CHAPTER 3: STRIKING BACK
1184 Words
I have spent my entire life waiting to be told what to do next.
Not because I was weak. Because the world I grew up in had rules and the rules were simple, humans who stayed in line stayed alive. Humans who stepped out of line became prey for the wolves.
But this time maybe I'll step into the driver's seat a little.
I go outside towards the chants calling for the head of Derek with the flash drive in my hands.
I want to hurt him back, not kill him.
The compound is larger than it seemed from the car.
Three buildings were arranged around a central yard, and beyond the yard a stone wall, and beyond the wall the road where the crowd had been standing since before I woke up.
Bring down the Lunar Pack.
Bring down the Lunar Pack.
Each word landed separately, like stones dropped into still water.
I cross the yard and make my way to the gate where they are protesting.
The crowd was bigger than I thought, both humans and wolves together against Derek.
There's a little hall with guards outside and it drags the attention of the crowd. There's also a woman carrying a sickly child.
Maybe something serious is going on there.
"You were supposed to stay in the room."
The voice comes from my left.
"Nico," he says. An introduction was offered sideways.
"Abigail," I say the same way.
"What is this about?" I ask.
He is quiet for a moment, "How much do you know about the Lunar Pack?"
"Enough," I say. "I lived inside it for a year."
I point to the guarded hall,
“What's going on there?”
“They're planning to strike back at the Lunar pack. It's the war committee, so you should stay out of it,” he grinned.
“What did Derek do to offend your alpha?” I
query.
“He's low on supplies so he steals money from the capital. How close are you to Alpha Derek, addressing him without his title”
I look at the woman with the child.
"He blocked the routes," I say, diverting the discuss.
"Eight months ago. Food, medical supplies, every channel that runs into our territory goes through junctions he controls or officials he owns." Nico's voice is even. Professionally even, the way voices get when anger has been contained so long it has become structured.
He continues.
"The people outside are not here because of what happened last night. They are here because of what has been happening every day for eight months and because they have finally decided that standing outside a gate and making noise is the last option they have not tried."
The child shifts against the woman's shoulder, but still continues sleeping.
Derek was upgrading his security eight months ago.
He was not being paranoid.
He was building walls before the people he was starving got loud enough to matter.
I know which officials he paid to deliver the supplies, I know the amounts. I know the dates.
It is all on the drive.
I find Jackson on the far side of the courtyard, pacing, obviously in deep thought.
They were done with the meeting.
His guards are tense around the perimeter while the chant outside is getting louder. Whatever he decides in the next hour will set the shape of what comes after, and he is standing here in the carrying it alone.
I watched him for a moment.
Derek never stood alone with anything. Derek distributed the weight of each decision he made, and shared the blame to everyone but himself.
He sees me coming and signals the guards to let me pass.
"You should be inside," he says.
"You keep saying that," I say. "No one is making it happen."
Something moves in his expression, not quite amusement but the shape of it.
I stop two feet from him. Close enough to speak without raising my voice over the noise outside. I reach into my pocket and I take out the flash drive and I hold it up between us.
"I stayed three years inside Derek's pack," I say, "The payments to the junction officials are here. The amounts, the dates, the account structures. The security upgrade plans and every access point, every new installation, every gap he thought he was closing."
Jackson does not move.
"All of it," I say. "Everything you need to dismantle what he built."
"Why?" he asks, the question of a man who has learned that gifts from strangers have prices attached.
“The reason is not important since both want the same thing. You help me, I help you. Simple”
He shakes his head now, his huge arms behind him.
“I can't accept it if I don't know the reason. You could be a mole for all I care.”
"Fine,” I resigned. “Because he used me and I want revenge.”
I hold the drive tighter now.
Jackson looks at the drive, then at my face. The assessment is thorough and unhurried, and I let it happen because I have nothing to hide, and he needs to know that.
"If I use this," he says slowly, "Derek will know it came from inside. He will know it was you."
"He threw me out," I say. "There is nothing left to protect."
"There is your life."
“No one cares about my life besides me. There's a small condition attached. I get to work with the war group or whatever you call them to bring down Derek,” I proposed.
“You're a woman, a human, the generals will
Never agree,” he folded his arms.
“Fine, I'll throw it at the crowd. Imagine 10 people stepping on it.” I really love this conversation.
“Fine, you're with us now. You're not like others
Women, what really happened to you in the Lunar pack?” he looked deep in my eyes. Forcing me to look away.
He takes the drive.
His fingers close around it and I feel the absence of it in my palm immediately. That specific lightness of a hand that has been holding something important and is now empty.
He turns it once. Then he looks at me with something I have not seen on a wolf's face in all the years I have been navigating their world.
"You understand what you just did.”
“I declared a side."
"You declared war.”
I look up at Jackson.
"Good," I say.
The word is small, but it is the most certain thing I have said in a year.
Jackson looks at me for one more moment. Then he closes his fist around the drive and turns toward his guards and says one word in a voice that carries across everywhere.
“The Lunar Pack falls now”
Nico is already moving as the compound comes alive around me and I stand in the middle of it with empty hands and for the first time.
I feel like something that has just begun.
- Writer
