“Kace…” I started, leaning forward for a hug, but she shook her head and wiped tears from her cheeks roughly with the pads of both hands.

“I’m sorry.” She hiccupped and her breath hitched, but though her eyes still watered, no more tears fell. “I know you have to go, and I understand why. And I know you’ll be back for me. I just…I don’t want to be here alone.”

I could almost hear the sound of my own heart breaking. “If there was any way I could take you with me, I would. I’d fight them, if that wouldn’t get both of us killed. But it would.”

She nodded, wiping unshed tears from her eyes with the tail of her shirt.

“Two days,” I swore. “I’ll be back in two days, with either the proof they want, or enough cats to turn this place into a great big bird slaughter. I swear on my life.” She looked skeptical at that, so I amended. “Okay, on Marc’s life.”

She didn’t smile, but she gave me a single, solemn nod.

“It won’t be that bad. Just stay in here and read, and try to forget about everything else. I’m sure they’ll feed you here, so you only have to come out to go to the bathroom.”

“Just like last time.”

That took me a moment, then I realized she’d been under a similar house arrest when we’d met. “Yeah. Just like last time. Only without the whole run-for-your-life-in-the-woods finale.” Hopefully.

“Yeah.” She blinked and wiped away more tears.

“Okay, what else…?” I closed my eyes, running through all the potential tips and warnings I could arm her with. “Um…don’t Shift. They’ll see that as a sign of aggression. And if you have to leave this room, don’t go near their kids. If they’re anything like us, they’re fanatically overprotective. Other than that, just keep to yourself and try to relax.”

But the tension in my jaw and the sharp bolts of pain shooting through my temples said I needed to take a bit of my own advice.

“I trust you, Faythe.” She blinked up at me, her vulnerability almost as obvious as her blind faith.

Another chunk of my heart fell away, and that one actually hurt. “Thank you, Kaci.”

As I left her room and closed the door at my back, I sent up a fervent prayer that her trust in me wasn’t sorely misplaced. Because like everyone else in my life, Kaci deserved better than I could give.

Seventeen

“Okay, so how does this work?” My voice came out clear and strong—a minor miracle, considering it was hiding anger, fear, and near panic as I stared down at the world from the front porch of the Flight’s nest.

Beyond the edge of the porch was a two-hundred-foot drop, ending in a broken, boulder-strewn gravel road below, rendered scarlet in the light from the setting sun.

That’s right; the porch ended in nothing but air. It was a sheer vertical drop guaranteed to stop my heart before I even hit the ground. That thought terrified me so badly I couldn’t make myself let go of the support post I gripped with my good hand, my knuckles bone-white against the unvarnished, weather-aged wood.