Page 20 of Red

Chapter 9

Asoft knock comes at the door, and I open it to find Jocko.

His smile lights up when he sees me, and he eyes the headpiece a bit. I cut a section of the curtain into a square, folded it into a triangle, and tied it beneath my hair. It covers my roots, and the tip of the triangle stops at the back of my head.

“To hide the bruise,” I say, then eye what he’s wearing—a pair of dress pants and a button-up, his curls gelled back. “You sure did your part.”

He eyes me right back. “Let’s see a spin.”

My make shift curtain dress doesn’t do me the same justice. I wrapped the dark-red fabric around the back of my waist and up around my neck before bringing it back down to a tight twisted knot in the center of my stomach. A large gap of skin is exposed between my breasts, and my back is left open.

It hugs me as I twirl. He claps, and I start to laugh. Slowing my spin, I step toward him; he hooks his solid arm into mine, and we take our time heading down the hall.

“Warn me if you’re going to panic tonight, please. I haven’t told Stark we’re still missing checkers.”

Redness flushes my cheeks as we step into the main room, and I cover my mouth while laughing. “I’m so sorry.”

“I’m kidding.”

I glare at him. His arm drops from mine, and he takes a wide step over, leaving a deliberate stretch of space between us.

Even Jocko can’t fight pack expectations. I’m an outsider. The air in the room is less than before. All eyes are on us—including a glaring Stark. His hand is going white, gripped around a knife at the kitchen island. There are close to two dozen people in the room, including Nikki, Hudry, Kiya, and Mitus. The rest of the table is filled with gray- and white-haired men.

That tightness is back in my chest.

The Elders’ Council.

It’s made up of Elders who manage all four cohorts—four sections of land the Toridge territory is divided into, following the compass: North, East, South, and West. Some are involved in the day-to-day, like Graden or Otis. The others step in only when necessary.

I don’t know if the rest of the world runs things this way. Our species has shrunk across the world thanks to the active missions of humans. But we still exist. We drift in hidden places like this—the northern Ontario woods of Canada.

Graden stands from the end of the table and waves me over. “Welcome, Aloka. We thought this was overdue. We’ve all met you before, but you likely don’t remember. You were quite small then.”

Someone coughs.

“Thank you for including me.” I give a polite bow of my upper body to the Elders at the table. Maybe I can convince some of the other council members to let me go home.

I keep behind Jocko as he moves over to the kitchen and starts bringing dishes filled with food to the table. Nikki does the same. She’s in a long navy dress angled across her legs, touching the floor on the one side. Though she doesn’t wear a headpiece. With the council here, I’m happier to look a bit out of place than questioned for my hair color.

Once the table is full of most of the guests, I take an empty seat closer to the middle, rubbing my clammy hands on my dress. Stark walks over to the table with ease, dressed in a black dress shirt. He pauses and looks over at me, then back to the chair I usually sit in. Nikki takes it with a wide grin, and my heart calms to a regular rhythm. He looks more than okay, despite an entire council of Elders here and whatever Jocko hinted at earlier.

The Elder next to me shifts and takes my hand. “I’d just like to offer my condolences for your loss. Pratt offered an immense amount of support to the pack, and without him, we notice greatly.”

“Thank you. I miss him.”

He gives my hand a squeeze and turns back to the table.

“Let’s eat.” Stark’s voice consumes the room.

Towers of well-cooked steak, piping-hot potato dishes, and salads fill the table. I avoid most of it, heaping my plate with green once again.

“Steak dinner? Aren’t we spoiled? Thank you, young man,” an extra-Elder-looking fellow says down the table. The skin around his eyes is in permanent folds, his gray hair closer to white.

I pierce a piece of lettuce, and the itching intensity grows within me. All other table members are talking away about things I have no interest in, like turning while at a run, except Stark, who is boring his gaze into me. I squint at him, and his stare sharpens. He lowers his eyes to my plate, the muscles in his forearm flexing as he grips his fork, his knuckles whitening. I shrug at him, and the fork in his hand bends in half. He looks like he wants to plan my murder. Maybe that’s why the council let him off easy or he blames me.

Nikki’s hand shoots across the large table but just reaches his fingertips.

Heat builds across my chest—and good thing this dress has lots of air to breathe. I refocus on my own food.