𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟐 - 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨

"Theo?" A voice came at my door, along with a knock. Much to my surprise, it was Maia — I was expecting it to be Ember, but then I remembered that Ember had gone for a run in the woods with Abi.

It was mostly to get Abi out of the house, otherwise, she'd sit with Zack all day long, and she needed some time to herself.

Zack was healing slowly. But, according to Abi, he was healing at the usual rate for a human. He still couldn't sit up; his ribs were too sore. Sometimes, I'd sit and talk with him — mostly about nothing, avoiding all the heavy stuff. Most of the time, though, it was Abi that stayed by his side.

"What's up?" I turned to Maia, as she stepped into my room, firmly shutting the door behind her.

"Can I... Can I talk to you?" She asked hesitantly, fidgeting.

"Of course." I frowned. "What is it?"

I sat down on the edge of my bed, and gestured for her to sit in the armchair — hoping that to make her more comfortable; hell, I was getting second-hand anxiety from her chemosignals.

"Is it about your wolf?" I asked.

Maia nodded. "I know that I should probably be talking to Jason about it because he's the Alpha, but because it's really that important I thought that—"

"That you'd talk to another Beta about it?" I filled in, nodding. "Yeah, I totally get that."

"Can I show you something?" Maia asked, but she was already standing up and lifting the back of her t-shirt.

Getting up, I stepped closer to her, seeing an ugly-looking shotgun scar along her spine.

"Holy shit," I swore. "When did this happen?"

Maia dropped her shirt and turned to face me, eyes full of tears, "I don't know."

"How do you get shot and not know about it?" I interrogated; brows joining together in confusion.

"It must've happened in between me being at Lake Oldoy with Tom and me crawling through the woods in Montana." Her eyes were full of worry and the anxiety pouring out of her was extremely potent-smelling.

"Are you sure you don't remember anything?" I probed, knowing that deep down, her subconscious would've remembered something — some tiny detail that could make all the difference.

"I really don't know." Her eyes teared up again. "But I remember something about that night that I transitioned."

I remembered a lot about that night; Ember stayed in the ranch, and whilst Jason, Ryder, Jade and I were running around the woods searching for a newly-transitioned Maia, Abi and Storm arrived back with a wounded Zack.

"You were really hard to track down that night, you know?" I told her lightheartedly, "Harder than a normal werewolf."

"Sorry..." Maia shrugged. "But that night, I came back to the ranch before you found me. And I... I saw Ember through the window..."

"And then what?"

"I saw this... this shape around her body." Maia frowned. "It was like flames and the shape of a bird."

I nodded. "That's her Phoenix."

"But... her Phoenix did something," Maia continued, "And Ember hadn't done anything."

Dread hit my stomach as I sucked in a shaky breath — whatever Maia was about to tell me couldn't have been good. "What did it do?"

"It..." She swallowed hard. "I can't explain it, it burned brighter, and its head turned and looked directly at me..."

"What else?"

"It spoke to me." She shivered in spite of the hot day. "Through the window and everything, it told me that — that I wasn't a real werewolf, and that I was an experiment."

"We need to tell Jason." I grabbed her hand, beginning to lead her out of my room.

"Theo, I don't understand, " she complained, "What does this mean? That I'm an experiment?"

"Whilst the pack were being held captive by the hunters," I rapidly explained, "They ran tests and experiments on them, they're trying to find a cure to being supernatural — if your werewolfism is an experiment, like Ember's Phoenix... told you, there's a good chance that the hunters experimented on you."

"Shit."

"Jason?" I knocked on his door, before pushing it open, "This is important."

Jason got up from his desk instantly. "What is it? What's happened?"

I explained everything that Maia had told me to Jason, before leaving her with him. As an Alpha, Jason had a skill that allowed him to access the memories of one of his Betas, but it was a very dangerous process, that I had never seen done before, and so I left them alone.

I rubbed my face with my hands as I walked towards the kitchen — struggling to believe that the hunters experimented on Maia, especially with that level of experimentation. My mind just couldn't process it all.

Abi walked past me. "You okay?"

"Fine." I forced a smile. "How was your run?"

"Good, how's Zack?" Was the instant reply.

"He's fine, Abi. You don't need to worry about him so much," I told her, "There's a whole houseful of people that can look after him, you know?"

"I know." She smiled sadly, pushing sweaty hair out of her face. "I just worry about him. You must know what that's like?"

"Yeah, I know." I nodded and patted her on the shoulder, heading into the kitchen.

Much to my surprise, Ember was standing at the sink, wearing ¾-length gym pants and a sports bra, clearly having just taken her vest off. She was leaning over the sink, splashing water over her face.

"Ember," I said her name, without even thinking about what to say next.

"Theo!" Ember jumped out of her skin, turning to face me.

"I like your sports bra," I told her without even thinking; it had criss-cross material over her cleavage and didn't look very supportive — but damn, it looked so good on her.

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes, patting her face dry with her vest.

"How are you doing?" I asked, forcing myself to look at her face, not her boobs. Don't look at her boobs, don't look, don't, boobs, sexy, don't look — damn this is hard.

