𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟒 - 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨

The word came out of my throat in a strange, croaked way so I said it again, "Dad?"

"DAD?" Ember and Ryder yelled behind me in sync.

"It's me, Theo." My dad's mouth turned up at one side, in that sideways smile I always remembered him having.

"But, I — the fire..." I was speechless.

"I know." He wrapped his arms around me in a tight embrace — a tight embrace that I'd been needing for the past seven years of my life.

My chest heaved as I blinked back tears; my dad is alive and I've spent the past seven years thinking he was dead...

He'd barely aged, gone a little grey, sure, but he was still in good shape for mid-forties.

"Mom...?" I asked, eyes hopeful as our embrace ended.

My dad's eyes glistened as he shook his head. "I... I tried."

"I don't understand..." I frowned, as a single tear slid down my cheek.

Then I remembered that night terror a few weeks ago, in which Chris Woodman had stabbed an arrow through my heart: "I bet you don't even know the truth about your parents..." Was that the truth? That my dad had survived whilst my mom hadn't? Or was there something more? Was there something bigger going on here?

"I don't understand," Ember spoke up, her voice bringing me back to the present.

"Erm, right." I shook my head, trying to shake away my thoughts, "Ember, Ryder, this is my dad, Jonathan Oakenbank. And Dad, this is Ember — she, erm... She helped me when I was in the UK. And Ryder, he's in my pack."

Oh shit. He doesn't know what I am.

"Dad," I addressed him as he shook hands with Ember and Ryder, "Something... happened to me just before the fire. I can explain everything, I just—"

"You don't need to." He held a hand up. "I know everything. I spoke with your Alpha, Jason, before coming here. Didn't you think of how dangerous it is to have the entire pack living in the same ranch?"

"Wait." I took a couple of much-needed deep breaths. "You know everything?"

"Yes." He nodded. "Your mother was a shape-shifter, and I've known all about this world ever since I met her when we were young."

"What kind of shape-shifter?" Beyond curious, I could scarcely find the words to say, never mind speak them much louder than a whisper.

"Your mother was the descendent of an ancient family, that originally came from Egypt," he explained, "A family in which all the women possessed a fire within them, a fire that could grow uncontrollable."

"No..." Ember's attention and interest were instantly spiked. "What was your wife's maiden name?"

"Melbourne," he told her. "Why, does this mean something to you?"

With a dry throat, I told him, "Ember comes from a similar type of family. She also possesses the fire."

"Are you saying that Ember and Theo are... related?" Ryder asked, speaking for the first time with my father present.

Related. My blood ran cold, I felt sick; what if we were related? What if I'd had sexual feelings, incestual feelings towards a member of my family?

"No, not directly, not by blood," my dad responded, eyeing each of us in turn. "Theo's mother's family had always been complicated because even though my wife was adopted by the Melbourne family, the fire still passed onto her."

I let out a sigh of relief; I don't know what I would've done if Ember and I were related. I probably would've gouged my eyes out, Oedipus-style.

"Thank God." Ember laughed lightly beside me.

My dad eyed me. "Are you two a thing, or something?"

"Smooth, Dad. Real smooth." I rolled my eyes but reminded myself that he'd missed out on the whole section of my life that consisted of my teenage years. "We used to be, and now we're just..."

"Trying to figure out what's going on," Ember finished.

"Yeah." I agreed, smiling quickly at her.

"Where have Jason and the others gone, then?" Ryder questioned.

"I've sent them to a safe house, and I'll take you to them shortly, but we've just got some other things to do first," my dad explained, before turning to me and asking, "Theo, can I talk to you alone for a second?"

"Of course." I frowned slightly, walking a little way away from the ranch with him, whilst Ember and Ryder got our bags from inside. "What's up?"

"I need you to know that your mom didn't start the fire all those years ago." His eyes saddened, as he started talking about our home, "There was a small group of hunters in Marinette at the time, and they somehow tracked your mother... And set fire to our home, unaware that you were there as well. Your mom — she tried to calm the flames, but the Phoenix within her got enraged and lashed out, worsening the fire tenfold."

"How..." I swallowed, "How did you manage to get out?"

"The same way you did." He smiled weakly. "Through a window. But by the time I could stand up, you'd run off into the forest."

"I... I had no idea..."

"It's okay, Theo." My dad wrapped his arms around me in another, much-needed embrace. "You weren't to know." When our embrace finally ended, he asked, "Do you remember that thing your mother used to say?"

