At first, the heat was a blessing. It took the worst of my chill bumps and eased my chattering teeth, though it didn’t even touch the trembling that had set into my limbs. But as my body began to recover from the cold, a large part of me wished I could remain frozen. Numb. Because the ache in my chest was unlike anything I’d ever suffered. It was like something gnawing me alive from the inside out, leaving a dark, empty cavity where my heart had once been.

It was unbearable, and every time I tried to rise above it, to bring reality into focus and concentrate on what lay ahead, I found myself sucked back into that mire of grief, from which I simply could not rise.

And the truth was that I didn’t really want to. Not yet.

Because that would mean it was true. It had really happened.

But it couldn’t have. Not to Ethan. If any of my parents’ children should have lived forever, it would be Ethan. He was fearless. And in the end, that was the problem. He’d sent Jace and Kaci to safety while he’d stayed behind to keep the enemies at bay.

He had to know his chances of survival were slim, but he did it anyway.

Ethan, why did you have to play the hero? But the truth, though Ethan might not even have known it, was that for once, he wasn’t playing.

In the hall, Dr. Carver paused at Kaci’s room, where she still lay unconscious on the bed. Then he stopped us by the open bathroom door and waited while I washed Ethan’s blood from my hands and rinsed my face. When I was done, his hand closed around mine and I squeezed it, thankful that he was there. I’d rather have been comforted by Marc, but his absence was just one more entry on a long list of things that were currently irrevocably fucked up in my life at that moment.

When I had myself under control, we continued down the hall to the living room, where everyone else had gathered, and my father passed us on the way out. He walked stiffly down the hall and into his room. Seconds later, water ran in his bathroom, but over that, I heard him crying. Not the gentle, quiet tears he’d shed in the woods. Great, trembling sobs. Angry sobs, that spoke of imminent action and grim consequences.

Dr. Carver stopped in the doorway. “I have to go check on Kaci,” he whispered. “Then I need to see what I can do for Jace’s arm.”

I nodded and he squeezed me one more time, then let me go.

In the living room, Ethan lay on the sofa, his head hidden from sight by the armrest. Someone had tucked his arm in at his side, and my mother sat on her knees in front of the couch, one hand stroking Ethan’s hair back from his face. What little blood still dripped from his neck soaked into the cushion, then the front of her apron.

Owen sat on the floor, tail curled around himself, with his furry chin resting on Ethan’s thigh. His eyes were closed, and if not for the occasional mournful whine coming from deep within his throat, I might have thought he was asleep.

I curled up in an armchair, glad I’d washed the blood from my hands. The couch was already stained, but I had the absurd thought that if I smeared blood on the white chair, everything would be worse somehow. That blood on satin would make it somehow more real. More gruesome.

Make Ethan more dead.

As I watched my mother, wondering what I should do to help her, my heart throbbed with every painful beat. With that suffocating grief. A never-ending ache I knew would soon morph into a rage unlike anything I’d ever experienced.

But for now, it was only bitter sorrow.

A door opened down the hall and my father was back, dressed in clean cotton pajama bottoms and his favorite blue robe.

“Karen.” His voice was rough, like he was speaking through shards of glass. He cleared his throat and tried again. “Karen, you have to get up.”

But she refused. She didn’t even look at him, so my dad picked her up and carried her just like he’d carried Ethan. He put her in a chair opposite the couch and waved me over to sit with her. When I stood, wondering if it was even possible to comfort a woman who’s just lost one of her children, my father crossed the room to sit in a chair in the far corner, where he leaned forward and buried his head in his hands.

“Mom?” I approached slowly, and she went stiff when I put one hand on her shoulder. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

She looked at me then, and I had to close my mouth to stifle a gasp. She was covered in Ethan’s blood. Smeared in it, like she’d hugged him. As soon as I thought it, I knew that’s exactly what had happened. I had to get her out of those bloody clothes. My father acting distant and morose was unsettling. But it was even worse to watch my mother’s quiet anguish.

My father was the front man. The obvious authority. But my mother was the steel backbone of my family, and without her standing tall and strong, we would all start to bend and wither.

I couldn’t let that happen.

“Come on, Mom.” I took her arm, and she let me help her up. Then she surprised me—and frankly scared the shit out of me—by clinging to me. Her arms went around my neck and her head found my shoulder, instantly damp with her tears. Her weight went almost limp in my arms and all I could do was hold her tight while she cried, each sob shuddering through both of us.

When the tears slowed, I squeezed her and gently loosened my grip until she was supporting her own weight. Then I stepped back and met her eyes as she wiped her face with both hands, streaking Ethan’s blood with her own tears.

Her eyes were red, her face swollen and splotchy, and her usually perfect makeup was now a distant memory.

“How ‘bout some hot tea?”