“No,” I snapped at him. “I didn’t lose him. I just can’t find him.”
He laughed. “Oh, I see. Well. I’m sure he hasn’t gone far. I’ll keep an eye out for him. Run along, little princes. You should notify your father. He’ll want to know.”
I didn’t want that.
I didn’t want my father to be angry with me.
To tell me I should have been watching Joe.
That he was my responsibility.
“I don’t like him,” Kelly whispered as Richard walked away, heading toward the front gates.
“I don’t either. Come on. Maybe Joe’s back at the house already.”
He wasn’t.
And it was as we were climbing the steps that we felt it.
Fear. Through the bonds. It was a small thing, because Joe was a small thing.
But he was scared.
We barely made it to the door before it burst open, banging against the side of the house. Our father was there, eyes red, nostrils flaring. He saw us, and we cowered before him. He said, “Where is he?”
And I said, “Dad, I—”
He pushed by us, tilting his head back. He roared, and it filled the world, consuming all other sound. The people of Caswell stopped what they were doing. Every single one of them. They looked to my father as his call echoed over the lake.
Mom appeared on the porch, her hand at her throat. “Thomas?” she asked, voice wavering. “What is… what’s wrong?”
“Joe,” Dad said. “Something’s happened to Joe.” He glanced back at me. “He was with you. Where did he go?”
I hung my head. “I don’t…. Dad. I didn’t—”
A man appeared as if out of nowhere. He stood before my father, bowing low. “Alpha,” Osmond said. “What’s happened?”
“My son,” Dad said through gritted fangs. “Lock Caswell down. No one gets in or out. Now.”
Osmond hurried away.
“Joe!” Mom shouted as she came off the porch. “Joe!”
He didn’t answer.
And later, as we moved through the forest at night through the pouring rain, all of us screaming Joe Joe Joe, I promised myself that when Joe came back, when he came back and he was fine, I was never going to let him out of my sight again. I was going to hold him and hug him and shake him and yell at him for scaring me, for scaring all of us, how could you do that to me, Joe, how could you do that to us?
But we didn’t find him.
Joe was gone.
“Please,” my father said into the phone, gripping it so tightly that I thought it would break. “Please, Richard. Please give me back my son.”
And Richard Collins said, “No.”
I GASPED AS I AWOKE.
“Hey, hey,” a voice said near my ear. “Carter. Stop. Carter. Carter.”