“You’re serious?” Michael glanced from face to somber face, and when we all nodded, he sank back onto the love seat opposite me, slack with surprise and confusion. “Who did this? And how on earth were they implanted without anyone knowing about it?”
“We’re sure Kevin’s involved.” I reached for the now-lukewarm coffee I’d brought with me from the living room.
“And we’re almost certain he’s working for either Calvin Malone or his own father,” my dad added.
“And as for how they were implanted…” I continued. “The strays were taken one at a time. Sedated, then probably implanted under general anesthesia, which would explain why they don’t remember anything. And that also reinforces the theory that Kevin’s working with a Pride.” Because we didn’t know of any stray physicians, but each Pride employed at least one doctor.
“We also think they were forced to Shift a couple of times, to heal the wound before they were released. All of the implanted strays are missing at least a day’s
worth of memories. But no one ever put it together, because none of them knew anyone else had suffered the same memory loss.”
“Wow.” Michael glanced at the microchip again, now balanced on his palm in its clear bag. “So, Kevin’s helping someone on the council spy on strays in the free zone? After what happened in Montana, I’d guess they’re tracking individuals and monitoring gatherings. And if Malone’s involved, I would assume the goal is ultimately either some sort of police state or extermination.”
My stomach churned at the thought.
“And we think Marc thinks he’s the only one who knows about it. He’s probably trying to get back to us with evidence—the chip he cut out of Eckard.”
Michael’s thunderstruck expression darkened into a look of doubt, tinged with pity. “How long has Marc been missing?”
I glanced at my watch, but Jace beat me to the proverbial punch. “Almost fifty hours.”
“Two days?” Michael eyed me now with gentle concern. “Faythe…”
“Don’t say it.” I glared at him, daring him to contradict me. “He’s alive. I’d
know
if he were dead.”
My father cleared his throat, and all eyes turned his way. “We’re assuming he’s alive, at least for the next ten hours. After the sixty-hour point, Dr. Carver says his chances drop dramatically, considering that he’s alone, injured, and has lost a lot of blood. And that the temperature has yet to rise above freezing.”
My mouth went dry, and my first attempt at speech failed miserably. So I tried again. “And after sixty hours?”
My dad looked down. He actually avoided my eyes, for the first time that I could remember.
“Daddy, what happens after sixty hours?” I demanded, scooting to the edge of the couch, trying to pin him with my gaze.
My father was exhausted, and devastated, and beyond angry at the world that had taken his son, and might yet take Marc from us. But he was still the Alpha. And finally, in true Alpha form, he looked up, pain and pity swimming in his eyes while his features held their usual firm acceptance of the inevitable. “After sixty hours, we assume we’re looking for a body.”
I couldn’t breathe. My hands shook, and cold coffee sloshed over my fingers to drip on my jeans. Then the mug was lifted gently from my hands, and Jace’s scent washed over me.
“It’s okay,” he whispered, setting the mug on the end table to my left. “There’s still time to find him. And people assuming Marc’s dead doesn’t
make
him dead. How often does Marc hold to the status quo?”
“Not very often.” I could barely hear my own voice, but Jace heard me, and over his shoulder, I saw my father and brothers watching me in varying degrees of grief and sympathy.
Jace nodded, smiling briefly. “So why should death be any different for him?”
I smiled back, and thanked him silently with a squeeze of his hand. Jace was right. Just because they
thought
we’d be looking for a corpse didn’t mean we
would
be.
He stepped back when I nodded, telling him I was okay. “Fine.” I looked up, and felt my gaze harden as it traveled over the faces watching me. “We’ll do it your way. But in the meantime, we can’t do anything about Kevin and whoever he’s working for without proof that they’re involved.” My focus shifted to my oldest brother. “Michael, do you think you can do anything with that chip?” I gestured to the bag he still clutched. “Ben Feldman says it’s not commercially available yet, so we need to know where it came from. And who bought it, if possible.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” he said, when our father nodded in support of my request.
Part of me felt guilty for taking their thoughts away from Ethan in the immediate aftermath of his death, but the rest of me knew that—like me—they were better off with something constructive to take up their attention. Something to work on. Some way to impose order on the world, even as it seemed poised to crumble beneath us all.
“Good.” I nodded, satisfied for the moment. “If we can prove that trail leads back to Kevin, Feldman will tell us where to find him, and the council can’t refuse to indict him. Not if they still claim to be honorable, anyway.”
