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There's about a half second where I can hear her decide not to make a joke about this.

"Four," Cass says. "Six if you'll let Tobin sit in a chair."

"Six."

"Gage." A pause. "Ansel's going to hear about this by breakfast."

"I know."

"Just so you know that I know that you know."

It's dark when I get home.

There are wolves in my yard, two of them in the truck bed sharing a thermos like this is a fishing trip. The sight of it gives me a good feeling. I'm not going to examine it too hard.

Maren's on my porch steps with two mugs. Same as yesterday, when she carried them out to men she'd never met who are helping protect her.

She hands me one.

"You were gone a long time," she says.

"The door's hanging. New bolt. Works from both sides."

"Did you find anything today?"

Her face is turned up toward mine, and the porch light's out, so the only thing lighting her is the kitchen window and Halloween strung across the whole town behind her.

She's asking me straight out.

She's asking because I told her about the footprints this morning without being asked, and she's decided that she can start to trust me now.

"No," I say.

Maren nods. She leans her shoulder into my arm and drinks her coffee and looks out at my yard and members of my pack, and she says, "Thank you for not managing me."

The envelope with the thread inside is in my jacket. Six inches from her hand. I feel like a shit. It's going to be very bad when I finally explain about the envelope.

24

MAREN

STILL SIX DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN

There are six wolves in Gage's yard, and I've fed every one of them.

Not because I'm a good hostess. Because I can't stand inside a warm house looking at people sitting out in twenty-nine degrees on my account.

Cass takes the last cupcake off the plate like she's granting me a favor. "Gage made these."

"He says he didn't."

"He says a lot of things." She smiles and licks frosting off her thumb and tips her chin toward the door. "Inside, ma'am. You're in socks."

"Stop calling me ma'am."

"Nope."

Two of the others share a thermos in the bed of a truck. One of them is maybe twenty, and he keeps checking the tree line intently. Nobody has used the word guard. But, everyone is guarding.