“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.”
Thirteen
Parker 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.”