"What can we do?" Cori sobbed, gripping Ashe's hand tightly.
"The full moon isn't until next Wednesday. We have six days. Come on, stop crying and let's think about this," Ashe awkwardly attempted to console her.
"James would be so upset," Cori wiped her cheeks.
"Yeah."
"Don't leave school grounds," Mrs. Patterson called after Ashe and Cori, who'd walked past the others to keep their conversation private.
Ashe stopped abruptly at Mrs. Patterson's warning, causing Cori to bump into him. "Come on, Cori. Let's go back inside." Steering Cori around gently, Ashe guided her toward the school doors. Marco waited for them, just inside.
"I'll get her to class, Ashe," Marco took Cori's hand and led her down the hall. Ashe watched as they walked away together, his mind whirling with possibilities and consequences.
Sali was unusually silent during the afternoon classes and on the ride home as well. Adele had picked up both boys in her old truck, saying that she'd called Denise and offered to pick Sali up. Ashe had watched Cori climb into Marco's car after school, accepting a ride home with him instead of Wynn's mother, who'd picked up Wynn and Dori. Shaking his head, Ashe hunched down in the front seat as his mother drove toward Sali's home.
"Dude, I'll talk to you later," Sali slid off the old Ford's front seat and gave a half wave to Ashe before closing the door.
"Yeah," Ashe said, scooting over and leaning back against the worn upholstery.
"You heard, didn't you?" Adele put the truck in gear and crunched over gravel as she drove away from the DeLuca's yard.
"I did." Ashe stared out the passenger-side window on the way home.
"It's Pack business," Adele gave a sigh.
"And nobody messes with that. I know," Ashe muttered angrily.
"I have Dawn Smith to thank for you, Ashe," Adele said after a while. "She was the first one to go to a fertility clinic. She wanted another baby with Terry, but they weren't having any luck. A doctor offered her a donated egg. That's how Randy was born, Ashe. He was a miracle, just like you."
"And we all know how well that's turning out," Ashe snapped sarcastically. "Sorry, Mom. It's not your fault."
"Nor yours," his mother pointed out gently. "Your father has made arrangements with a car dealership in Oklahoma City. The salesman is staying late, so we're driving in tonight to pick up his new SUV. I thought about offering to take Sali, too, but after everything else that's happened today, I decided against it. Radomir will be coming with us instead."
"Does Dawn Smith know they have Randy?"
"I don't know, hon. And she didn't call Mr. Winkler. I'm pretty sure of that."
"Mom, what would you do if that was me instead of Randy Smith?"
"Ashe, it's not you."
"But what if it were? There's a story going around that Randy got framed. What if that's true? What if somebody set me up exactly the same way, because they didn't like me for some reason? What would you do?"
"Honey, your father saw the letter Randy Smith wrote. It's in his handwriting and everything. There are still some samples of his writing floating around, you know, so it would be easy to tell."
"When did Dad see it? Where's the letter now?"
"He saw it a few days after Mr. Harris got it—said the envelope was postmarked in Santa Fe and everything. Everything checked out, Ashe. That letter came from Randy Smith."
"Yeah? Did it smell like him?"
"Ashe, stop. Mail gets handled by so many people you can't even tell about things like that once they arrive."
"Fine." The fields of Cloud Chief blurred past Ashe's window as his mother drove, slowing down eventually to turn into their driveway. "I'll go do homework," Ashe said, slouching into the kitchen and leaving his mother to close the door and set the alarm behind them.
* * *
"Aedan, he's really upset over this Randy Smith thing," Adele had gone down to her husband's bunker when he woke. "Somehow, he's convinced that Randy Smith didn't write that letter."
"The evidence points to the contrary. We might have placed compulsion to ask if we'd found him, but he was already gone by the time we arrived in Santa Fe," Aedan pulled a shirt on. "No doubt Dawn got the warning and sent him away. That didn't keep the Grand Master's trackers from finding him."
"They had more time. You only had two days, Aedan, and no leads."
"Marcus won't allow anyone near the boy now," Aedan grumbled. "I'll arrange to have someone take Ashe away during the full moon next week if you think it will be better for him."
"It won't make any difference. That boy will still be just as dead, and Ashe knows that. It won't matter if Ashe is here or five hundred miles from here."
"I can place compulsion. But I don't want to."
"Ashe will never trust us again if we do that." Adele rubbed her forehead, attempting to ease the accumulating tension.
"I know. Come, love. We must be in Oklahoma City in an hour."
* * *
"Young man, would you like a soft drink or a bottle of water?" Ashe stared at the salesman, his arms crossed tightly over his chest.
"No, thank you," Ashe said as politely as he could. Surrounded by polished tile floors and shiny new vehicles, Ashe and Radomir remained inside the dealership while his mother and father test-drove the new SUV.
"Young one, I can feel your anger. One must learn how to hide such emotions," Radomir said softly when the salesman walked away.
Ashe blinked at the Enforcer. Perhaps it was easy for someone older than nine hundred years to hide emotions; he'd had plenty of time to learn, Ashe thought. And Radomir had to be older than nine hundred, since someone had been sent that had to be older than Old Harold. Ashe still didn't know why that was. Sure that he wasn't supposed to know for some reason, Ashe wiggled farther into his plastic chair and let his hands drop to his side, settling for a good, hard grip on the edge of his seat instead. When would people think he was old enough to know things? It made him angry that they kept their secrets. A television was still on inside the dealership, and Ashe's attention diverted to it when a newscaster announced that a child had been abducted in Little Rock, Arkansas. An Amber Alert had been issued for the thirteen-year-old.
"Authorities are now becoming concerned, as it has been revealed through an unidentified source that the parents of this child, as well as the parents of murdered children in Saint Louis and Fort Myers, Florida, all went to the same fertility clinic in St. Louis. While authorities have yet to confirm or deny these allegations, it has put many parents on alert," the female anchor said. Hands now in his lap and fingers clenched, Ashe wanted more than anything to have access to a computer and the internet right then. He hadn't gotten the ages of the children in St. Louis, but the twins in Fort Myers had been only a little older than he was. The one from Little Rock had just celebrated a birthday weeks earlier. Ashe would turn thirteen in June. He shivered visibly at the thought.