The box was nothing more than a rough wooden cube, but I could see how a pair of small boys might call it a treasure chest. Might even have kept their own valuables in it.
The lid was a simple pine board, attached to the back of the box by a set of rusty hinges, which squealed when they were used. I lifted the lid slowly with my eyes closed, sending up a silent, fervent prayer that Brett had remembered this place. That he’d thought of it when he needed somewhere safe to store the evidence that could seal his father’s fate, and save so many others.
I opened my eyes. And laughed out loud.
Relief bubbled up inside me like a fountain of joy, and it would not be stifled, even with dawn less than two hours away. Even though we were well inside enemy territory. Even though Kaci would die and my Pride would be slaughtered if we were caught.
“Is it there?” Marc demanded as Jace continued to whine softly, begging for information.
“Yeah. He even put them in plastic.” I lifted the gallon-size bag and held it up. Inside were two huge feathers, striped with a distinctive pattern of colors I couldn’t make out without more light, even with my cat vision. But I saw the dark smears of blood, and I could smell it, even nearly a week old and sealed inside plastic.
On the front of the bag was a white strip, and Brett had printed on it, in clear black letters. “Thunderbird feathers. Lance Pierce’s blood.”
Brett, wherever you are, I hope you’re being spoiled rotten in the afterlife. “Jace, your brother’s a saint.”
Jace huffed, as if he had a dissenting opinion to add, but I only laughed. And when I glanced into the box again, I laughed even harder. “They’re still here!” I called. “Brett’s pop guns and your knife. They’re all still here! Do you want me to bring them down?”
For a moment, there was only silence. Then Jace huffed again, but I couldn’t interpret that one without body language to add nuance, so Marc called up with a translation. “I think he wants you to leave them there. For Brett.”
He must have gotten that right, because Jace didn’t contradict him. So I closed the box and left the abandoned toys as a memorial to Brett, and to the childhood friendship he and Jace had once shared. Then I started back across the floor with the zipper of the plastic bag clutched in my left hand.
I was about a foot from the edge when my jeans caught on something, and my right leg refused to slide forward. I let go of the bag and propped myself on my good hand to twist for a better view. The hem of my jeans was stuck on a nail sticking up from the floor.
“Shit!”
“What’s wrong?” Marc asked immediately as Jace whined louder in question.
“I’m caught on a nail. Hang on. I think I can get it.” I pushed myself slowly backward and shook my foot to dislodge the nail. When that didn’t work, I shifted my weight onto my left hand and reached back toward the nail with my right.
The deer stand creaked, and fear spiked my pulse. My hand broke through the floor. Jagged edges of wood raked the length of my forearm, pushing my sleeve up in the process. I screamed. My face slammed into the floor, and I bit my lip. Blood poured into my mouth.“Faythe!” Marc shouted. Jace growled, a deep, fierce sound, and Marc’s next words were directed at him. “Let go!” But Jace only growled harder.
“I’m okay,” I said, but it came out as a whisper, with my left cheek still pressed into the wood. Still, the guys heard me.
“I’m coming up!” Marc called, and Jace’s growl grew even fiercer.
“No!” I said, when his meaning finally became clear. “It won’t hold you. I’m okay. Just let me pull myself out of this hole.”
“Let go of me, or I’ll cave your face in,” Marc said, his voice soft and dangerous. Jace growled once more for good measure, then must have let Marc go, because he voiced no further complaint. “Can you get up?” Marc called to me.
“Yeah.” I hope. “Just a minute.” My left arm was useless, hanging beneath the floor from my shoulder on. The lower half of it was on fire, the pain so acute and encompassing that I couldn’t tell exactly where it hurt.
“You’re bleeding. A lot,” Marc said, and twigs crunched beneath his boots as he paced.
“So I noticed. Just give me a minute, please.” When silence followed my request, I exhaled and braced myself for more pain. Just do it quickly. We needed to be out of the woods and out of sight before dawn, and we were running late already.
I closed my eyes and sucked in a deep breath, hoping against all logic that the rest of the floor would hold me. Then, since I couldn’t support my weight on my right arm, I stretched over my head, flat on the floor, and rolled to my left.
Wood dug into my arm like daggers as it slid through the hole. I screamed again. I couldn’t help it.
“Faythe!”
