Chapter 82 Maddy
MADDY
Days had gone by. Four total days of discussion, argument, and gridlock.
All those alphas, all the talking, and there still wasn’t a plan.
No one could think of anything to do about the royals other than running and hiding.
If I had a dollar for every different hideout or escape plan they’d come up with, I’d be able to buy lunch for everyone in that damned room.
It was frustrating and depressing to see the kind of grip the royals had on all of us.
Over the last couple of days, I’d bounced around my own ideas about how to deal with Viola and her organization.
Assassination seemed cathartic. Some type of computer hacking and truth reveal sounded easier than it probably was.
A handful of other half-formed and partially realized plans were stewing in my head, but most were dismissed as easily as the first two.
Instead of thinking of the dozens of possible ways we could defeat the royals and the million ways they could beat us, I concentrated on quartering the boiled potatoes.
Nico’s mom, Abi, and I were making side dishes for the cookout.
We were in the process of making about ten gallons each of potato salad, coleslaw, and pasta salad.
All the alphas had to go home the next day, and Nico thought it would be a good idea to have a big goodbye party for everyone to cut the tension and exhaustion right before everyone left.
Sebastian and Felipe had ventured into town and were buying a couple of hundred pounds of ground beef, and a hundred or so buns for the burgers Nico and his dad were going to make.
Abi was chopping onions and celery for the pasta salad.
I was happy she’d actually come down on her own to help without me even asking.
After our talk the other day, she’d started to come out of her shell a little more.
She was far from the same person she’d been before, but she seemed to be getting better.
As long as there were no setbacks, I thought she might come out okay.
She’d even started eating, which was a good sign.
The back door opened, and one of the visiting alphas walked in.
Nico had met with him one night a day or two ago.
His name was Kayden. He was on the younger side to be an alpha, maybe twenty-five or twenty-six.
He was tall and extremely good-looking, almost like a model.
Abi clearly seemed to notice as well. Her eyes locked onto him as he strolled across the house toward the bathroom.
Abi didn’t see me watching her, and she definitely was checking him out the shifter before glancing away quickly.
Abi’s face was flushed when I stepped over. “What was that all about?” I whispered, nodding toward the bathroom.
Abi stared down at the vegetables she was cutting and shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Didn’t look like nothing,” I said, nudging her in the ribs.
Abi put her knife down and looked up at me, her cheeks red with embarrassment. “He came in and caught my eye. I mean, I’m not blind—he was hot.”
I grinned at her. “Hot?”
She shrugged and went back to chopping. “Those jeans did make his ass look amazing.”
I went back to my work, smiling to myself. It was a silly conversation and harmless in the big scheme of things, but it made me inordinately happy. That was the old Abi. A little bit of who she’d used to be had peeked through. Hopefully, in a few more weeks, Abi would be back to her old self.
An hour later, the side dishes were ready, and Nico and his father started grilling the burgers not long after we finished in the kitchen.
Luis and Felipe had brought along their grills to make sure there was enough cooking space.
It was the normality of it all, more than anything else, that got me.
We’d spent most of the last few weeks fighting, hiding, planning, and running that I’d almost forgotten what real life was supposed to be like.
I’d found a spot at a patio table to eat when one of the alphas joined me, smiling and nodding as he sat down.
I remembered him from the other day—the bear alpha named Tiago.
From the corner of my eye, I watched him as I ate.
He scanned the massive crowd of alphas and Lorenzo pack members, his eyes keen. He was quiet as he studied the group.
I had a forkful of pasta salad halfway to my lips when he finally spoke. “They’re scared, you know.”
I froze and glanced at him. “I’m sorry?”
He wiped his mouth with a napkin and gestured to the group. “Them. They’re scared. Well, if not truly scared, they’re acting out of fear. It’s the unknown, mostly. Like you,” he said, nodding toward me.
“Me? What is that supposed to mean?” I asked as I put my fork down.