"I like running," she told me, "Because you don't have to think about anything whilst you're doing it."

"Is there some stuff that you don't want to think about?" I was trying to be nice, but my words came out cruel and interrogating.

"Clearly." She spat out at me, before beginning to walk out.

"There's something you need to know." I grabbed her wrist as she walked past me.

"What is it?" She asked through gritted teeth, looking extremely annoyed at me.

"It's Maia." I began to explain, and already her annoyance started dissipating and morphing into worry. "The night she transitioned, she came back to the ranch whilst we were still out looking for her, and she saw you through the window—"

"I saw a pair of glowing, golden eyes." Ember breathed, her blue eyes widening in realisation. "That was Maia, wasn't it?"

"Yeah," I continued, "But before that, your Phoenix spoke to her."

"My Phoenix did what?" Ember shrilled.

"Spoke to her," I repeated myself — attempting to keep my voice calm to stop her from freaking out. "Your Phoenix spoke to Maia and told her that she was an experiment. Maia told me this, then I told Jason, and now he's trying to figure out if there's anything else in her memory that can help us."

"I... I had no idea my Phoenix could do that." A scared shadow passed over her face. "Can you see my Phoenix?"

"Only with my other eyes," I answered her scared question, "But it's weak compared to how it was back in Lake Oldoy at the warehouses."

"Theo," Ember said forcefully, "Look at me with your other eyes right now, and tell me what you see."

Feeling compelled to do so, I let my control slip enough so that my eyes would change, but not so much that I would lose total control. Her Phoenix still surrounded her body, the fire flowing in a bird-shape — but something was different compared to how it was back in Lake Oldoy.

"Tell me what you see," she demanded once again.

"I see your Phoenix," I told her, refraining from telling her that I saw a fierce, sexy, beautiful girl.

"And...?" She looked at me pointedly. "What else?"

Rolling my eyes, I focused back in on her figure — watching as the Phoenix flowed protectively. I glanced down at her wrist, where the Phoenix's wing was pointing, and I saw that it was indicating that I touched her wrist, right where her fire emblem was...

As if I was in a trance, I stepped forward to press the glowing emblem; something indescribable was pulling me towards it, drawing me to touch it...

"What are you doing?" Ember grabbed my wrist before I could touch hers.

I snapped out of it.

I blinked. "I don't know."

"I've not got the time or energy for you to screw around with me, Theo." She dropped my wrist and set a hand sassily on her hip. "Is there something going on with my Phoenix, or are you just being your usual jerky self?"

"Harsh." I frowned at her. "Something is going on, but if you don't have the time or energy to stick around and find out, then I guess we're done here."

"I guess so." She narrowed her eyes at me, before stalking out, vest flung over her shoulder.

Damn, that was weird — not the part where she called me a jerk, but the part where her Phoenix was... controlling me?

I swear to God, werewolves are so much easier to understand.

Sighing, I left the kitchen and headed back to Jason's room.

Listening intently from outside the door in the hallway, I heard Jason and Maia's heartbeats beating in sync — meaning that Jason must've still been trying to access her memories.

But is Maia classed as one of Jason's Betas?

If she was some twisted experiment by the hunters, then surely, she wasn't a real werewolf, only a pretend one. I should have thought this through some more; whatever Jason would've been able to find could've given him flashbacks to Sienna, and how she died...

And since he was recovering so well, I didn't want that to get screwed up — but at the same time, I knew that if I interrupted the process, things could get much, much worse.

The shower started running in the girls' bathroom, and after a quick glance told me that Abi was sitting by Zack's side, I deduced that it was Ember in the shower.

Do something else. Think about something else.

Anything but her in the shower.

Her in the shower...

I leaned against the wall, letting my head drop back as I listened to the running water, her steady heartbeat, her breathing, and the sound of the hot water crashing against her skin, the same way that I wanted to crash against her lips and her body...

"What's up, man?" Ryder walked past, yanking me out of my delusional, fantasising state.

I know he'd apologised to me, but it still didn't change the shit that went down between him and Ember — and he couldn't expect things between us to go back to normal straight away.

Just like Ember keeps telling you, a voice niggled at the back of my mind.

"Well," I took a deep breath, cooling my raging emotions and sticking my hands in my pockets to discreetly cover up the proof of my fantasising about Ember. "Ember's Phoenix spoke to Maia the night that she transitioned, and it told her that her bite, and her being a werewolf, was another experiment that the hunters conducted. It could be true because they extracted some of Jason's power as an Alpha when they had you..."

"Shit." Ryder blinked in utter surprise. "And here I was thinking that you were just stood outside the girls' bathroom thinking about Ember in the shower."

Crap.

A blush may have tinted my cheeks at this point, but Ryder didn't notice and continued talking, "You know, I really am sorry for what went down between me and her. You and her are meant to be together. I don't know what I was thinking."

"Probably something along the lines of 'she's hot and single', right?" I joked, "But seriously, dude, it's okay."

"Then why does it still feel like you're waiting for an apology?" He questioned, eyebrows furrowing together.

"Maybe I'm waiting for Ember to apologise."

