Stray (Shifters #1)(26)

Forced back to the topic at hand, I closed my eyes as fresh pangs of guilt and confusion coursed through me. I turned away from him, sinking onto the side of my bed with my hands loose in my lap, breathing deeply to try to calm myself. “I don’t know what I was thinking. I wasn’t thinking. I was upset, and frustrated, and worried about Sara and Abby. Then, when I Shifted, it all changed. My anger felt different. It felt…productive. Almost cathartic. I thought if I could just slash something, or bite something, I’d feel better.”
His eyes softened almost imperceptibly, and I knew he understood—from very personal experience. “Bloodlust?” he asked, and I nodded, holding back tears with sheer willpower. “The deer didn’t help?”
“Not much.” I pressed my fingertips against my eyelids, as if I could physically stop the tears from coming. “She was too easy.”
Marc sat next to me on the bed, his leg brushing mine. He put his arm around my shoulder and pulled me toward him. I let him. I shouldn’t have. Any other time, I wouldn’t have. But as soon as my head touched his shoulder, tears blurred my vision, scorching their way down my cheeks.
Horrified, I pulled away from him, wiping furiously at my face with clenched fists, trying to erase the evidence of my emotional outburst before he noticed. I worked so hard to make everyone take me seriously, to make them treat me with the same respect they’d give a tomcat, the same respect they gave each other. And my little waterworks display would ruin it all, exposing me as the emotionally fragile little girl they’d always assumed me to be inside. Before I knew it, I’d be in the kitchen at my mother’s side, wearing one of her aprons as I learned the difference between baking powder and baking soda. 
That thought only made me cry harder.
“It could have been worse,” Marc said, putting his arm around my shoulders again. I let him. What did it matter, now that I’d already embarrassed myself? “You didn’t actually attack him, and he didn’t see anyone Shift. All he has is a crazy story about huge wild panthers. No one will believe him.” He squeezed my shoulders, and I sobbed out loud. I’d liked it better when he was mad. I knew how to deal with anger, but I was terrible with sympathy, both giving and receiving. “And anyway, we all know how you feel. We all wanted to shred something, and the truth is that if we hadn’t been busy trying to find you, one of us might have done the same thing.”
He was lying. It was a sweet lie, but a lie nonetheless. None of the guys had so little control.
“You don’t understand,” I sniffed, sitting up straighter as I wiped tears from my face. “I wasn’t just mad. I was scared.” I whispered the last word, ashamed. With the admission of fear came humiliation, and I avoided his eyes, afraid I’d find scorn in them if I looked.
But then I had to look. I had to see what he thought of me, because for some stupid reason it still mattered. A little.
I looked up into his eyes from inches away, and what I found was not contempt but understanding. Not intellectual comprehension but actual empathy. He knew what I felt because he’d felt it too. I remembered the fear I’d seen on his face the night before and knew that he understood mine.
I took a deep breath, preparing to explain myself. The words tumbled from my mouth in an untempered surge, determined, once they were free, to keep coming. “Somebody took Abby and Sara, and if it happened to them, it can happen to me.” Marc shook his head in denial, but I ignored him. “I just kept thinking that if they’d been faster, or stronger, they could have gotten away. I guess I was trying to prove to myself that I’m fast enough and strong enough. Then I just lost control.”
He held out his injured leg, and I noticed the bandage hadn’t survived his Shift. Luckily, he didn’t really need it anymore. The wound was jagged and inflamed, but the worst of the damage had already healed, probably during his recent Shift back to human. Either that, or I hadn’t hurt him as badly as I’d first thought. Even so, it would leave a thick scar. I’d permanently marked him as punishment for him trying to scent-mark me. How’s that for irony?
“You’re too fast for me, that’s for sure,” he said, eyeing his own injury.
I smiled ruefully. “Yeah, but Daddy’s going to kill me for that.”
“Speaking of which…”
I looked up, already suspicious. “What?”
“There’s no reason to tell him about the hunter,” Marc said, and I held my breath, waiting for the catch. “After all, no one got hurt or exposed, so there’s really nothing to tell.”
My eyes narrowed. “You trying to get back on my good side?”
