Page 15 of Raised By Wolves

“You’d spank ’em or ground ’em. You wouldn’t abandon them in a forest.”

The back of the chief’s neck prickles, and he realizes he’s being watched. He turns around. The kids have stopped pacing, and now they’re just staring at him. Their eyes seem unnaturally wide in their thin faces. “You all right back there?” he calls.

The boy snarls. The girl hits the bars with her fist. “You act like we’re zoo animals or something! But you don’t have any right to keep us here.”

Yep, she’s mouthy all right. He admires her feistiness. Toobad she doesn’t know what she’s talking about. “We do have the right, actually,” he says. “Our little jail here is what we call a Type 1 detention facility, which means it’s all set up to keep folks for a few days after they’re arrested.”

“No one’s pressed charges, have they?” Kai demands.

“Not yet,” Chester allows.

He doesn’t tell her this, but he’s asked the owners of the Grizzly to forgive and forget. They’re not the nicest folks he knows, but he’s hoping they’ll come around. He’s offered to pay for the damages.

“In that case, you’d better let us go,” Kai says.

“For one thing, charges might be forthcoming. And for another, you’re minors,” he says. “I can’t just open the doors and turn you loose.”

“But youcan,” Kai insists. “We know how to take care of ourselves.”

He looks pointedly at their filthy clothes and raises his eyebrows. “I’d say that’s open to debate.”

“We know how to hunt,” Holo says.

Chester grins. “Yeah, you did a great job hunting down and killing all those bags of Doritos.”

Holo flushes and turns away.

“You’re not funny,” Kai tells him.

Chester shrugs. “I thought that was a pretty good one. But we can agree to disagree.” He takes another sip of coffee.Damn it, still cold.“Look, I don’t like doing this to you,” he tells her. “But I don’t have any better options right now.”

Kai steps up to the bars like she’s ready to fight. “You’d better start figuring some out, then,” she says.

CHAPTER 13

JANGLING KEYS STARTLE me from a dream of fangs. Fur.

Family.

I’m up and yelling at the cop before I’m even all the way awake. “This is cruel and unusual punishment! The TV’s on all night! My bed smells like piss. I can’t even see the damn sky!”

“Good morning to you, too,” the chief says.

Holo groggily lifts his head. “Breakfast?”

I swear, all that kid thinks about is food. He’d stay in here forever if it meant daily hamburgers.

“Not quite yet.”

Holo growls. But it’s a quiet little rumble because he’s still half-asleep.

The chief says, “Today we gotta hunt for it.”

Does this cop think he’s going to shoot some poor deer with his government handgun? Has he gone crazy?

Then the door to our jail cell swings wide open as the chief walks away down the hall.

Yes, he’s definitely gone crazy.

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