Chapter 116

Sarah POV

Stunned, I watched Jordan cry for several seconds before my training kicked in.

“Are you all right?” I asked, kneeling down next to him as he sobbed. Goddess, it sounded like someone had ripped his heart out of his chest and spat on it.

He just cried some more.

“Jordan,” I said as gently as I could. “Jordan, what’s the matter?”

He just kept crying, and soon I was holding him. I’ve been subjected to a lot of different crying styles from various children. This felt genuine and heartfelt. I felt tears come to my own eyes; it was such a sorrowful, mournful sound.

“I’m so sorry,” he choked out before he cried some more.

“It’s OK,” I said. “Whatever it is, it’s OK. I promise.”

He just kept crying. I just kept holding him and saying soothing things.

Finally, he quieted on his own. If there were one thing that made me see red, it was people who wouldn’t let children cry themselves out. When you’re a child, sadness is something you think you will feel forever.

But Jordan did stop sobbing, and then stopped sniffling. I gave him a tissue, and he dried his eyes and wiped his nose.

“Now,” I said when I thought he was ready. “It’s absolutely all right that you cried, but it makes me worry about why you cried. Is there anything I can do? Is there anything you want to tell me?”

“Grace and Chloe have a new puppy?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“But you don’t want me to play with them do you?” he said and his tone was accusatory.

“You made them fight over Monopoly,” I said, seeing as he was old enough to speak plainly and be spoken to plainly.

He nodded.

“Now, can you tell me why you did that? Why you made Grace and Chloe ague with each other over what should have been a fun board game?”

Jordan stood there staring at the floor for several minutes. I just waited in silence.

“I didn’t want to,” he said.

“No? But you did.”

“Yes.”

“And can you tell me why you did?”

His tear-filled eyes just looked at me.

I leaned and whispered, “Was it someone related to you?”

He nodded. I waited.

“Aunt Ella said I should cause a little trouble, just for fun.”

I nodded. “I see. And was it fun?”

He shook his head.

“There you are, Jordan!” Zane boomed as he came into the kitchen. I knew he had heard our conversation and waited to see his next play with the child.

“Do you want to join us on a visit to the mine?” he asked.

OK, I hadn’t been expecting that.

“The Abrigan Mine?” Jordan asked with obvious excitement even while he was still crying. “The one that’s going green?”

“The one and the same,” Zane said with a smile I recognized as his smile for diplomats and business moguls.

Zane explained it was just a day trip, a few hours at most, and so we left the girls with the puppy under the auspices of Housekeeper Eliot while Zane, Jordan, and I went to the mine. I very much wanted to warn the child of what we would see, but it was clear Zane did not, so I kept my silence.

He was eight, after all, which for werewolves he was almost a young adult, a “teenager” for humans. I thought of Grace and Chloe and my desperate desire to protect them, and then I thought of the girls sneaking into that goddess-cursed room on their own and helping to bust the guilty to hell and gone. What did I know of wolves at all, except I loved them?

“Can I go?” he asked next.

Zane shrugged, but I could see the tension behind it. “Sure. Come with us. Your aunt has left you in our care, after all.”

Jordan looked incredibly excited, and as we wouldn’t be stayng overnight, I just put on my brown suit and followed Zane into the helicopter with Jordan on my heels.

“I’ve been following the news about the coal mine,” Jordan said, looking excited beyond belief in his ill-fitting headset as looked out the window. “There’s a theory online that the whole thing is made up!”

“Of course there is,” Zane said into his headset’s mike.

“But I don’t think that’s true! There are so many photos and things. It must be the real deal, right?”

“You’re going to see for yourself,” I said.

“I know!” Jordan looked barely about to contain himself. “I need to take a selfie against the black cloud thing. Do you think I can?”

“It’s still burning,” Zane said shortly, and by some miracle Jordan took the hint and played with his tablet for the rest of the flight. I looked long enough to see he was looking mostly at Photoshopped images of people cooking, dancing, and singing with the smoke plume and looked away. Foolishness.

I looked out the window to watch as the giant coal mining pit came into view. The terraced steps seemed like a great wound on the ground, and I wondered how many lives had been given up to its cause.

Of course, a coal mine was just like any other endeavor in pursuit of energy. We, humans and werewolves, had such enormous needs. Coal was a ready source of energy. It was only natural that we dig it up and burn it.

But times had changed, and as we set our ‘copter down in the middle of that great pit, I thought that I was probably feeling the same sense of pride the coal miners themselves had felt a century or two ago in excavating fuel that would heat homes and shelter families. I thought about who would come a century or two after me and what they might feel pride in.

Jordan was beyond excited when we touched down and ran out of the helicopter as soon as he was given the all-clear. We found him just a few yards from the airstrip looking around in confusion.

“Isn’t there a shrine?” he demanded as we caught up with him. “Like, with people holding vigil?”

“Only online,” I said.

He scowled at me, but then in one of those moments that reminds you you’re in real life, a ball came bouncing between us. Jordan looked in the direct the ball had come from, and suddenly there was a little beta girl demanding he kick it back.

Zane gestured for Jordan to join what seemed to be a roving game of soccer, though I noticed he took a pic before he put the phone in his pocket.

“Let’s see if Travis is still alive,” Zane suggested and headed off to our left.

“What do you have him working on?” I asked as I joined him.

“Pretty much everything, which I know is unfair. But his job now is to tell me what sort of support staff we need.”

“And if he just says he needs everything?” I asked.

Zane chuckled, “Then I’d fire him. His job right now is to figure out what we need: building materials, medical supplies, food and water, medical assistance. That’s what a logistical assessment is all about.”

“He’s really great,” I said.

Zane looked at me sharply, though I’d only meant what I said. “Yes.”

“You do know Travis is deeply devoted to his wife?” I asked, as though I were asking about the weather.

Zane laughed at himself. “Yes, I do.”