Without even a second of hesitation, I responded, "To always protect those you care about — even if it means you lose everything in the process, right?"

"Yes, exactly." My dad nodded. "And that's why I'm here now. To protect you, even if I lose everything I have."

"There's too much at risk... I don't want you getting hurt," I told him.

"Listen up, kiddo, you may have been on your own for a hell of a long time, but I'm here now, and you don't have to worry anymore," he told me strongly, "I'm here now."

"I know." I nodded — but knew deep down that I would always worry about those closest to me.

My dad glanced at his watch. "We should get going."

"Where are we going?" I asked as we headed back over to the ranch, and to where his pickup truck was parked.

Ember and Ryder had finished loading our stuff up into the truck, and Ryder was now locking the front door of the ranch, whilst Ember stood uncomfortably, shifting from one foot to the other — what's she nervous about?

"We're going to introduce you to your sister." My dad smiled at me as he climbed inside his pickup truck.

"Your sister?" Ember echoed beside me, pausing before climbing into the truck, "I didn't know you had a sister."

"Neither did I," I admitted.

The fact that my dad was alive combined with the fact that I now seemed to have a sister nearly imploded my mind — my parents are both dead, and I have no other family was the only sure thing that I'd known for the past seven years. I had so many, too many questions to even sort out in my head so I kept them to myself. For now, at least.

"Your sister is excited to see you," my dad spoke.

"Really?" My voice came out flat and uninterested, "How come I've never met her before?"

My dad sighed and rubbed his forehead with one hand, the other on the wheel, as I often did. "There was a prophecy told when the two of you were born, and splitting you apart was the best thing we, your mom and I, could do. I found your sister about a year and a half ago. She's been with me ever since."

Ember voiced my unasked question, "So are Theo and his sister twins?"

"Yep." My dad smiled at her in the rear-view mirror. "Born five seconds apart."

"Who's older?" Ryder questioned; I remained speechless.

"Theo." Came the answer.

"Are you okay?" Ember muttered, placing a hand on my shoulder.

I half-turned and half-smiled at her. "Just processing."

I had a hell of a lot to process; my mom inherited Phoenix powers from her adoptive family. A group of hunters tracked us whilst we were living in Marinette, Wisconsin, all those years ago. My mom tried to stop the fire but made it worse. My dad got out of the house the same way I did. We would've been together if I hadn't run off into the woods, which, admittedly, seemed like the best thing to do at the time. I also had a twin sister, who I'd never known about.

"Your sister lived at Conserve School, an environmental boarding school, in North Wisconsin for most of her life after the fire — before that, she was bounced around foster homes," my dad explained.

"Did she even know she had parents?" Ryder asked.

"No, not until I found her 17 or 18 months ago and explained everything to her." My dad sighed heavily. "It was tough getting her to trust me, especially after she was bitten."

"She was bitten too?" I yelled.

"Yeah, for some reason your and her fates are linked — it's almost like you're twins or something." My dad smirked as he continued driving. "Your sister was bitten about three months before I found her, and she inherited your mother's fire as well, which makes her ten times more dangerous as a werewolf."

"Wow." Ryder breathed. "So she's like a fire werewolf. That's like the dog version of a dragon."

"Ryder, you really need to sort out your supernatural knowledge," Ember scolded. "Werewolf plus fire clearly equals hellhound. Right, Mr Oakenbank?"

"That's right, Ember — but call me Jonathan." My dad nodded. "Your sister is very powerful and very unpredictable. Holding your mother's fire, the strength of a werewolf and the ferocity of a hellhound, as well as being able to sense death, she's not one to be crossed."

I swallowed. "So, she's more powerful than me?"

"Yes, but she doesn't have control," my dad told me, "So you're still winning in that department."

"Is she affected on full moons the same way that we, the same way that werewolves are?" I asked, already dreading the answer.

"Yes." My dad nodded. "But she's too dangerous to be out in the wild on the night of a full moon."

"What do you do then?" I swallowed again; my throat unbelievably dry.

"Lock her up," he stated bluntly, but quickly added, most likely due to the aghast looks that were on mine and Ryder's faces, "She agrees to it, of course. And if she ever didn't want to be locked up, then I wouldn't force her; it's totally voluntary. That's what the giant cage in the truck's bed is for." He pointed out, and up until that point, I hadn't actually noticed the huge metal cage in the back of the truck.

