Chapter 14: Brass and Plaster

Hester called the whole pack to the hall at noon.

I had not planned to go.

My father pushed my chair through the doors anyway, with the Meadowland elders walking behind us.

The long table had been pushed against the wall.

Three hundred wolves stood in rows with their coats on, and they went quiet when they saw the chair.

Where the Alpha's portrait had hung there was a pale square on the paint.

Under it the brass plaque was still screwed to the wall.

Odette Fenn, who brought Westridge its Alpha back.

Hester stood in front of it in her black coat with a screwdriver in her hand.

Kellan stood against the back wall with his arms at his sides. Nobody stood near him.

"Twelve years ago I let this go up," Hester said. "I signed the order myself."

"I thought it was a mother's thanks. It was a lie I paid for with this pack's name."

She set the screwdriver to the first screw.

It was stiff, and her hand slipped, and a young wolf in the front row stepped forward to help.

"No," Hester said. "I'll do it."

She turned the screw four times. It rattled out and fell on the floor.

Then the second, and the third.

The plaque hung by one corner.

"Willa Rook gave the blood that saved my son," she said, to the room. "She was eighteen. She asked for nothing, and she was paid in freezers."

She pulled the plaque off the wall and it came away with a crack of old plaster.

She held it out to me.

I looked at it. I didn't want it.

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