Now?
I dropped the memo into the waste paper bin. Juno balled his up and tossed it in after mine.
"Rough drafts," I said.
"Poorly edited," Juno agreed.
Then we laughed. It started small, a chuckle, and grew into a real, rib-aching laughter that filled the penthouse. We laughed at the arrogance of it, at the smallness of Julian Vance, at the idea that he ever thought he could control us with paper when we were the ones who bought the ink.
For a moment I worried that we had offended Stephen by throwing his gift away, but the smile he was giving us was one of relief. He'd been worried that those memos would still shakeus, would bring back all our old fears, but now he saw how much stronger Juno and I were and I couldn't help but return his smile. We were a pack which meant we were stronger together, yes, but we were also stronger as individuals than we ever had been before.
"I’m starving," Mateo announced, cutting through the mirth.
He walked to the kitchen and returned a moment later with a massive baking dish. Lasagna. He sat down on the floor, right in the middle of the expensive rug, in his several-thousand-pound suit.
"Plates?" Stephen asked, looking pained.
"Forks," Mateo compromised.
We joined him. We sat on the floor of the penthouse in our fancy clothes, eating lasagna out of the dish, creating the exact same formation we had held in the cabin.
"I’m glad we waited," I said, putting my fork down. I touched the pack mark at my neck. It throbbed, a steady, grounding ache. "It would have been different six months ago. We would have been signing a peace treaty. This? This is a constitution."
"It’s better," Juno murmured, leaning his head on my shoulder. "It’s boring. I love boring."
Stephen poured wine into mugs because we were too lazy to get the crystal. "Three hundred companies," he mentioned casually.
"What?"
"I ran the numbers this morning. Three hundred companies have adopted the Protocol. I have emails from two Omega executives at a major player. They cited both of you as the reason they didn't quit."
"Designation didn't determine the outcome," Mateo said, looking at me. "Competence did. Choice did."
"Freedom did," I added.
Juno picked up his glass. He looked at the city lights.
"You know the best part?" he said, a wicked smile curling his lips. "The irony. Vance tried to erase you, Rowan, with a lie about your biology." He shook his head. "He never knew what he was up against. He was fighting a projection. We were always going to win."
"We’re not done yet," I said, leaning back against Mateo’s chest. "There are other industries. Fashion. Sports. They all need the Protocol."
"Tomorrow," Stephen said. "We work tomorrow."
"Tomorrow," I agreed.
Tonight, the work could wait. Tonight, I was exactly where I was supposed to be, not behind the desk, not in the wings, but right in the center of the pile.
