Prey

by Rachel Vincent

“No, he isn’t!” I shouted, as Ethan said, “Whoa, how do they know it’s Marc?”

  “And how many have gone missing?” Parker asked.

  “I don’t know. Three? Four?” Galloway looked to Dan for confirmation, but he just shrugged.

  “I wasn’t keeping count.”

  I rubbed my forehead, wishing desperately for a painkiller strong enough to work on werecats for more than an hour at a time. “If you haven’t found any bodies, how do you know they’re dead? And what makes you think Marc’s responsible?”

  “Because this wasn’t happening before he came here. And if they aren’t dead, where the hell are they?”

  “Okay, one fact at a time,” I said, trying to sort it all out in my head. “Have you talked to their employers? Or landlords? Did any of the missing toms quit their jobs, or leave a forwarding address?”

  Galloway frowned. “I have no idea. I don’t even know if anyone’s tried any of that. I just know that no one’s seen them in a while.”

  And that basically summed up the structure of werecat life in the free zone. There were no Alphas to keep track of everyone, and no enforcers to keep everyone safe. If you were killed, it might be days, or even weeks, before someone noticed—if anyone noticed—because for the most part, strays were loners. They didn’t see each other on a regular basis, and had no obligation to check in or to contribute to the society.

  “So, the truth is that you don’t know they’re dead. Or even that they’re actually missing. You just know you haven’t seen them in a while.” I couldn’t quite control the patronizing quality of my voice.

  “They’re gone,” Galloway insisted. The firm line of his mouth told me how serious he considered the situation, and the fact that Marc had been attacked twice now told me the other strays were taking it just as seriously.

  Figures. It would take disaster to draw strays together.

  “How long has this been going on?”

  Galloway glanced at Dan again for help. “A month?”

  Dan nodded, but I was unconvinced. “Marc’s been here for more than two months,” I snapped. “Your theory’s about as watertight as the Titanic.”

  “All I know is this wasn’t going on before he got here.” Galloway shrugged, unbothered by my skepticism.

  “So, you guys think Marc’s behind this series of disappearances, so you tried to kill him.” But something was nagging at the back of my mind. “Why do it with all of us around? He’s here alone day after day, but you waited to attack until he had serious backup.”

  Galloway huffed in frustration. “Pete said it would make a statement. You and your boys were supposed to be there as witnesses, to go back and tell your dad that we’re not going to be messed with anymore. That if there’s power in numbers, we have it now, too. But that kind of backfired on us.”

  Damn right.

  Ethan sank onto the futon next to me, now that it was clear that Galloway posed no threat. “So, you guys admit to trying to kill Marc. But not to taking him?”

  Galloway rolled small, dark eyes. “Because we didn’t take him. If one of us had done this, they’d have left the body. That message, again.”

  But I was following Ethan’s logic, even if our unwilling host wasn’t. “Well, I can guarantee you that Marc isn’t behind those other disappearances. So doesn’t it stand to reason that whoever took those other toms probably took Marc, too?”

  Dan nodded, and after a second to think it over, even Galloway looked half-convinced, if startled by the possibility. “But why?”

  “Good question. And I have an even better one.” I turned to Parker with one hand outstretched. “Let me have the sample.”

  Parker pulled the plastic bag from his bulging back pocket and handed it over. I opened the seal and leaned forward to hold the bag in front of our host’s face. “Do you recognize this scent?”

  Galloway leaned forward and sniffed dramatically, and recognition showed clearly on his features. For a moment, I thought he might resist answering again. But then he simply met my gaze and nodded. “Adam Eckard. Where did you get this? Is he dead?”

  “No, but these two are.” I handed the sample to Parker and leaned back on the futon to dig a scrap of paper from my right hip pocket, then gave it to Galloway, who unfolded it and read with a blank expression. “Did you know them?”

  “Not personally,” he said, handing the paper back. “Why?”

  “Two hours ago, we dragged their corpses from Marc’s living room floor. That’s his carpet soaked in Eckard’s blood.”

  Galloway blinked at me while he processed the new information. “They went after Marc?”

