“You won’t. Come home, Jace.”

Jace hung his head, hiding most of his face behind his hand and the small phone. “I’ll be there in an hour.”

He sat in the bathroom for several minutes after the phone call, then he closed the door and I heard water running in the shower. And I might have heard him crying softly, though I couldn’t be sure.

“He’ll be fine,” Marc whispered while the water ran. “He’ll do his job. Better now than ever.”

“I know.”

Marc was working on the last zag of my massive new scar when the bathroom door finally opened. Jace stepped out in a clean change of clothes from his carryon, wearing his business face—completely void of emotion. Which is how I knew he was both nervous and eager. And dreading every second of the most personal assignment he’d ever accepted.

“How long will it take you to get there?” I’d slept through most of the drive to the motel, so I had no clue how far we were from Malone’s home base.

“About fifteen minutes.”

Which meant he’d have to leave in about forty. “That’s not enough time. I can’t fit in enough Shifts to fully heal before then.”

“I know, but I can’t just pop in and ask Lance to get in the car. I have to be there a little while. Talk to my mom. Deal with Cal. Let everyone think I’m really there because of Brett.”

I started to protest, but Marc was faster. “He’s right. But we only have one car.” He looked up from my arm, now focused on Jace. “You’ll come up with another one—one without Faythe’s blood in the backseat—and we’ll meet you out there once she’s good to go.”

“We need to leave town by four-thirty to be sure we’ll make it to the nest in time,” I said. “That gives us an hour of padding for bathroom breaks, and that’s cutting it pretty damn close.”

Jace glanced at the clock. It was five minutes to noon. “We’ll aim for four, for the takedown,” he said, and his eyes narrowed in concern as his focus settled on me. “Can you be ready by then?”

“I sure hope so.” I could think of very few things I wanted to do less than spend the next four hours Shifting with a broken arm. “Where should we meet you?”

“At the deer stand.”

I frowned over what felt like too big a risk. “What if they’ve already found our scents there?”

“Then we’re already screwed,” Marc answered, and Jace nodded grimly.

I swallowed, and my throat felt thick. “Okay. So, all we need is a car.”

“I saw a rental place about a quarter mile east of here,” Marc said. “They had several vans and SUVs in the parking lot. You can probably get something with tinted windows and plenty of room in back.”

Jace nodded. “Walking’s a bit of a risk, but since everyone knows I’m coming to town now, they’ll all probably stay home, waiting to see Cal’s head explode. Or waiting to see him kill me.”