Sam had kept us at fight drills all night and I was beat by the time I got home. I ate the last two muffins Claire had made for me and drained a big glass of milk. I was heading to the bedroom when my phone rang. It was Martha – Claire’s Mom. That was odd.

 

“Hi.”

 

“Hi. Sorry to bother you, but I’m looking for Claire and she’s not answering her phone.” She sounded a little annoyed.

 

“She’s not here,” I said, glancing in the bedroom to make sure she hadn’t come by and fallen asleep on the bed.

 

“She’s not?” Martha paused. “She didn’t come home last night so I assumed she was with you.”

 

That made my stomach knot. I took a deep breath and tried to stay calm. “Did you try the store?”

 

“It’s not open this early.”

 

“Where did you see her last?”

 

“She took Karl to his soccer game yesterday. He decided to spend the night with a friend, so he figured she left before the game was over. She had my car, so I know she didn’t come home.”

 

I took a deep breath – I really needed to keep my head about this.

 

“You said Karl spent the night with a friend?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Is he home yet?”

 

“No. He’s still over at Conroy’s. What do I do?”

 

“Call over there – Conroy’s mom is Amber, right?”

 

“Right.”

 

“Call Amber and let her know we’ll be right over. I need to ask Karl some questions. And anyone else who was at the game. I’ll be right by to pick you up.”

 

I ran out the door, tossed the phone in my truck and headed over.

 

 

Martha was very near a state of panic by the time I got there. Not that I could blame her. I was having trouble keeping my own sense of panic at bay. She met me outside the moment I pulled up, but I had her go back in to get a piece of Claire’s clothing, like a shirt.

 

“Something that hasn’t been washed since she wore it.”

 

As Martha headed back in, I paced and tried to make a list of all the possibilities. She could have decided to go to a friend’s house. I had to immediately reject that because she’d never do that without letting her mom know where she was. She could’ve had car trouble and didn’t want to walk home because of the vampire sighting. But she would have called – unless her phone had gone dead. But there wasn’t much of anyplace she could have driven to where her stalled car wouldn’t have been seen by any number of people by now. I didn’t want to admit to myself that Claire could have been attacked by the vampire, but it seemed the likeliest – and deadliest – scenario. I hadn’t gotten far with that line of thinking before Martha returned with a tee-shirt she’d retrieved from Claire’s bedroom. I threw it in the truck, and we took off.

 

 

After gathering Karl, Conroy and Amber – who’d also been at the game last night – and explaining why we were there, I sat down so I wouldn’t be towering over the kids. “Tell me everything that happened last night.” They all looked at me like I was only half there – like the shock of thinking Claire might be in trouble made it impossible for them to see straight. I understood that.

 

Finally, Martha spoke. “Like I said, she took Karl to his soccer game yesterday.”

 

“What time?”

 

“The game started at five,” Karl chimed in. “Conroy invited me to spend the night at his house. After I got permission from Mom, I told Claire I didn’t need a ride home anymore.”

 

“Then what did she do?”

 

“I guess she left, but I really wasn’t paying that much attention ’cause we were back on the field.”

 

“Did any of you happen to notice Claire leaving the game?”

 

“I know she was there,” said Amber, “she said hi to me, but I didn’t see her leave. I’m sorry.”

 

“Did anyone see or hear anything unusual?”

 

“Just the game. Nothing weird,” said Conroy.

 

“Then what happened?”

 

“We went into overtime–” Karl began.

 

“No, I mean after the game.”

 

“Like I said I went home with Conroy.” Karl had that look – like he was afraid he was in trouble, and he felt like crying but he didn’t want to because that would just make everything worse. I took a deep breath and tried a softer approach.

 

“Karl, this isn’t your fault, okay?” He nodded. “When you left did you see your mom’s car in the parking area?”

 

“No. But I wasn’t looking for it,” he admitted.

 

“Did anyone else?”

 

“I don’t remember seeing it,” said Amber. “I think I would have noticed if it had still been there, but I can’t be positive.”

 

It seemed like I’d gotten all of the information I was going to. “Thanks everyone.” I looked at Martha. “Call Sheriff Swan. Have Karl, Conroy and Amber tell him everything they just told me. And give him the make and model of your car and have your license plate number handy.”

 

Martha followed me out to the porch. “Tell Charlie to call Sam’s place if he picks up anything.”

 

“Do you think it’s the vampire?” Martha whispered, her voice full of dread.

