Looks like Mr Yarnell’s home.
He’d probably taken the day off from some white-collar pencil-pushing job to clean up Eckard’s mess. Too bad for him…
Parker turned around in the circle, then parked on the edge of it, facing the house. “What’s the plan?”
“I knock on the door and flirt my way inside. You guys stand out of his line of sight, then follow me in. And try not to look too thuggish. This kind of neighborhood’s probably full of bored stay-at-home moms just itching to press the panic button.”
“What if he knows who you are?” Parker asked, scanning the hushed street.
“Then we go in as quickly and quietly as possible.” Just because we didn’t see the neighbors didn’t mean they couldn’t see us.
“Who gets to do the honors?” Ethan asked, his usual smile dim beneath the weight of recent grim responsibility. He’d been picking up a lot of Marc’s former duties, including interrogation, and the strain was starting to show on him.
I do.
“We’ll play it by ear.”
Ethan nodded and opened his door, letting in a frigid draft. I started to follow him, but before anyone could get out of the car, Dan cleared his throat, drawing our attention. “Guys, I don’t know Pete Yarnell real well, but I know him by sight, and he’s…a pretty good size.”
“Size isn’t everything.” I pushed my door open but remained seated. “Anyway, compared to me, you’re all huge, and I’ve never had any trouble taking Ethan down.”
My brother’s expression lightened, and he stuck his tongue out at me, but Dan wasn’t done. “I don’t know if you could tell from that little bit of his scent on the doorknob, but Pete was there that night. Durin’ the ambush.”
I closed my door again and twisted to face Dan directly, a spike of anger quickening my pulse. “No, I couldn’t tell.” I’d only fought a few of the strays we faced that night, and there were too many personal scents floating around for me to concentrate on any one of them. “That settles it, then. If Mr. Yarnell doesn’t start talking pretty damn quickly, this is gonna move beyond chitchat. Everybody ready?”
Dan nodded and stepped out of the car, and the rest of us followed.
On the way across Yarnell’s tidy, winter-brown yard, a fluffy miniature pooch of some kind barked at us with his head sticking out of an igloo-shaped doghouse in the neighbor’s side yard. I snarled, and the dog turned a tight circle and cowered at the back of his house, whimpering like a scared…well, puppy.
Damn right.
From Yarnell’s front porch, I heard television violence and the soft hum of a central heating unit. I made a motion to the guys, and they stepped back against the front wall of the house, where Yarnell wouldn’t be able to see them from the door. Hands stuffed into their pockets for warmth, they tried to look casual, in case we were being observed by any of the neighbors. I thought they looked guilty as hell, but then, I knew what we were up to.
I took a deep, calming breath, then knocked on the door and struck my clueless-motorist pose. When no one answered, I knocked again, and that time the TV went silent, then the door swung open to reveal a tall, bullnecked man, separated from me by nothing more than a decorative storm door.
“Can I help you?” Yarnell’s voice was deep, as was his scowl, until his gaze landed on my face, then quickly traveled south.
“Hey!” My breath puffed from my mouth in a cold white cloud, and I arched my brows in fake excitement and relief. “I’m lost and my cell’s dead. Could I maybe come in and borrow your phone? Please?” I cocked my head to look harmless and vaguely stupid, mentally
crossing my fingers in hopes that he wouldn’t think to check my scent.
He didn’t. He never got past the view of my cleavage, easily visible through my unzipped black leather jacket. I honestly hated playing the boob card, but I’d have done almost anything for a few private moments of Pete Yarnell’s time.
“No problem. Come on in.” Yarnell pulled open the screen door and stepped back, one thick, extended arm welcoming me into his home.
“Thanks!” I stepped into the large, warm living room, past a gas fireplace and a huge television, and when Yarnell tried to close the door behind me, Parker’s broad palm was there, holding it open.
“What the hell?” Yarnell’s initial reaction was to push back, and I couldn’t help but admire his instinct—answering with aggression in the face of a threat. If he weren’t a bad guy—and easily distracted by cleavage—he might have made a good enforcer.
Clued in now, Yarnell sniffed the air, and his eyes darkened in outrage as the line of his jaw tightened.
