Raised by Wolves

Chapter 30

CHAPTER 30

DINNER’S TENSE THAT night. The chief chomps his grilled cheese like he’s mad at it. He answers Lacey’s questions about his day in grunts.

Lacey finally puts down her silverware and says, “Will you stop stewing , Chester? Logan Hardy’s an ass, if you’ll excuse my saying so! He got what was coming to him.” She turns to Holo. “I don’t approve of fighting, young man. But I know you didn’t mean to hurt him.”

You don’t know us , I think. You don’t know anything.

“Maybe you should lock us up again,” I challenge the chief. “Keep us from getting into more trouble.”

The chief’s eyes flash with anger. “If you end up in jail, it won’t be because of me,” he says. “It’ll be because the Hardys decided to charge Holo with assault.”

Holo goes pale as snow.

Lacey swats the chief on the arm. “Don’t scare them like that, Chester. Reginald Hardy’ll admit his son got his butt beat on the day he’ll tap-dance in a tutu. Now, Holo, you and Kai clear the table and then head on up to your rooms. Chester and I have things to discuss.”

For once I don’t mind doing what I’m told. Better to be alone than sit around with a pissed-off police chief.

If he were a wolf, he’d have just bitten me and been done with it. Anger’s a human thing.

So is regret—and revenge.

Upstairs I flop down onto the bed and stare at the ceiling. I can hear Lacey and the chief doing the dishes together in the kitchen. Later they go into the living room, and the big recliner squeaks as the chief sinks down into it.

Lacey’s honeyed voice floats softly up the stairs. “They don’t have anyone but us, Chester.”

I roll off my bed and tiptoe to the landing so I can hear better.

“They’ve got each other,” says the chief gruffly.

“But no one else is looking out for them.”

“They’ve done pretty well so far. I’ve seen kids with two parents doing plenty worse.”

Yeah, like Julissa Hill. Her mom’s nicer to those rabbits than she is to her own daughter. Well, up until the point that she kills and eats them, anyway.

The chief starts making a weird noise. It takes me a minute to realize that he’s laughing . “God, I would’ve loved to have seen that fight. Logan Hardy must have six inches and seventy-five pounds on Holo—but that scrawny little kid kicked the living daylights out of him.”

They’re quiet for a while, and I’m getting ready to go back to my bedroom. Then I hear Lacey say, all gentle and wondering, “Chester? Honey?”

“Huh?” the chief grunts.

“I don’t want to give them up.”

The chief goes, “What do you mean?” which is exactly what I’m thinking.

“I mean I want them to stay, Chester. I want them to be ours.”

Ours?

“Ours?” the chief asks, echoing my thought.

“Yes,” Lacey says. “Do you think we could adopt them?”

“Lacey,” the chief says calmly, “I’m still looking for their parents. Even if I don’t ever find them, there are a lot of steps between letting someone sleep in your house and making them an official part of your family.”

“I know that,” says Lacey. “I’m ready for all of them.”

A gasp escapes my lips.

“Did you hear something?” the chief says. He gets up from his chair. Calls, “Kai? Holo?”

I zip back to my bed and dive under the covers. My heart hammers. But no one comes upstairs.

She wants to keep us.

Lying there, it’s like I really see my room for the first time. There are alphabet watercolors on the pale-yellow walls: A is for aadvark, B is for bat . There’s a pile of stuffed animals in one corner and a rocking chair in another. The realization hits me like a headbutt to the stomach: This wasn’t supposed to be a guest room. This was supposed to be a nursery.

Poor Lacey.

She wanted a baby. But what she got was us.

And we can’t be trusted.

We can’t be kept.