Charlie was going to hold her tongue, but as she thought about everybody the Ivory Skull had lost in the recent attacks, her blood boiled with wrath. They couldn’t stand around and do nothing. They just couldn’t.
She slammed her fist on the table. “How can you sit there at that desk, up in the corporate boxes of an old football stadium, deciding to do absolutely nothing? Have you even thought about all the people we lost to the Little Men? They need to pay. If you’d seen the Cambridge car service in ruins as I did, you wouldn’t feel this way, I guarantee you.”
Fred Bentleigh held up his hands. “I’m sorry, Charlie, I know this is hard for you, but we’ve already lost too many good people against the Little Men. If we fight back and antagonise them, we can say goodbye to everything we care about, because they’ll be sure to destroy the Ivory Skull in its entirety.”
Although she knew there was logic behind the decision, Charlie couldn’t help the rage within her. There had to be something they could do. “We can’t just let the people they took from us go unavenged. We can’t let them get away with this!”
Shaking his head, Fred turned to the window, looking out at the oval. “The greatest way we can honour them is to keep their loved ones safe. I understand where you’re coming from, but I’ve made my decision. Go take a walk. Grab a coffee, go to the professional suspension service workshop. Talk to the other members of the Ivory Skull, and ask yourself whether it is worth sacrificing them to avenge the few we miss. I’m sure you’ll come around to my way of thinking.”
Charlie sighed, knowing she couldn’t cause a scene here. She’d do as he suggested, but by the end of the day, she was certain she would be no closer to changing her mind.
One way or another, the Little Men were going to pay for what they’d done.