Ethan followed Parker into the room and waved one hand at the couch. “Have a seat, Pete.” He grinned amiably at his own rhyme—
dork
—then nodded at me in acknowledgment. “Good work, sis.”
“Thanks.” But I barely glanced at him. My attention was focused on Yarnell, who’d backed toward the couch to put some space between himself and the sudden crowd in his living room, but had yet to sit.
Yarnell scowled, staring over my shoulder at Dan,
the last arrival. “What the
fuck
are you doing here?” Apparently he remembered Dan.
“These are Marc Ramos’s friends.” Dan spoke softly, his voice heavy with quiet anger, and I glanced over my shoulder to find him watching Yarnell calmly, a formidable, silent threat in his steady gaze. Marc had taught him well. “Just answer their questions, and we’ll go away.”
“Like
hell.
You can’t just walk in here and start asking—”
“There are four of us, and only one of you.” Ethan pulled the drawstring on the blinds covering the living room windows, and they slid down, darkening the room and shielding us from potential Peeping Toms. “So right now, we can do just about any damn thing we want.”
I glared at my brother over my shoulder. No wonder most of the free zone thought we were a bunch of elitist tyrants. But Marc’s safety was more important than our reputation, so I turned back to our host, now flanked by both Dan and Parker.
“Mr. Yarnell, I’m a big fan of civil rights, so normally I’d agree with you. But today we’re here under the authority of the south-central Pride, in search of information we have reason to believe you can give us. And honestly, until I know that Marc Ramos’s well-being is secure, I don’t give a flying fuck about yours. Consider that your one and only warning.”
Ethan grinned at me, radiating pride. Fortunately, he was professional enough to do it where Yarnell couldn’t see.
With everyone in place—Dan and Parker flanking our host, ready to restrain him if the need arose, and Ethan on the edge of the room, my visible backup—I saw no reason to circle the proverbial bush. “Where’s Marc?” I met the potential informant’s gaze, hopefully showing fortitude in the strength of mine.
Yarnell pressed his lips together and smiled at me. The arrogant bastard!
I growled deep in my throat, and stepped within his immediate reach to show I wasn’t scared of him, in spite of the six inches and at least sixty pounds he had over me. “We know Kevin sent you to clean up Eckard’s mess. So just tell me where they took Marc, and we’ll get out of your fur.”
“I’m not telling you shit, bitch.” Yarnell’s pale brown eyes sparkled; he enjoyed pissing me off.
“Last chance.” My hands curled into fists at my sides, and the motion drew his gaze downward. “Tell me where they took him, or we’re going to find out which breaks first—your face or my fist.”
In the past, the thought of beating information out of a witness—even a hostile one—had made me sick to my stomach. Though I’d often seen Marc do that very thing, my most frequent offensive weapon was my mouth, rather than my fists, so I was mildly surprised by my own steady stance. Rather than nausea or nerves, I felt only desperate fear and rage, both growing by the second. They swallowed my weaker emotions, diverting all energy to the task at hand.
Thank goodness.
But Yarnell could not be shaken. He watched me steadily, silently daring me to act.
I crouched, and my foot flew, hard and fast. The motion was a blur of denim and black leather. The steel toe of my boot slammed into his left side. He staggered to his right, absorbing the force of my blow, and I actually heard his rib crack.
Yarnell dropped to the floor in front of the couch, one hand pressed to his side, but his lips were stubbornly sealed against a cry of pain, as if to show that he was stronger than me.
“Pick him up.” I was surprised by the cold, commanding quality of my voice, and so was Parker. He eyed me with lifted eyebrows while he hauled Yarnell to his feet, then let him go. “Where’s Marc?”
“Bitch, you think you scare me?” The stray sucked in a breath and flinched at the pain, but dropped his hands, as if by denying the injury he could deny the pain. “You can kick me all night long, but I’m only going to say this one thing—Marc Ramos is a murderer, and a fucking traitor, and he got what he damn well deserved.”
“I don’t have time to convince you otherwise.” I pivoted on one foot this time, throwing all my rage into a sloppy-but-strong roundhouse. My boot caught him near the same spot, and dimly I heard another snap.
