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Making my way out of the office and towards the pastry section, I spotted two young pups from my pack, May, and Francis. I stopped at the entrance to the canned foods aisle to watch them silently until I saw the boy grab a tin of sausages and tuck it into his pants.
I approached them quietly, and when Francis saw me coming, his eyes bulged with panic.
“Don’t run,” I ordered, and the girl swung around, almost knocking things off the shelf.
I bent down before them and held my hand out. I said nothing, and they glanced at each other before Francis gave me the sausages he was going to steal. Turning the tin over in my hand, I sighed.
“Why?” I asked, and May’s eyes grew teary. I quickly took her hand into mine and Francis’s as well. “You’re not in trouble. I’m not going to tell on you, but only if you tell me why you just did that?”
“You’re both grown enough to know this is bad, that this would be bad for the pack if someone else saw you. Why?” I asked, and May wiped at her tears.
They were both eight years old and had already gone through their first shift. They were small for their age but intelligent, amazing kids, so this was out of character.
“W-We were going to pay for it,” Francis spoke up.
His head was high, and his little shouldered squared, and as brave as he was trying to be, his glossy eyes were telling the truth that he was petrified.
“You and I both know that’s not true,” I said. “Did someone send you here to do this?”
May shook her head. “Our mom doesn’t have a job,” she whimpered, and Francis bumped her arm, but she glared at him in response. “We’re sorry, we didn’t want to, but—we haven’t eaten today.”
Instead of stooping down, I got on my knees before them. “Why haven’t you eaten? I thought your mom found a secure job?”
“She did,” Francis answered this time. “But she was fired for being late because she had to take us to school. We didn’t go to school today because she left to try and find another job.”
“So she doesn’t know you’re here right now?” I asked, and they both shook their heads.
May wiped at her tears with the back of her hands, and her head lowered when her stomach growled. My claws clenched, and I stood up and started gathering things from the shelf.
“Francis, can you get a basket for me? May, can you show me what you both like to eat?”
They looked at each other in confusion, but their worry and sadness vanished. I smiled when they kept staring and shook a can of sausages before their face.
“Are you guys going to stand around or help me with these?”
Francis vanished in the blink of an eye, and May pointed to all the things she wanted. We went from aisle to aisle and eventually switched to a trolley that would hold more items.
Colin was to arrange transportation for all children to and from school, so why wasn’t that done? What the hell was he doing? These babies shouldn’t have been forced to resort to stealing.
I was livid while checking everything out, so much so the cashier, Cathy, asked if I was okay. But I wasn’t. I was far from being okay. We’d been back in Wolfcreek for weeks now, and while we were still transitioning, I’d thought everyone was finding some balance and that Colin was doing his part to make that so. Kaleem’s contract practically demanded that Colin got his shit together.
Once everything was paid for and bagged, I wrote a note to Jazmin to come and see me for an interview in the morning and explained why the kids returned home with groceries, with the stealing part omitted.
I didn’t want them to get into trouble for being hungry.
So caught up with calling them a cab and then helping them with the bags after giving them a stern lecture to never steal again, I overlooked Kaleem until I made my way back inside.
He was standing to the left of the cashiers beside several cases of juice piled high to the ceiling.
So occupied, I hadn’t noticed his scent.
He cocked his head to the side, and I walked away to head to my office. I was happy to see him, but my blood was boiling.
Colin, that bastard was never going to do right by the pack, never!
When Kaleem joined me in my office, I started ranting while telling him what happened with the kids. There were good people in my pack, and for those few, I felt terrible about leaving them behind.
“I could kill him,” I yelled. “Colin’s worthless. He truly is!”
