Page 28 of Haunted By the Shadow of Death

“They’ll listen to me. They might not believe it, but they’ll give you the benefit if I demand it, and I do.”

I’d thought I was stubborn, but looking at the set of his brows, the line of his mouth, he wasn’t going to budge. He was going to tell them what to think, and damn them if they didn’t go along with it.

When I first got my mother’s cancer diagnosis, I’d convinced myself I could fix her, that I’d find a way to heal her from the strength of my convictions alone. He looked as if he were having a similar moment, thinking he could force his will and make this right through sheer determination.

I’d been wrong. I was sure he was wrong as well. One of the things that held a pack together was safety and survival in numbers. If one of the numbers in the heart of the pack was diseased, the entire structure around it crumbled. Unfortunately, I was looking like that diseased limb that had to be cut off.

“I’m arranging to speak to them this morning. The sooner the better. I’ll get Magnum to take Charlie up river a ways fishing, far enough away that he won’t hear anything.”

Charlie would hear the chatter soon enough anyway, but in case the meeting went bad, I’d spare him the worst of it if I could. Either way, there was no stopping Kicks. This was going to happen.

I watched Charlie sleep, and a frisson of panic set in when he stirred. He opened his eyes and smiled at me.

“Are we having more muffins for breakfast?” he asked.

“Sure. Kicks already picked some up.” Was that his biggest concern? Did he know what had happened?

He slid off the bed, yawning and making his way to the kitchen table.

“Did you hear about anything that happened last night?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said, taking a bite of a muffin.

I poured him some water. “Are you upset about it? If you are, I want you to tell me, okay?”

“Sure,” he said. “Do we have any chocolate milk?”

Did he know Zetti was dead? Did I push it further or let it go? Did I want to turn it into something for him if it wasn’t? But what would happen if he didn’t know and heard about it later?

“Someone looking for milk?” Kicks asked, walking in the door with a jug and one of those squeezy bottles of chocolate that had a shelf life of a decade.

“Yay! Thank you, Kicks,” Charlie said.

Kicks brought the stuff over to the table. “Magnum wanted to take you fishing today at his favorite secret spot, so get dressed as soon as you’re done eating.”

“This is the best day ever,” Charlie said, then gulped down his milk and took a muffin with him back to his room to get ready.

“Where’s Charlie going to be, exactly? How far up the river?” I asked Kicks.

“A couple of miles, just out of earshot. Don’t worry. Everything is going to be fine.”

Yeah, there was that word again—fine. If he wanted to calm me, that wasn’t the word to use.

“Don’t forget you said that.”

“Are you ready?” Kicks asked an hour later.

Ready? To see the pack who thought I was a murderer and probably wanted to hang me? Was there a way to get ready for that? “Sure.”

The minute I walked out of the cabin, I could feel the tension in the air, the crowd that was forming nearby all turning their gazes to me. I took a deep breath, trying to not look as rattled as a pissed-off snake.

Kicks wrapped his hand around mine. It might’ve been to show his support in front of the pack, as more than a few sets of eyes went to our connection. He gave my hand a squeeze before stepping forward. The visual might’ve been for the pack, but that had been just for me. I walked beside him, feeling as if his hand were a lifeline, and we made our way to the head of the crowd.

The murmurs quieted as we stepped in front of what appeared to be the entire pack. The two hundred or so members felt more like two thousand as they stared at me with open suspicion. Kicks didn’t let go of my hand once, not even as he started to speak.

“I want to open up by saying we’re all hurting today. We’re all mourning Zetti. She was the oldest of our pack, like a grandmother to most of us. Her presence was part of the foundation of this place and our people.”

It made sense for him to open up like this. He had to acknowledge her death. It would be callous of him not to. Still, it made me want to crawl under a rock like the slug I was viewed as.

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