Michael opened the plastic bag, already on his way to the computer on our father’s desk, mumbling about serial numbers and credit card receipts.
I stood, struggling to hold back tears as the weight of Dr. Carver’s deadline finally truly hit me. “Now, unless you have something else for me to do, I’m going back to Mississippi to find Marc.”
“Of course.” My father stood and folded me into his arms, holding me so tight I could feel his heart beat against my cheek. “And you know I want him back alive just as badly as you do, don’t you, Faythe?”
I nodded, and my face rubbed his shirt, my jaws clenched against the sobs trying to break free.
“If I really thought we were looking for a body, I’d send someone else in your place.”
That time I heard the truth in his voice. My father still believed. At least for the next ten hours, we were on the same page.
After that…all bets were off.
O
n the way to my room, I passed Manx’s open bedroom door, and saw my mother and the doctor hovering over her. Mom held a tube of antibiotic cream, and Dr. Carver held a brown pill bottle. I paused in the doorway and caught a brief glimpse of Manx’s unwrapped hands, and immediately wished I’d kept walking.
The ends of her fingers were an angry, swollen red, still oozing blood, and not yet scabbed over. They looked horribly painful, yet Manx sat still on the bed with her hands in her lap, staring at the far wall as if she felt nothing.
As I watched, Dr. Carver sat next to her, and physically turned her face by her chin, until she faced him, gesturing with the pill bottle as he spoke. “Take these as needed, no more than two at a time, but if you don’t need them, don’t take them, because they’ll make you sleepy and make your thinking fuzzy, both of which
will make it nearly impossible for you to take care of Des.”
As would the open wounds on each of her fingers.
But the doctor continued, still directing his instructions to the young tabby, though surely he was counting on my mother to actually remember and apply his directions. “Keep your hands elevated and take naproxen four times a day to minimize swelling. You should Shift as soon as you’re able to support weight on your hands, because that will accelerate healing.” He paused. “Manx, are you listening?”
She made no reply, so finally he turned to my mom. “If you see any sign of infection, start her on these.” The doc twisted to show her another, larger bottle of pills on the nightstand. “Twice a day, with food.”
My mother nodded, then looked past him when she noticed me in the doorway. “Are you leaving?”
“Yeah.” I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the doorway. “Jace is coming with us, but we’ll be back on Saturday…” For the funeral. “No matter what we find.” Then, if we hadn’t found Marc, Jace would join the offensive push into his birth Pride’s territory, and I’d return to Mississippi to search for Marc. And I would not stop until he was found, one way or another.
Dr. Carver stood, and looked from me to Manx, then back at me, as if he were trying to make an important decision. “I think Manx is okay here with your mother, and I’m on my way to check on Kaci now. But I’d like to get another look at Jace’s arm after he Shifts, and
you’ll need me if you do find Marc alive.” The doctor flinched when he heard his own frank doubt, but I waved off his apology before he could voice it. He had a right to his own opinions, and could hardly be expected to put aside years of medical training to indulge my emotional optimism. “So anyway, if your dad says it’s okay, I’ll go with you.”
Gratitude swept through me, easing the ache in my heart like balm on a bad burn. Marc would have a much better chance of survival once we’d found him, with Dr. Carver there to care for him. “Thank you.” I spun around to head for the office, but my father spoke up softly before I’d gone three steps.
“It’s fine, Faythe. But be careful, all of you.”
“We will, Daddy! Thanks!”
I turned toward my room and the bag I’d already packed, and nearly jumped out of my skin when I found Kaci staring at me from the hallway outside her own door, her tail twitching with displeasure. She watched me silently, accusing me with her eyes of abandoning her again.
I sighed and motioned for her to follow me, but she only shook her head and ducked back into her own room, nosing her door shut. I scowled and started to go after her, but stopped when I recognized the pained grunts and rapid breathing that ushered in a Shift. She was Shifting on her own, and would come talk to me in a few minutes, when she’d regained the ability to complain with an articulation especially well honed in adolescents.
In my room, I double-checked my duffel to make sure I wasn’t missing anything, then threw in another pair of jeans and underwear, just in case. Moments later, Kaci shoved open my door, still buttoning her jeans beneath the hem of a tee she’d put on backward. “You’re leaving again!?”
“I have to find Marc, Kaci.” I zipped my bag and settled it over one shoulder. “You don’t want me to leave him out there all alone, do you?”
She shook her head slowly, but her angry expression conceded nothing. “Jace is going with you? What about Ethan? Is everyone leaving me?”
