Filed to story: Sorry Alpha I Am Wolfless Novel
“I do believe that he has arrived now, Mrs. Gray. Please, he is not there to do any harm. He is there to offer you assistance, as I am as well.”
“Hold on a moment, Mr. Doe.” I set the phone down and nodded to Vincent to have him open the door.
“Good afternoon, Queen Riviana.” Peter, always the one for the rules, bowed to me the moment that the door was open. “There is a man that has arrived just now. He is asking to speak with you. He says that you are expecting him.”
“What is his name?” I asked him with a curious look. I was wondering if he had given a real name or if he was using a fake one as well.
“His name is Kirkland Clarke, he says that you should be expecting him.”
I took a moment to look around the room. If he was here to plant a bomb in the building, then we would smell it immediately. He wouldn’t be able to do anything to us either, because he was likely human, and we definitely were not. I wasn’t worried about our safety here, but I was curious as to what it was that Clarke and Doe wanted from us.
“Please show him in, Peter.” I nodded at him.
“Very well.” He nodded and backed away from the room. I had thought that Peter would have to go and get the man, but he was already behind Peter, waiting to come into the office.
I was starting to think that I would need to have a conversation with Peter about this. He shouldn’t let someone into the castle without permission. Then again, he was a good judge of character. And he would have been able to sniff out if the man had a weapon or a bomb. He most likely thought that any human that came here would be an ally or friend, because there weren’t many humans that were actually allowed into the compound.
The man, Kirkland Clarke, stepped into the office as Peter stepped away from the door. I could see that he was more of a boy. He was no older than Reagan and Rika, that was for sure. And he looked infinitely more innocent and passive than they did. Was this man really a part of the DOE?
“Thank you for seeing me, Mrs. Gray.” The man lowered his head, but it wasn’t in respect. This was a gesture that he was used to. He was a shy man, meek and weak, he was not the confrontational type. Another reason that Peter had been able to trust him. This man wouldn’t do us harm, he would be too scared to do it.
“Well, I admit that I am curious, Mr. Clarke. Please, come in and have a seat. Your friend is currently on the phone with me.” I said as I picked up the receiver and pressed a button on the base for the phone. I put it on speaker and put the handset back into the cradle.
“Hello, Doe.” Clarke said to the man as he sat in the chair that was directly in front of me.
“Glad to see that you made it there, Clarke.” Mr. Doe said from his end of the phone. “I am going to assume that I am on speaker phone now. And that it is more than just Mrs. Gray and Mr. Clarke that is in the room. I do not know how many more, so do not worry about that. Be that as it may though, I would like to introduce myself, sort of. You can call me Mr. Doe. I am the second in command of the DOE, but I did not want to be a part of this organization. And neither did Mr. Clarke.”
“He is right.” Clarke said with a slight whimper in his voice. “I was forced to be a part of the BARCs before they were absorbed into the DOE.”
“Absorbed?” I asked for clarification on that statement.
“When the DOE was formed, our leader gathered all of these groups from the immediate area, and some from other parts of the country altogether. He has united them into one group with a common goal.”
“Got it.” I nodded as Mr. Doe explained it to me.
“I never wanted to be a part of this life.” Clarke lowered his head. “My father, uncles, and brothers are all a part of the BARCs, or they were.” The man looked up at me, peering through thick eyelashes as letting his dark brown hair fall into his eyes. The effect made it a little more difficult to see his eyes than it normally would have been. “I couldn’t tell them that though. I have never been a very strong individual. I mean, I am physically strong, but I am not the type to do things on my own. And I wasn’t able to stand up to my family. I was forced to follow them, but I made sure that I didn’t hurt anyone. I took part in protests, begrudgingly, but I never hurt anyone. I hate guns and violence of all forms. And I don’t want to be a part of the DOE. My family is there, but I don’t want to be. Mr. Doe is helping me to get away because he doesn’t want to be there either.”
“You know, Mr. Doe,” Joaquin spoke up when Clarke was done with his explanation, “I find it hard that you are the second in command and you don’t even want to be a part of the group. Did you have a change of heart or something?”
“Something like that.” Mr. Doe said from his side of the call. “You see, the leader of the DOE is someone that I have known for a long time. And when the reveal happened, he just sort of lost it. He wanted to eliminate you all. I didn’t say anything to the negative, because I had been working with him for a while before that. On a special project that he had been working on. He assumed, because I had been helping him before, that I would continue to think the same way that he does. At first, I was confused and angry about the reveal, so I went along with him. However, he is off his rocker, and I don’t want to be a part of this anymore. I don’t think that I ever truly did. I just couldn’t go against him at the time. Now I am afraid to not go against him. If he is not stopped, I am sure that he will send the world into chaos. More than it already is.”
“So, what is it that you need from us?” Shane asked from across the room. If the new voice had thrown Mr. Doe off, he didn’t reveal it at all.
“What I was thinking, no, what I was hoping for, is that we can work together. I need your help to stop the Colonel. I need your help to end this. And I am sure that you want this all to stop as well.”
“What? No, why would we want it stopped?” Shane’s sarcastic voice rang out and was immediately followed by his brother’s scolding tone.
“Shut up, moron.”
“You are right, Mr. Doe. We want to stop these attacks and we want to make sure that no one else is hurt, human or not.” I told him in a calm voice.
“I have seen that. You are not the monsters that he claims that you are. You are good people. It just took me and a lot of other people a while to see that. I am sorry for not putting a stop to this from the beginning.”
“There is nothing that we can do about the past, Mr. Doe, but we can change our future. If you are willing to work with us, then we will be willing to listen to what you have to say.”
I felt a quickening of my heart at that. I knew that this was something that we needed to take care of, but that didn’t mean that this wasn’t a scary and unusual situation. Not that I was afraid, not really, but I was wary. And I believe that the others were as well.
I looked around the room, at those that were a part of my team, and at Clarke and his meek face. This could be what we were looking for. This could be our big break. We would need to tread carefully, but we could handle that, if we really needed to.
****
Riviana
****
“Mrs. Gray, if you are open to the idea, I would like to discuss the opportunity that we have before us.” Mr. Doe’s voice sounded hopeful as he called out from the phone that was sitting on my desk.
“Yes, Mr. Doe, I am very interested in knowing what it is that you have in mind. I wonder now, are you able to come for a meeting in person as well?” I would like to meet this man in person before I decide to put too much trust into him.
“I would have liked to have come with Mr. Clarke, Mrs. Gray, but I am unfortunately unable to get away. I have my job that I cannot leave, and since I work with the Colonel, I cannot get away without him knowing about it. At the current moment, I will be here and Mr. Clarke will be our go between.” The man’s voice did sound as if he was filled with regret and remorse.
“Alright, but what is it that we have to do?” Vincent said as he stepped closer to me. He was putting himself near me because he was my right hand man. At least, that was what I thought he was doing. However, he leaned in closer to me and whispered to me so that the others, and definitely Mr. Doe, couldn’t hear him. “Kirkland Clarke seems to be telling the truth at the very least, but I have never been good with testing people over the phone. It works sometimes and others it doesn’t. Still, I do not believe that Mr. Doe is trying to pull one over on us.”
“That is exactly what I believe as well, Vincent.” I whispered back at him. “I don’t know why, but I think that we need to trust them. This could be the break that we were looking for.”