Mad Ember

38: Searching

The songs I add before a chapter hint to the feelings and messages that will rise within it. It gives my characters a real voice. It brings them to life. All songs will be provided! :) And the playlist is on spotify!

S O N G F O R C H A P T E R : "Deep End"
B Y : Birdy

C O R B A N

No, no, no, no, no. This couldn't be any worse. I continued to run after Ember even after I completely lost her trail. Merek, Daniel, and Easton didn't fully understand what was happening. I'm not even sure they saw Ember after she ran away. At least they don't have to see the sheer hurt on her face from our actions.

They all picked up on my mood very quickly. They knew right away that something terrible happened, and even if they didn't know exactly what it was, they put in all their effort in helping me.

"What the hell just happened!" Easton yells. Daniels' voice echoes behind his, asking just about the same thing.

"It's Ember." Is all I say in my frazzled mindset. I hear Daniel growl.

"What about Ember?! What the hell is happening, Corban!?" My wolf growls at his voice and howls out to the forest.

"She heard. She heard our plan to get her not to fight." I inform and continue frantically looking.

"Dammit." Daniel growls, and I see him start to become more urgent as well as Easton, who went silent. We search through the night and into the morning, never slowing down. Merek stays back just in case she comes back after we leave.

I shift into my wolf form, hoping to be able to pick up small traces of her easier in this form, but I still get nothing. I feel like I might be sick. I can't lose her. Not like this, not because of something I did. All I have done is try to prove to her that through everything, I can be her rock that I will be a constant source of reinforcement to help her through whatever she needs to get through. And with one sentence, straightforward sentence everything I did, all the trust that I built is washed down the drain.

I don't stop searching. Even after Daniel and Easton turned in, I didn't stop. And I wouldn't stop until I had her in my arms.

♛ ♛ ♛

I was going crazy. We have been looking for Ember for an entire week. And there is not even a trace of evidence that would have pointed to where she was. I started to keep Reagan in the loop a couple days ago. Reagan was not happy with any of us as of currently for making choices for Ember.

She really laid it into us that this was Ember's fight. This is Ember's villain, and we are basically robbing her of it. Depriving her of the satisfaction of bringing everything to a close. We would be robbing Ember of who she was.

Needless to say, after that, I really felt like a total asswhole. We all did, and the blame was all on me if anything happened to her. We think that she will go to Collet. Not to surrender herself but to kill Collet. Daniel thinks that she will kill herself right afterwards. The thought makes me sick. I can't even begin to imagine losing her, let alone losing her to herself.

I didn't have any other option but to find her and change her mind. I can probably guess what she's thinking right now. And the thought makes my stomach twist because it's nothing good.

I cringe thinking how betrayed she looked when we locked eyes. I saw all her hurt written across her face in a single second, and it will haunt me for the rest of my life because I am the cause.

We have started to focus almost all of our attention on finding her. The battle with the bats has to be put on pause. We go out every day, and I usually search into the night in my wolf form. It pains me that she isn't here. I want to hold her, I want to be able to apologize for everything I've done and apologize for her needing such a huge apology.

But I can't.

Because she isn't here.

My wolf runs through the thick woods in a frenzy. He sniffs at anything and everything praying to whatever god is listening that we will pick up a trace. But it's like she just disappeared, it's like she never existed. I make my way back to the treehouse.

Everyone sits by the fire. We don't sleep inside anymore because it feels wrong without Ember there. I feel like I'm invading something private in her life. It just isn't right without her here.

I shift back into my human form and quickly pull on a pair of shorts. I take a seat next to Merek, who looks like he hasn't slept in years. Ember gone seems to be really affecting him. I think he feels extra guilty since he was the one who brought it up in the first place.

"It's my fault," Merek says into the quietness of the night. His voice sounded so foreign against the quiet crackling of the fire. No one speaks up for a while, but I shake my head.

"No. It's not. We all had our ideas on how to go about Collet. I was the one who agreed. Embers my mate, it's my job to look out for her when she's not around. This is all on me. Me and no one else." I sigh. Daniel scoffs.

"Are you mad?" he says. His voice is full of anger. I look and see his face contorted in frustration as he stares into the fire. He snaps his eyes to me in fury. I couldn't tell if it was really me that he was aiming his aggression at, though.

"Ember left. She left us. In a time where shit is hitting the fucking fan, might I add. We were not protecting her with this plan, we were protecting our species. It was childish for her to run, and I thought she was better than that." Daniel's words catch everyone off guard. And then it's me who's angry.

"Didn't you listen to a word that Reagan said? This is Ember's fight, and it's a crime for us to rob her of it." I say in Ember's defense. Daniel shakes his head.

"It doesn't give her the right to just run away. It was fucking stupid, and I know that all of you have at least thought that once. There is a fucking war right under our noses, and we can't prepare because we are all caught up in finding Ember after her tantrum." I glare at daniel.

"You're wrong," I state with a fire in my eyes. I wasn't going to yield on this.

"I'm not." He says firmly. I go to say something else, but he quickly cuts me off.

"She. Left. Us. She left us! And she doesn't get the right to make us feel like assholes because we were looking out for the greater good. She has no right. She-" he doesn't finish his sentence and looks out over the water. I can practically see the anger draining out of him. His mood turns somber.

"I miss her." He states. "And she has no right to do that to me." He finishes standing upright afterwards and quickly shifts into his wolf.

This group would die for Ember. With her gone, we all are slowly crumbling. Ember was the glue that kept us together, and we didn't even realize that until she was gone.

"She's definitely going to Collet," Merek says softly.

"Then what?" Easton questions even though all of us know what will probably happen next, it's too scary to say out loud.

"We don't wait for then what. We have been sitting on our asses and chasing our tails looking for her when she's probably right on Collet's footstep. We have to go to Collet and pray that we either catch her or beat her." Merek says. I nod, standing up.

"We leave now," I state, and Merek and Easton stand up as well.

"Daniel is already halfway there," Easton says. "I just mind linked him." I nod.

"Alright then... let's go get our girl back."

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