Please, please let some of that be Adam Eckard’s blood. Most of it. Because there was surely too much for one man to survive losing. There was so much blood soaked into that blanket and the cloth-covered seats that if we’d been in cat form, we would have smelled it, even with the car doors shut and the windows rolled up.
I jerked on the rear door handle, desperate to get inside. To identify the blood and prove to myself that Marc could still be out there. But the door was locked, so I moved on to the front door. It was locked, too. They all were. Why were they locked?
Whatever had happened there the day before, someone had left the vehicle with the presence of mind to click the locks.
“Here, wait a minute.” Ethan pulled me away from the Explorer and slammed his elbow backward into the rear window. The glass shattered, shot through with a thousand icelike webs, but remained in place. One more blow knocked the entire cracked pane into the backseat, where it slid onto the stained floorboard.
I didn’t bother opening the door. I just stuck my head in the window and sniffed.
The scent of Marc’s blood was everywhere. It couldn’t have been stronger if I’d been wading in it, and my heart throbbed, my lip trembling in devastation. But then I sucked in another breath through my nose, and a fainter scent caught my attention, a morbid mercy.
Adam Eckard’s blood. Not much of it, but it was there.
“It’s not all his.” I whirled to face Ethan, searching his face for the hope I needed to see.
He smiled hesitantly and inhaled through his nose. Then he nodded. “I’m not sure there’s enough of it, but it’s definitely there. Either Eckard was still bleeding from his injury at Marc’s, or Marc hurt him again.”
“Come on, he’s still out there!”
“Faythe…” Ethan’s warning look was in place again as he backed slowly toward his car for the pack.
I rolled my eyes, reluctant to take his warning seriously. “I know, don’t get my hopes up. He’s lost a lot of blood, and it’s freezing.”
“And it’s been more than twenty-four hours.”
Yeah, there was that, too. While he got his pack and added two flashlights from the glove box, I called Parker and told him what we’d found. He was almost as excited as I was at first, but then the facts sank in, and caution crept into his voice as he listed the same warnings Ethan had.
I told him to leave the pessimism in White Apple and haul ass in our direction. Because I wasn’t leaving the woods until we found Marc.
The sun went down half an hour later and we got out the flashlights, still tramping through the woods. We were exhausted and freezing, but spurred on by the occasional smudge of blood on the trunk of a tree, or splattered on frost-covered leaves. Unfortunately, since the blood was frozen and sparse, it carried almost no scent, and we couldn’t tell which drops belonged to whom. Still, a picture formed in my mind as we went.
“He thought Marc was dead,” I said, shining my flashlight on another few drops of blood, standing out starkly against a frost-covered brown leaf. “Eckard probably drove him into the middle of nowhere for an emergency, midafternoon burial. And if Marc was unconscious after losing that much blood, I can kind of understand the mistake.”
Ethan smiled, and I could see the effort in the lines around his eyes, heavily shadowed in the glare from my flashlight. He didn’t buy my story, but he wasn’t going to argue. Bless him.
“At some point, obviously, Marc woke up. Maybe he fought with Eckard in the car, running them off the road.” I shrugged. “Or maybe he woke up when the car hit the tree.” I wasn’t sure on that point yet. But they’d both obviously torn through the woods, though who was chasing whom, I couldn’t have said.
“Eckard could have been carrying Marc,” Ethan ventured gently, and I had to agree that that was possible. If unlikely.
“Why would he have bothered?” I wiped moisture from my forehead, surprised that I’d worked up a sweat in light of the temperature. “If Marc were dead, wouldn’t Eckard have just dragged him, like he did in Marc’s yard?”
Ethan had no response to that, and I smiled smugly, content to let us search in silence for a little while.
A few minutes later, my phone rang, and I dug it from my pocket with cold-numbed fingers. It was Parker, calling to tell me they’d parked behind Ethan’s car and would catch up with us soon. I gave him our heading, because that would be faster than making him hunt out the same sparse trail of blood we were tediously following, then hung up, my impatience revived by the phone call, as well as the knowledge that we had to be getting close to something.
Surely both toms couldn’t have run very far in the woods. Not injured and underclothed.
And fifteen minutes later, that theory was proved true, when my flashlight skirted over something much too pale to be a dead leaf, or even an exposed root.
My frozen left hand shot out, curling around a handful of Ethan’s coat, bringing him to an abrupt halt. “Look.” I nodded toward the end of my trail of light.
“What the hell…”
“It’s a hand,” I whispered, my voice hoarse with shock and dread. I sniffed, and to my horror, I smelled both Marc and Eckard, which meant they’d both spilled enough blood to retain the scents, in spite of the extreme temperatures. “I can’t look.” My hesitation had nothing to do with any girlie impulse or squeamishness. I ate raw venison on a regular basis, in cat form. But in that moment, as I stared at a motionless, frost-covered human hand in a pile of dead leaves, my certainty that Marc was still out there somewhere—alive, if not well—was awfully hard to cling to.
