Have you been under that weird situation where you wrote a promotional exam and you were made to wait for the results? And perhaps before the exam, you spent weeks partying instead of studying? How does it feel? It makes you have this sunken feeling that you had done something very foolish. Yes, I think I had just done something foolish. I left one of the most important items in the world to me at that moment at home. What the hell were you thinking Thelma?
“Damn,” Drake said, “what are you going to do then?”
“Fuck me, I don’t know.”
“Are you sure you left it there?” he said, widening an eyebrow.
“Yes, I am sure. After taking your call I kind of dropped it there hoping I would remember to take it when I will come on out.” I placed my hand and glided it back to my hair. It might be that the moon goddess didn’t want me to see my father. “What am I going to do?”
“You don’t need to worry,” he said. “Look, take mine and make the call. You know his number I assume?”
“I do.” I nodded. “But will that be okay?”
“C’mon, just take the phone and make that fucking call. No excuses.” He gave me a finger, a warning gesture.
I smiled. “You are a darling,” I said.
“You can always say that.” He smiled back. I took his phone and dialed my father’s number. The phone rang but wasn’t answered. I dialed again. It rang but nothing. I looked at Drake, he was glaring curiously. He waved his head, demanding an answer. “Nothing,” I said quietly.
“Then keep trying,” he murmured.
I looked around to see Mr. Rudolph. He seemed to be engrossed in a funny conversation with one of the guests. The serious-looking bodyguard with him had made himself comfortable on a chair very close to his boss. I sighed. I dialed back my father’s number once more. I gave it a bit of tolerance until the seventh beep. Then, a basso voice picked up the call.
“Yes,” the voice said.
I remained quiet for a while. I didn’t know what to say. I was sure the voice didn’t belong to my father and I couldn’t exactly get a mental image of who the voice belonged to. If I tried to find out- which I was sure was going to be a futile effort, I might be wasting the only thing I didn’t have. And time it was. The receiver might as well hang the hell up on me.
“This is Thelma, the daughter of Alpha Richards of the Octavian Moon pack. Please, I want to speak to my father,” I said. “It is urgent.”
The receiver kept silent for a while. I felt the hairs on the back of my neck rise. I was so eager to hear positive feedback, so I was hoping for something good. I didn’t know when I shifted my glance to Mr. Rudolph. He was still enjoying his conversation. “I am sorry to announce but your father can not take this call at the moment. You might want to try some other time. Have a nice day.”
“Please wait,” I said immediately. My father wouldn’t be that heartless. Secondly, he wasn’t the type that allowed people to take his calls. “Just help me and tell him that this is very urgent and for his own sake, he would want to hear me out.”
The voice on the call snorted. “I think I just told you that he is not going to take this call even if it involves a life-threatening situation. Try your luck some other day girl. Have a nice day.” He hung up.
It was as though the phone became so heavy that I had to keep it on my lap so it wouldn’t fall off. I wheezed and bowed my head in frustration. I breathed in and out for a few couples of seconds.
“Did you just see that?” Drake asked.
I raised my head and looked at him. I struggled at the moment to understand the angle he was coming from. “Did I just see what?”
“The bodyguard,” he said and pointed at where Rudolph was standing. “He is the one that answered the call.”
“What?” I said and frowned. I looked at the bodyguard, he seemed focused staring at something. His eyes were on the stage. “Are you sure?”
“I think so,” Drake said. “I just listened to his conversation.”
“You could hear him amid all these noises?” I asked, still watching him carefully. Maybe Drake had better hearing abilities than I do, I thought. “Let’s confirm then,” I said. I dialed back the number. I watched the guard’s reaction. He brought out a phone from his breast pocket and looked at the screen. When it seemed like he noticed that I was the one calling again, he cut it off. S H I T. “I think I have seen what you saw.”
“You want to confirm again?” he asked me.
“No,” I said. “Even if I call him again, he wouldn’t pick up the call.” A trickle of sweat came down my forehead and then stopped around the edge of my nose before it finally settled on my cloth. I stood up forcibly from my chair and decided to confront Mr. Rudolph or embarrass the guard. I wasn’t sure of which to do first. It would suffice to say I wanted to create a scene. Maybe I wanted to raise hell on Rudolph because I hate him more than I hate anyone in the hall. Something was going on and nobody was talking. I knew he was probably hiding something from me but I had no idea what it could be. And at the moment, I probably didn’t give a shit what my actions could cost, what could be the deleterious effects. All my mind was just focused on both gentlemen.
