Page 84 of Fate, Interrupted

Chapter twenty-two

Silas

The text comes after I finish helping a driver unload the afternoon deliveries.

Meet me in my office.

Four words. No explanation, no urgency implied, no indication of what this is about. It doesn’t need any of those things. When Elias sends a text like this, the weight is in the sender, not the content.

I take my gloves off, throw them on a bench, and step back onto the warehouse floor. Racks of freshly pressed garments move along the suspended rails overhead toward the sorting tables, where two younger wolves work, folding shirts into neat stacks.

I hand my clipboard to the floor manager and head for the metal staircase along the back wall.

The steps rattle lightly under my boots as I climb.

From the second-floor landing, the entire operation spreads out below me: conveyor rails across the warehouse floor and employees moving around them with the practiced efficiency of a system refined over decades. Every part of it is purposeful and predictable.

My father likes this view.

His office door stands half-open when I reach the top of the stairs. Inside, Elias stands near the window that overlooks the back lot, his hands clasped loosely behind his back, his posture straight in the way of a man who stopped thinking about how he carries himself a long time ago.

He doesn’t turn when I step inside.

I push the door shut and cross the room, stopping a few feet from the desk. He stays at the window for a moment, looking out over the yard below, and I wait because waiting is what this situation requires.

I wait for the inevitable. An inquisition on Norah and what the status is with her. But he surprises me.

His tone is even. Measured. The tone of a man laying out facts he’s already examined from every angle before deciding to present them.

“There was an incident downtown last night,” he says.

“A retail store in the human district. High-end outdoor equipment. Windows smashed. Fifty thousand dollars of merchandise stolen.” He pauses. “Security cameras recorded most of it.”

I say nothing. I hadn’t heard about it. I’d come straight home from Norah’s last night and hadn’t looked at my phone again.

“Three of them,” he says. “The media is saying they were all recently shifted.”

Young wolves. Anyone who has spent enough time in this world recognizes the pattern. The early months after a first full shift are volatile. Instinct outruns discipline, and the sudden strength of a fully realized wolf body convinces some young males that consequences happen to other people.

He turns from the window and moves back toward the desk with the even pace of someone walking through a conversation that’s already finished.

“Was anyone hurt?” I ask.

“No.”

He sits, resting his hands lightly on the polished surface. “That is the only reason the situation remains manageable.”

I cross my arms loosely. “This is the second incident,” I say.

“Yes.”

“The first one the packs managed to contain.”

“Barely,” he says. “And the circumstances were different. This one has footage. It is already circulating.” He says it without inflection, placing the facts accurately in the room rather than dramatizing or minimizing them.

“I’ve already spoken to the two other pack leaders. I trust them on this. On business, different story. They assure me these were not their young wolves. I believe them. However, the store owner has spoken to the press. Human commentators are using the word aggression. City officials are using the word concern.”

“If we know this wasn’t pack-related, then we need to stand up and say so.” I can feel the hair on my arms rising, the inevitable sense of injustice I feel in situations like this. “This isn’t how our young pack members are acting now. They’re staying clean when it comes to humans.