Pack Law Made Him My Brother, So I Made Him My Mate novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: The Cooler on the Step

The knock came three times, soft, and I knew it before she spoke.

"Mija?"

I was standing in the middle of the room in Cruz's shirt and nothing else, with the blanket around my shoulders.

Cruz had his jeans on already, and he stepped between me and the door and then stepped aside.

He did not say a word.

He knew whose door it was.

"Mija, it's me," my mother said through the wood. "I won't come in. I am not allowed."

"Then why are you here?" I said.

"I brought food."

I put my hand on the bolt.

I did not turn it.

"How did you find us?" I said.

"In June you told me about the cabin where your engine stayed. The one at the head of Gallinas, with the stove."

"I didn't think you were listening."

"I always listen," she said, and her voice cracked.

I leaned my forehead on the door.

I could hear her breathing on the other side, quick and shallow in the cold.

"I have to say it fast," she said. "If anyone sees my car, it is the corrida for me too."

"Then say it," I said.

"On Thursday at the circle, the woman with the rosary said two boys had seen prints crossing from the casita at dawn."

"I know the woman."

"The boys told their fathers," my mother said. "The fathers told the elders. By Sunday the young ones would have run you, mija."

I closed my eyes.

"Three miles of snow, in January, with teeth out," she said. "I would have had to watch from the portal."

"You could have told me," I said.

"You would have run, and they would have caught you, and then it would have been a different kind of naming."

"You could have told me anyway," I said.

"Yes," she said.

"You asked me for time," I said. "You asked me for the moon. And you used it to go to Cirila."

"Yes," my mother said. "I could not have said it to your face. I knew I would stop."

My throat closed.

"If I named you first, you walked out in daylight with your names," she said.

"That is the only mercy the law has. I took it."

"And the house?"

She was quiet for a moment.

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