Sapphire Bones

Glitch

Updated: March 29, 2019

Corvo

During the day, I found solace in the quiet pack house. Without the rowdy teenagers around I had a chance to breathe and catch my thoughts before they drifted off into oblivion. That and I channel surfed without the pack-kids begging to watch cartoons. There were Lycan channels only available to those within the community but they were mostly news about Council events. I clicked the channel over to one of the five we had, and a man, Albert Shiion, came onto the screen. He sat at a desk, hands folded around an empty mug as if he were about to drink out of it.

Latest news from the Council mentions the trial date for Eleanor Bates, the woman accused of planning and following through with an attack on her home pack, Ruby, twelve years ago, has been moved up to two weeks from now. The change was made shortly after a referendum was passed pertaining to the Twenty-Five law. The law protects children from being tried for crimes they've committed, and holds off any trials until they're of Lycan age. An audience of thousands is expected at the Council for the trial, as people hope to finally put an end to a decade long conspiracy about what really happened to Ruby.

The TV hummed with information I already knew. The man on TV rambled on and on about the upcoming trial. The conspiracies. The lies perpetrated by every single Lycan that walked North America. Anyone else and I would've flipped the channel again but hearing her name spewed by someone who didn't care at all whether she lived or died made my blood boil in my veins. Albert Shiion didn't care about her. He cared about ratings. He cared about what the Council told him to say about her.

I flipped the channels on the remote until I hit the high four-hundreds. With the house empty it seemed barren and cold. Everyone had their own lives outside the pack house; I couldn't expect Jax to be at my side every minute of the day. I gave him the rest of the week off to go see his son but he refused. Said something about how his priorities remained with the pack until the council business was buried and mourned over. It'd been months since he saw Ryder and the bags under his eyes didn't brighten my hopes for him. Without his mate, he hardly slept and even when he did, I knew his dreams were nothing but traumatizing. With Mattias back, I had someone else to go to when Jax was otherwise occupied. Being my third, Matt offered better support than Damien but I couldn't put the kind of pressure on him that I shoved onto Jax. It wouldn't be fair. The deafening pressure included L's case. I managed to keep my siblings and Jax quiet about her but I knew she'd come up before long.

Mattias watched the TV from the other couch. He had a fingernail to his lips, teeth extended out onto a piece of dry, loose skin just below the nail. His attention stayed on the continuously flipping TV until I landed on the news again. I set the clicker down and leaned my head back, content with the ceiling over another human yelling the broadcast over my television set. With the trial coming up faster every day, I slept uneasily. Without a proper connection with L we were blind to each others existence. For all I knew her body lay at the bottom of a shallow grave, a bit of dirt to shield her face from scalding sunlight and frostbitten snow. I pled that wasn't the case but I learned not to expect miracles long ago. It was foolish, childish to believe she'd make it out without a scratch and with each passing day I grew weary that she'd make it out alive, let alone in one piece.

A vibration against my leg forced my attention from the pale ceiling. I brought my head up, a bit of whiplash accompanied with it, and struggled to pull my phone from its cell inside my jeans. A proper pull and the screen lit up to an unknown number. Mattias and I exchanged a quick look while the vibrations continued before he nodded once for me to answer. I clicked the green circle and pulled the phone to my ear. I half expected a human-robot call, a mention about my overdue accounts or electric bill but the monotone voice didn't reach through the phone. I offered the first greeting.