Chapter 177

#Chapter 177 – Reconaissance As the mission moves towards Walsh’s property, Victor notices that Rafe is particularly quiet.

“Are you all right, brother?” Victor asks, turning to Rafe with a frown.

Rafe leans back in the passenger seat of the hummer, his foot up against the dashboard, his arms crossed.

“Yeah,” he says, clearly distracted. “I’m fine.”

Victor’s frown deepens as he drives a bit further, but then he decides to push.

“Tell me,” Victor says. “I can tell something is up. You’re never this quiet unless you’ve got something rolling around in your head – you’ve been like that since we were kids.”

Rafe looks at his brother with a little smirk and then sighs, straightening up a bit. “I’ve just got a bad feeling about this, Victor,” he says quietly.

Victor nods to him, urging him to continue.

“It’s not that I think you’re doing the wrong thing,” Rafe says, his words slow and contemplative. “I think that you need to get Walsh out of the way sometime soon anyway, with all of the crap that he’s pulled, and that military might is the best way to do it.”

“So?” Victor says, turning onto one of the back roads that run adjacent to Walsh’s property. His force has been spreading out, surrounding Walsh on as many sides as they can without being noticed.

“So,” Rafe says, thinking it through, “it’s just…all on Walsh’s terms. On his property, with his daughter and your son as the bait. With Willard backing him up. The numbers are wrong, Victor.”

Victor sighs, knowing that he’s right. His Betas have been telling him the same thing – that the sheer numbers of the forces, what they’ll be up against –

At best, it’s going to be tight.

“I understand that Evelyn being there…it makes it tougher, Victor,” he says softly. “You want to get her home, you want to patch things up with her. But Vic, why is she there? He didn’t capture her – did she go willingly?”

A little growl comes from the back seat, Alvin’s hackles raised by Rafe’s implications that his mother might be on the wrong side of things. Rafe shoots him a look but mostly ignores the boy.

“I don’t know why Evelyn went,” Victor says, likewise glancing back at his son. “But she wouldn’t have had Ian send that message to Alvin if she didn’t want me to come.”

“Victor,” Rafe says, hesitating. “Didn’t you…reject her? Didn’t you tell her to leave, to never come back, to leave your sons behind? Didn’t you essentially mark her as Rogue?”

Victor scowls, not wanting to remember it. The stupidest thing he’d ever done, losing his temper like that. He doesn’t reply.

“Is it possible,” Rafe says, his voice careful, “that she’s…well, that she’s actually bait? Voluntarily? That she’s on her dad’s side?”

Alvin’s growl becomes a snarl but Victor looks over his shoulder as he drives, letting his son know that he will handle this. Alvin meets his gaze and keeps quiet, but his hackles are still raised.

Victor turns his attention back to Rafe. “You don’t know her like I do,” Victor says firmly to his brother.

“She wouldn’t do that. Even if she’s mad at me, even if…even if she never wants to see me again. She would never turn back to her father for support, not in a million years. She’s far more likely to disappear again.”

He takes a minute to think about his next words. “If she’s there,” Victor says, “at her father’s house.

She’s there for a reason. If she’s telling me to come, it’s not because it will help me – not right now, not where we are in our…relationship.”

If we still have a relationship, he says to himself, hoping, desperately, that they do.

Suddenly, a warmth blossoms in his chest. Victor doesn’t know what, precisely, has caused it, but he feels a great overwhelming sense of…faith. That Evelyn wants him to come, that she’s rooting for him.

That she’s on his side.

“Then why?” Rafe says, frowning, interrupting Victor’s reverie.

Victor takes a moment to respond, wondering what just passed over him. “For a reason, Rafe. You’ve got to have more faith in her. She’s asked me to come because it helps her, or, more likely, it helps the boys.”

Victor again glances in the back seat to see Alvin nodding slowly, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Yeah,” Alvin says. “Mom is doing it for us.”

Rafe frowns back at his nephew. “How do you know that? How do you know your mom’s motives?

