right, about to be as good as dead. Helen was going to have to make that very clear to Mark and Stephen Richard, get them to back away from acts of revenge in order to prevent another war. She was well aware Jacob and Liam would go to any lengths to protect Jessie -- and if something happened to her those two men would stop at nothing to destroy those responsible.
