~ CARA ~Half an hour after barricading myself in my room, I had wiped my eyes and gotten myself together. I didn’t have much time. My father was passed out, but I could hear my mother crying and fussing downstairs. If he didn’t wake soon, she’d cave and start trying to revive him. That meant I had to get out of there.So I took a deep breath and pushed to my feet, pulling my bag up onto the bed and opening it. This might be the last time I stepped foot in this room. I had to make certain I didn’t leave anything important.The truth was, there wasn’t much for me to take. A few books. My old journals. And the quilt my late grandmother had made for me.I didn’t want any of the things that smelled like this place, or reminded me of my yea

~ CARA ~I had sat on the damp ground in the shadows of the trees on the corner of my neighbor’s house figuring Rig would arrive in his Jeep and I'd see him coming and wave him down as he approached the house. So, when an SUV I didn't recognize rocketed into around the corner and accelerated, I just assumed one of the neighbors was coming home drunk and gripped Purrkins cage harder. But then the car whipped into our driveway and stopped so fast the tires gave a little squeal and the entire vehicle bobbed and jiggled with its momentum. Before I could finish getting to my feet and grabbing my bag, Rig had thrown the car door open and was sprinting for the front door, banging on it and calling my name. “Shit! No! Rig!” I hissed. But he wa

~ CARA ~At the curb just outside my dorm, I stood at the back of the SUV, the exhaust from the running car swirling around my knees, staring at Purrkins in the broken down pet carrier. He stared back at me, his body curled low and small, meowing his protest.Rig stood right behind my shoulder because he'd been about to get my bag for me, and I moved so he couldn't reach it. “I don't know what to do,” I blurted. “I told you, Cara, I’ll take him. Just tell me what he needs and I’ll make it happen.”I turned on him then, because it was so unfair that he kept pretending this was just… nothing. “He needs a bed, and food, and water, a litter-box, toys, flea-treatments an

~ RIG ~I swung by the 24-Hour big box store and cleaned out their pet section with everything Cara had listed, plus a few extras that Natalie suggested.By the time we reached the packhouse it was almost three in the morning, so I was surprised to see lights on in the living room, and even more surprised when I walked in the door and all my brothers were there, and awake.“What’s going on?” I asked them. Had something else happened? We’d been out of range for most of the night and I hadn’t linked when I’d gotten close enough. Had that been a mistake?Charlie and Jack were on the couch playing a video game, but they’d paused it the moment I walked in.Mack, dressed in nothing but paja

~ CARA ~As the windows of the library began to turn dark, I sat back in my chair and sighed. I’d read the same paragraph five times and not a word of it was getting in.I was stuck behind the desk because I was the only staff member on—there was some big sports game this evening and everyone was going. Only the most diligent students were in the library this evening, and they didn’t need me.I’d barely slept, but was surprisingly alert. I’d hunted all night, driven forward into the shadowed trees, but clueless on what I was hunting. Every sound, every smell… it was like it called to my body. I couldn’t stop. But eventually the sun had risen and I’d returned to my room, tired and frustrated.When I woke just before lunch,