He kills the engine and steps out. I climb out my own side, because stay behind me doesn’t mean stay in the car, and I’m not standing in a driveway while he opens that door alone. The gravel’s loud under my boots. My breath fogs in the cold.
The door gives at a touch, swinging in over the broken glass. Derek goes through first, his shoulders dropping into a low half-crouch, his wolf right under the skin. He crosses the foyer without a sound. I trail him at a careful distance, my heart climbing into my throat.
The kitchen’s still. Linda’s on the floor.
“Linda.”
I drop to my knees beside her. Blood mats the gray hair at her temple, dark and wide across the tile where she went down. One arm’s twisted wrong beneath her. Two fingers at her throat find a pulse, too fast, too thin, her breath dragging shallowly, never filling her chest.
“Linda. Can you hear me?”
She doesn’t stir. I press the heel of my hand to the split above her ear to slow the bleeding, run the other along her skull and her neck, the wrenched arm. She didn’t trip. Something struck her, hard, more than once.
“How bad?” Derek’s voice comes from the doorway behind me.
“Bad. Her head’s open, she’s losing blood faster than I can hold it in. Her breathing’s going.” My voice stays level only because four years of ER nights won’t let it do anything else. “She needs help.”
A cold certainty drops through me, and I’m on my feet before the name forms.
“Ethan!”
I bolt for the stairs, taking them two at a time. The upstairs hall is quiet. His door stands open. I shoulder it open the rest of the distance, then I stop.
His bed’s empty, blanket thrown back. ChuChu lies on the floor at the foot of it, abandoned.
“Ethan?”
The second syllable cracks in my throat. I tear through the room, dropping to look under the bed, yanking the closet open, checking the little alcove behind the curtain where he hides when we play. Nothing comes back. The window’s shut but unlocked, the latch turning easily under my fingers. Derek fills the doorway when I turn.
“He’s gone.” The word tears out of me twice more. “He’s gone, Derek. He’s gone.”
I reach for my phone on instinct, every nerve set on hearing Grayson’s voice. My back pocket’s empty. I check the front, my coat, the waist of my jeans, drop to sweep the floor. I had it at the game, I know I did. The last time it sat in my hand won’t come to me.
“I can’t find my phone.” Panic climbs my throat. “I have to find—I have to call Grayson!”
His phone’s already out, his thumb moving over the screen. “I’ll get him.”
He sets it to his ear. I watch his face while it rings on his end, the small frown, the slow shake of his head. “That’s his voicemail.” He switches to another name, waits through a long pause. “Coach isn’t answering either. Neither of them is.”
He stops and pauses for a moment. “We don’t need a phone. I’ve got his scent off the open window.” Derek’s already moving for the stairs. “A wolf beats a screen every time. Come on.”
I follow him down. Linda hasn’t moved, the blood creeping wider, her chest barely lifting.
“We can’t leave her like this.”
“Already handled.” Derek lifts the phone, says a few low words I don’t catch, and ends the call. “Sera’s coming for her. I told her to keep at Coach and Grayson till one of them picks up.” His hand settles warm on my good shoulder. “We have to move. Every second we stand here, his trail thins.”
Everything the nurse in me has is screaming to stay and hold her head together. But help is on its way, and the only chance Ethan has right now is me.
“Ten seconds.” I grab a pen off the counter, tear a sheet from the notepad on the fridge, and scrawl it fast.
Grayson. Tried to call you. Derek couldn’t reach Coach or you. Linda was attacked and someone took Ethan. Derek’s tracking them. Going with him now.
I pin it under the coffee mug Grayson uses every morning, dead center on the island where he can’t miss it. I take one last look at her chest, lifting and falling slower than it should, before I make myself turn from her.
At the door, my hand drops to the small of my back, finding, through the coat lining, the sheath that’s ridden against my spine for a week. The dagger.
If anything ever happens. If anyone comes for you and I’m not there. You go for the eyes. You go for the throat. You don’t hesitate.
