Seeing Andrew’s face centered her, allowed her waking panic to subside. She was breathing, but it hurt like hell. It felt as if someone had taken a wrecking ball to her chest and ribs. Something was wrong with her left arm. All she could feel was a dull tingling in her fingers. Her arm was in a sling (she always took a sling with her because she never knew when a shoulder dislocation would be especially bad). It was secured by a bathrobe tie around her midsection. The more she came to, the greater the pain in her shoulder. She didn’t need to see or touch it to know that it was in a very, very bad way.

Once she had settled down, wondering how she’d gotten inside, her husband lay next to her, pulling her close. He smelled terrible – a mix of body odor and rust. It reminded her partly of her grandfather’s cramped workspace in the basement: old tools, open tubes of grease and oil, paint cans, and bits of projects to be done filling every corner.

Inching away, she saw all the blood. His clothes were covered in it.

“Is it…?”

He cupped her face in his hand. “No.”

“Then whose blood is it?”

“Let’s focus on you first. How are you feeling? You’re way overdue for your medication. I’ll get it for you.”

She snagged his shirt, preventing him from getting off the mattress. Her body might crave her medication (He didn’t know just how overdue she was. Years of being on opioids had made her an addict by the dictionary definition. She was feeling strange and jittery, a desperate clawing need tearing her guts to ribbons), but she wouldn’t take a thing until she got some answers.

Looking around the empty room, she said, “What happened to my shoulder? Where are Ryker and Nikki?”

Andrew paled, his mouth opening but no words coming out. His eyes glimmered with tears.

Impossibly, the pain in Kate’s chest got worse. “No. They’re both…gone?”

Before he could answer, she heard footsteps, then Nikki’s voice. “Only your brother.”

“Nikki!”

Kate felt the room spin out of control. Not Ryker. Not her dear, good-hearted brother.

Her sister-in-law was a walking nightmare. The only things not red with dried blood were the whites of her eyes. Her hair had clumped together like dreadlocks.