Chapter 8: The Mark

"A word" turned out to mean the quad.

The hunters did not let go of my arms the whole way down the stairs.

It was eleven at night, and the snow had started again.

Students leaned out of windows along Pine Hall to watch.

Anson stopped in the middle of the quad, under the lamp, so everyone could see his face.

"Miss Keene's papers don't clear," he said, in a voice made for crowds. "I'm sorry to do this in public."

"Her real name is on a warrant from the Soderstrom household."

The windows filled with faces.

"I haven't stolen anything," I said.

"A girl was dismissed from the Alpha's kitchen last week," Anson told the crowd, kindly. "She took cash from his study and ran."

"She was punished according to pack law, and she ran from that too."

He turned to me with a patient smile.

"Show them your back, and we can all go home."

I did not move.

The hunter on my left took my collar in his fist and pulled it down.

The scarf came off.

Cold air hit the stitches, and a murmur went around the quad.

Fifteen cuts, paired and fresh, red where they had pulled.

"That's the strap," a boy said from a window. "That's pack-law strap."

"Let go of her," Tilly shouted from the Pine Hall doors, and ran down the steps in her slippers.

A hunter stopped her with one arm across her chest.

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