“You can have my apples, Zen,” I offer, and I swear, you’d think I just handed her a winning lottery ticket.
She doesn’t say anything, just digs into them while I dig into my mac ’n cheese. She finishes faster than me and wipes her mouth before pulling out a phone. Pausing with a spork in my mouth, I stare at her and at the phone, shocked. I look around, prepared to see guards scrambling our way to confiscate it and haul her off to solitary, but everyone just pretends not to see it.
“Hey. Yeah, I’m checking in about that info on that lounge I asked about. Anything yet?” she asks as she picks at non-existent dirt under her nails.
She makes a sound and then holds the phone out to me. I stare at it and then at her, unsure what I should do. It’s one thing for untouchable Zen to whip out a phone in the middle of lunch and use it with no consequences, but I doubt I’d be that lucky.
“Go on,” Zen encourages, and I pluck the phone from her extended hand and hold it like the precious and priceless artifact that it is.
“Hel…” I clear my throat. “Hello?” I ask as I press the phone to my ear. It feels so natural and so naughty all at the same time.
“Is this Miss Sinclair Denali?” a smooth feminine voice asks.
“Umm, yes,” I reply hesitantly.
“I haven’t been able to procure the information you requested about Alpha Bowen. But I did acquire details about your lounge and their financial issues.”
I’m shocked that Zen’s info guy is in fact a girl, but I shove that aside so I can focus on what’s being said. I hold my breath as she speaks, wondering what she’s about to reveal. Have my mat and pat been skimming? Could they be involved in something worse?
“It appears that your lounge acquired another lounge from an Alpha Arin sometime several years ago. When they absorbed that lounge, the Denali’s also absorbed a great deal of debt too. They’ve been slowly paying it off ever since, and even borrowed from other lounges to attempt to pay it off,” she tells me. “I must preface this next bit by warning that it’s hearsay as I’ve not been able to confirm anything on the side of Alpha Bowen and the Bowen pack, but it appears that Alpha Bowen claimed all the debt and then claimed you, or at least, that’s what I put together when I was able to get a brief look at the contract.”
I nod my head and then remember that she can’t see me. “Okay, thank you,” I tell her, my mind reeling with what she just told me.
“Rest assured, I will continue to work to get the rest of the information you wanted.”
I thank her again and then hand the phone back to Zen. Zen proceeds to start chatting away with whoever that female is, catching up with no worries about her surroundings and the rules. The guards don’t even blink in her direction. I’m in awe, but what else is new?
I pick at my sandwich and try to think through what all of this means. The info about Alpha Bowen and trading me for the debt relief is nothing new, but where the debt comes from is blowing my mind.
When I was younger, Alpha Arin pissed my mat off somehow. I think he called her a name at a cockatrice gathering—probably something that was true—and it enraged her. She declared war on his lounge, and a couple years later, she got what she wanted and Alpha Arin was dead. She wasn’t keen on having to take responsibility over his people, revenge was all she cared about. Apparently, she didn’t care that she took on a mountain of debt to acquire that lounge. She just did it to prove a point. Now, it’s caught up to her.
I shake my head, frustrated. She’s too damn prideful. She couldn’t let his slight go and, because of that, the Denali lounge now finds itself in the position that it’s in. I mean, for fuck’s sake, she sold me to help keep her mistake quiet. There’s no way of knowing how many cockatrices have suffered or been punished to stay silent in order to cover her messy tracks.
I’m so disgusted by all of it that I don’t even know what to do or think. I suppose on one hand, it’s good to find out that no one in my