He looked so hopeful, I wanted to smile, but didn’t let myself. He hadn’t heard what I had to say yet. “I—”

And that’s when the power went out.

Eleven

“Someone give me a flashlight.” My father’s voice rumbled from the other end of the hall. A bobbing shaft of light accompanied heavy footsteps toward him, and a Vic-shaped shadow handed over his flashlight.

Marc tucked his towel tighter around his waist, and the thin beam from his own penlight showed off drops of water still clinging to his chest and dripping from his hair. Having anticipated neither the full-scale air raid nor my wet embrace, he hadn’t brought a change of clothes.

In the deep shadows, the four parallel scars running across his chest looked terrible. Fresh. No doubt they were fresh in his mind, but he’d had them since he was fourteen, when the stray who’d raped and killed his mother had gored him, too, bringing him into my life.

For better or worse.

Three other beams crisscrossed the packed hallway as my father held an informal roll call, but a single steady pole of light caught my eye. Jace stood across from my room and several feet down, his face harshly lit by the beam from the small flashlight my mom kept beneath the kitchen sink. But even poorly illuminated, his expression was unmistakable. His focus jumped from me in my robe to Marc in his towel, and his jaw bulged furiously.

A tangle of emotions churned through me, threatening to wash me away in a tide of confusion, guilt, fear, and regret. And for a moment, I thought Jace was going to expose them all.

But when his gaze met mine, his anger softened into carefully controlled envy. Then he exhaled and dragged his focus to the end of the hall when my father cleared his throat to capture everyone’s attention.

Marc’s hand wound around mine. He hadn’t seen Jace watching us; he was focused on the problem at hand. Like a good enforcer.

“Vic, you and Parker go downstairs and flip the circuit breaker,” my dad said from his position near the front door. “And stay away from the cage. That thunderbird has an incredible wingspan, and he can Shift instantly.”

Vic nodded, already headed into the kitchen with a flashlight. Parker followed, his steps heavy, his grim frown exaggerated by the dark shadows stretched across his face. To my knowledge, he hadn’t spoken since he’d heard what Lance had done.

I knew how he felt—at least better than anyone else could. Lance had let Malone frame us for murder, putting all our lives at risk, including Parker’s. My brother Ryan had sold me out to a serial rapist jungle stray who’d planned to sell me as a broodmare in the Amazon. Betrayal sucks, but I had more faith in my pound-the-shit-out-of-something therapy than Parker’s drink-till-you-go-numb method of dealing.

“Karen, can you pass out candles and matches, just in case?” my dad said, drawing my attention back on track. My mother raised a handful of tapers she’d already collected, then ducked into the kitchen, probably to dig for matches. All of the enforcers kept two flashlights in their cars as part of the standard trunk emergency kit. Except for me; I didn’t have a car.