Chapter 11: The Accusation

Damien's men grabbed Abel by both arms and hauled him up out of the grass.

He could have thrown them both into the river.

I saw him think about it.

Then he looked at the mothers with their pups, twenty feet away, and he went still and let them hold him.

"He was in the den!" I shouted. "He pulled out three pups! Ask them!"

"Of course he did," Damien said. "Easy to be a hero at your own fire."

"He was on the ridge with me when it started!"

"Then you'll get your chance to say so."

They marched him across the meadow toward the road, barefoot and shirtless, soot to his elbows.

He didn't look back at me.

I think he was afraid of what I'd do if he did.

The pack hall stood at the edge of town, a long log building with a green roof.

It was new. They'd built it eight years ago, after the old one burned.

By three that afternoon, every chair in it was full, and people stood three deep along the walls.

Most of them hadn't changed. The hall smelled like wet ash and hair spray.

The seven elders sat at the long table under the pack's banner, a silver fir on green.

Abel sat alone on a bench in front of them, his wrists bound with silver wire.

It burned him. I could see the red lines rising on his skin.

He didn't let it show on his face.

Damien stood beside the elders' table, clean now, in a fresh gray suit.

Iris sat in the front row in a modest blue dress, her eyes red, her new ring flashing.

My parents sat beside her.

I stood at the back, because nobody had saved me a chair.

Sophie stood next to me in her yellow shirt, which still had my brother's blood on the sleeve.

"Call the witness," said the elder in the bolo tie.

The side door opened.

Lowell walked in.

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