Drake held me by the arm and pushed me back to the chair. I looked at him angrily, he struggled to maintain a straight face as though nothing was going on. “Not the best way to handle this, believe me,” Drake said, prying his eyes around instead of looking at me.
“What? What’s the best way then Mr. Solution?”
He gulped down his spit. “We will think about it. For now, we have something else to worry about.”
“Something else to worry about?” I said. “Something more important than my happiness? Huh?”
“Caution should prevail here,” he said. “We should all assume that we don’t know anything yet. You could do something now you would later regret, Pretty. Left for me, I would want to pretend that I don’t know a thing for now. Allow the gentleman to have fun. We will think of a better way to handle this.” He breathed out. “Just know that I would never lie to you and I would never deceive you. You just need to trust me on this.”
To be honest, I didn’t want to listen to what drake was saying. To me, it was all bullshit. But then, I remembered something. When we came into the hall, he had wanted to cause a problem. He might have probably created a scene with Jessie, the guard that jabbed Simon on the chest. But because of me, he didn’t do it. He obeyed me before arguing later. He sacrificed his ego on a platter of gold simply because I asked him not to. And the worst-case scenario was he was already very angry that it would have been almost impossible for anyone to calm him down at the moment. The big question now is, why can’t I do just the same?
I closed both eyes, took in a deep breath, and then let them out. “Okay,” I said, smiling nervously. “We will do this your way.” I leaned closer to his ear and whispered, “you better find a nice solution because if you don’t, I will find it myself.”
He smiled. “You are beautiful,” he said. He sure knew how to tease me. “But please, just sit down.”
I did. I tried to distract myself. I focused my eyes on the event. More Alpha werewolves arrived and the empty seats originally scattered around when we came got filled up really quick. A fine gentleman in a green suit, tiny eyes, and well-shaved beards cut through his cheeks emerged on the stage. Standing on the stage revealed his true height. He was taller than Drake, maybe a few inches taller but he was less muscular. He held the mic in his right hand as though he treated it like a profession. It was clear that the most important thing was about to kick. And that to me was the introduction speech. Before the man in the green suit began to talk, all the doors that led to the room closed.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” he began. “I am pleased to welcome you all to the fourth anniversary of the Alpha werewolves convention. This meeting shouldn’t be held if there weren’t an imminent need for it. It should all have been shifted to next year but things got a little bit complicated along the raucous way.” He shifted the mic away from his mouth. Jessie, A. K. A Hitman stood by the side with a pure white piece of paper he folded nicely in his grip. I think he wanted to give it to today’s MC. Jessie handed it over to the green suit guy and then withdrew back a little. The MC guy studied the paper under a series of gentle nods. He leaned forward and then put back the mic where it belonged- and that was close to his lips.
“Sorry for that little interruption but due process has to always follow. I will call upon both old members and new members of the elevated chair. Please if you hear your name, please do honour us all by coming out to this stage so we can all see you and greet you in a standing ovation.”
I looked back at Drake and touched him. “I think my father was an elevated member of the convention?” I asked.
“Yes, he is,” he said.
“Since he isn’t here, what should then happen?
“That’s true,” he said. “But his Beta is around.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, curious.
“Means he was represented by his most trusted ally or half or however you wish to call it. Under the agreeable terms of the convention treaty, it will be assumed your father was here himself and not just represented.”
“Fuck me! What? Speak English please.”
He nodded slowly. “I am sorry but that’s the truth.”
“So it means Simon can choose to represent you if he wants?”
“No.”
“No? I said. “What do you mean, NO?”
“I will get to decide if I want Simon to represent me and that’s if I choose to,” he said.
“Man, we are fucking saying the same thing.”
“Yes,” he said, “but under a different pretext.”
“Seriously, I don’t know what you ate today that makes you talk in parables.”
“I am not talking in parables, Pretty. I am stating the obvious. Truth hurts sometimes.”
“Truth, in this case, doesn’t hurt here,” I said. “The problem is on how you choose to say the so-called truth. Believe me, you are such an ass.”