Fox Play (30 page)

The three of them proceeded to clean me out. I can't even blame bad cards. Vivien put the final nail in my coffin, outplaying me nicely. I was impressed with all of them but chagrined at the same time.

"You have a tell," Vivien told me after raking in my chips.

"I do not!"

"You do," Lara said. She made a point of sniffing.

"You aren't serious."

"We are," Lara said.

"I figured it out last week," Janice said. "I told them."

"She didn't have to," Lara said. "That's how I held my own last week. But it's subtle, honey. And we know you very, very well. I don't think anyone else is going to be able to use it."

"But every wolf in the pack can."

"The ones who know you," Lara said. "Or the ones we tell."

"You're saying I smell, and that's my tell."

"Yep."

"We won't tell anyone," Janice said.

"If-" added Lara.

"If what?" I asked.

"I want a favor," Janice said.

I sighed. "What favor?"

"I don't know. You'll owe me. At some point in the future."

"An unspecified favor. That could be anything."

"It will be fair value, and if there is a dispute, I will agree that your girlfriend can adjudicate for fairness."

"Fine, but only if these two stay silent as well."

"Agreed," said Janice.

"I want the same thing," Lara said. "An unspecified future favor. It will probably get spent begging your forgiveness for something I have done."

I laughed. "You're not going to use it for that little thing you want?"

"No."

"Vivien?" I asked.

"You already know what I want," she said. "You were supposed to do something, and you haven't done it. You will do so."

I was supposed to call her.

Janice looked between us. "I take it you are being obscure because you don't want me to know what this is?"

"Yes," said Vivien. "I am sorry."

"I need a fresh beer. Anyone else?" She headed upstairs, and Lara chased the enforcers out as well.

"I have an opening tomorrow at six," Vivien said. "Another at eleven on Friday. Pick one. After that, you will attend twice a week, and at least one of those will be in my office. I would prefer both, but I will accept phone conversations for one day a week if necessary for schedules."

I sighed. "Lara, I want you to come. Please."

"Tomorrow at six, Vivien," she said. "I'll bring my schedule and we'll set up the next several weeks."

"Can you teach me to control the tell?" I asked them.

"Maybe," Lara said. "Or maybe teach you to disguise it, but that is dangerous as well. Maybe teach you to produce it as a lie. You're telling us when you have a good hand, and you tell us every single time you have a good hand."

"That's why you're folding out early and can tell when I'm overplaying my hand."

"Right."

Janice returned. The three of them played for another hour but agreed to end the night early. They were all up, having my money and Aaron's to split between them.

"Do wolves have scent tells?" I asked.

"Yes," Lara said. "We usually learn to control our scent as adolescents though. We're so attuned to scent it's easy for us to focus on it. The visual tells actually aren't part of our normal thought processes, so they aren't automatic for us to fix."

Vivien smiled. "I spent most of last week trying to convince these two I had a scent tell, and then this week I had hoped they would believe it."

"We knew she was lying," Lara said. "There is no way Vivien would be so uncontrolled with her scent. So we ignored it."

"And it was worthless against your fox nose," Vivien said. "It's too bad the reverse wasn't true."

I sighed. A tell, and one I couldn't even recognize.

* * * *

We met with the kids and their parents on Saturday afternoon. Lara attended as well, along with my security detail. I thanked everyone for coming, explained how I'd spent my time, and then gave an overview of what we were doing.

"Several of the kids don't know what they want to do for a living, although I think we might end up with a few engineers. That implies heavy math and physics, and I'd like to do an introduction to engineering class as a taste, but I'm not qualified to teach it."

"We have pack members who can help," Lara said. "You'll need to coordinate. That sounds like multi-disciplinary, and you will need to work with several of them."

I nodded.

"The packets I've passed out show our proposed enhanced curriculum, and I have attached to the back of each packet the suggestions I am making for each student and my reasons why. If you want to take time to review everything, I can answer general questions as a group and then questions that are specific to each of your children individually."

