CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

RILEY

I thought about it for four hours.

That's how long it took me to go from *I'll think about it* to sitting on the floor of bay two at eleven-fifteen at night making a list on the back of a parts invoice because I'd run out of space in my head and needed to externalize the problem.

The list, as it stood:

Reasons to go to the pack council meeting:

They're going to make decisions about us whether we're there or not.

Reyes came here, which means she thinks my presence matters.

Knox needs me there. (He hasn't said this. He won't say this. It is nonetheless true.)

The twins need this to be resolved.

I have spent five years managing situations I didn't ask for. I'm good at it.

Reasons not to go:

Every room full of wolves that gets to decide what category I belong in is a room I'd rather not be in.

The twins.

The way pack councils historically treat half-bloods who show up claiming Luna status.

I don't want to want this.

I looked at the fourth item in the second column for a while.

That was the real one. That was the thing underneath all the practical objections — not fear, exactly, but something adjacent. The knowledge that if I walked into that council room and stood beside Knox and claimed the thing that the mark on my neck had been claiming for five years, I was choosing it. Fully. Without the protection of distance.

For five years, being Knox Blackthorn's unwilling almost-mate had been something that happened to me. A condition I'd managed. If I walked into that room, it became a thing I'd chosen.

The shop was quiet. The fluorescent in bay three had been flickering since Tuesday and I kept forgetting to replace the bulb. Gerald was upstairs with Luna.

I heard the side door.

Knox came in with two coffees from the twenty-four-hour place on Clement and set one down next to my invoice without asking if I wanted it. He sat on the workbench across from me and looked at the list, which I had not attempted to hide.

He read it from where he sat. He had good eyes in low light — better than mine, which I'd been grudgingly aware of since the week he moved in. He didn't say anything about the fourth item. He looked at it for two seconds and moved on.

"The council meets at the Cascade facility," he said. "Two hours out. We'd be there one day, maybe two."

"The twins—"

"Grayson and Mara. They've offered."

"I know they've offered." I pulled the invoice back toward me. "I know they want to help. I just—" I stopped.

"You don't like needing help."

"I have been the only person responsible for those kids for four years. I know that's not — I know you weren't given the chance to—"

"Riley."

"What."

"I know." His voice was level. Not defensive, not guilty — just clear. "I know what those four years were. I'm not going to pretend I don't, and I'm not going to tell you it's fine to need help now because it should've always been there. I'm just telling you Grayson and Mara love those kids and the kids will be fine for two days."

I looked at the coffee cup. "The council is going to try to classify me."

"Yes."

"And you're going to let them try."

"I'm going to sit beside you while they try. What happens after the try is between them and me."

I'd been expecting something more reassuring. Something warmer. He gave me the true version instead — the thing that was actually going to happen, without comfort-coating — and somehow that was steadier. I could build on true things. I couldn't build on reassurances.

"One condition," I said.

"Name it."

"I speak for myself. If they ask me a direct question, you don't answer for me."

He didn't hesitate. "Done."

"I mean it. Not a correction. Not a clarification after. If I say something wrong, I'll be the one who deals with it."

"Done," he said again, the same way.

I folded the invoice. Put it in my pocket. "We're going," I said.

He picked up his coffee. "Okay."

"I'm still not — this is not—" I stopped. Tried again. "Going to this meeting isn't the same as—"

"I know what it is and what it isn't," Knox said. "You don't have to define it for me."

I looked at him. He was looking at the flickering light in bay three with an expression that suggested he'd noticed it several days ago and had been waiting to see how long before I mentioned it.

"The bulb," I said.

"I know."

"I keep forgetting—"

"I know. I'll get it tomorrow." He looked back at me. "Get some sleep, Riley. We leave Thursday."

He got up, tossed his coffee cup, and left.

I sat on the floor of bay two for another ten minutes. The flickering light threw uneven shadows across the frame I'd been building. Somewhere upstairs, one of the twins made a sound in their sleep — not distress, just the small mutterings of children whose dreams were apparently quite busy.

I thought about the fourth item on the list.

Then I went upstairs and went to bed.