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He can’t remember when his life began to crumple. Was it the night Victoria died? The night Scott was bit in the woods? Or could he trace that fragile first crack back to Kate and the Hale fire?
He knew that consistency and a strong foundation made him into the man he is today, a formula that defined his actions and his responses. He considered himself, and always had, a righteous man who followed the right path, that his decisions were always based on truth. Nous chassons ceux qui nous chassent. The Code. We hunt those who hunt us.
Chris took a sip of scotch and felt the liquor burn its way down to warm his belly. He’d built his life, and the life of his family, around those six words. He trusted them. He knew them. He believed them. They had ingrained themselves in every aspect of his life his life and thoughts to the point where he sweat and bled them on every hunt.
“We hunt,” he whispered and finished the glass, but couldn’t finish the sentence because, and he closed his eyes against the reality, because they weren’t true. His father’s deceipt, his sister’s betrayal. He wondered if any of his truths had been real, if any of his hunts had been ... had he been the hunted or the hunter? Had the beasts he’d killed been innocent or killers?
He poured another tumbler, his fingers tightening around the glass. The Code had cost him everything. It had made him into a man he didn’t recognize. He purposely and carefully placed the glass on the desk, rested his fists on either side and hung his head. The Code.
“Nous protégeons ceux qui ne peuvant pas se protéger eux mȇmes,” he whispered. The words felt foreign, wrong and right. He looked into the glass, repeated the words. Nous protégeons ceux qui ne peuvant pas se protéger eux mȇmes. His mouth wrapped around the letters, his tongue around the sounds. We protect those who cannot protect themselves. He heard the words rattle in his mind, felt the truth of them hum as he repeated the words over and over. The new Code. Protect.
He finished his drink then threw the glass against the wall, something loosened in his chest when he heard the crash of glass against wood. A new Code. A new man, new hunter. The door opened and he looked up, saw Allison’s silhouette in the doorway.
“I’ll need you to help me,” he whispered.
“I’ll need you to teach me,” she said and took a step inside the study. She looked at the broken glass then at her father. He saw tears in her eyes and hated that her life had become this. “We can fix what’s been broken. Hunt those who hunt the innocent.”
Argent smiled and nodded, wondered how his daughter had become the woman who stood before him. “Hunt those who hunt - us and others.”
“Protect those who cannot protect themselves from those who hunt,” Allison finished and laid her hand over his. She squeezed lightly and seemed to wait until he looked up. “We have a chance to do the right thing.”