Page 137 of Wolf Roulette

“If you can convince me it’s not for some secret plan to take over, then sure.”

Rhona flinched slightly. “It’s not, and I won’t do anything to distract either of you.”

I sniffed the air. “Truth.”

“You can smell truth and lie?”

That didn’t alarm her. If anything, she smelled envious. “I can. It’s nice. Simplifies things. Makes me less afraid.”

Rhona withdrew again.

I studied her for a beat. “You’re welcome to stand with us in the tower.”

How could she make the right choice if she wasn’t given the chance?

“Hey, Andie?”

I faced the incoming steward. After that, the tribe demanded my attention in a steady stream.

The cannon boomed seconds following my short pump-up speech.

Believe in your tribe,Booker said.They’ve been in this position before.

They were a well-oiled team.

Pascal was already in the observation tower when I arrived. She glanced behind me.

“Rhona’s joining us to watch the game,” I explained.

The marshal thought that was a mistake.

I wasn’t totally sure Pascal was wrong.

A steady stream of reports flooded in.

“They’ve found most of our ground-level traps,” I said to no one in particular. That wasn’t something we’d encountered in Sandstone before, and that was one huge reason turnovers sucked.

It meant that half of our stewards had to work to restore our most effective traps and locate alterations made by the pack between times.

The other five hundred stewards would set up equipment for our new operations.

I watched as a cluster of stewards set up the water cannons. This time, we’d connect the pipes to water tanks on what remained of the middle tiers. The equipment wouldn’t be as vulnerable to Luthers that way.

I’d radically altered our strategy in this grid, and it could blow up in my face.

Just below my spot, a smaller group led by Heather assembled the drones we’d never used in Clay.

I held the walkie up. “Big Red. Into position. Over.”

Would Sascha notice that not as many stewards were climbing today? From his entry point, with the curve of the quarry, he couldn’t see this side of the grid. We’d made sure to set up the water tanks and drones out of view, but less rock-climbing stewards could alert him to something amiss.

“Wicked. West in position. Over.”

“Roger that,” I answered.

Reports rang in from the other three team leaders.

We were as ready as could be.