 

“It could be. Hopefully the pack will be able to figure that out without too much trouble.”

 

“Oh, Quil. Find her for me, please.”

 

“I intend to.” I turned to leave and then stopped. “Call me if you hear anything.” She nodded. I don’t know why I said that. It’s not like I could carry my cell in wolf form. She’d half to leave a message, but it was all I could think of. I headed over to Sam and Emily’s.

 

*        *       *

 

“Oh my God,” was all Emily seemed capable of saying after I’d told them everything.

 

Sam gave her a hug. “We don’t know yet if it’s the vampire. She’s probably just fine.”

 

“We’re going to find her,” I told Emily with conviction. That didn’t seem to calm her down much, but saying it made me feel a little better.

 

Sam and I took off. He phased right away but I wanted to keep hold of Claire’s tee-shirt. Then Sam let out a howl – the one that means, everybody meet at our spot; we have work to do. We didn’t hear anything in response right away, but finally the guys started to howl back, and we were all together within the span of a few minutes.

 

I couldn’t hear it, but I knew Sam was giving them a quick run-down of what had happened while I had each of them take a good whiff of the tee-shirt. Most of them probably recognized Claire’s scent, but I wanted it to be fresh in their minds. Then I phased.

 

“Quil and Paul: you go to the ball field and see if you can pick up anything there,” Sam said. “The rest of us will split up and run a perimeter check and then circle back until we’ve covered the whole area.”

 

Paul and I took off for the ball field. I picked up Claire’s scent on the sidelines, but it disappeared abruptly in the parking area where she must have gotten into her car. We got the vampire’s scent as well, and it ended in the same place. That was not good news. But at least we didn’t smell or see any blood. “The vampire must have taken her in her car,” Paul offered. I’d come to that same conclusion, and it made my stomach knot. Not only was that the worst possible scenario but being in the car would make her impossible to track – all cars left pretty much the same smell: exhaust, oil and gas. Tire tracks only left prints on dirt roads, and the parking area was right off the highway.

 

We decided to track the vampire’s scent to see if we could determine where it had come from. Maybe it had been hanging out in the same area for a while. If so, chances were good it would return at some point. We really had no other options. We were able to follow the scent for a while, but once we hit a stream, we lost it again. I howled in frustration. Sam howled back with directions to check the beach. Paul and I took off.

 

 

We struck out on the beach. I hadn’t expected to find anything – the surf makes tracking anything difficult. But it was still a place we needed to rule out. We heard Sam howl again: time to meet up at our spot.

 

 

We gave the rest of the pack what little intel we’d been able to uncover. No one else had picked up either Claire or the vampire’s scent. They could all sense my agitation and all the guys – well, those who had imprinted – felt for me. They knew what kind of hell I was going through. Though none of them had ever been so dramatically and involuntarily separated from their imprints before, they all lived with the same fear: that some terrible event would steal from them the most important thing on this earth – the one person they didn’t know how to live without.

 

I couldn’t take the strain of knowing they could all see right into my pain, so I phased back and then the rest of the pack did too. We started heading toward Sam’s house. Emily, who was running, met us part way.

 

“Sheriff Swan called,” she said almost frantically. “They found the car.”

 

“Was Claire in it?” Emily gave me a sad shake of her head to indicate no.

 

“Where?” Sam asked.

 

“Off of Interstate 101, not far from where it hooks up with 113.”

 

“I’m going after her,” I announced and continued toward Sam and Emily’s place at a brisk pace.

 

“She could be in Olympic National Park,” Sam said, following me. “Off the rez.”

 

“I don’t care. I’m going.”

 

“It’s too far to run.”

 

“Then I’ll take the truck.”

 

“I’ll drive,” Sam said. I decided that was probably a good plan. I was pretty keyed up. Besides it would give me a chance to scan the forest along the highway. Not that I was likely to see Claire, but it would give me something to concentrate on.

 

“I’m in,” said Paul. When we got to Sam and Emily’s place Sam went in for a minute while I paced outside like a caged animal. He finally came out, having put on a shirt and shoes, and tossed tee-shirts and flip-flops to me and Paul. We put them on and then the three of us climbed into Sam’s truck and headed east.

 

 

The silence in the cab was starting to get to me. I decided to bring up with the guys what I’d been mulling over. Maybe they’d have some ideas.