"She hasn't yet?"

"She just found out that her dad died because of the hunters — our screwed-up little love triangle probably hasn't been at the forefront of her mind over the past few days." I huffed.

"Seriously, dude." Ryder huffed back at me, "I don't care how it happens, but you and her needs to happen. If spending some time with her told me anything, it's that she's still crazy about you—"

"Shut up, Ryder." I rolled my eyes, beginning to walk off. "She's not crazy about me. I doubt she ever was."

"I'm not messing around, Theo!" Ryder ran to catch up with me. "That night Maia transitioned, and we were going out to find her, don't you remember the way her face fell when you hugged Jade?"

I frowned; I'd hugged Jade multiple times, so I wasn't exactly likely to remember one particular occasion.

"Right." Ryder sighed, beginning to recap the exact moment. "After we saw that Maia had smashed through the window, Jade said something about everything going wrong recently, and you reassured her, saying that we'd find her, or something like that, and then you hugged her. Shit, man, you should've seen Ember's face. She must've already figured out that something was going down between you and Jade... But, dude, the look on her face, it was just — just woah."

"What does that mean?" I interrogated, jaw clenched tightly, trying to figure out exactly what Ryder was trying to tell me.

"She digs you, Theo," Ryder told me, "And seeing you with Jade like that — it was shredding her heart to bits."

Ember stepped out of the girls' bathroom; a towel securely wrapped around her body — I hadn't even noticed that the shower had stopped running.

She digs you.

I tried to hold onto that, even as she rolled her eyes at the two of us, and went back into the bathroom.

Ryder threw me a look as if to say, see?

I threw him a look back; whatever.

It turned out that Maia's lycanthropy was another cruel, twisted experiment by design of those bastard hunters.

"She should be fine," Jason told us, as the entire pack stood in the lounge, though his words weren't as convincing or as reassuring as I'd hoped.

"Should?" I echoed in disbelief.

"Yeah." Jason looked tired and older at that moment as he snapped back at me, "Yeah, she should be fine — I don't exactly have tons of experience when it comes to ­Maia's particular situation."

Ember's face betrayed her worry, though it wasn't like she was the only one — the whole pack were worried. I was quickly growing sick of the worry that always seemed to be hanging around. Simpler times felt like a lifetime ago, and I could only wish that things returned to how they were.

But it's all the hunters' fault, I thought cynically as Jason tried explaining the situation more, goddamn hunters always complicating things.

The thing is, with hunters they're pretty much always going to be around where supernaturals are — it's some sort of ancient link between the two kinds of us. It's a lot like the fact that nettles and dock leaves are always found growing in the same place — one cures the other. And that's exactly what these hunters were trying to do.

Don't they know we don't want curing? Don't they know we don't want saving?

Being a werewolf makes up for so much of my identity; I couldn't imagine living without my lycanthropy.

"Are you okay?" Ember asked me, and I looked up to see that everybody had cleared the room except the two of us.

"Just peachy." I sarcastically replied.

"Me too." She rolled her eyes back at me.

I flopped down on the sofa and rubbed my face with my hands.

"Do you think I'm dangerous?" Ember asked me cautiously and sat down beside me, our legs nearly touching, but not quite.

"I..." I paused, wanting to find the right words, "I think you're powerful."

"Does that make me dangerous?" She leaned closer to me, focusing in on my every word.

"It depends how you use that power." I shrugged, playing it casually whereas my body was freaking out at her being so close to me.

"Do you think I did the wrong thing?" She asked, fiddling with her nails. "With the hunters, I mean."

"I probably would've done the exact same had I been in that situation," I told her; it was true. Even though the thought of Ember killing 12 hunters had shocked me to my core, it was exactly the thing that I would've done if they'd taken me and I had the capacity to do so.

"You know what made me break?" Ember whispered to me quietly.

"What?" I frowned across at her, keeping my voice low and quiet, so that she doesn't get scared; it's good for her to be able to open up — especially to me.

"They..." She sucked in a shaky breath. "Chris's dad — he was the one that was torturing me, and asking so, so many questions. And I didn't break, not once." She shook her head, and flicked her eyes up to mine, gazing intently into my soul. "And then he asked me this one question. This one question, and it got my fire building inside of me, and there was no stopping my Phoenix."

"What was the question?" I asked, another gentle push, aware that she was still dealing with the grief of taking a dozen lives and the loss of her dad.

Ember placed her hand on my knee, eyes searching my face, as she told me, "He asked me how long I thought you'd last if they tortured you."

I swallowed.

She continued, "Then he told me that you were getting tortured right next door to where I was, and then I totally lost it. I was this beaten, bloody, bruised mess, but my Phoenix gave me a new strength I've never experienced before..."

"Why did you lose it so much?"

She stood up quickly and explained with a surge of blunt anger, "Because I care about you, you idiot."

Then she ran across the lounge, out the side door, and down to the hut by the lake.

Leaving me dumbfounded, even though I shouldn't have been. Both of us were just over-complicating things between us.

Hopefully, it was only a matter of time before both of us recognised that, and then we could move on.

Hope — that seems to be all I can do at the moment.