The parents had questions, and I felt I provided satisfactory answers. Then Lara spoke up. "Ms. Redfur."

Oh shit, I thought.

"Alpha?"

"I want to state first, this is my fault. I wasn't sufficiently clear." She hated it. Oh god, she hated it.

"Yes, Alpha?"

"I thought I stressed that I wanted this to be a very hands on program, and extremely extensive."

"Yes," I said. "The individual classes will involve substantial lab work, and, where possible, field work."

"Ms. Redfur," Lara said. "Can you give me an overview of the skills that you have used in your job, to use as a basis for our discussion?"

"All right," I said. I gave a two minute review of the skills used to collect my field data and analyze it in the lab. I mentioned computer skills and basic lab work. By the time I was done, Lara was frowning.

"How do you get to the locations you need to be when collecting your data?"

"I drive." I paused. "You want me to teach them to drive?"

"No. Is driving the only way you get there? I understand many of your sites are well away from roads."

"I walk." I didn't know what she was getting at.

"So you have never, for instance, used your kayak in relationship to your duties?"

"Sure she does," Angel said. "Sometimes we had to go fishing. You know, for scientific research."

"You're not helping, Angel," I said. She grinned at me. "But Angel is right. Yes, sometimes I kayak, but that would be an unusual skill to be required."

"How about driving a boat? Navigating waterways?"

"Yes, I guess," I said.

"Snowshoe? Ski? Camp out in the field, even in the winter?"

I thought about it. "Yes, alpha. All of those."

"Why are they not in this list of classes?"

I stared at her. "Because they're fun," I said.

She smiled. "So? I think these kids expect to learn all the skills they would possibly need for the types of jobs they are considering, and to be blunt, I doubt they'll learn many of them in college. I want these subjects taught, Ms. Redfur."

I stared at her. Why hadn't she said this sooner. I looked down. "We'll have to drop classes to make room. We've filled the schedule."

"Even the weekends?" she asked.

"Well, no, not the weekends."

"Well, I believe every student in this room expects to learn these skills. Kids, are you willing to give up some of your weekends to learn how to kayak?"

"Yes!" they yelled.

"And Ms. Redfur, are you willing to give up some weekends to teach them kayaking and these other skills?"

"Is the alpha offering to help chaperone these weekends?"

"Yes."

"Then I am willing to teach them."

"Good. I want them as official classes in the curriculum. Don't give them names like kayaking. Call them things like Field Skills and Aquatic Navigation. I expect every student who goes through the entire program to, by the beginning of his or her senior year, to be able to use these skills as part of their senior level classes."

"Yes, alpha," I told her obediently.

After that, I stepped aside, and parents came up to me one at a time with questions specific to their child. In the end, there were some minor adjustments, but everyone was by and large satisfied.

Lara disappeared, but she caught me later. "I'm sorry to have blindsided you, Michaela. I had all that in my head, but I didn't properly explain it to you. It was just so obvious to me, but it was stupid of me not to explain it."

"You can make it up to me later," I said. "What's the game tonight?"

"I'm sorry, honey. You can't play tonight. Tonight is too rough for you. June wanted to bring Benny, but I had to ask her to spend the weekend in Bayfield. Michele Lassiter will be sitting out as well."

"All right, Alpha," I said quietly. I'd been working my tail off, and my head hurt. I'd been working through the 9th grade science, much of which was new to me, and I had to do all the lab work. Francesca was making me turn them in one at a time and wouldn't let me do the next one until she graded the last one. So between setting up the classes for the kids and working on my own academics, I was ready to let loose. Being told I couldn't at the last minute added frustration and I didn't know what to do about it.

I turned away. I suddenly didn't want to be around anyone, but there wasn't anywhere I could go, either.

"Hey," Lara said, grabbing my arm. I let her turn me to face her. She studied me while I stood there quietly.

"It's okay, Lara," I said. "I can't always have what I want. The pack has been good to me, but I know I'm not a wolf, and I can't partake in everything you do. I know your responsibilities extend beyond me."

