Anguish washed over me, and I suddenly felt so heavy I could barely move. My chest seemed to constrict around my heart. My limbs wouldn’t cooperate.

I crawled on my belly across five feet of cold earth, whining the whole way. I couldn’t make it stop. Sounds of grief poured from my throat as blood poured from Ethan’s. I sidled up next to him and laid my head on his torso, blinking through tears as his stomach rose and fell beneath me. Twice.

He blinked at me, his eyes the exact shade of green as my own. His mouth worked silently, opening and closing, as if he were trying to breathe. It was horrible. But then his mouth quit moving, and that was even more horrible. Unbearable.

Ethan’s stomach stopped rising. He blinked one more time, then his eyes lost focus.

My father roared.

I cried.

Ethan was gone.

Seventeen

Cockleburs cut into my heels. Twigs poked between my toes. Branches slapped my bare stomach and arms, drawing blood. I walked naked through the woods, my vision oddly blurred, turning here and there out of habit, like a plane on autopilot.

Goose bumps covered my skin, and moisture froze on my face. I felt it, but I didn’t really feel it. And I couldn’t smell my blood at all. I could only smell Ethan’s.

My father walked in front of me, bare shoulders shaking. He sobbed and choked, and my heart broke a little more with every sound. He held Ethan like a baby, my brother’s head limp over one arm, his feet dangling over the other.

I don’t remember Shifting. I don’t remember much of anything after Ethan died, until the walking. I remember walking in the woods. My hair was tangled and my hands were bloody. Ethan’s blood. I must have touched him.

But my father carried him. All the way home. At least half a mile.

Owen met us in cat form, about halfway there. He cried and roared and moaned. He tried to get Daddy to stop. To let him sniff Ethan and nuzzle him. But our father didn’t stop. He didn’t speak. He just walked.

We emerged from the woods into the backyard near the guesthouse, and had only gone a couple of steps when Dan burst from the back door of the house, still shirtless from his minor surgery. He ran toward us, but stopped when he saw Ethan. When he understood.

He shook his head. “Oh, no,” he whispered. But we all heard him.

My mother came next. She pushed open the screen door and came out wiping her hands on her apron. Then she saw us. Saw Ethan.

“Nononononono…!” The anguish echoing in her screams broke my heart all over again. She ran toward us, apron clutched to her chest. My father walked on, even when she got in his path, clinging to him. Stroking bloody locks of hair from Ethan’s face. “My baby boy…” She sobbed. Then, “Nonononono…”

As she screamed, a shadow fell over the back door from inside. Dr. Carver stepped onto the porch, his face frozen in a mask of shock. Jace followed, his right arm wrapped from elbow to wrist, the blood soaking through his bandages highlighted in the harsh glow from the porch bulb. He moved slowly, his face already pale with pain and blood loss. But when he saw Ethan, he paled more.

“Jace…” I said, but my voice cracked on that one familiar syllable.

He stood frozen on the top step, staring. He blinked and his jaw bulged rhythmically, as if he were trying to unclench it but couldn’t. Then he jogged down the steps and past us, tears glinting in the moonlight as they trailed down his cheeks.

A second later, the guesthouse door slammed shut, and I flinched.

With Jace’s abrupt departure, grief flooded me, settling into place like sand sinking through water, anchoring me to the ground where I stood. Tears flooded my eyes and spilled onto my cheeks, burning my skin through the deep winter chill. My chest tightened unbearably, and I hugged myself to ease a numbing cold originating from within me, rather than from the January freeze.

Dr. Carver put one arm around my mother and fell in line behind my father, guiding her toward the house with Owen padding at his side, Dan bringing up the rear. I watched the door close behind them, but couldn’t make myself follow.

Instead, I backed away from the main house, my head shaking slowly in denial. The sharp points of several holly leaves pricked my bare back, and distantly I realized I’d reached the side of the guesthouse. I sank to my knees, the grass bitterly cold on my naked legs, the holly catching in my hair.

The cold soaked into me as great, hiccuping sobs shook my entire body. I gasped for breath that seemed to freeze in my throat, to numb my lungs. My thoughts took no form. There was only a massive, horrible storm of pain and sorrow, slamming into me over and over again with an almost physical force. Grief threatened to drown me, and I made no effort to stop it.

“Faythe…” I looked up slowly to see Dr. Carver through my own tear-soaked lashes. “Are you ready to go inside?”

“Not yet.” I sniffed. “I need just one more minute.” A minute to get myself together. To exorcise the worst of the tears, so I could rally my family instead of making them cry harder.

“Well then, let’s at least get you dressed before you freeze.” The doc knelt to grab my clothes from the ground where I’d dropped them when I Shifted, then hauled me up by both arms. He was right. Tears had formed little ice crystals on my eyelashes, and if I stayed out much longer they’d freeze right there on my face.

I stepped gratefully into my underwear and jeans, but my shirt and bra were ruined, so I could only put my arms through the sleeves and cross them over my chest to hold the material closed. Then Carver put a comforting arm around my waist and I let him lead me back across the yard and inside the main house.