Red Rider's Hood

acid.

'You stole these from your own grandmother?' Cedric laughed and laughed. 'You are one bad little wolverine!'

'You got that right!'

He looked at the bullets?I could see a little bit of fear in his face, and Cedric never showed fear. 'Okay?get rid of them.'

So I did. I picked up all the silver bullets and put them back in the bag. 'I'll go up on the bridge and throw them into the river,' I said.

'We have to leave Troll Bridge Hollow; we can't stay here,' said A/C, looking to Cedric for approval. 'We should pick up and move, right now.'

'Don't be dumb! That would be too suspicious,' I told him. 'You gotta pretend like you don't know anything. You can't let them know that you're onto them.'

'Exactly,' said Cedric.

I pointed to a grate on the ground toward the back of the huge room. 'Anyone know what's down there?'

'Just a drainage tunnel,' said Klutz. 'It empties out into the river.'

'There's our back door,' I said.

'Good thinking,' said Cedric. 'We'll get everyone here before sundown?then, once we transform, we'll get out through the tunnel, sneak up on the hunters from behind, and it's supper time.' Then Cedric turned back to me. 'You gave us all the information we needed,' he said. 'Your job is done.'

I didn't like the sound of that. 'Cool,' I said, rolling up the lip on the bag of silver bullets. 'I'll go get rid of these.' I turned to go, and then Cedric did something that I wasn't expecting.

'I'll go with you,' he said.

The last thing that I wanted right then was to be alone with Cedric, but I wasn't about to let him know that. Maybe he just wanted to walk me up, to make sure I got rid of those bullets? if I were him, that's what I would do. But then he could have sent any one of the Wolves to do that, he didn't have to come himself. I had given him all the information he needed. It meant I wasn't needed anymore. I began to wonder if it was going to be me, instead of the bullets, that got thrown off the bridge.

I swallowed hard and tried to pretend like I wasn't scared.

A set of rusty metal service stairs zigzagged up the side of the Troll Bridge Hollow to the bridge deck above. Halfway up, Cedric stopped me. We were in darkness, and in the shadow cast by the bridge, no one could see us. I could barely see him.

'You talked like a real know-it-all in there,' he said. 'You made everyone else look foolish.'

'I... uh . . . I didn't mean to,' I said. 'I was just trying to be sensible.'

'Sensible,' he echoed. I couldn't figure out if his voice was mocking. 'A/C's my second in command, and I don't think he liked that you talked back to him, calling him dumb.'

'Like I said?'

'Yeah, I know,' Cedric said. 'You were being sensible.'

Cedric was quiet for a moment, then he said, 'Did you ever watch any of those Mafia movies?'

I had to laugh?what did that have to do with anything? 'Like, which ones?'

'Any of them. All of them. There's TV shows, too. See, it's always the same?there's the head guy. He's the boss, or the Godfather, or whatever. He's got lieutenants and captains and stuff. It's like a friggin' army.'

'Yeah? So?' The bullets were feeling heavier and heavier in my hands.

'There's always this one guy, though. The consigliere. Ever hear of that?'

'I don't think so.'

'You know what it is?'

'No,' I said.

Cedric rapped me on the shoulder. 'See?so you're not a complete know-it-all.' I let out a nervous little laugh. Cedric continued. 'The consigliere is like the adviser to the Godfather. Kind of like his second in command, without really being his second in command.'

I took a deep breath, suddenly realizing where this was going.

'See,' said Cedric, 'A/C is gonna be the first of us heading out. He's going to Chicago, and I'm going to need to appoint someone else to be second in command. But it can't be you, because that's gonna tick off the other guys. 'Why's he making the Wolverine second in charge?' they're gonna say, and they ain't gonna listen to you?heck, if I were them I wouldn't listen to a snot-nosed brat like you, either. But, see, you got the brains that they don't have, and they're all too stupid to see it. So there's no way you can be second in command,' he said again. 'But that doesn't mean you can't be consigliere.'

He waited for me to respond, but I didn't, because I just didn't know what to feel. I was relieved that he didn't come up here to kill me, and stupefied that he was willing to put so much faith in me, when I was really the enemy.

'So tomorrow we take care of the hunters, then the next night, you'll get 'made.' After your first kill, we'll talk about it.' He patted me on the shoulder. 'So are we gonna toss these bullets?'

'Sure,' I said, but my voice came out little more than a whisper. 'I'll take care of it.'

'You're doing good, Red,' he said. 'You're proving yourself every day.' Then he turned and clattered back down the stairs.

The sound of his footsteps faded, and I continued up until I reached the deck of the bridge. Cars whizzed past, not knowing or caring that I was there, as I followed the bridge's walkway, until I was halfway across the river. I looked over the edge, holding the bag of bullets. I knew I could take them to Marissa, and the Wolves would never know. Simple as that. Simple. But instead I found myself hurling the bag, bullets and all, over the edge of the bridge, and into the water.

15 Pregnant moon

“You did WHAT with the bullets?' Grandma shouted.

I had walked around for hours before I worked up enough nerve to go to Grandma's house. It was evening by the time I got there.

I didn't mean to tell her how it happened. I started out just telling her the bullets were lost, but Grandma has a way of pok­ing and prodding at the loose ends of a story until the whole thing just unravels.

'The Wolves trust me. I had to prove myself worthy to them?they were all watching me!' It was a lie. No one had been watching. I told myself that I had a good reason for lying to Grandma, but that was just a lie, too.

'Listen,' I told her. 'I've got some information for you.' Then I told her how the Wolves planned to sneak out through the drainage tunnel beneath Troll Bridge Hollow. 'Find where that tunnel lets out, and you'll have them,' I said.

Grandma sized me up for a moment, then said calmly, 'That information can't help us if we don't have silver bullets,' she said. 'But I suppose you already knew that.'

'I'm sorry,' I said. 'I'm really, really sorry.'

Grandma looked at me, stared into my eyes, and said noth­ing. Then, finally, she smiled. 'Of course you're sorry. I know you are.'

Only there was no warmth in her smile, and her eyes were still hard.

'What are you going to do now?' I asked her.

'Oh, don't you worry about that. I'll cook up something.'

'Hey?you had some other bullets, didn't you?' I asked. 'The ones that were still cooling? Where did you put them?'

'Someplace safe,' she said quickly, almost sharply, and didn't bother to tell me where.