I jerked on the rear door handle, desperate to get inside. To identify the blood and prove to myself that Marc could still be out there. But the door was locked, so I moved on to the front door. It was locked, too. They all were. Why were they locked?
Whatever had happened there the day before, someone had left the vehicle with the presence of mind to click the locks.
“Here, wait a minute.” Ethan pulled me away from the Explorer and slammed his elbow backward into the rear window. The glass shattered, shot through with a thousand icelike webs, but remained in place. One more blow knocked the entire cracked pane into the backseat, where it slid onto the stained floorboard.
I didn’t bother opening the door. I just stuck my head in the window and sniffed.
The scent of Marc’s blood was everywhere. It couldn’t have been stronger if I’d been wading in it, and my heart throbbed, my lip trembling in devastation. But then I sucked in another breath through my nose, and a fainter scent caught my attention, a morbid mercy.
Adam Eckard’s blood. Not much of it, but it was there.
“It’s not all his.” I whirled to face Ethan, searching his face for the hope I needed to see.
He smiled hesitantly and inhaled through his nose. Then he nodded. “I’m not sure there’s enough of it, but it’s definitely there. Either Eckard was still bleeding from his injury at Marc’s, or Marc hurt him again.”
“Come on, he’s still out there!”
“Faythe…” Ethan’s warning look was in place again as he backed slowly toward his car for the pack.
I rolled my eyes, reluctant to take his warning seriously. “I know, don’t get my hopes up. He’s lost a lot of blood, and it’s freezing.”
“And it’s been more than twenty-four hours.”
Yeah, there was that, too. While he got his pack and added two flashlights from the glove box, I called Parker and told him what we’d found. He was almost as excited as I was at first, but then the facts sank in, and caution crept into his voice as he listed the same warnings Ethan had.
I told him to leave the pessimism in White Apple and haul ass in our direction. Because I wasn’t leaving the woods until we found Marc.
The sun went down half an hour later and we got out the flashlights, still tramping through the woods. We were exhausted and freezing, but spurred on by the occasional smudge of blood on the trunk of a tree, or splattered on frost-covered leaves. Unfortunately, since the blood was frozen and sparse, it carried almost no scent, and we couldn’t tell which drops belonged to whom. Still, a picture formed in my mind as we went.
“He thought Marc was dead,” I said, shining my flashlight on another few drops of blood, standing out starkly against a frost-covered brown leaf. “Eckard probably drove him into the middle of nowhere for an emergency, midafternoon burial. And if Marc was unconscious after losing that much blood, I can kind of understand the mistake.”
Ethan smiled, and I could see the effort in the lines around his eyes, heavily shadowed in the glare from my flashlight. He didn’t buy my story, but he wasn’t going to argue. Bless him.
“At some point, obviously, Marc woke up. Maybe he fought with Eckard in the car, running them off the road.” I shrugged. “Or maybe he woke up when the car hit the tree.” I wasn’t sure on that point yet. But they’d both obviously torn through the woods, though who was chasing whom, I couldn’t have said.
“Eckard could have been carrying Marc,” Ethan ventured gently, and I had to agree that that was possible. If unlikely.
“Why would he have bothered?” I wiped moisture from my forehead, surprised that I’d worked up a sweat in light of the temperature. “If Marc were dead, wouldn’t Eckard have just dragged him, like he did in Marc’s yard?”
Ethan had no response to that, and I smiled smugly, content to let us search in silence for a little while.
A few minutes later, my phone rang, and I dug it from my pocket with cold-numbed fingers. It was Parker, calling to tell me they’d parked behind Ethan’s car and would catch up with us soon. I gave him our heading, because that would be faster than making him hunt out the same sparse trail of blood we were tediously following, then hung up, my impatience revived by the phone call, as well as the knowledge that we had to be getting close to something.
Surely both toms couldn’t have run very far in the woods. Not injured and underclothed.
And fifteen minutes later, that theory was proved true, when my flashlight skirted over something much too pale to be a dead leaf, or even an exposed root.
My frozen left hand shot out, curling around a handful of Ethan’s coat, bringing him to an abrupt halt. “Look.” I nodded toward the end of my trail of light.
“What the hell…”
“It’s a hand,” I whispered, my voice hoarse with shock and dread. I sniffed, and to my horror, I smelled both Marc and Eckard, which meant they’d both spilled enough blood to retain the scents, in spite of the extreme temperatures. “I can’t look.” My hesitation had nothing to do with any girlie impulse or squeamishness. I ate raw venison on a regular basis, in cat form. But in that moment, as I stared at a motionless, frost-covered human hand in a pile of dead leaves, my certainty that Marc was still out there somewhere—alive, if not well—was awfully hard to cling to.
