Chapter 16: Groceries

"Takes means opened," Ronan said in the truck outside the courthouse.

His knuckles were white on the wheel.

"Opened how?"

"A cut at the wrist, and the Moot drinks it back out of you." He stared through the windshield. "A human has never lived through it."

"The gray hat didn't say that."

"He didn't have to. He looked at the ledger."

I thought about it for the length of the main street.

"Then I'll have to give it back before the moon," I said. "Whatever that costs."

"We're not talking about it today."

"Ronan."

"We're not." He pulled up in front of the Cinder Falls Market. "Today you eat."

That was how I ended up in the cereal aisle on a Saturday, in yesterday's blood-stiff cardigan.

Ronan pushed a cart behind me, and I held Abel's list.

I got as far as the oatmeal.

"Excuse me," I said to a man blocking the shelf.

He turned around, saw me, and dropped to his knees on the linoleum with a can of soup still in his hand.

"Alpha," he said.

"I'm not an Alpha. Please get up."

He got up fast, and he was pale to the lips.

"Sorry," he said. "Sorry. I'm from Pine Fork, I was at the Moot this morning. I didn't mean to be in your way."

"You weren't in my way. I just wanted the oats."

"They're yours." He pushed three canisters into my arms. "Take them all."

I turned the cart around.

At the end of the aisle a woman in a store apron saw me coming and went down on one knee beside the paper towels.

Two teenagers by the chips did the same.

A stock boy lowered himself slowly and laid his box cutter on the floor in front of me.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Wolf Who Saved Me Makes Other Alphas Submit. I'm Human. from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.