Smiling at me, he sat for a moment, piercing me with his stare. I would have been uncomfortable if the look he was giving wasn’t so good-natured. Finally, he waved his hand toward me. “You’re a wild card. That’s what has them rattled.”
“Why would that be?” I asked, genuinely curious.
“I’m a bear shifter, but even our kind has told stories about Edemas and his reign and rule for hundreds of years.
You’re the type of lore or legend that wasn’t supposed to exist. The fact that you do…
” He shrugged. “It means things aren’t exactly as they’d always thought. It throws them off balance.”
“But not you?” I asked.
Tiago bobbed his eyebrows up once and gave a half smile. “You see, I respect Nico as an alpha. His pack has a hell of a reputation, and he’s a man of his word. If I respect him, I have to respect what he says. He says you’re important, and I trust his judgment.”
“I still don’t get how I’m the important one.” I sighed and picked at my food. “I’m one person. If I disappeared tomorrow, things might even go better than if I was here.”
He looked at me with eyes filled with wisdom and knowledge.
I couldn’t help but feel like there was something there, measuring and weighing me.
When he spoke, the good-natured tone of voice was gone.
He was all business. “We’re going to need you.
Whether the others want to believe it or not.
I’ve been around a long time. I’ve seen the phases and cycles play out.
The stories of the old timers and elders.
We’re on the road to a reckoning.” He stabbed a fork into the bun of his hamburger for emphasis.
“A war with the humans is coming. I doubt it can be avoided now. They’ve finally been given their wish, a free pass to let their fears and prejudice guide them. ”
Almost as though he’d spoken it into existence, the day turned into chaos. Nico’s mother came running outside, yelling and waving her arms. “Inside. Everyone. You have to see what’s happening. It’s all over the news. Come on.”
Without another word, she rushed back inside.
Most of those in attendance were frozen in place.
Tiago, however, stood almost immediately and started toward the house.
I jumped up and followed him right before the spell on the crowd seemed to break.
Everyone started streaming toward the house.
There were too many to fit, but they wanted to see what Julia was yelling about.
The mood was somber as we packed into the living room.
The last time something had been on TV about shifters, we’d discovered we were to be rounded up like cattle.
Nico and his brothers were right in front of the mantle, looking up at the news report. The house was already too full for me to get to him, so I settled for a spot near the sofa, standing directly in front of Tiago. The news wasn’t good.
The screen showed shaky cellphone camera footage of a massive bear running through a city street. He slammed his giant head into the side of a car and swatted an empty bicycle aside like it was a fly.
“That’s a shifter,” Tiago whispered behind me.
He was right. Somehow, I could tell the bear on the footage was a shifter.
Even with how shaky the camera was, there was an intelligence behind its eyes that was far above what could be seen in an animal.
The shifter looked more than angry—it looked agitated in a way that was hard to explain.
The reporter talking over the video was speaking, but my mind drowned that out as I watched the bear stop and shake, staring at the ground, almost like it was thinking or struggling with something.
“Jesus Christ,” Tiago hissed. “It’s like he’s stuck.”
Once he said it, I realized that’s exactly what it was. He was trying to shift back, but for some reason, he couldn’t. I remembered what it had been like when I’d tried to shift for the first time. It was agonizing and irritating to be so close yet have the shift still be out of reach.
On the video, several police cruisers come screeching to a halt in front of the bear.
I could hear people on the street screaming at the police to shoot him, to kill him.
The voice of the reporter finally broke through my mental haze.
“...the shifter was spotted in downtown Seattle this afternoon. We warn our viewers that what you are about to see is disturbing. Viewer discretion is advised.”
Once those words were out, a ball of ice seemed to form in my stomach. On the screen, the officers were yelling at the shifter to change back to human, but their words had no effect. The man was lost inside his animal, unable to pull the human side free.
With horror, I watched him charge the officers. The men and women screamed at him to stand down as they pulled their weapons. The camera went deadly still in the last several seconds as though the person filming wanted to make sure he caught every last second of what was about to happen.