Wow. Has it been a month? (Oops?) For some reason, I had the hardest time figuring out how to write this chapter. It's getting easier now though, but I don't know if you should hold your breath for Ten very soon. If you don't see it by next week, please write angry comments about me being lazy in updating! ANYWHO, I want to thank LaRascasse for editing this for me and all of that. I hope you enjoy this. Don't forget to comment and so on and so forth!!
Love,
Gia.
Will we burn inside the fires of a thousand suns?
For the sins of our hand, the sins of our tongue, the sins of our fathers, the sins of our young?
NO!
-Linkin Park
Thessa reached the pond in record time. She wearily allowed herself to shift back to her human form before dunking her head under the icy surface of the pond. The run tired her out enough that she didn't think that she could make it back to her parents' house despite its short distance from the pond. She pulled the baggie of granola from her bag and chewed a mouthful before taking a long drink from the bottle of water. The plastic crumpled with the force and ferocity of her gulps. Satisfied for now, Thessa pushed herself to her feet and took off at a brisk jog for her parents' place.
~*~
"Honestly Jolena. I don't know what to do." Julius paced the wooden floor of the living room.
"We have to find them Julius. I've been doing all we can. I don't understand how they could be gone without a trace like this." Jolena twisted the tear-stained tissue in her hands furiously.
The search for Thessa and Eric started a few hours after Eric left to go find his mate. It started out at first by searching all the rooms in the Alpha's mansion then extending to the grounds that mother and father
personally
searched with a fine toothed comb. The possibility that the two left together flew out the window when the signs of struggle near the pond were found early one morning on one of the last searches.
"Julius, Jolena." swallowed the bile that rose in his throat.
"." Julius caught his wife as she sagged against him with weariness and fear.
"We found something. It's just tracks but nobody can get a scent from them, it's blocked by some chemical compound. The rain almost washed it away, it's that faint." He explained.
Jolena's head snapped up. "Chemical?" She staggered over to the faintly disturbed grass and took a deep breath. She backed up from it like it was a land mine, waiting for one misstep to explode and blow everything to smithereens. How could someone forget the scent of a poison they had helped create?
"I'd know that smell anywhere."
Stephan and Julius looked at her warily. How could there be only one person in the entire pack that could identify one scent.
"I beg your pardon?" 's eyebrows rose.
"I made it in our labs. Julius...sweet Jesus, Mary and Joseph what have we done?" She clutched her chest as the phantom pains of testing the drug on herself forced her heart to skip a beat.
"I led her right to him. We led her right to him, Julius that was the drug I made all those years ago when Dennis. Oh god, he's taken her." She sobbed. The sudden flare of anger in her caused her to lean heavily against her husband. It felt like a wild fire started somewhere within her and quickly spread outward. Its heat was all consuming and energy draining to the point where she thought its intensity would shatter her into a million pieces like an overheated piece of glass.
"Dennis is the only person who sort of knew what that drug could do. I'm the only person who knows what it actually does. It blocks shifting and if used too much can cause incredible mental instability to the point of severe irrecoverable memory loss in humans. Shifters have it a bit easier. The animal is physically affected temporarily. No severe memory loss, just short periods of memory loss."
"Why would you create something like that?" 's eyes widened.
"Sorenan had many very powerful enemies." She said quietly.
Now they sat at the kitchen table in their small house. The unspoken fear that their child and her mate were lying dead somewhere hung in the air like a cloud of deadly smoke threatening to choke them all.
"Julius, I—" Jolena jumped as the phone rang.
They both looked at the display light up Stephan's private number and a million questions ran through their minds.
"Hello?" Julius answered nervously.
"You would never guess who I ran into when I was making my rounds of the perimeter." 's voice came out choked and worried.
"What? Who did you find?" Julius felt his stomach sink as he almost shouted into the receiver. Jolena looked up from her lap, hope and worry filling her eyes with unshed tears.
"I found the little Madame Alpha, but Eric isn't with her. Since I found her she hasn't stopped shaking, mumbling something about finding a witch or a healer or something. Nyoko and I don't know what's going on, but I left them in the bedroom together. I suggest you come at once." He hesitated. "Don't expect anything much. She's not really acting like herself Julius. Whatever they did to her back there wasn't pretty." added quietly, his voice choking.
"Understood. I'm on my way." Julius hung up the phone and turned to his wife.
"They found her." He turned to his wife and gathered her into his arms as they both started sobbing with relief.
"Oh thank God. When are we going to see her?" His wife asked hopefully through her tears.
"I uh...I think you should stay here for now, love. said...he said there's something wrong with her...she isn't very responsive. I think I should go calm her down, talk her into coming here with me and that way—"
"Excuse me? She's hurt! Julius she needs her mother. Don't you dare tell me I can't come see my own daughter! I see hurt people all day at that hospital." Jolena pushed him away, her eyes flashing gold as she glared at him angrily.
"See! Look, baby. Just stay here. I'll just calm her down, you're nervous and you already know how she reacts to others' emotions when they're too strong. Let me go and
calmly
find out what the problem is." He soothed her with a kiss on her forehead. With one strong hand, he cradled the side of her face and wiped a fresh tear from her cheek. When she sighed into his palm, he knew she would let up and wait for him to bring their daughter back.
"Okay, fine. Just bring her back." She pressed her lips against his palm as he grabbed the car keys from a hook on the wall and stepped out into the light rain.
~*~
"Hey, I'm sorry I'm crying all over your nice shirt." Thessa wiped her nose and laughed wearily.
"Don't even worry about it, sis." Nyoko hugged her sister tighter and fought the tears from spilling over her own lids.
The stories she'd heard about Dennis' treatment of her best friend and sister made her blood boil. Had Thessa not killed the bastard, Nyoko decided that she would hunt him down herself. The bruises on Thessa's already dark skin were fading quickly, but the emotional scars that were buried deep in her subconscious would always be there. To be able to laugh so soon after being raped and abused, tied up and left for dead took strength that Nyoko wasn't sure anyone else possessed. The peaceful face of her greatest friend and confidant was a welcome relief even if she had no idea how one could go from one of suffering to one of peacefulness so soon.
