"There's been an accident."

Those were the worst words ever. Well, the words after them were worse.

"Marlena's dead."

Not that I cared if it made me a horrible person, but I was relieved. In the instant between my mother's opening gambit and reality I had imagined a lot worse. Than the reality caught up with me and stabbed me in the gut.

"Marley's what?"

Now I was awake I pushed the covers off of me as if that would make the words coming out of my mother's mouth make sense. It didn't help I was exhausted. I had just gone to bed a few hours ago. Hell, I had just seen Marley a few days before, wrapped around Will as usual as they said goodbye. It was gross. I complained it wasn't like they'd never see each other again...

"There was an accident," she just repeated.

"Does Will know?"

Her face told me that he did. "He's at home. When Sam...it's better if he's not in public right now. Paul's with him."

"I need to..."

"Your father's with Embry. He and Marian—" Mom looked sick. I guess I could understand that. I thought about Bert, less than a year older than Judy, without his big sister. Now I was going to be sick. "I was going to go too, after I woke Dinah."

Someone had to stay with Judy.

"I'm going to go."

"Okay."

Then she hugged me, the way she had wanted to since I woke up and I hugged her back, using every ounce of werewolf strength I had. So what if she was small compared to me? Mom was tougher than she looked. Even if she was slowing me down.

Will was going to be...I really was going to hurl.

When she let me go I was racing to the door, throwing off my clothes. Flying off the porch I transformed as I went, hitting the earth with four paws. Luckily, Quil was in my head, on his way to Embry's as fast as he could go.

What happened?

The last I heard she was off at some cabin, as far away from Will as her father could make her go (he was getting a little tired of watching his daughter get screwed constantly). It wasn't like vampires could get her in the middle of nowhere. I couldn't see how it would be possible, but I still hoped it was vampires.

Right now I felt like tearing something to pieces with my teeth.

Only...it wasn't vampires.

She fell. It was too simple. Someone left a cosmetic bag on the top of the stairs. She must not have seen it and she just—she was gone by the time the ambulance got there.

There were pictures in his head, Marley broken and bloody, Marley with a halo of glass around her, Marley on a slab with glassy eyes. They were horrific—and thankfully unreal. Whatever her friends had found at the bottom of the stairs, no one in the pack had seen it.

Embry wanted to go to the hospital right away, but we're afraid...afraid he couldn't handle it. They were afraid he'd put the doctor who showed him his daughter's body through a wall. They were probably right. We'll see her tomorrow.

Have you seen Will?

He comes and goes.

Phasing unconsciously whenever it became too much.

That didn't make me feel better. We wished each other good luck and went our separate ways.

Aunt Rachel's solemn face greeted me at the door. Whispering, she told me Will was still in his room. She had been sitting with him, but he kicked her out when the phasing started and she knew better than to make a fuss (the last thing Will needed right now was to worry about hurting his mother). Benji was still asleep (the joys of being a kid). Paul was guarding the door, finally knowing his son well enough to know that Will would never want to talk to him right now.

"Hey."

It was the only thing I could think to say as I closed the door behind me. Will was on the bed; the sheets were scratched to hell, reduced to rags by claws and fangs. He looked like you would expect a guy who just lost the center of his universe to look. Like someone had gutted him and then set him on fire and he was still feeling every flame as it licked his body. Any minute now I kind of expected to throw up.

It was his eyes that were the worst; instead of holding them I pretended I had to look around the room for a place to sit even though Will's room was as familiar to me as my own.

"Hey."

At least it was a start.

"You look like shit."

For a second I thought he might phase; he laughed, instead. It didn't sound like it normally did, but I understood what it was supposed to be. Then it faded away and we were left in silence again.

"Have you—" He took a deep breath and made himself go on. "Have you seen Embry?"

"No. Dad's with him."

"I shouldn't have..." There were tears in his eyes; his hands were tearing through the mattress as he clawed at it, trying to find some control. "I need to...I should have...Levi..."

After spending my whole life as Will's best friend, I had no idea what he was trying to tell me now. I could only watch helplessly as the sobs overtook him.

In a minute my sobbing brother was replaced by a shaking wolf.

It was going to be a long night.

Sometime later—forever, maybe—Will managed full sentences.

"Do you think they'll let me see her?"

I wished he'd go back to making no sense.

"I don't—that's probably not the best idea."

"If they let me, I need to see her." The stubborn look I knew so well (when he put it on usually one of us ended up injured) crossed his face. "It's all I can—I have to see her."

"I'll ask," I promised.

"Do you think they'll let me go to the funeral?"

"I think they'll postpone until you can go." While Embry would probably have better control than Will, he might need a few days too. On a good day I could barely control the fury inside me; I couldn't imagine controlling myself if someone I loved wasn't... "We...we know how much she meant to you."