 

“I’ve been thinking: a flat-out kidnapping is a strange M.O. for a vampire. They generally kill their victims wherever they find them.”

 

Sam and Paul nodded. “The proximity to the ball park would have made that less desirable in this case,” Sam volunteered.

 

“Yeah, but why did it take Claire so far away? That just doesn’t make sense to me.”

 

“Yeah, it’s weird,” Sam agreed. “He has some other motive. But I think the fact that he took her is good – makes it much more likely that he didn’t–” He stopped himself from saying what we were all thinking. “That she’s not been hurt.”

 

The traffic was frustratingly slow through Forks. Good thing I hadn’t been driving. I probably would have run someone off the road in sheer frustration. Or given up and phased right there in the road and taken off. Finally, we got through town and when we were close to the turnoff for 113, Sam had me use his cell to call Sheriff Swan, who gave us directions.

 

The car was parked not far off the highway on what looked like an old logging road. I let out a groan of anger – it was swarming with sheriff’s deputies who were still processing the scene. I needed to get close to the car in wolf form if I was going to pick up any information of value. Sam got out of the truck but held up his hand to signal me and Paul to stay where we were.

 

“Any sign of her?” he asked Swan.

 

“No. There’s one set of footprints that head off into the woods, but they look too big to be Claire’s.”

 

“Can you follow them?”

 

“No, they disappear almost immediately.”

 

“Any chance the guys and I can get in close to the car?”

 

Charlie Swan shook his head sadly to indicate that he knew exactly what Sam meant: we needed to get in there as wolves. “They should be done processing the car in a half hour or so.”

 

A half hour? How could we wait around half an hour? I wanted to pound the dashboard.

 

Sam and Charlie had moved away a bit, and Sam was gesturing toward the forest beyond the car. Charlie nodded his head and Sam came back to the truck. “He can’t let us near the car yet, but if we split up and run a close perimeter one of us should be able to pick up something. Charlie said he’d keep his guys close by.”

 

That was all I needed to hear. I jumped out of the truck and shot off into the nearest clump of trees to phase. With my nose to the ground, it didn’t take me long to pick up the vampire’s scent. I could just pick out Claire’s scent as well, though it was much more subtle. That probably meant that the vampire had carried her. I took it as a good sign – there was no reason a vampire would haul a dead victim around. I let out a short howl to alert Sam and Paul and took off running as fast as my nose could follow the scents.

 

It was something of a climb, but Sam and Paul caught up with me pretty quick. Then we lost the scent on a rocky outcropping. I howled in despair. And that’s when I heard her.

 

“Quil! I’m here! Quil!” I’d never been so happy to hear Claire’s voice. I let out a yip of relief.

 

She called to me again and we followed her voice to an old cabin. I ran a quick reconnaissance circle around it before throwing myself against the door. I busted it open fairly easily. She was there, all in one piece but tied to a chair. “Oh Quil! I knew you’d find me.” I wanted to phase back and hold her, but I needed to get her out of that chair first. Paul helped me chew through the ropes holding her hands and legs while Sam stood guard just outside. The old shack reeked of the vampire’s stench, and we figured he wasn’t far off.

 

As soon as she was able, Claire threw her arms around my neck and buried her face in my fur. I whimpered my response then pulled back and looked her in the eyes.

 

“He’s not here, but he said he’d be watching me,” she told us. “I think he’s on the lookout for the pack.”

 

As much as I wanted that bloodsucker dead, I wanted Claire safe more. I signaled for her to get on my back and let Paul and Sam know I was taking her down to the truck. They told me they wanted to sniff around a bit to try and pick up the vampire’s trail. I thanked them and left with Claire.

 

Claire hadn’t ridden on my wolf back in years. She’d decided she was too grown up for that once she got to be about nine. It felt so good – not just to have her with me, but to have her against me. Allowing me to support her. She seemed a little shaky, but I didn’t know if that was because of her ordeal or because she hadn’t been on my back in so long. Probably a bit of both.

 

When I found the grove of trees where I’d phased, Claire must have seen my clothes because she climbed off and stood back a ways while I phased and pulled my shorts on. Then I held her tight. As tight as I could without cutting off her ability to breathe. “I thought I’d lost you,” I said when I finally felt like I was able to form coherent words.

 

“I’m so sorry,” she replied.

 

“You’re okay and that’s all that matters.” I relaxed my grip enough that I could look into her eyes. Then I kissed her. Like a man who’d been on the brink of starvation.

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