Page 38 of Fate, Interrupted

“It’s not a problem,” she says, with the frustrated precision of someone trying to articulate a position.

“It’s that they’re wolves, Norah. They’re built differently. They operate differently. They have loyalties we can’t be part of and instincts we can’t predict and...”

“Have you ever talked to one?” I ask.

She stops.

“Not across a counter,” I clarify. “Not over a bill or a transaction. I mean have you ever sat down and had an actual conversation. Like the one you’re having with me right now.”

Penny looks at me for a long moment.

“That’s not the point,” she says.

“It might be exactly the point. You’re telling me how they are. I’m asking if you know how they are, or if you’re telling me how people say they are. Those are different things.”

She puts both hands on the table. I can tell she doesn’t like the question, but she doesn’t dismiss it either.

“People get hurt,” she says finally. “When those lines get crossed.”

“What lines?”

“The ones between us and them.”

“People get hurt on every side of every line,” I say. “That’s not specific to wolves.”

“It’s different with them.”

“Because they’re stronger?”

“Yes.”

“So, the fear is about power,” I say. “That they can do things we can’t.”

She looks up at me. “Isn’t that enough?”

“Geez, Penny. Someone with a gun has more power than either of us do. Most men have more power than women. Adults have more power than children. Where do we draw the line?”

I can’t pretend her fear came from nowhere. Humans have spent decades talking about wolves as dangerous while still hiring them for the strength and loyalty we claim to distrust. Penny absorbed that contradiction the same way most of us did. I did too. The fear has a logic to it. The logic is wrong, but it has one.

“I used to think their physical power wasn’t important,” I say.

Penny’s eyes sharpen. “Something happened.”

I trace the rim of my mug with my thumb and think about how to answer that, or whether to, and decide that since Penny has been honest with me this morning, she deserves the same, within limits.

“What happened?”

I stop. I can still see Silas on that sidewalk too clearly.

“I saw something yesterday,” I say. “With Jesse from the shop.”

“What kind of something?”

“A fight,” I say. “Outside of a dry cleaner. There were three men, humans, and they were only interested in stirring up trouble...”

I stop because the memory is more vivid than I want it to be, and I need to get through it without making it bigger than it already is.

Penny is very still now, giving me her full attention.