"Knowing that doesn't necessarily mean it's always easy to be reminded," Lara said. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault," I said. "I guess I'll go find something to do."

"You don't need to hide, Michaela. There's the picnic, and you can watch from the porch."

"I'll see you at the picnic then," I said. And that time, she let me go.

I hid in our room, just me and, out in the hall, my protection detail. I tried to chase them away, but gave up after they refused. When the picnic started, they knocked on the door and told me, but I said I wasn't hungry and suggested I'd be safe in the room. I didn't pay attention to whether they went.

Twenty minutes later, Elisabeth knocked and entered without waiting.

"Lara isn't here," I told her.

"I am your guard tonight, along with Wendy. I sent Karen and Rory to go have fun."

"This is ridiculous," I said. "I'm perfectly safe here. I'll stay in my room, I'll be fine."

"Come to the picnic," she said.

I stared at her. "Is that an order, Elisabeth?"

"Would it have to be?"

"Yes."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because I'm in an unreasonable, selfish mood, and I don't want to subject anyone else to it. Please, I don't need guarding tonight. Can I please have one evening of privacy?"

"You're the one who asked us to protect you," she said. "You knew what it meant when you asked."

"Well, it's proven unnecessary," I said. "And now I feel very guilty keeping you from the fun."

She sat down on the opposite end of the sofa from me. I glared at her.

"What's wrong, Michaela?"

"I haven't had a minute alone in weeks. I'm a fox, solo by nature. I also haven't had any proper exercise since we left Bayfield, and I was hoping for some tonight. But I can't even go for a proper run, much less anything more strenuous. I don't even get to go hunting here because I don't want to completely deplete the small game."

"We have twenty square miles we own," she said. "I hardly think one fox can eat every rabbit in twenty square miles."

"My preferred game may be smaller than the wolves, but I'm not the only person here who hunts the small game."

"So you're going stir crazy?"

"Yes. And I can't even go for a drive, much less pop my kayak in the water and paddle the stress away. I told you I'm in a mood, there's nothing anyone can do about it, so I'm going to stay up here and sulk like a properly immature fox."

She smiled at that last part, but I didn't.

"Come with me," she said.

"Go away, Elisabeth."

"Come with me," she repeated. "That's an order."

I stared at her. "Seriously?"

"Yes."

I huffed. "Fine." We stood up, and she led the way out of the house, picking up Wendy from the hallway outside my room on the way. We went to the picnic, and I started bitching.

She turned around. "Shut up. I'm not making you go to the picnic. I'm picking up more security." I followed her sullenly, and she found Karen and Rory. Then she led the way past the barracks and past David's old house to a building I'd never visited.

"What's this?" I asked her.

"Gym," she said.

"We have a gym?"

She smiled. "Of course we have a gym. Didn't anyone give you a proper tour?"

"I guess not. What are we doing here?"

"You need exercise."

"So you're going to make me lift weights?"

Her smile turned predatory. "Not exactly, Michaela." Then she held the door for me and we stepped inside.

I had never been to a gym before, but I recognized it easily enough. "Go look around," she said.

I stepped deeper into the gym. I found a swimming pool and a hot tub. There was a basketball court, two racket ball courts, and a large area for lifting weights. Around the perimeter upstairs was a running track. By the time I got back to the front entrance several minutes later, my entire security detail had turned furry.

I stopped and stared at them. "I don't feel like lifting weights," I said. "But thanks for the suggestion." I tried stepping past them, but Wendy and Karen moved to the doors in front of me, growling.

"Seriously?" I asked.

Then Elisabeth lowered her head in a bow, telling me she wanted to play.

"I'm not in the mood, Elisabeth." I said.

She pounced. I flinched away from her, and she took me to the floor, earning me some bruises, then climbed on top of me and shoved her mouth past my defending hands to wrap her jaws around my throat.

"Get off of me!"

She began tightening her grip, growling lightly, and I whimpered submissively. But she was pissing me off.

She released my neck and licked my face twice before she let me up. I watched her warily, but she stepped away and nudged Rory. He went into a wolf bow.