He said nothing for a long, long time.

"If I hadn't pissed Embry off, I would have been there."

My cousin had never taken responsibility for anything in his life—he wanted to start now?

"It wouldn't have made a difference; it's not like you could have carried her everywhere. You had nothing to do with anything."

But it seemed that he wanted to mope, because he started sobbing again. Shit. I was so in over my head.

Aunt Rachel came in with food every so often but didn't say much. There wasn't much to say. She left. We heard her and Uncle Paul arguing over what to do, but it didn't last long. All the fight had gone out of them. Seemed to be a family thing.

At some point Will fell asleep so I took a nap. I woke up when Dinah and Judy came to the door. Exactly how were they supposed to help? Judy was just going to cry and Dinah was couldn't do sympathetic to save her life.

Will cursed a bit, then found some pants and was dressed by the time Aunt Rachel let them into his room. Paul followed.

"You look like shit," Dinah told Will.

"Is that all you guys know how to say?"

"We're really sorry," Judy whispered instead. Then her eyes filled with tears and she was crying, throwing herself right at him. It helped as much as might be expected. He started sobbing again, which freaked Dinah right out because I don't think she believed he had enough feeling in him to cry. She looked helplessly at me (I shrugged, just as lost) before she awkwardly began patting his back.

"Levi," Paul said, "You can go home and take a nap. I can watch the girls."

Will wouldn't hurt my sisters.

"I'm fine," I told my uncle.

He got it, thankfully and left us alone.

My sisters were long gone when I told Will they weren't going to let him see her one last time so when he flipped out (beyond anything I had ever seen from him) at least they were safe. The room didn't really make it, but it wasn't like he had a lot of stuff he liked in there, anyway.

Eventually I made him understand. He didn't want to remember Marlena that way.

That was when he started talking about her, babbling stuff, the same shit he always said and some sentimental stuff that normally he'd rather die than tell me. I did the only thing I could—I listened.

I did have to leave Will, eventually. I was starting to smell and Aunt Rachel wasn't very nice about it. He told me to stop being so clingy, so I flipped him off and left. Heading home sounded good, but I wanted to check in with Dad first and maybe Brian, see how he was taking things, maybe see if I could get him to stay with Will for a bit.

So after I put on a different shirt, I headed to the Calls' house.

Both Embry and Marian seemed bewildered, like they were lost and knew they needed to ask for directions but couldn't figure out whom to ask. Dad and Quil were standing behind Embry (they were pretending it was so they could hustle him out of there if he needed it, but it was just so they could put their hands on his shoulders, touch him, because somehow that made things better in the tiny way they could ever be better again). Embry had his arm around his wife, who had her arm around Bert, who I don't think recognized me at all. All he did was blink, baffled that the world was still moving.

After some awkward conversation, Dad and I had a brief talk outside.

The funeral would be in two days. Will would be fine (I think the unexpected shock of grief was out of his system by now; his parents had let him see his brother this morning and that had gone well) and so would Embry, though we wanted to have the two of them meet before hand just in case something went wrong.

"Anything else I can do?" I asked. "You've got work covered?"

"Don't worry about that. Just keep checking in on everyone, let them know you're there."

"Of course."

A tiny grin emerged on my father's face. Then—before my wolf reflexes even realized what had happened—my father was hugging me. Almost as soon as I realized what was happening he had stopped.

"Try to come home for dinner. Your mother's worried even if...we understand if you can't come."

"I'll try."

Then I took off because I think I would have started bawling if I had stayed there for one second longer.

When I got to Brian's house, it wasn't Brian I found when I pushed my way through the front door.

It was Sam Uley.

And he was drunk.

The boys had been goofing off in the backyard when I came up—I had heard their shouts and laughter as I walked up to the door—but suddenly I couldn't hear them. On the bright side, I finally stopped feeling sick.

"Can I help you, Levi?"

His voice was only slightly slurred. Guy could handle his booze.

I don't think I ever hated anyone more than I hated Sam at that moment.

Because he was pathetic. It was four in the afternoon. I shouldn't have been able to smell the alcohol on his breath from outside. His eyes shouldn't have trouble focusing. The sunken eyes repulsed me for reasons I couldn't say. Everything repulsed me in that second. The two day old beard. The messy hair. The shirt that had yesterday's stench clinging to it. Everything.

I grabbed his collar and slammed him into the wall before I realized what I was doing.

For a second, I swear he looked angry.

"Stop it! So what if she's dead? So what? You think this is what she'd want? You think this will bring her back? Stop it! Stop it. Just..."

Before I could figure out what the hell I meant, a hand was on my arm, jerking me back.

Brian was snarling in my face: "What the hell do you think you're doing?"

