Finn, the gaunter twin, smiled sardonically.
She was expecting the others now, so it came as no surprise when Gregory, the twins' lanky, fair-haired cousin, stepped silently out from behind another tree and folded in with them, and Ulf hopped over a white picket fence to dance his jittery way backward up the side-walk, laughing wildly, until Rafe cuffed him to the rear.
They wore their usual uniform of boots, black jeans, T-shirts, and assorted tattoos. Rafe had his sleeves rolled up to show off his biceps. My bodyguards, Vivian thought.
"Saw your mother go into Tooley's bar with Gabriel last night," Finn said. "She was all over him." His lips sketched a spiteful thin leer, and his eyes narrowed expectantly.
Vivian bristled, but she wasn't going to say anything.
"Yeah, Astrid wasn't far behind," said Rafe. "And she looked pissed." He laughed.
"Hey, leave my mom out of it," Ulf piped up.
So that's who they were fighting over, Vivian thought. Gabriel. That was disgusting. He was only twenty-four. And full of himself, from what she could tell.
Rafe took the parcel he carried out from beneath his arm, and Vivian heard Ulf giggle. Rafe pulled at the knotted string to loosen it. His eyes were more red than brown when he glanced up at her, a wicked grin playing about his lips, and Vivian knew he was up to mischief.
"Vivian, I'd like to give you my heart," Rafe said, suddenly serious, then immediately grinning again. "But since that might be inconvenient, I've brought you someone else's."
The newspaper unrolled, and he slapped a brown slimy gob down on the sidewalk.
"Rafe!" She looked around wildly, hoping no neighbors were in sight. "What the hell are you up to?"
The Five were helpless with laughter.
Vivian grabbed the newspaper from Rafe's hand and scooped up the mess.
"Give you my heart ..." he gasped, and bent over laughing again.
Where could she put this? Where was the body?
She started to rewrap the disgusting trophy. Then, "Rafe, you jerk," she cried. "This is a sheep's heart."
More howls of laughter exploded from the Five.
She didn't know whether to be angry or relieved. "You were over at Uncle Rudy's store, weren't you?" Rudy was a meat cutter at Safeway. When no one answered her, she growled and flung the whole package in Rafe's face. That set the others off even worse. Ulf had tears in his eyes.
She turned and left them, but they followed at a distance anyway, and she heard their bursts of laughter all the way to school.
Mom thinks the Five have learned their lesson, Vivian thought. "Hah!" she said out loud.
When Axel had come home from jail, her father had passed judgment swiftly. The punishment for endangering the pack was death.
Vivian couldn't save Axel, but she pleaded with her father for the Five. They were just kids like her. They had only killed to prove the witness wrong and protect the secret of the pack. They wouldn't do it again. So Ivan Gandillon made them beg forgiveness of the Moon and run the Trial of the Fang down a narrow path lined with the pack in their fur, and all could take their bites. Some said that he let the Five off too lightly, although they licked their wounds for weeks. Maybe those people were right. Vivian hadn't quite trusted the Five ever since.
It wasn't until almost lunchtime that Vivian remembered that she wanted to track down Aiden Teague.
Yeah, why don't I have a look at this poet, she told herself. See if I like him writing about things he shouldn't know about. That was better than sitting around being miserable. Where should she look? She decided to ask her art teacher. He was one of the advisers to The Trumpet.
"Oh, yeah. He's a junior," Mr. Antony said, shaking some brushes out over the art-room sink.
"How would I find him?" Vivian asked.
"Well, if you hang around for another half an hour until second lunch, all you'll have to do is look out that window. He hangs out with his friends in the quadrangle, under those arches over there." He pointed with the brushes to a section of the covered walkway that ran around the perimeter of the square courtyard.
"What does he look like?"
"Oh, I dunno. He's tall, bohemian."