Knowing that my twin sister was a hellhound was making me nervous — just like banshees, just like Abi, hellhounds are harbingers of death. But that combined with our mom's fire and the wolf.... I don't know how her body coped with it.

In the back seat, I saw through the rear-view mirror that Ember was looking thoughtful — most likely thinking about if my sister had control over her fire, and if she could help Ember.

We lapsed into a half-comfortable, half-uneasy silence as my dad continued driving. After getting off the mountain fire roads from Bonner Mountain, he'd taken a right, heading along the interstate away from Missoula and we were just heading past Twin Creeks.

"Where exactly are we going?" I asked, wondering if my dad was just planning on driving through the whole state of Montana.

Dad told us, "There's this roadside grill a couple of miles away, in Potomac, called C—"

"Cully's," I interrupted my dad, "It's called Cully's."

"Have you been there before?" He asked.

"Yes." I sucked in a breath as I explained, "After my pack were taken, I walked into Potomac from Coloma and found this agency that told me they would help me. They actually turned out to be in league with some hunters, but they set me up with some foster parents, Lis and Neal. And we had burgers and fries in Cully's before the agency sent me off to live in Atlanta, Georgia and create a fake birth certificate, a fake school life, a fake home, fake friends, fake parents, fake everything."

Ember placed her hand on my shoulder and gently squeezed it, letting me know that she was there for me.

"Sounds like you had a tough time." My dad glanced across at me.

"Something like that," I responded non-committedly.

I knew that my pack were going through a hell of a lot worse, and also that Ember helped me through that 'tough time', as my dad put it. I owed her so much — because she helped me see that I wasn't a monster, and gave me someone to rely on when everyone else that I'd trusted and loved had, seemingly, vanished.

And God, I loved her so much for that.

"Here we are." My dad pulled into the parking lot of Cully's.

From the outside, the place hadn't changed one bit since I was last there, and as soon as I pushed through the door, the bell chiming, it was clear that the inside hadn't changed either. But it was an old place like that, one of those places that would never change as long as it stayed with the same family owning and running it.

My dad pushed ahead of me, and Ryder followed. I hung back, and Ember hesitated at my elbow.

"You don't have to be nervous," she whispered to me.

"I know," I responded but I still felt nervous anyway.

My dad went and sat down at a booth opposite a girl with mid-length, tousled brown hair that was like the colour of my dad's hair before he started turning grey, whereas my hair was more like my mom's hair.

She stood up to shake Ryder's hand, and it was then I felt obliged to go over and meet my twin sister. To my surprise, Ember was holding my hand, giving me that much-needed support like she always did.

"This is your brother, Theo," my dad introduced and my sister turned to face me.

She looked so much like my... our mom that it temporarily took my breath away. Especially when Mom was angry, she'd get a scowl on her face that my twin was mimicking right then.

"Theo," she said my name and her scowl softened, "I always wanted a brother." Then she threw her arms tightly around my neck, and I felt Ember let go of my hand.

"Jeez." I wheezed, "You're gonna squeeze the life out of me!"

"I'm just so happy to meet you." She let go and beamed at me — her energy was incredible and, again, reminded me so much of our mom.

"You remind me of Mom," I told her, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Her smile dipped slightly, and she turned to Ember. "You must be the one that Theo's in love with."

"What?" Ember exclaimed, before composing herself. "Yes, I met Theo in the UK, and helped him with some hunters."

"We helped each other," I corrected and linked my fingers through hers again.

"What's your name?" Ember asked my twin.

"Thea," I blurted out before my sister could actually speak. "Her name is Thea."

"You told him, didn't you?" She turned to our dad; tone highly accusatory.

"Nope." My dad grinned, sipping some coffee. "That proves my twin telepathy theory about you two."

"Freaky." Ryder shuddered.

"It's so typical that you and Mom chose the names 'Theo' and 'Thea' for boy and girl twins," I directed at my dad.

"Yeah, but it's also really cute," Ember teased lightheartedly.

"Isn't it?" Thea exclaimed and wrapped her arm around Ember's shoulder. "We're gonna be best friends, you and I, Ember. Even if Theo breaks your heart, we'll stick together."

My heart faltered; I'd already broken her heart by admitting my love for her.

"Oh." Thea breathed, sensing a change in mood, and looked across at me. "I didn't realise, I—"

"It's okay," I told her, smiling weakly, trying not to make eye contact with Ember.

