The tide was already climbing the causeway when the harbor bell started ringing.
Oren was coughing in the back of the shed, and I had one vial of tonic left. One.
Mott: By order of the Alpha. Every unshifted wolf gets listed and collared by the new moon.
Mott: No exemptions. No exceptions. No hiding your freak kin in the fish sheds.
I stood at the back with my hood up and counted the ways this could kill us.
Collars choke. That was the whole point of them.
Mott: Aria. Scrap rat. Get up here.
Mott: I hear you keep a boy in that shed who has never shown a wolf. Where is he?
Aria: Oren shifted last spring. He took the ferry to the mainland in autumn.
Aria: He is not here. He is not mine to fetch.
Mott: Funny. I keep the ferry log.
His fingers dug into my jaw and turned my face up to the crowd, like he was showing them a bruise he had made.
Mott: Look at this one. Lying to a steward's face and thinking I cannot smell it.
Mott: Everyone knows how you buy your tonic. You open your legs, Alpha throws you a vial.
Mott: Registry does not care whose cock paid, bitch. Unlisted is unlisted.
He shoved me into the post and the wood caught the back of my head.
Blood ran warm down my neck and into my collar, and the crowd just watched.
Mott: If I find the boy, he gets a collar. If the collar does not take, he gets a hole behind the cannery.
Mott: And you dig it with your own hands.
I believed him. That was the worst part. I believed every fucking word.
Mott: Dusk. I am bringing the registry key, and I am opening that shed.
I ran with the blood drying on my neck and the tide hissing under the boards.
The last vial was in my fist, and hiding it felt like hiding my own heart.
I wrapped the vial in oilcloth and pushed it under the fish guts in the bait bucket.
Let them search. Nobody digs through stink for nothing.
Oren: Aria. You are bleeding again.
Aria: I slipped on the ramp. It is nothing.
Aria: Mott never asked about you. Not one word.
I sat with him until his breathing went slow, and I lied to myself about how much time we had.
Oren: You always come back. That is the only thing I count on.
Aria: Then keep counting. I am not going anywhere.
The notice had Galen's seal on it, that black wax wolf, and my chest pulled toward it like a rope under water.
Mate. I hated the word. I hated that my body still answered it.
He owned the medicine, the gates, the registry, and every road off this rock.
Aria: One vial. One night. Nobody opens this door.
But the sun was already going down over the harbor, and Mott kept his keys.