Despair crashed over me and I staggered into the wall of the grave, steadying myself with a handful of frigid earth. Marc didn’t really stand a chance.

“Faythe?” Ethan stopped digging and reached out for me, planting his shovel in the ground. “You okay?”

“I hate not knowing.” And I hated my own doubt even more.

Ethan took my shovel and handed it to Parker, then hauled himself out of the hole and pulled me up with him. “That’s deep enough,” he said, and gestured for Parker and Dan to bring the body.

“What if you’re right?” I whispered, letting Ethan fold me into his arms, treasuring both his warmth and his comfort. “What am I going to do if he’s gone?”

“You’re going to slaughter every motherfucker involved—and I better get a piece of that action—then you’re going to move on. There’s no other choice.” Surprised by the bitter vehemence in his voice, I stepped back to find him watching me in his own quiet wrath, as uncommon an emotion for Ethan as docility was for me. “Now let’s bury this bastard before Kevin comes looking for him.”

I nodded, still numb and stunned by the thought that I might live the rest of my life without Marc. Then Ethan’s last words sank in, and I froze. “Oh, shit.”

“What?” Dan asked, gripping the corpse’s plastic-wrapped feet at waist height.

“Ethan’s right. Kevin will realize Eckard’s missing soon and come looking for him. And when he figures out Marc got away, he’ll be looking for him, too. What if he finds Marc before we do?”

“He won’t,” Parker said, sidestepping toward the grave in unison with Dan. But his calm, sober expression said he didn’t think Kevin was much of a threat. Parker still thought Marc was dead, and the search for a body didn’t carry as much urgency for him as the search for a missing man.

“He’s out there, Parker. Marc may be hurt and cold, but he’s alive out here somewhere, and if Kevin finds him first, he’s as good as dead.”

“Kevin won’t find him,” Ethan insisted, shooting a censuring glare at Parker, while Dan looked on in concern and confusion. “We won’t let him.”

After we’d buried Eckard, we hiked back to the cars, and the equipment we carried seemed infinitely heavier and more cumbersome than it had on the way to the body. As did my thoughts.

After a brief conference, and a consultation with our Alpha, we decided on a course of action for Eckard’s Explorer. The front of the vehicle was wrapped around the tree he’d hit, and it could not be driven. Not even a little way. So, working quickly in case of passersby, Parker retrieved the five gallons of emergency gasoline from his trunk and doused the inside of Eckard’s vehicle, concentrating mostly on the bloodstained rear portion.

Then, after Ethan and Dan had turned our functioning vehicles around and parked them on the opposite side of the road, a good fifty feet from the Explorer, Parker lit a match and tossed it into the car, then raced across the street and slid into his own passenger seat as Ethan and Dan both drove away from the scene of our crime.

To my relief, the Explorer didn’t explode. But it did go up in a huge ball of fire. Even if the vehicle wasn’t melted beyond recognition, the flames would easily destroy the DNA evidence of our existence. It was a drastic measure of caution, and one we’d never tried before. But we’d had no choice.

I watched the fire until I could no longer see it flickering through the rear windshield. Then I watched the reddish reflection of the flames in the sky. Within minutes, sirens raced toward us, and I held my breath as the fire truck passed, followed immediately by two police cars. But we weren’t stopped.

With the immediate evidence taken care of, I called my father back, staring at Parker’s rear bumper as it bounced down the highway in front of us.

“Hello?”

“It’s done.” I sighed, closing my eyes briefly. “Do you still have our toms patrolling the border?”

“Yes.” My father’s pitch rose with curiosity, as Ethan glanced at me with one brow raised. “Why?”

“I need them here. We have to find Marc before Kevin does, and I need every available body out there searching. We’ll head back out ourselves as soon as the cops get done with Eckard’s car.”

I thought he would say no. His silence was a virtual guarantee, so I was all ready to argue when he said, “Okay. You’ll have ten new men in three hours.”

“Really? Just like that?” I couldn’t help my smile.

“I want him back, too, Faythe.”

“I know.” My grin grew in relief, and I leaned forward to aim the heater vent away from my face. “But I thought you’d say we were past the point of urgency.”

“No.” My father exhaled slowly. “We will never reach that point.”

My vision blurred with tears, and I wiped them on the back of my still-cold hand. “Thank you, Dad.”

“Don’t thank me. Just find him.”

I clenched my jaws tightly, denying my doubt a voice. “I will.”

We went back to Marc’s house while we waited for the authorities to finish with Eckard’s car, and Parker threw together a huge pot of confetti spaghetti, while I sliced and buttered garlic toast. I’d just put the bread in the oven when my phone rang, and I jogged across the kitchen to snatch it from an end table in the living room, hoping for news from my father about the reinforcements.