Yarnell’s face went pale, and he hunched over in pain, but his smile never faltered. Dan stepped forward to catch him in case he fell, but Yarnell slapped his hand away. “You want to know where Marc is?” he spit, glaring at me, fists clenched at his sides.
I nodded, not daring to hope he’d actually answer.
“He’s in a
hole,
four feet deep in the frozen ground. Your boyfriend’s
dead.
And like I said, he got
exactly
what he deserved.”
Stunned, I staggered back a step, choking on a cry of anguish until my throat burned. But the pain went much deeper than that. It hurt all the way through my heart and into my soul.
No!
He was lying. Trying to throw me off. He had to be.
For a moment, I could do nothing but breathe through the shock and pain ripping into me like a full-body cramp, ending in a bolt of agony in my throat, and behind my eyes. Ethan reached for me. I sucked in a deep breath and forced my head upright, knocking his hand away. I was
fine.
And so was Marc.
Yarnell came into focus before me, the browns and blues of his clothes oddly muted. But I only had eyes for his face, that leering grin, those smug eyes fueling my rush of rage.
A feline growl tore free from my throat and I rushed him, fists flying. His hands shot up in defense, but mine landed first. My right fist hit his chin, followed by a left to the ribs. Then another right, and another left.
He swung at me, but he was hurt and I was too fast, and it took most of his energy to block my fists. Only one of his blows landed, on my left side.
I roared in fury and slammed my knee into his groin. Yarnell hit the carpet, one hand clutching his crotch, the other protecting his head, and still I swung at him.
Hands grabbed my upper arms from behind, lifting me off him. So I kicked instead. My right foot hit his left side, then my left slammed into his thigh, and his whole leg spasmed.
“Faythe!” Ethan dragged me backward, wrapping his arms around me from behind, pinning me to him as I struggled wildly. Tears poured down my face, though I had no memory of crying. “Faythe, stop kicking!”
I went still—limp in my brother’s arms. He set me on the floor, then turned me to face him, wiping my cheeks with his bare palms. His eyes searched mine, then widened in surprise, and that’s when I realized mine had Shifted. “You okay?”
“No.” I wiped the damp spots he’d missed, and vaguely noted that my voice was oddly deep and rumbly. My throat had Shifted, too, at least in part. “But thanks.” He nodded, and I turned back to Yarnell, who lay on the floor with blood dripping from his nose and smeared across a cut on his cheek. “Pick him up.”
Parker glanced at me in surprise over the sound of my voice, then leaned down to oblige me. But Dan hesitated. “Faythe, I think he’s had enough.”
“I’m not going to hit him.”
Yet.
My jaws ached from being clenched, and my knuckles were bruised. “Just pick him up.”
Dan and Parker lifted Yarnell and set him on his feet. He stood hunched over in pain, but his eyes were clear, focused on me in rage rivaling my own. Though he didn’t seem to have noticed my subtle demonstration of the partial Shift the stray community had surely
heard about, he was conscious and coherent.
Good.
Because I had something to say.
I stepped forward until my face was inches from his, his blood tainting every breath I took. And when I growled, his eyes widened, flickering with the first sign of fear, and of comprehension of my partial Shift. “Marc is
not
dead,” I whispered, fury echoing in each soft syllable. “I’d know if he were dead, because a part of me would have died with him. So you tell
me
where the hell he is, or I’ll break every fucking bone in your body.”
P
arker gaped at me, and Dan looked…scared. Any other time, that might have amused me, but at the moment I had neither the time nor the patience for anything but finding Marc, even if I had to stomp Pete Yarnell into the ground to do it.
And hopefully, I’d made that crystal clear.
“You ready to play nice?” I stood my ground, well within Yarnell’s personal space, and for a moment, I thought he’d clam up again—thought he’d actually rather die than tell me what I wanted to know. But then he spoke, eyes flashing in fury, face tensed against pain. His every movement spoke of injury, and I’d never in my life faced anyone who truly hated me until that moment.