  I nodded. “These two died in the fight.” I held up the scrap of paper. “And Eckard dragged Marc across his own lawn and shoved him into a car, then drove off with him. That surprises you?”

  “Yeah.” Galloway nodded, and his forehead furrowed with confusion. “They were all three with me in the second group on Friday night. We were stationed farther down the road, because we weren’t sure where the car would actually break down. But we were supposed to kill Marc in front of you. Not take him. I haven’t heard anything more about any of it since then. And I have no idea why they’d take those other toms.” Which we all now seemed to believe was the case. “They’re strays, just like the rest of us.”

  I believed him. I didn’t want to, but he was too tired, too stressed and too bad an actor to lie his way out of this one.

  “You have a pen?” I asked Ethan. My brother pulled a wallet-size pen from his pocket and handed it to me, along with a mini-notepad. I gave them both to Galloway. “I need the names of the other missing toms.”

  Galloway took the pen and paper without argument. “You guys took down fifteen or so of us on Friday night, and rumor has it Marc got off with little more than a scratch from the whole thing.” He met my eyes, his own dulled by bleak fear. “So if they can get Marc, what’s to stop them from getting any one of the rest of us?”

  I gave him a grim smile as he sat with his pen poised over the paper. “We are.”

  Eleven

  I called my dad on the drive back to Marc’s house, both to give him the requested update, and because Galloway hadn’t known Adam Eckard’s address.

  “Hello?” my father croaked into my ear, as Parker turned left onto a small country highway.

  “It’s me. Did I wake you up?”

  “I was just dozing.” Leather creaked, and I pictured my father sitting up on the sofa in his office. “You have a report?”

  “Yeah. We just spoke to Hooper Galloway, at the address you gave us.”

  “Good.” He sounded more awake now, and his socked feet brushed softly against the floor. “Injuries?”

  I grinned, though only Ethan could see my face in the passing glow from a streetlight. “Nothing but Galloway’s pride.”

  “Collateral damage?”

  “One storm door.” Ethan returned my grin.

  My father sighed, and springs groaned over the line as he sank into his desk chair. “I guess it could have been worse. What did you find out?”

  “We took a sample of blood from the stray who got away with Marc, and Galloway says it belongs to a tom named Adam Eckard. He’s not on our list, so we need whatever you can find out about him. Specifically, his address and anything you can get on his car. Same for the two dead toms, if you can. We’re not sure who was driving, and neither of the corpses was in possession of a set of keys.”

  “I’ll put Owen on it as soon as I hang up,” my father promised. “Anything else?”

  “Yeah.” I braced myself with one hand on the back of Dan’s seat as Parker took a sharp turn. “We misunderstood the motive for the ambush. Manx and I weren’t the target. Marc was. Galloway says they were supposed to kill him in front of us, to send a message.”

  My father growled softly into my ear. “Sounds like they’re trying to pick a fight.”

  “They think they’re trying to end one. Several strays have gone missing in the area o
ver the past month. They’re presumed dead, and Marc is presumed responsible. But it looks to us like Eckard and the dead toms are to blame. Though I wouldn’t be surprised to find out they’re working with or for someone else.”

  “You have names for the missing strays?” A drawer squealed open over the line, and something smacked lightly onto the surface of my dad’s desk. Probably a legal pad.

  “Yeah.” I read him the list of three names Galloway had given me, along with the question mark at the bottom of the list—Galloway was sure there had been a fourth, but couldn’t remember his name.

  “I’ll call you in the morning with whatever we can dig up. Though Michael could probably dig a lot faster.” But Michael was in Georgia and couldn’t be spared until Manx’s trial was over. My dad’s palm scratched against the receiver, stifling his yawn. “I want you all to get some sleep. There’s nothing more you can do tonight, without an address.”

  I thought about arguing—I wasn’t sure I could sleep with Marc missing in action—but for once I was too tired to bicker. So I changed the subject. “How’s Kaci?”

  “Exhausted.” Concern echoed in his voice and probably in his posture. “She’s going to be seriously ill soon if she doesn’t Shift.”

