A Pack of Their Own novel · Chapter 22 of 32

Chapter 22: The Third SUV

The SUV stopped at the gate and sat there with its engine running.

I knew the plates. I had ridden in that car to the dentist.

Grandpa walked down the slope with his hands empty. Half the clan walked behind him, and Callie came out wrapped in a blanket with icing in her hair.

The doors opened.

My brother got out of the driver's side. My sister got out of the other.

They were twenty-two, and twins. They had the Blue Crescent jaw and the Blue Crescent habit of walking into a place first.

My brother looked at the sign on the gatepost, and then at the thirty people watching him.

"Winona," he said. "Get in the car."

"Hi to you too."

"Dad says you've gone far enough."

"Dad told me to walk it off. I walked."

"Don't be smart." He took a step. "He says you're sick. The healer at Moon Rise said you'd hurt somebody, and he doesn't want it on the pack."

"I've hurt one tree."

My sister, behind him, made a sound that was almost a laugh and turned it into a cough.

"Get in," my brother said. "Or I put you in."

"You will not."

Mom had come out onto the porch.

She walked down the steps in her city shoes, across the yard, and she stopped between me and the gate.

Both twins stared at her.

"Mom?" my sister said. "Dad said you were at home."

"I left."

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