A waitress came over with a platter of burgers, so we sat down, and moved on from the awkward situation in which my telepathic twin sister misread what I was thinking.

Oh man.

"Dude, stop!" Thea hissed and kicked my leg under the table.

"What?" I frowned, looking up from my steadily disappearing burger. "I'm not doing anything."

I heard Thea's voice in my head, but her lips hadn't moved.

"Care to have an actual verbal conversation?" Ryder casually interrupted.

"Theo," Thea spoke aloud, "If we're going to communicate on a telepathic level, you're going to have to keep your horny little thoughts to yourself."

My dad's mouth dropped open, Ryder started sniggering and Ember turned bright beetroot red.

"Thea!" I hissed at her.

"Theo!" She mockingly hissed back.

"Oh, how I love watching a good old sibling bicker. Especially with twins." Ryder chuckled.

"So..." Ember picked at a fry on her plate with a fork, she'd barely eaten anything. "What now?"

"Well," Dad began and wiped his mouth with his napkin. "The entire pack shouldn't stay in one place all together—"

"That's not fair." Ryder banged his hand against the table. "We need to be together."

He then glanced desperately at me, and I nodded quickly to back up Ryder. "We do. Regardless of how safe it is or isn't, the pack needs to be together."

After that, I blocked her out.

"You're easy to track down when you're all living in the same place," my dad explained, "I can set you up with two different lodgings, but it'll be up to Jason, and the pack as a whole, to decide who lives where."

I swallowed audibly, feeling extremely uncomfortable about splitting up with the pack all over again.

But then my next thought was much simpler: I want to be with Ember.

A glance across at her told me that she was feeling a similar sort of way; her chemosignals were all over the place — stress, confusion, worry, affection towards me...

Rolling my eyes, I focused and blocked her out again.

"Where are we meeting up with Jason?" I asked my dad, figuring that he'd probably know.

"The ashes of Coloma." He didn't look at me, or Ryder, but grabbed the keys to his truck and started heading out of Cully's.

"I've never seen Coloma," Ember spoke, barely a whisper.

"Hey." I gently grabbed her shoulders. "It's gonna be fine."

"I know." She looked up at me, as the others followed my dad, my twin sister casting a look back at me.

A look that came with the thought:

"Are you alright?" I sank back down into the booth, bringing Ember with me.

She sighed heavily, inspecting her nails like she did when she was anxious. "It's just... It doesn't seem fair."

"That the pack should have to split up?" I frowned, confused.

"No, it's not that." She bit her lip, before scooching a little closer to me and laying her hand on mine — inadvertently sending shivers down my spine. "God, this is so selfish of me."

"Ember." I linked my fingers through hers. "You can tell me."

She looked up at me, eyes suddenly filled with tears. "I just... I mean, it's so great that you got your dad back, and you've got your sister now as well... But so soon after my dad dying... It's just a lot to take in."

"Come here." I wrapped my arms around her, pulling her close to my chest. "It's okay that you feel like this. And I completely understand. It is unfair that I should get my dad back so soon after you lost yours."

"It's really selfish of me." She sobbed a little, dampening my t-shirt.

"It's not." I squeezed her lightly. "It's normal, it makes sense."

She pulled away from me, rubbing her eyes dry. "I'm sorry. I should've kept myself together."

Not saying anything, I led her out of the diner.

I was torn, to say the least; part of me wanted to celebrate the return of my family to my life, and the other part of me felt bitterly sad for Ember, and I just wanted to hold her close and let her cry, help her cry — to console the inconsolable.

Thea was already in the passenger's seat of the truck, so Ember and I jumped in the back seats, with me in between Ryder and Ember. Almost absent-mindlessly, Ember held my hand with hers, probably as some sort of reassurance.

Thea accurately observed.

I glanced across at Ember, with that wild, wavy hair and those dark blue eyes that could turn fiery in an instant.

Thea continued, clearly full of observations.

I admitted to my twin.

Thea paused, before continuing,

I tried not to smile too much as Ember closed her eyes and let her head rest on my shoulder, her body moving a little closer to mine. It was late evening by now, and after everything that had happened in the past few hours, I wasn't surprised that Ember was taking a nap.

"Dude, you are so whipped," Ryder muttered to my right.

I simply shot him a look back that clearly read: can you blame me?

He chuckled softly and shook his head.