Don’t get me wrong. I piss a lot of people off. But beneath the anger, everyone else I’d ever met had
wanted
me for something. Even Andrew, the human I’d accidentally infected. Beneath the murderous fury I’d
witnessed in the last moments of his life, there was a heartbreaking familiarity in his eyes, a sense of my betrayal, which had fractured some crucial part of his humanity. Part of him—
most
of him, probably—had wanted me dead. But there was still that small kernel of hope deep inside him, hopelessly smothered by devastating rage, that wanted me to save him. To take it all back and give him peace.
I saw none of that in Peter Yarnell. He harbored only hatred for me, and would have tried to kill me that very moment, if not for the three other toms in the room.
“Well?” I asked, and finally Yarnell opened his mouth.
“Fuck you.”
“You’ll have to stand in line for that one, and frankly, you don’t look up to the challenge.” I launched my left fist into his chest as hard as I could—an opportunity I rarely allowed myself—and was rewarded with a soft snap as a third rib broke. That southpaw practice was really paying off.
“Bitch!” Yarnell wheezed, hunching over violently before forcing himself upright. “I told you, he’s dead.”
Fresh rage shot up my spine, but I tamped it down, focusing on the immediate goal. “I’ll believe that when I see his body. Where did they bury him?”
“I don’t know.” Yarnell gave me a bloody grin, arms crossed protectively over his battered chest, and I knew from his bearing that he was telling the truth. But I also knew that he was pleased to have no information to give me. The bastard.
“Did you see him?” I demanded, ducking to recapture his gaze when too deep a breath made him flinch in pain.
“Didn’t need to,” he gasped, then licked a drop of blood from his lip.
My pulse spiked, sending a painful jolt of adrenaline through my heart. “Wait, you didn’t see the body?” I glanced at Dan to see surprise plain on his features. “Then how do you know he’s dead?”
“Because that idiot Eckard accidentally killed him.” Yarnell was talking willingly enough now that he thought his information would hurt me. But in truth, he’d just gifted me with more hope than I’d ever thought to feel again.
“Accidentally?” Ethan asked from behind me, and Yarnell’s gaze flicked his way. But the bloodied stray refused to answer. He wasn’t going to give us anything that might help us. Not on purpose, anyway.
“Where did Eckard take him?” I repeated, recapturing Yarnell’s attention.
“I told you—I don’t know.”
“Think harder.” I lurched into motion again, and this time my foot hit his upper rib cage, snapping two fingers on the hand that shielded it.
“Fuck!” Yarnell clenched his broken hand to his chest and glared at me, wiping blood from his nose with the sleeve of his opposite arm.
“Did Kevin tell Eckard where to take Marc?” I demanded. Yarnell shrugged, examining the last two digits on his right hand, which were already swelling
and turning blue. “Is there somewhere you guys usually bury bodies? A regular dumping ground?”
Yarnell shook his head, but his posture stiffened, and he avoided my eyes. He was lying.
“Where do you take them?” I repeated, ducking again to draw his eyes, as Parker stepped closer on the stray’s right. I growled, an impressive sound with my partially Shifted voice box. “Tell me, or I’ll break your other hand. Gonna be kind of hard to wrap your ribs with two broken hands.”
Yarnell’s teeth ground in fury. “You bitch. The next time I see you, I’ll
kill
you….”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s a date,” I said, almost amused now by the gruff quality of my voice. “Now, your answer, or your hand?” I crossed my arms over my chest, holding his gaze. “Where do you bury your bodies?” And the thought of how many there might be was enough to make me shudder.
“Two places,” Yarnell spat. “In the woods north of Highway 563, south of Rosetta.”
I glanced at Ethan, to see if he’d caught that, and he nodded, scribbling on the notebook he kept in his back pocket. Then I turned back to Yarnell. “Where else?”
“Why does it matter?” he demanded, obviously riding a new surge of rebellion. “He’s dead. You need to dig him up to believe it?”
“Yes.” I didn’t hesitate. He could say it once every second for a year, but I wouldn’t believe Marc was dead until I’d touched his lifeless body with my own hands. I needed to see their burial site so I could prove
to the others that Marc
wasn’t
in it. “Where’s the second site?”
