Page 7 of Nineteen Seventy-Six

“You need help, son.”

CHAPTER 2

How Very

She’s not at her Mom’s, Huck. Not anymore. No one knows where she and Oz are. She said she needed time and then… then she disappeared. With my son.

With my son, Charles.

Charles had been cagey with Colin on his quest to bring his wife home. After the day he’d given him advice in the form of tough love, he’d switched to listening, because he knew anything he said would be unhelpful with Colin so upset.

But that was before Catherine went missing. Before she’d taken her son and disappeared.

If Cordelia ever took his son and vanished, Charles would murder her with his own hands when he found her. The last thing she’d see would be her own regret as he strangled the life out of her, slowly.

He wanted to murder Catherine for doing it to his best friend.

Some lines should never be crossed.

Charles drove. Colin hunkered in the passenger seat, chewing his pristine nails as he focused on the things outside the window.

Colleen wanted this meeting to be over. She wanted to leave the chambers and disappear into the magistrate’s residence suite of The Gardens, where her husband and daughter awaited. Snuggling with her two loves was night and day more appealing than listening to the Council dress her down for her first official decision as magistrate.

They couldn’t say she didn’t offer them the opportunity to weigh in. It was Pierce who’d reminded her that the decision to pick the seventh Council member was hers and hers alone. She offered them all a say, and they turned her down, for tradition.

Now, they were questioning both her decision and the tradition.

Colleen focused hard to push her ache for the wisdom of Ophelia into the back of her mind, where it now belonged.

“If I’d picked a Deschanel, you’d chide me for that, despite that I’m the only one on the Council today,” Colleen defended. “So I picked a Fontenot.” She nodded at Eugenia. “Your son.”

“He’s fourteen, Colleen,” Pierce said. “Fourteen. We don’t even allow Collective members at fourteen, let alone on the Council. What message will this send?”

Colleen again turned to Eugenia. “Do you think Luther is too immature for this responsibility?”

“His maturity isn’t an issue,” Eugenia said carefully. What was she thinking? Did she support Colleen’s choice? And if she did, would she back her in this group, or side with the majority and team up on her?

“Is there any issue, Eugenia, that you can think of?”

Eugenia glanced at her brothers, Pierce and Cassius. “Other than his age, no.”

“Other than his age,” Colleen repeated. “Well, you’re his mother, and he’s not yet old enough to make decisions for himself, even by our rules.” Eugenia might hate her for this next part, but it had to be done. She couldn’t be the only one on the Council with a horse in this race, and if Eugenia fell in line, the others would. They’d always deferred to her. She should’ve been magistrate; Ophelia shouldn’t have passed her over, creating this rift. “I need your blessing, in this case, so I leave the decision to you.”

Eugenia’s eyes twitched, ready to narrow. She kept her composure. “It isn’t my decision to make.”

“Without your permission I can’t bring Luther in, at his age, so, unfortunately, it is.”

“I don’t like this,” Cassius muttered.

Colleen ignored him and continued to wait for Eugenia’s reply.

“It would be unfair of me to deny him this opportunity,” Eugenia began, with caution. “But if I say he can, then I take the responsibility from you, which is also unfair.”

“Shall I find another candidate?”

Eugenia huffed and looked away. “Do whatever you want, Colleen. I won’t hold my own son back.”

This was going all wrong. Colleen was damned if she did, and damned if she didn’t. Had she chosen Evangeline—her top pick—they would’ve skewered her for picking favorites, despite that Colleen was the only Council member from the line of August. So she ignored the fact they already had five of Blanche’s brood and dipped her feelers to that side of the family—again. All of Blanche’s children were already Council members, so that left the younger generation, and of them—aside from Pansy and Kitty, who were already on the Council—only Luther was competent enough to overcome the hardship of his young age. She liked him; though only a freshman in high school, he was smart, focused, and almost too serious for a young man his age. Colleen saw a bit of herself reflected in Luther Fontenot, and, maybe, an ally.

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