It was late morning, and the den had finally stopped vibrating from the aftershocks of last night\u2019s impromptu block party. Empty water bottles lined the driveway. The air still smelled faintly of barbecue and hickory smoke. Inside, the pack was in full recovery mode \u2014 slouched on bean bags, sprawled across couches, and munching on leftover brisket like it was currency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thane was in the kitchen, sipping a dangerously strong cup of black coffee, when his phone rang. Not the tour phone. His actual<\/em> phone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He glanced at the screen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n KFOR News HQ<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n His ears tilted back slightly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He stepped into the hallway, answered with a curt, \u201cThane.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n The voice on the other end was calm, older, and far more professional than the chaos-chasing reporter from the day before. Thane didn\u2019t answer right away. He let the silence hang just long enough for it to get uncomfortable.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI wanted to personally apologize,\u201d Darren said quickly. \u201cI saw the live feed of yesterday\u2019s segment. That was\u2026 not what we approved or intended.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLooked pretty intentional from where we were standing,\u201d Thane growled.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI know. I\u2019m not making excuses. I just \u2014 \u201d Darren paused. \u201cI saw Gabriel\u2019s face. The way that question hit him. That wasn\u2019t journalism. That was cheap clickbait theater, and it\u2019s not what we want to be known for.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane exhaled through his nose. He didn\u2019t trust the media. Any<\/em> of them. But\u2026 at least this guy sounded like he had a soul.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019m calling to ask if we could do a second interview. A proper one,\u201d Darren continued. \u201cIn a controlled studio environment. I\u2019ll personally conduct it. No surprises, no baiting. Just a chance for you and your pack to speak honestly and maybe even start to heal the damage yesterday caused.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane stared at the far wall for a moment. The silence from the den was eerie \u2014 no shouting, no Gabriel air guitaring on the table, no Jonah setting something on fire by accident. Just quiet. Reflective quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He thought about Gabriel\u2019s face \u2014 so damn open<\/em> \u2014 and the way it had folded inward when that question was tossed like a grenade.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy should I believe you?\u201d Thane said finally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBecause if you come in and we do<\/em> try to pull anything,\u201d Darren said calmly, \u201cyou\u2019ll have a hot mic and a live camera to destroy us. And I\u2019ll deserve it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2026 was a ballsy thing to say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane rubbed the back of his neck. Then he nodded, even though the man couldn\u2019t see it. \u201cFine. We\u2019ll come in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A pause.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut if one single syllable comes out of your mouth that smells like spin or clickbait \u2014 I will ruin<\/em> your entire newsroom. We\u2019re werewolves. We can outlast your advertisers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There was a faint chuckle on the other end. \u201cUnderstood. I\u2019ll have coffee ready. And Gabriel\u2019s favorite pastries. I did my homework.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane smirked. \u201cYou\u2019d better have his exact coffee order. If you get it wrong, he\u2019ll talk about it on air<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Darren laughed. \u201cDeal.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n They hung up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane stepped back into the living room, where the pack looked up at him like sleepy wolves in a den. Gabriel tilted his head, still chewing the last bite of his fourth sandwich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhat\u2019s up?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane just looked at him and said, \u201cYou\u2019re getting your interview redo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabriel blinked. \u201cWait \u2014 seriously?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThey want to make it right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabriel narrowed his eyes. \u201cWhy do I feel like you threatened to maul someone?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI didn\u2019t threaten to maul anyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark raised an eyebrow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane shrugged. \u201cOkay, maybe light mauling.<\/em> But only if they screw it up again.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cassie leaned back and grinned. \u201cWell then\u2026 let\u2019s give Oklahoma a second helping of truth.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And somewhere, a very nervous news director was already triple-checking his camera angles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It was late morning, and the den had finally stopped vibrating from the aftershocks of last night\u2019s impromptu block party. Empty water bottles lined the driveway. The air still smelled faintly of barbecue and hickory smoke. Inside, the pack was in full recovery mode \u2014 slouched on bean bags, sprawled across couches, and munching on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1948","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tour-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1948","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1948"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1948\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2968,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1948\/revisions\/2968"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1948"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1948"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1948"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cThis is Darren Maxwell, News Director over at KFOR.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n