  “I know.” I sighed and stared out the window as a series of bare, frozen fields flew by in the dark. “We were really close this afternoon, though. I’m hoping I can talk her into it as soon as I get back.”

  “Good.” He paused and yawned again, triggering one of my own. “Get some sleep.”

  “I’ll try.”

  It was nearly three in the morning when we got back to Marc’s house. Dan crashed on the couch, and Ethan, Parker and I curled up together on Marc’s bed, like a pile of lions. I honestly don’t think I could have slept surrounded by Marc’s scent in his absence, if not for the shared warmth and the steady, comforting beats of two familiar hearts. And as it was, I didn’t sleep well. I was haunted by images of Marc, lying dead in a bare hole in the ground, in a congealing pool of his own blood, while scavengers picked the flesh from his bones.

  I woke up in a cold sweat, with tears still damp on my face. Ethan’s arm lay over my shoulder, as if he’d tried to comfort me in my sleep.

  It was still dark outside. The alarm clock read five forty-five. I was awake for good.

  Ethan and Parker were still sleeping, so I snuck out of bed and tiptoed to the front of the house in my socks, only pausing to grab my cell phone from Marc’s nightstand. To my surprise, Dan Painter sat at the kitchen table, holding a can of Coke, damp with condensation, in spite of the chill in the poorly insulated room. His cell phone lay on the table in front of him.

  “What are you doing up?” I padded past him into the kitchen in my thick, fuzzy socks.

  “Tetris.” He held up the phone so I could see the colored bricks stacking up across his screen. “Couldn’t sleep.”

  “Me, neither.” I pulled the empty carafe from the coffeemaker and ran water into it from the sink. “Wouldn’t you rather have coffee?” I asked, eyeing the cold can.

  “I was afraid it’d wake you up.”

  I gave him a small smile, thanking him for the courtesy. Then I reached overhead and started opening cabinets, looking for the coffee and filters.

  “Second from the left, on the bottom shelf.”

  Damn it. Dan Painter knew where Marc kept his stuff, and I didn’t. For about the thousandth time in the past few days, frustration raged through me, intensifying my fear and anger on Marc’s behalf. Being separated from him sucked. But not knowing whether he was dead or alive was torture.

  I grabbed a filter and a bag of ground coffee from the bottom shelf and dumped a generous pile of the latter into the former. When the coffee was brewing, the very scent gifting me with rational thought in spite of my exhausted, emotionally drained state, I pulled out the chair opposite Dan and dropped into it. “Why can’t you sleep?”

  Dan stared at the can he twisted on the cracked table surface. “Guilty conscience.”

  My heart beat harder in sympathy. “Dan, this is not your fault.”

  He shrugged, still avoiding my eyes. “If it was me instead of him, this never woulda happened. He woulda stopped ’em.”

  I sighed. He was probably right—after all, we were talking about Marc—but his guilt was totally misplaced. “You weren’t there, Dan. There was nothing you could do.”

  He looked unconvinced, but before I could think of a more convincing argument, my phone rang from the pocket of my pj pants and I stood as I answered it, padding to the cabinets in search of coffee mugs.

  “Did I wake you?” my father asked, his voice rough with exhaustion.

  “No, I’m up. Did you find anything?”

  “Owen found Eckard’s address, but we had to call Michael to find out what he drives. I have no idea how he gathers information like that so quickly.”

  “He has friends in the Dallas PD, and serious computer skills.” The first cabinet held only paper plates and a case of Coke, so I moved on to the next one.

  “Do you have something to write with?”

  I glanced around the tiny kitchen and found a pad of Post-it notes in a magnetic case stuck to the fridge, and a chewed-up pencil in the silverware compartment of the otherwise empty dish drainer. “Yeah, go ahead.”

  I wrote as my father read Adam Eckard’s address, then noted that he drove a black 2001 Ford Explorer. “Thanks, Dad. We’ll be on the road before the sun comes up.”

  “It’s a bit of a drive, and if he works a normal nine-to-five, you probably won’t catch him before work.”

  I shrugged, though he couldn’t see me. “If not, we’ll check out his place.”