“In the woods east of White Apple.”
Ethan’s pencil scratched on paper behind me, and Yarnell’s eyes flicked his way. “But you’ll never find either of them. The roads are pissy little dirt paths, and the woods are dense. You won’t find his grave, but you’ll never find
him,
either.” The stray’s eyes flashed with renewed, vigorous anger, and he lunged at me. Parker and Dan caught him by both arms, but still he strained forward. “You’ll live the rest of your life never knowing what happened to him. You’ll wake up crying, empty inside from not knowing. From
never
knowing…”
I threw one last punch, and it landed squarely on the left side of his chin. Yarnell’s head rocked back, and he let it hang there for a moment before meeting my gaze. “Maybe,” I had to admit, though the very thought killed some small, vulnerable part of me. “But if you ever come near me or Marc again, we’ll all know
exactly
what happened to
you
.”
We left Yarnell bleeding in his living room, and on the way across his front lawn, Ethan threw one arm over my shoulder. “Damn, boys, my sister is
badass!
”
I forced a small smile, knowing he was trying to cheer me up. But I couldn’t forget the fact that, though I was sure he wouldn’t be there, we were about to embark upon a search for Marc’s
body.
There was no good cheer in me to be found.
I slid into the front seat of the car again and concentrated on reversing my accidental partial Shift. Then, as Parker drove off, I grabbed the atlas from the pocket on the back of my seat and twisted in my seat so I could see everyone. After flipping a few pages, I found a map of Mississippi. Unfortunately, there was no close-up of the Rosetta area, so I couldn’t see the smaller roads. “Okay, White Apple is ten or twelve miles north of Rosetta, off of State Highway 33. We’ll go back to Marc’s and split up. Parker, you and Dan head toward White Apple, and Ethan and I will go south on 563. Keep your eyes open. There will probably be a break in the woods wherever they usually enter, but it’ll likely be faint.”
I paused, and closed my eyes while I uttered a silent prayer for Marc. Then I looked up to find Parker alternately staring at me and the road. “What?”
He hesitated. “Do you really think we’ll find him either of those places?”
“I certainly hope not.” I spent most of the rest of the drive giving my dad another, somber update, pretending I didn’t hear hopelessness in his every exhale.
At Marc’s house, I used the restroom and traded my leather jacket for a heavier coat I found in his closet, then grabbed a box of protein bars and several bottles of water from the fridge. As I split the supplies among two backpacks, I heard voices speaking softly from the front yard.
Through the front window, I saw Ethan and Parker standing side by side, each stuffing something into the
backs of their respective vehicles. Rolls of black plastic. Ethan held an unopened roll of duct tape, and the handle of a shovel stuck up over the backseat of Parker’s car when he closed the back hatch.
I was hoping for the best, and they were preparing for the worst.
Sighing, I blinked unshed tears from my eyes and kicked the kitchen cabinet closed, then joined them outside, where Dan stood on the porch, both hands stuffed into the pockets of his own light coat.
“I think you’re right,” he said, steadily holding my gaze. “I think Marc’s still out there somewhere, alive. But you can’t blame them for bein’ ready, in case we’re wrong.”
“I don’t blame them.” I handed one of the loaded packs to him. “But we’re
not
wrong.”
I waved goodbye to Parker and Dan as we pulled out of Marc’s driveway, a better map of Mississippi on my lap, the heater blowing full blast into my face.
“You okay?” Ethan glanced at me briefly, then back at the road.
“No.”
He sighed, lips pressed together, hands gripping the wheel so hard his fingers had gone white with tension. “Faythe, I know you want to believe Marc’s still alive. And I hope to hell you’re right. None of us can handle losing him. But you need to be prepared for the possibility that he’s really gone. Or that Yarnell’s right, and we may never find him.”
“That won’t happen.” I clenched my hands in my lap
to keep from putting a fist-shaped indentation in his glove compartment. “I’d know if he were dead, Ethan.”
“How?”
I closed my eyes and ground my teeth together.
Damned logic…
“I just would. Wouldn’t you know if something were wrong with Angela?”
Ethan chuckled. “Yeah. She’d call every five minutes, like she’s done all day long.”
