Chapter 1 – Badass Beverly
Beverly POV.
“We have caught one of the rogues alive,” yelled the Beta of Alpha Ralph. “The drunk. The one that Beverly almost beat to death with her steel baton.”
It was a day after the rogues attacked Blaze and me at the border. A day that I had spent in a frenzy, in a daze. Even though I don’t remember most of it, I have no difficulty in believing that I had turned insane for a brief period.
Sheer madness and a frenzied rage took over my mind, body and spirit. Blaze’s lifeless body had turned me into a vengeance-seeking machine.
They told me later that I kept my grasp tight on the sword. That the bloodstains dried up on its shiny blade under the mild autumn sun.
And that I kept swaying it at everyone who approached me, friends and family.
By late evening, though, I had regained my composure, partly due to the relentless efforts of Derek to talk me to sanity. And partly due to the sight of the Jenkins family weeping and praying a few yards away from me.
It was dusk when Derek took me home. And it was night when I went to the town hall with him, refusing to hit the bed.
Sleep was not for me. Not when the whole town was seething in anger. And not when the Gordon family was mourning the loss of their second child.
It was at that meeting that the Beta announced the survival of the only rogue who escaped death at my hands the previous night.
I remembered hitting the drunk mercilessly to extract information from him. But I didn’t remember his face.
I didn’t care what he looked like.
“Kill him!” yelled the bloodthirsty crowd in a cacophony of furious rants, drowning the loud sobs of mourning coming from the Gordon family.
“We will skewer him! Make him pay for what his fellow gang members did to Blaze.”
They yelled, screamed their lungs out, and pumped their fists in the air. They were all baying for blood.
But, surprisingly, I wasn’t.
The murderous rage burning in my heart had died down, and a cold ruthlessness had taken its place. I felt compelled to speak.
I became the lone voice of reason in that mob of people hungry for revenge.
“No! We need him alive. We need information on the whereabouts of his king. That king is the one responsible for this carnage. And this drunk survivor is our only hope of finding him.”
All voices died down in an instant. All eyes turned towards me. The yells faded, the chatter stopped, and heads began to nod in agreement.
“She is right! Beverly is right. We find the leader of these rogues and make him pay,” they shouted in unison.
“Badass Beverly! You are a hero! We will follow your lead. Do it your way.”
Respect. Reverence. That’s what I saw in those hundred pairs of eyes. That’s what I heard in those unknown voices.
And faith. Blind faith. The fist pumping, raving, ranting mob made it clear that they would follow me blindly and totally. Their support was unwavering. Their loyalty was unflinching.
“Not Beverly. No,” hollered the Beta in response. “She is in shock. Hasn’t fully recovered yet from last night’s tragedy. Someone else will interrogate the rogue survivor.”
“No one except Beverly!” the crowd roared back. “She is the one who killed them all. She has earned it.”
“But she is in a fragile mental state now,” the Beta tried to reason with the irate mob. “Her vulnerability puts us in a tight spot. We can’t afford to slip up. Else, it might become too heavy a price to pay, and too heavy a burden to carry.”
“Who talks about carrying a heavy burden?” a voice sounded in the distance. “Do you have any idea what the heaviest burden in this world is?”
The person behind that voice stepped forward gradually. A collective gasp escaped from everyone’s throat.
It was Alpha Ralph!
Blaze’s bereaved father!
“Do you know what the heaviest burden in the world is?” he asked the Beta again. “It is carrying the coffin of your dead child. If I can carry that burden and act as a pallbearer for my son, what stops you from agreeing to public demand and giving Beverly a chance?”
The crowd came alive. Ralph’s words tugged at their heartstrings and made them teary-eyed.
They bowed their heads in respect and wept in hushed whispers.
The Beta relented and agreed to my suggestion.
***
The drunk survivor was kept in the dungeons. Heavily bandaged and bruised, his eyes popped out of their sockets when he saw me entering his cell in the middle of the night.
“Not you! No!” he yelled in dread. The memories of the blows I rained on him the previous night were still fresh in his scared mind.
And his bandaged wounds kept those memories alive.
“I am not here to kill you,” I stood in front of him with hands on my hips. “I just need to know what your king wants, and where I can find him.”
He kept staring at me with hollow frightened eyes. But said nothing.
“I won’t hit you, I won’t hurt you, and I am certainly not going to break any more bones in your body,” my voice was stone cold and sharper than the shiny sword I had wielded last night. “I just need the information I asked for.”
“You are not going to kill me?” the filthy rogue flashed a toothless grin. “Why should I say anything then?”
“Because I have mercy, but they don’t,” I pointed at the irate mob through the window of his cell. “If you don’t start talking now, I will take you outside and throw you at those wolves. They are thirsty for blood. They will rip you apart with their bare hands.”
His eyes turned dark with fear, his lips started quivering, and he began to groan loudly.
But I was not done. I decided to take it up a notch. I had to ensure he gave me the truth, raw and unfiltered.
“You know what death by a thousand blows means?” I lowered my voice to a menacing whisper. “It’s the opposite of quick and painless. It’s excruciatingly painful. And you are going to experience it if you don’t start talking in the next ten seconds.”
That did the trick.
He broke down in loud sobs, groaning and mumbling incoherently. I had to smack him hard on his face with the back of my palm to make him snap out of it.
“The king … he came from the belly of darkness,” he kept mumbling as if he was in a daze. “He comes to the forest every night … to the place where shadows meet.”
I smacked him hard again. He was making no sense. Was it deliberate? Or, was he in genuine shock?
I couldn’t tell.
“What does he want?” I growled threateningly.
“He wants to build his kingdom here … and make the people his slaves,” the rogue began to fidget and squirm. “He says he has a secret weapon … he can’t be defeated. He says he will win, and an army of men can’t stop him.”
“What ‘secret weapon’? What does it look like?” I narrowed my eyes and raised my voice a notch.
“I haven’t seen it,” he whispered. “But many have. It’s something exceptional … very powerful. Given to him by a secret coven of witches. The witches of … of …”
His voice faded into silence as he got lost in his thoughts, perhaps to jumpstart his memory.
“The witches of Whistling Woods?” the words came tumbling out of my mouth on their own.
“Yeah! Whistling Woods, that’s right,” he flashed his toothless smile again. “The secret weapon came from that place. You won’t have to find the king. He will find you. And he won’t rest until he gets what he wants.”