I lay on my back, breathing hard though I’d barely exerted myself, afraid to move lest the floor collapse beneath me. Marc’s footsteps came closer, and wood snapped, dull and heavy. “Damn it!” he whispered fiercely, and my eyes popped open.
“Don’t!” He’d broken the first rung of the ladder. The deer stand couldn’t take much more damage without collapsing, and I desperately didn’t want to be on it when that happened.
“Sorry.” Marc’s boots backed several steps away, and I made myself roll over carefully, avoiding even the briefest glimpse of my newly injured arm. It burned and felt cold at the same time, and I could barely stand the brush of my jacket sleeve against it. “Are you okay?”
“My arm feels pretty bad, but I’m not gonna look at it until I get down.” Because I was pretty sure that if it looked as bad as it felt, my brain would tell me I couldn’t climb down.
“Be careful.”
“I will. Look, just…don’t talk for a few minutes, so I can concentrate, okay? And catch this.” Without waiting for his response, I shoved the gallon bag off the edge of the platform.
Marc’s steps crunched forward. “Got it.” Then he was blessedly silent.
I blinked and inhaled deeply, then pushed myself onto my knees and elbows, busying my eyes in the search for more weak spots in the wood, so I couldn’t accidently look at my new wound.
But it was bad. I could tell from the strength of the scent of my own blood, and the pool of it I was now crawling through. I’d be light-headed soon, and I wanted to be safely on the ground before that happened.
I eased slowly toward the ladder, and after a few tense minutes found myself sitting on the edge of the deer stand. Marc stood in front of the ladder, with Jace at his side on all four paws. I could see them clearly thanks to my cat’s eyes, and the slight lightening of the sky as dawn approached.
Damn it! We needed to be halfway back to the car already.
I pushed that thought away and took another deep breath through my mouth. Then I twisted to lie on my stomach and put one foot on the third rung from the top. The next step was a bitch, even once I was sure the rung would hold me, because I couldn’t grip the ladder well enough with my casted right hand, and moving my fingers made my left arm explode in agony.
A whimper of pain escaped before I could lock it down, and Jace echoed the sound from below.
I stepped down again, and again gripped the bar, this time biting my still-bleeding lip to keep from crying out. So far, so good.
The next rung snapped beneath my foot.
Marc gasped. I screamed as my feet fell out from under me, and almost passed out from the agony in my left arm. I hung from it, my life dependent on a grip weakened by my shredded flesh.
“Let go,” Marc said. “Let go and I’ll catch you.”
“No.” I was too high. My body twisted, and my feet scrambled for the nearest rung, but it had been broken before we arrived, and the next hung a full foot below my feet.
“Faythe. Let go.”
I glanced down at Marc, and if I’d seen fear in his eyes, I couldn’t have done it. But I saw only confidence. If he said he could catch me, he could catch me. It was as simple as that.
So I closed my eyes and let go.
My hair blew back from my face as I fell. My cast broke through two more rungs, each impact reverberating in my broken wrist. My right foot slammed into the side of the ladder, and the blow radiated up my leg. Then I landed hard in Marc’s arms.
He staggered beneath the impact, but didn’t fall.
I clung to him and didn’t even try to stop the tears. Screw being strong. I could be strong and hurt at the same time, right?
Because daaamn, I hurt.
Marc set me on the ground, and I caught his quick glance to the east. The sun would be up in an hour, and if anyone had gone for an early morning run, my screams had probably been heard.
He met Jace’s gaze and tossed his head toward Malone’s property. Jace nodded as his ears swiveled in that direction, on alert for any suspicious sounds.
“Let me see your arm.” Marc knelt next to me, and I was glad all over again that he’d already mastered the partial Shift. Without it, he couldn’t have gotten much of a look, because without our usual emergency trunk kit, we didn’t have a flashlight.
I held my arm out straight, sniffing back more sobs as he carefully pulled my jacket off. I got my first look the same time he did.
“Oh, fuck,” Marc whispered, and Jace turned to look. He whined in either sympathy or horror, but I was speechless. That couldn’t be my arm. That piece of raw meat hanging from my elbow bore no resemblance to the forearm I’d had minutes earlier. Broken wood couldn’t do that much damage. It wasn’t possible.A jagged section of the broken deer stand floor had ripped the side of my left forearm open from wrist to elbow, where my coat sleeve had bunched up, protecting the rest of my flesh. The muscle was exposed, and the whole thing was slick with blood.