Knowing how dangerous it was to have him phase indoors, I let go. The fire was still running through my veins but now it was burning behind my eyes.

"Nothing. I'm going."

I practically raced out of that house; it didn't work as well as I wanted it to. Brian followed me out.

"You touch him again—"

Since my retreat wasn't going the way I wanted it to, I turned around and faced off with Brian. The guy didn't have a hope in hell against me.

"He just gave up and left you—"

I ducked the fist, pushed Brian across the yard and took off.

I had better things to do.

Only when I got home to my house, it was to find it empty. Well, that was good, I guess. I needed to take a nap before I headed back to Will's and having no one around guaranteed that it would be quiet.

But lying on my bed without Will to worry about just meant I had to finally start thinking about Marlena.

I would have given anything to not have to do that.

I had practically stalked her when I was sixteen. I was a better hunter now, but back then I had been determined and hormonal, so I had accomplished a lot. I knew more about her than anyone should. We were the same age, so we had been thrown together in school all the time. We had been thrown together an awful lot, period. Our Dad's were best friends and the rez was small. And she just...when you were around her, you were happier. Better.

She wasn't some kind of saint, or anything like that, because she had a mouth on her that could make me blush, even if she didn't realize what she was saying half the time. That was the beauty of her, really. There was no coy calculation. You never had to read between the lines with Marley; she told you what she felt and then you dealt with it.

And no matter what she said to you, she'd throw her head back and laugh afterwards. She wasn't afraid of laughing or of being happy or of anything, really. If she had to laugh at herself to make someone slightly happier, than she would laugh at herself without thought. She was incredible that way.

Some people go through life and never figure out that life is supposed to be fun; Marley never had that problem. If she didn't enjoy it, she didn't do it. Period.

When I was eight she was my first kiss. We got married that day, I think. Honestly, I hadn't been paying much attention to the game. And I thought kissing her was gross. Her cooties could have killed me.

"Sorry about that," I found myself muttering to my ceiling. "And sorry about..."

I was sorry about all the names I called her when Will liked spending time with her. If she came back right then I gladly would have let her have him, every second of every day for the rest of eternity so long as he wasn't the shaking, shivering wreck I had left back at his house. She could have him. As long as she came back.

I was trying not to think of Marlena, but it was hard with the tears and everything. She had been sweet and wonderful and...

She had great tits.

When I got to Aunt Rachel's house, I found the wrong uncle sitting on the front porch.

"I thought you were in Africa," I said as Uncle Seth greeted me.

"Thought it was time to get back," he shrugged. "I just finished talking to Embry."

So that's why he was out here, gathering his strength. I don't think I could handle them back to back, either.

"Did you bring me back anything?"

I figured pretending things were normal couldn't hurt.

"Sorry. I forgot most of my stuff there. Nessie'll send it over eventually."

"Did you have fun?"

I meant to sound leering, but I was too tired. It worked out for the best because a dark expression crossed his face before he smiled and told me that hadn't really been there to have fun, but he had met some really great people.

Thinking about all the key chains Seth brought back, I had a general idea about where he usually wandered off to. Half of them were sites of natural disasters; a quarter were warzones; I needed to Dinah tell me what the other half were but I bet they weren't pleasant places.

But my uncle was the happiest guy I knew. I think he was playing chicken with the universe—and for the most part, I think he was winning. All the places he went, all the crap he saw, he was asking the world to show it how bad it could get. Then he put on a smile and refused to let anything get him down. He was going to be happy no matter how much crap he saw, no matter what sorts of terrible things people had to endure. That was that.

There were worse people to have around Will right now.

Since I had exhausted my list of stupid questions for the night, I followed him inside so we could talk to my cousin.

Uncle Seth always had the best stories and he didn't disappoint. It kept Will distracted and kept me laughing, so I couldn't complain. If we'd been in the mansion in the middle of nowhere sneaking beer from our parents it might even have felt like old times.

Seth's latest story of how he had been outwitted by a child was interrupted by a knock on the door. Brian came in a second later, looking a little unsure of his welcome but closing the door firmly behind him. In his hand was a pack of cards.

"And I am officially pathetic," Will announced to the world at large. But he made room for Brian and got annoyed when our brother hesitated. "Hurry up. We're playing poker, right?"

"Yeah." Brian wasn't looking at me, but we could do this for Will. "But I'm not betting more than a hundred bucks, so steal my money slowly."

"Fine."

My uncle excused himself (jetlag, he said) and then the three of us started playing. We couldn't help the trash talk; it was habit. The jokes were more subdued than usual, but we still managed a few. We were werewolves, after all. Death went with the territory. So did bouncing back.

After my cousin lost over three hundred dollars, I called the game. There was no sense in reminding him how lousy his luck was today.