The accusation in her tone broke my heart, but the ignorance in her question seared my soul. No one had told her about Ethan. She needed to know, but I didn’t want to upset her right before I left. And if I didn’t tell her, she’d know soon that I’d lied to her by omission, and she’d never trust me again.
The sigh that slipped from me as I sank onto the bed seemed to empty not just my entire body, but the whole room, leaving nothing for me to breathe. I let my bag slide to the floor and patted a spot on the mattress next to me.
“What’s wrong?” Kaci watched me warily as she sat, and I could almost see the armor go up behind her expression.
How the hell was I supposed to tell her my brother had died defending her?
“Kaci…” I stopped, blinking to deny fresh tears. “Ethan got hurt in the woods this morning. Hurt very
badly. My dad and I tried to help him, but there was nothing we could do.” I swallowed thickly, staring into the denial rapidly forming on her face. “He died, Kaci.”
“Ethan…?” She shook her head, curls bouncing around her shoulders, eyes wide and pain filled. “The toms who tried to take me
killed
him?” I nodded, and her head shook harder. “
No.
I just saw him. He told Jace to take me back to the house, and he had a
really big
stick. And he knows how to fight….”
“It’s okay to be upset. It’s even okay to be really, really pissed. We all are. This should never have happened.” My tears blurred my vision, then fell to scald my cheeks. As did hers.
“Why didn’t anyone tell me?”
My arm slid around her back, and I squeezed her tightly. “We didn’t want to upset you.”
“Where is he?”
I blinked at her for a moment, surprised by a question I hadn’t expected. “He’s, um, in the barn.” Where the temperature was low enough to preserve him until Dr. Carver could tend to him with his primary area of expertise. Because Ethan would be given a proper, if private, burial.
Kaci wiped moisture from her face with the tail of her shirt. “Can I see him?”
I shook my head slowly. Ethan’s was not a peaceful death, and she should not have to see it. “Not until the funeral on Saturday. We’ll all get to say goodbye to him then.”
“Except Marc.” She frowned, bothered by the
sudden realization. “You have to
find
him. He should be here to say goodbye to Ethan.”
My chest seemed to constrict around my heart, and dull pain echoed throughout my body. Kaci had only briefly met Marc in Montana, before he was exiled, but she’d been with us long enough to understand the bond between enforcers, especially those who’d served together as long as ours had. They were closer than brothers, and the loss would affect all of us deeply, even the guys who weren’t related to Ethan by blood.
“I will,” I said, able to think of nothing to comfort her better.
“
We
will,” Jace corrected, and I glanced up to find him watching us from the doorway. “And we should get going. Dan’s waiting in the car.”
“Are you okay?” Kaci asked him, her hazel eyes narrowed in concern, and I was impressed all over again by her perceptive nature and occasional moments of true maturity and empathy. She was quite a kid.
“I will be.” Jace smiled softly at her, and when his gaze flicked to mine, I was staggered by the range of emotions swimming behind his eyes. “We all will be, because we have no other choice. We’ll find Marc, then mourn Ethan and avenge his death.”
Kaci frowned, and fear flitted across her face momentarily. She didn’t want to think about vengeance or violence of any kind, and I couldn’t blame her. But what she didn’t understand was that if we let Malone run all over us this time, he wouldn’t stop, and she was bound to lose as much because of that as any of us. Maybe more.
I stood and retrieved my bag, then wrapped my free arm around the tabby. “I need you to go let the doc give you a once-over. Then you can ask if Manx needs any help with the baby while I see if Mom can come up with anything for you to eat. ‘Kay?”
Though her face didn’t lighten, a spark of interest flashed behind her eyes. Kaci loved Des. He was the first baby she’d ever held, and she treasured rare opportunities to help with him. Now she’d find her services more in demand than ever.
I escorted her to her room, where the doctor waited with two packed bags, while Jace stopped in the kitchen to fill my mother in on what we’d told the tabby. Five minutes later, after another round of goodbye hugs, we were on the road, and after another five-and-a-half-hour drive, I didn’t care if I never saw another highway. We didn’t stop for food at all, and only made one bathroom break, so by the time Jace pulled into Marc’s driveway, I really had to use the restroom, thanks to the three twenty-ounce Cokes I’d had on the drive.
Unfortunately, when I paused in my mad dash through the front yard to dig my ringing cell phone from my pocket, Jace gained the lead and beat me to the bathroom, though he’d never been in Marc’s house.
