SWNOVELS Chapter 56
Chapter 56
Brooklyn
"Really?" I ask, nodding to the bartender who hands me a glass of wine. "Are we really cousins?" "Sure," he says, laughing. "I'm Alexander, this is Carter," he says, indicating the slightly smaller version of himself next to him. "And our sister Audrey."
I raise my eyebrows in surprise. "Wow, it's really nice to meet you all."
"Not quite cousins," Audrey corrects him, leaning in familiarly to talk to me.
Her words are just a little bit slurred. Not sloppy, but I can tell she's had a couple of drinks. "We're second cousins! Your dad is our mom's cousin, which means-" she screws up her face in thought, thinking, "— we have great-grandparents in common. Then again, most wolf shifters can trace themselves back to some common family member."
I take a sip from my glass. "Um, my family-I mean, the family I was adopted into-we didn't pay a lot of attention to that sort of thing. So to find out I have great-grandparents and second cousins all in one day..."
I raise my eyebrows in emphasis, and they laugh, nodding.
"Yeah," Alexander says. "It must be a lot, to go from nothing into a big Italian wolf pack like this."
Something about the way he says that gets under my skin. Sure, we didn't have an extended family, but where I came from was hardly nothing.
Before I can protest, Audrey speaks.
"We remember you, though!" she says with a big smile. "Because you were our little redheaded Baby Brooklyn-"
I blink, suddenly, at the way she says that. Baby Brooklyn... Only one other person calls me that— "We used to play with you at family parties," she continues. "Like, I remember one summer, our other sister, Jayde "
"Hey," Alexander says sharply then, nudging her with his elbow.
"Oops," Audrey says, lifting her fingers to her mouth. She rushes to continue, then, trying to move the conversation on. "Yeah, anyway, I remember you when you were so little on the slip-n-slide-" "Wait," I say, putting out a hand to stop her. "Jayde? As in-"
Suddenly, though, Aden is by my side.
"Brooklyn?" he asks, looking sternly at my new cousins. "Did you have some trouble getting your drink?" Alexander, Carter, and Audrey go silent. They stare at Aden, starstruck.
"Aden," I say, gesturing towards them. "These are my cousins-"
"Come on," he says, ignoring them and taking me by the arm.
I look back at them and grimace a little, shrugging as I let him pull me away. They all give me a little wave. As I walk away, I see Alexander say something sharp to Audrey, who cringes.
"What's the big deal?" I murmur to Aden when we're out of earshot.
"I don't know them," Aden says, bringing me back to the table. "And if I don't know them, they're a liability."
He glances back at them and shakes his head. "We can't take risks like that, Brooklyn.'
I sigh at him. "Aden, if I'm going to come to these things to meet my family, you have to let me, you know. Meet my family."
He just glares at me and turns away to survey the room again.
People are starting to filter out, I notice. It's definitely a smaller crowd than it was before.
Even when I glance at our table, I notice that my father and stepmother are gone, which, I can't explain it, just feels odd.
Hudson sees me looking for them. "A problem with the baby," he says, shrugging. "They all left a minute ago."
Aden stiffens next to me, though, and I turn my eyes to him.
He's looking very closely at the people left in the room now, who have, indeed, grown a little quiet. There are very few children left, mostly men in suits standing quietly at pairs.
Looking, largely, at us.
Aden reaches out a hand then and just as he grips my arm-
BAM!
The sound resonates through me, and I can't help my little yell of surprise. It sounds like a firework has gone off in the room-
BAM! BAM! BAM!
The sounds echo throughout the space, and suddenly Aden has thrown himself over me, blocking me with his body, pushing me towards the far wall-
Hudson is next to us as an instant, crouching down, pulling me away with him.
I hear a few more pops and bangs, and then the room starts to fill with a grey fog-
"Was that," I gasp, trying to see around Aden, who blocks me. "Was that gunfire-"
Aden ignores me, turning to Hudson.
"Smoke grenades!" he yells, looking around to our left and our right, trying to see the source. "You know what to do "
Hudson turns to me, taking my hand and looking me seriously in the face.
"We're under attack, Brooklyn!" he yells. "We've got to RUN!"