“You have a good side?” He grinned, and I glared at him as he held up two hands in defense. “All I’m saying is that—assuming you can behave yourself from now on—there’s no reason to mention something that only almost happened.”
I reached up to pull a T-shirt from the bedpost where it hung like a white flag signaling my surrender. “And let me guess, you’re doing this because you’re such a nice guy.”“That, and because I like having you in my debt.”
“Debt?” Now, that sounded more like Marc. “I’d say we’re even. You keep your mouth shut about the hunter, and I won’t mention you and the flock of airheads in the cafeteria.”
He cocked one eyebrow at me, as if impressed in spite of himself. Then he frowned. “That won’t make us even. I owe Ethan and Parker for you. You’re at a deficit.”
Damn. And Ethan was likely to ask for something big in return for his reluctant silence. I folded the shirt, mentally weighing a debt to Marc against facing my father’s wrath. Talk about a rock and a hard place. Groaning in resignation, I dropped the folded shirt onto the bed. “Fine. Within reason.”
“Agreed.” He grinned again. “Should we shake?”
I shrugged; he could have asked for a lot more. He took the hand I held out and kept it for a moment, as if he might kiss it rather than shake it. Or maybe he was considering biting me. His fingers were warm against mine and comfortably familiar. I smiled, but Marc didn’t notice. He was staring intently at his injured ankle, as if trying to figure something out.
He let go of my hand, and his towel gaped, exposing a wide slice of bare thigh as he pulled his wounded leg onto the bed between us, turning to face me. His eyes were somber, his frown intense. “Faythe, listen.” He grabbed my arms as if to shake me, but he wasn’t mad this time. He was worried.
“Sara and Abby weren’t just tossed into the back of someone’s car. They couldn’t have been. You know how hard it is to catch a cat. We twist, and scratch, and yowl. And we bite.” His eyes dropped to his ankle between us on the comforter. “Even in human form we fight. Remember when Ethan turned twenty-one? It took five of us to wrestle his keys away from him.”
“Yeah.” The bite mark on my left arm guaranteed I’d never forget it.
“How easy do you think it would be to subdue a scared cat, even a seventeen-year-old tabby?”
I thought about it. I really, seriously thought about it and decided it would be nearly impossible to do without attracting unwanted attention, even in the dark. We’re strong, we’re stubborn, and we fight when we’re cornered. My hands clenched around handfuls of my rumpled comforter, my arms tightening beneath his grip. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying they were probably disabled. Maybe shot.” He let go of me but his eyes never left mine. “Faythe, no matter what anyone else says today to make the Wades and the Di Carlos feel better, there’s a good chance Abby and Sara are dead.”
I stared at him, numb. I was tingling all over, trying to swallow my own pulse. I’d heard what he said, and I understood it. But I just couldn’t believe it, even though I’d been thinking the same thing right before my hunt. They couldn’t be dead. Abby was barely seventeen years old, and Sara was only twenty. Death just wasn’t an option for people that young. 
But it happened to cats in the jungle every day.
“I’m not trying to scare you,” he said. “I just want you to be prepared.”
I nodded, but my head barely moved. It felt like it weighed fifty pounds.
Two short, sharp knocks came from the hall, and we turned to look as my door opened. Parker stuck his head in, drawing my attention away from Marc and from thoughts I didn’t want to think. “Faythe, your dad wants to see you in his office.”
“Now?” Marc snapped.
I glanced at him, surprised by his tone.
“Yeah. Now.” Parker pushed the door open farther and tossed Marc a bundle of clothes. “I’m leaving to pick up the Di Carlos, but I’ll be back in a couple of hours.” He looked at me with something bordering on sympathy. I guess he thought being chewed out by both Marc and my father in the same hour was enough punishment for anyone. I had to agree. “Your mom set up a buffet in the kitchen. She says you should eat before everyone gets here.”
Yeah, that sounded like my mother, more worried about my stomach than my head. Or my hide.
I glanced at my clock radio, surprised to see that it was nearly three o’clock. Marc and I had been talking for ages. Or maybe my run in the woods had taken longer than I’d thought. My stomach growled, as if to highlight the passage of time, and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since I’d Shifted. No wonder I was starving.