Claiming The Spare Twin novel · Chapter 21 of 24
Chapter 21: Apology
The old cook put down her ladle, and then every pan in the room seemed to stop clattering at once.
Finlay stood in the middle of the pack kitchen, with a dozen night staff staring at him and my mother standing rigid at the island.
"Linnea Lundqvist worked in this room," he said. "You all know it."
Nobody moved.
His voice was low and level, and it carried to the back of the room.
"I'm the Alpha, and I walked past. That is my fault, and I will not blame the Beta for it."
My mother's knife stopped moving.
"I'm not asking you to forgive me," he said. "I'm telling you I know what I did."
One of the dishwashers, a young woman with red hands, stared at him with her mouth open.
"And from tonight," Finlay said, "every person in this kitchen works a fixed day and gets a day off. Nobody is kept here for a name or a rank or a mother's say-so. If any one of you has been told you can't leave, you can tell me, and I will hear you."
The old cook crossed her arms.
"It's a start," she said.
"It's the first thing," said Finlay. "I'll be doing the second one now."
He took off his black jacket and hung it on a hook by the door.
He rolled his sleeves to the elbow, over the white gauze, and he walked to the long steel sink, where the feast's pots stood in towers.
"Alpha," the old cook said. "Your hands."
"Then I'll go slowly."
He picked up the first pot, and he started scrubbing.
I leaned on the doorframe and watched the Alpha of Ashfall scour a burned stockpot in front of his own pack.
It was a terrible job. The pot had been left to soak, and it had onions welded to the base.
A cook laughed, and caught herself, and laughed again.
Someone handed him a better brush.
I let him work for a quarter of an hour, watching each pot pile up.
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