He was prey of a different sort. He was a threat eliminated.

I was okay until Marc used his teeth to tug Miguel’s intestines from his gaping stomach. But that was al I could take; I’d had enough of torture and revenge. Vic held my hair while I threw up. I heard him talking to the guys over my back. “Wrap it up. I think she needs to rest.”

Rest. Yeah, that’s what I need. More like shock therapy. I needed to forget the last two days. Have them wiped from my memory altogether. There wasn’t room in my brain next to the complete works of Shakespeare for Marc’s top five ways to torture your enemy before final y letting him die. I didn’t want to have dreams of my boyfriend disemboweling anyone, even Miguel.

“Get me out of here,” I whispered.

“What?” Vic leaned toward my face, his gaze stil focused on the spectacle behind me.

My fist clenched around a handful of his shirt. “You heard me. Get me out of here. Now.”

“Faythe…”

I stood up straight, wiping vomit from my mouth with the front of Carissa’s shirt as I looked into Vic’s face. His eyes begged me to let him stay. He was crying, and pleading with me not to make him leave until Miguel exhaled his last tortured breath.

“Just put your head on my shoulder and close your eyes,” he said, trying to draw me into his arms. I stepped back, refusing. Behind me I heard more gurgling and a slick, sliding sound I had no desire to identify.

“Why would you want to watch this?” I asked Vic, swal owing the bile rising in my throat.

He looked at me with unbearable pain and confusion, as if I shouldn’t need to ask. “Because this is what he did to her. He violated her in life, then he mutilated her in death. Now he’s paying.”

Oh. I couldn’t argue his point, but neither could I watch.

Parker took my arm. “Come on, Faythe, I’l take you inside.”

I met his eyes and saw in them what I wanted to see in Marc’s but knew I would never find. Parker didn’t want to watch it either. He didn’t want any part of it.

He steered me past Brian, who stood watching in fascination, then around Miguel and the cats, and helped me over the chain-link fence, just to be polite.

Ethan had flattened an entire section of it, so I only had to walk across a length of mangled metal. Parker stayed to my left the whole time, keeping his body between me and the sight I would never forget, no matter how hard I tried.

Inside, I took a shower in the downstairs bathroom. I stayed in until the water ran cold, trying to scrub away every last molecule of Miguel’s scent. When that was gone, I tried to wash away my memories. But they were sticky little bastards, clinging to me like an emotional odor, no matter how many times I lathered and rinsed.

When I final y stepped out of the shower, Parker was waiting with the clothes he and Abby had bought that morning. I couldn’t believe it was even the same day, but a glance at the clock showed me that no matter how long each minute as Miguel’s hostage had felt, time continued to tick by at its normal rate. Time was the great constant, eternal y measuring my life in the ticks of a hundred second hands, the tocks of a thousand pendulums. It portioned my life into good times and bad times, the former too short, and the latter too long.

And now it told me that less than two hours had passed since we’d pulled into the Taylors’ driveway.

It was ten-thirty. I’d showered for nearly half an hour.

Parker and I sat at the bar in the kitchen, drinking Mrs. Taylor’s gourmet coffee, with imported French cream. It was the middle of June, and I was wearing full-length jeans, but I couldn’t stop shaking. I’d added a purple neck and four fresh puncture marks to my assortment of bumps and bruises. I felt about as attractive as Frankenstein’s monster. And almost as wel loved.

“Shouldn’t they be done by now?” I asked, not sure I really wanted to hear the answer.

“They are,” Parker said. “They’re cleaning up.”

“Oh.” That made sense. I wondered how one went about cleaning up a disemboweled body but was afraid that if I asked, he’d actual y tel me. I didn’t want to know that badly. But there was something else I did want to know. “Was it Anthony?” I asked, cradling the mug in my hands for warmth.

Parker’s eyebrows arched into matching question marks and he opened his mouth, clearly intending to ask what I meant. Then he took a good look at my face and decided I deserved better. He knew what I meant.

“Yeah, it was.” He stared down into his coffee, as if hoping to read the future from a cup of tea dregs. “Anthony’s gone, and so is Sean. Marc fil ed me in while you were showering.” Parker told me what he knew, and—true gentleman that he was—he gave me the G-rated version out of respect for my exhaustion and encroaching shock.

They’d come at us from the north, Sean on four legs and Miguel on two. Sean pounced on Anthony from a nearby tree branch, knocking him to the ground.

Anthony only had time to make a single sound before he died, but without his dying cry as warning, Marc might not have known he was in danger until it was too late.

Marc took Sean out in silence, utilizing years of training and experience. But his effort was wasted on Sean, who made no move to defend himself. By al appearances, he was ready to die, and Marc believed Sean attacked Anthony mostly to secure his own fate. Marc was going after Miguel when I came between them, blocking Marc’s pounce and nearly getting myself kil ed.

I listened with my mug stil cupped in both hands, thankful suddenly that Marc was around to do what I wasn’t wil ing to do. If my training involved any of what he’d done to Miguel, I would have to find a way out of my promise. I couldn’t do it. I just couldn’t.