  My father sighed. “Be careful, Faythe.”

  “I will.” Finally, the third and last cabinet yielded three coffee mugs and a half-empty bag of powdered sugar. There was no creamer, because Marc took his coffee black.

  The sugar was for French toast, his favorite breakfast. He ate half a loaf at a time.

  After I hung up, I poured myself a mug of coffee with extra sugar—trying to make up for the lack of creamer—and took my mug into the bathroom along with shampoo and a change of clothes from my bag. I’d wake the guys up after my shower, because otherwise, they’d use all the hot water before I got a shot at it.

  When I got out of the shower, my coffee was cool enough to drink—if not quite sweet enough—and I emerged from the bathroom ten minutes later with mostly dry hair and an empty mug. All three guys sat at the table, Ethan and Dan drinking from Marc’s last two mugs, while Parker cradled a white foam cup he’d found in one of the cabinets.

  “You guys get showered and dressed.” I poured the last of the coffee into my mug and turned to face them, leaning against the countertop. “Dad came through with Eckard’s address, and that’s our first stop.”

  “We know.” Ethan waved the Post-it I’d scribbled on.

  Parker stood and drained his cup. “I’ll make breakfast if you’ll start some bacon while I shower.”

  “Deal.” I wasn’t much of a cook, but even I could handle throwing a few strips of meat into a skillet.

  Twenty minutes later, Ethan—the last to shower—emerged from the bathroom barefoot and shirtless, a strand of black hair plastered to his forehead. He slid into the fourth chair just as Parker set down two paper plates piled with a dozen fried eggs. Ethan snatched a strip of bacon from another plate—we’d cooked two pounds—while Parker went back for twelve pieces of buttered toast and a jar of grape jelly.

  Marc didn’t have milk or juice, so I was on my third cup of bitter black coffee. It was nasty, but after only two and a half hours of sleep, it was also necessary.

  We left the house before seven in the morning, but it took us nearly an hour to get from Rosetta to Fayette, where Eckard lived. Plus another twenty minutes to find his house. Adam Eckard lived in the right half of a duplex, and shared his driveway with the left half of the duplex next door. His side of the driveway was empty,
except for several oil stains, but we knocked on the door just in case. Or rather, I knocked on the door.

  Since we couldn’t force our way inside in broad daylight, the guys watched from the car as I stood on the double front porch alone. I was confident I could take a single stray on my own, if I needed to, considering that unless he knew to sniff my scent immediately, Eckard probably wouldn’t realize I was a werecat.

  And the guys were confident they could get to me very quickly, in case I was wrong about that. But in the end, it didn’t matter. Eckard wasn’t home.

  “You lookin’ for Adam?” The screen door to the other half of the duplex swung open on my left as I turned toward the car, and I whirled around to find a little boy watching me, one hand still on the door handle. He was no older than eight and, in spite of the temperature, he wore only a pair of worn-out jeans and a faded short-sleeved T-shirt, his feet bare on the cold concrete. His cheeks were flushed and his eyes glassy with fever, and a single whiff of his scent told me he was sick. Some kind of infection, which had no doubt kept him home from school.

  Behind me, the back door of Parker’s car opened, and I glanced over my shoulder to tell Ethan I was fine. He nodded but jogged down the cracked walkway toward me, rather than getting back into the car.

  “What’s your name?” I asked the boy, as my brother’s footsteps slowed to a stop just behind me.

  “Jack,” the child said, his eyes widening as Ethan knelt at my side, putting himself roughly even with the boy’s line of sight. My brother smiled, but Jack only stared, neither intimidated nor frightened by the presence of two strangers.

  “Jack, are your parents home?” I asked, and his fever-dull eyes rolled up to meet my gaze.

  “My mom’s still sleepin’.”

  I stifled a flash of irritation with the mother who should have been awake, giving the poor kid some Tylenol and making sure he stayed hydrated. “We’re looking for your neighbor. Mr. Eckard,” I said, answering his earlier question. “Do you know him?”

  “I seen him.” Jack blinked listlessly at me.

  “Today?” Ethan asked, and the boy’s head swiveled in his direction.