Growling in frustration, I glanced at the display on my phone, then flipped it open on my way back out the front door to help Dan and Carver with the bags. “Michael? What’s up?”
“You owe me so badly you may as well just hand over your firstborn.” The satisfaction in his voice
sounded almost foreign to me; I hadn’t expected to feel anything even
remotely
related to joy until Marc was safe and sound.
“What’d you find?” I smiled at Dan in thanks and took my duffel from him, then made my way back inside.
“After five solid hours of hunting and nothing stronger to drink than coffee, I not only found the manufacturer of the microchips, I cracked their database and got you the electronic invoice.”
“Seriously?” My heart thumped painfully as I dropped my bag on the bare living room floor, and Carver’s eyebrows shot up as he listened in on my call.
“Yeah. I’m sending it now. Go check Marc’s e-mail.”
“I’m on it.” I rushed down the hall, pausing to bang on the bathroom door to hurry Jace up, then plopped into Marc’s rolling desk chair and punched the power button on his computer. “It’ll take a while to boot up, though, so fill me in while I wait.”
My father’s desk chair squealed over the line, and I pictured my oldest brother leaning back, his hands crossed over his stomach as he demonstrated his own brilliance. “Basically, Ben Feldman was right. This kind of technology isn’t commercially available in the U.S. yet, though the military evidently has something similar in the works. The microchips come from a security company in Mexico that started out designing GPS systems to track down stolen cars. But now they’re into some truly next-level shit.”
“So I gathered.” With Marc’s desktop loaded, I
opened his browser, then cringed when the crappy phone modem dialed and squealed repeatedly, struggling to connect to the Internet. Each page took at least half a minute to load, but evidently there was no better connection available in Middle-of-Nowhere, Mississippi.
No wonder it took him so long to reply to my e-mails.
The irony of that did
not
escape me. How odd was it that Marc’s sidekick had been implanted with a microchip capable of tracking him all over the world and transmitting a remote signal, while Marc’s computer could barely access the Internet?
When the screen prompted me, I typed in Marc’s e-mail password. It was my first name: Katherine. Not exactly secure, but definitely flattering. “So these chips were actually designed to track humans? Not find lost pets?”
“Yeah. Originally they were supposed to help find millionaires kidnapped for ransom.”
“Won’t Feldman be thrilled to find out he actually has more in common with Bill Gates than Benji?” I said, my voice dripping with sarcasm, but Michael didn’t notice. He was on a roll, as excited as if he’d
invented
the microchips, rather than merely researching them online.
“You pay a small fortune up front for installation and service, then, if you’re snatched off the street a few years later, the cops can find you with no trouble. In theory. But the battery is only guaranteed for five years. I have no idea what Mitchell—it’s his name on the invoice—was planning to do after that. Maybe he plans to have eliminated all the strays by then.”
“I doubt he was thinking about the long term.” I clicked the in-box tab, and Marc’s messages began filling the screen. On top was the e-mail Michael had sent from our father’s account. “I can’t even stomach the thought…” I clicked to open Michael’s e-mail, and there it was: an electronic invoice from the Seguridad Corporation, based in Mexico City, with Milo Mitchell listed as the buyer. The dumbass was stupid enough to use his real name.
But Calvin Malone’s name did
not
appear on the invoice. If he was involved—and I found it hard to believe he wasn’t—he
hadn’t
been dumb enough to leave evidence. He’d probably conned Mitchell into getting his paws sticky by promising him favors once Malone took over the council.
Of course, that wasn’t going to happen, and the invoice on Marc’s screen would help make sure of that.
Down the hall, the bathroom door creaked open, and I rose. But then footsteps clomped on the recently restored hardwood, and the door slammed shut. Scowling, I dropped into the chair again, and moments later Jace appeared in Marc’s bedroom doorway—a truly odd place to see him—smelling of hand soap and the Coke he’d had on the drive.
I waved him in, and Jace sat on the only remaining chair in the room, an old orange wing-back badly in need of new upholstery. “So, how far does the signal carry?”
“Nearly a hundred miles,” Michael said, then slurped a drink of something, right in my ear.
“How do you track the signal?” Jace asked, and my
brother heard him easily in spite of his distance from the phone.
“There’s a handheld receiver with a small display. You type in the serial number from whichever chip you want to track, and it’ll locate the chip and give the location either with a street address, or longitude and latitude coordinates. It even shows a map.”