You’re attached, mentally, to your twin – not to her.”

Alvin narrows his eyes at his uncle. “My mommy would never do anything to hurt me.”

“She left you –“

“That’s enough,” Victor snaps, just as Alvin snaps off his seatbelt and leaps forward towards Rafe, his little nails turning to claws to rip him to shreds. Luckily, Victor puts out a hand and catches Alvin in the chest before he can make it into the front seat.

“Seatbelt on, Alvin,” Victor commands, and, begrudgingly, Alvin gets back into his seat.

“You’ve crossed a line,” Victor says quietly to Rafe. “Alvin chose to stay. If Evelyn left without him, it’s because I made her. The fault is with me, not with her.”

Rafe sighs, resting his head against his seat. “Look, whatever is going on with you two romantically…it doesn’t matter. I’m sorry for getting into it.”

Victor nods, accepting his apology.

“But still,” Rafe says, shaking his head. “Victor, the numbers don’t line up. We are going into this battle at a sincere disadvantage, and without all of the information we need. Walsh is forcing our hand by taking Evelyn into custody, pushing us to go faster. He wants to have the advantage and he’s using her to get it.”

“No,” Alvin says from the back seat. “That’s not quite right.” His voice is still angry but Victor can tell that he’s working to contain it.

“What?” Rafe says, turning to frown at him. Alvin meets his eyes and grinds his teeth, working hard not to lose his temper so that they’ll listen to him.

“All right,” Rafe says, giving Alvin a smirk. “Tell us what you’ve got, little man. How is that not right?”

“Because,” Alvin says, his teeth still clenched – not liking at all to be called little man. “Grandpapa isn’t the one who is pushing us to go faster – he’s not the one who let us know that he took mommy away from Ian, put her downstairs in the prison.”

Victor nods, seeing before Rafe does where Alvin is going.

“Mommy told us that,” Alvin finishes, a little smug.

Rafe looks between the two, not yet getting it.

“She leaked the information to us,” Victor says, “not Walsh. She wanted us to know that Walsh had taken her, she wanted us to move faster. If she’s urging us on, it’s because she wants us to know.

She’s telling us, in her own way, that there’s something wrong at Walsh’s camp. Something that makes this precisely the right time to attack.”

Rafe rubs his hand down his face, nodding, seeing their point. The three sit in silence for a moment, thinking, when a Beta voice buzzes through the radio.

“Alpha command,” it says, “Beta 6 reporting in to say that we’re all in place for the first push. According to our surveillance, the first leg of the mission was a success: we have Walsh’s property broadly surrounded, and have not yet been identified. However, time is short. We await further command.”

Victor nods, pressing the speaking button on his radio. “Rodger, Beta 6. Heard. Commands coming momentarily.”

Victor looks at Rafe and Alvin. “You two ready?”

Alvin nods but Rafe hesitates. Victor looks steadily at him. “No?”

“Victor,” Rafe says, looking him intently in the eye. “Let me take 3 Betas. Do reconnaissance. We need more information before we can attack – we need to know what Evelyn is up to, we need to know their numbers. I get it now – I get that Evelyn is trying to send us a message that now is the time. But let me go get more information, find out precisely why.”

Victor pauses, considering.

“Victor,” Rafe says intently. “We can’t go in there without this information.”

Victor hesitates one more time and then nods towards the car following them. “Select 3, go. We will do our best to delay until nightfall. But Rafe, if Walsh figures out that we’ve surrounded him…we’re going to have to attack. Whether or not you’ve returned.”

Rafe nods seriously to him, understanding. Victor returns the nod, and Rafe climbs swiftly out of the car.

Victor and Alvin watch him go to the car behind them as Victor gets on the radio again, commanding his Beta teams to hold their positions until they have further word.

When he finishes, Alvin asks a soft question. “Do you think we can really trust him, papa?”

Victor shakes his head slowly, wondering himself. “I sure hope so, kid.”