“Your phone’s on silent?” I couldn’t resist a grin.
“Vibrate. Twenty-two missed calls.”
I raised one brow in amusement. “Maybe you should call her back.”
“I will. Once all this is over.” Ethan frowned. “She’s so…normal, I can’t talk to her about relationship stuff while I’m on Pride business. It feels too strange. Does that sound weird?”
“Yes, but I know what you mean.”
That whole worlds colliding thing…
Ethan glanced my way again, bright green eyes shining with insufferable sympathy, and I realized I hadn’t gotten away with changing the subject. “I just want you to be prepared for the worst, Faythe.”
Clearly we were done talking about Angela.
“Fine. I’m prepared.” I crossed my arms over my chest and stared out the window. “End of subject.” My brother frowned again but didn’t push the matter.
I loved him for that, almost as much as I loved him for being there with me, considering what he thought we’d find.
Dense forest raced past in a blur, casting long
shadows on the highway. The clock on the dashboard read four-thirty. The sun would set in less than an hour, and we’d be hiking through the woods in the dark, in below-freezing temperatures.
But at least I had a coat. In the twenty-eight hours Marc had been missing, the temperature hadn’t yet risen above freezing, and he didn’t even have
that
much. I knew that for a fact because his coat was draped across the backseat behind me. I’d been hauling it around all day, along with his own ironically unused first-aid kit, just in case we found him.
I sat in silence until Ethan turned from Highway 33 onto 563, headed south toward Wilkinson, at which point my heart started thumping in my chest and I sat straight in my seat, scanning both sides of the highway. We’d find a break in the trees soon. We had to.
In a three-mile length of two-lane highway, we came across two cars abandoned on the side of the road, where they’d slid off the pavement during the ice storm several days earlier. Wrecking crews had been working overtime for days to haul off all the deserted vehicles, but they obviously hadn’t made it this far out of town yet.
But other than the roadside wreckages and turnoffs onto several small roads, I saw nothing of note in the tree line. I’d just decided to have Ethan turn around when we got to the next town, so I could scan the other side of the road, when my gaze caught on another stranded vehicle and my heart jumped so hard it lodged in my throat.
“Stop!” I shouted, startling Ethan so badly he jerked,
twisting the wheel toward me. The car lurched to the right, but he corrected quickly, stomping on the brake in the process.
“What?!”
“What did Dad say Adam Eckard drives?”
“A black Explorer.”
“Like that one?” I pointed out the windshield toward the vehicle stopped on our side of the road, about two hundred feet ahead.
Ethan squinted. “Are you sure that’s an Explorer?”
“An older one, but yes.” My eyes are better than his. That’s been well established.
“Eckard’s is a 2001.” Ethan drove us slowly past the SUV, and I noticed two things immediately. First, it was empty—no sign of either Marc or Eckard. And second, when the Explorer had slid off the road—which it had clearly done—it had smashed head-on into a trunk on the edge of the tree line.
“He went off the road!” I shouted, too excited to manage a calm volume. “Marc’s not dead, he’s just lost in the woods.” And bleeding. And freezing.
But what had happened to Eckard? Neither his boss nor Kevin had seen him, and we’d found his wrecked car abandoned on the side of the road. Could he and Marc both be lost in the woods?
“Faythe, don’t get your hopes up….” Ethan warned. “Marc lost a lot of blood, and it’s twenty-eight degrees outside. If he’s still…out there, why didn’t he come back to the car for shelter? Or call someone?” He made a sharp U-turn, drove us back past the Explorer, then
turned again and brought us to a stop on the narrow shoulder, behind the Explorer.
“Because he knows that if he got away, they’d send someone else after him. It’s not safe in Eckard’s Explorer.” I was out of the car before he’d even turned off the engine. “And he didn’t call because he doesn’t have his phone. Dan called me from it, remember?”
“Faythe, wait!” Ethan’s door slammed shut, but I was already at the Explorer, peering through the back hatch. “Best-case scenario, he’s out there somewhere, injured and freezing, and probably still bleeding. And for all we know, Eckard could be chasing him. We should Shift—”