After Ember's text, I couldn't think about anything else for the rest of the day. Good thing we were having another lazy day hanging around the ranch.

Jade found some wild horses grazing near our ranch, and so she instantly became attached to them and insisted that we take care of them.

"They're called wild horses for a reason, Jade." Ryder rolled his eyes. "You can't tame them, and they definitely don't want to be taken care of."

I sat watching them from the deck as the sun streaked across the afternoon sky, laughing as they argued about it. But then I realised how much it was like watching Hayden and Ryder argue, and the laughter dissipated; Hayden was dead. I'd never see her again.

Sighing I rubbed my face with my free hand; she was like a sister to me.

"You should text her back, you know." Storm settled herself in another chair, eyeing my phone that I didn't even realise I was holding.

"Yeah, I don't know," I admitted, "Things are just returning to normal, and if I text her back then they'll definitely start getting complicated again."

"Theo," she told me pointedly, "Things will never return to normal, okay? Sienna's dead. Hayden's dead. That lying, no good, son of a bitch Ryan is dead. Zack's missing. There ain't gonna be a time when things are normal again." She held up her wrist to me. "That cross over our pack's symbol is staying there for good. So, you might as well at least text her back." She stood up and stormed towards Jade and Ryder, leaving me with my thoughts again.

Maybe she's right... I thought before appreciating her skills; of course, she's right.

Unconsciously, I bounced my knee as I began to text Ember back.

ME:

Hey, Ember. Sorry I didnt txt u bk earlier, last 9t was a full moon so i've bn trd all day. Hope ur k, gd 2 hear u found control. I found my pack a few days ago & we're staying in this amazing ranch on a mountainside here in Montana, not too far frm Missoula. Coloma brnt dwn, we thnk the hunters did it. Ik its l8 whr u r so sorry agn 4 not txting u bk earlier. Tell me wn u want 2 tlk.

Okay, so maybe I purposefully used text talk to annoy her, but at least I didn't send a kiss back, right?

I hit send and threw my phone onto the table beside me, not expecting a response yet. It had to be, what? I counted ahead the hours, it was about 4 p.m. in Montana, so it was... nine, ten, eleven — midnight. It was midnight where she was.

Damn... Maybe I should've worked out what time it would be over there before texting her back.

Ting!

EMBER:

Hey Theo! It's late where I am but do you wanna talk now?

ME:

Sure if ur not 2 tired.

EMBER:

It's fine. Lemme just sneak outside.

I waited for about five minutes whilst she snuck outside, surprised that she was awake. When I slept next to her, she was usually fast asleep in a matter of minutes.

1 Incoming Call from Ember:

ACCEPT ~~~~~ DECLINE

Without hesitating, I hit accept and held my phone to my ear.

"Hey, Theo." Ember sounded tired, exhausted even.

"Hey, are you sure you don't just wanna talk tomorrow?" I questioned, "Maybe when you're a little more awake?"

"Nah, I'm fine," she insisted.

I got up and started pacing the deck, avoiding Jade's stare as I heard Ember yawn down the phone.

"So, you've found your pack?" She asked when she'd finished yawning.

"Yeah, I have." I beamed as I watched them mess around with those wild horses, arguing with one another about what to do with them.

"That's great, Theo." She sounded enthusiastic. "That's really great."

"Coloma's burnt down, but we're living in a ranch that used to belong to Ryder's dad," I explained.

"Oh, Theo... I'm so sorry," she whispered.

"It's okay. How have things been over there?" I asked, feeling obliged to do so.

"Cold in the winter, but now it's spring, it's getting a little warmer. I have control. Uncle Rob's been training me so hard every day so I—" She yawned again. "I know how to fight properly now."

"That's good," I replied, sounding detached and unemotional, uncaring.

I turned to see that Abi was standing at the window, inside the house, watching me. She was fiddling with her locket the way she always did when she was thinking, or nervous.

"Hey, um, I gotta go now," I told Ember over the phone. "It's really late where you are, and I can hear you yawning... So, um, we'll talk another time, yeah?"

"Yeah, sure." She yawned. "Bye then."

"Bye," I responded.

"I miss you—" She began, but I'd already hung up.

"What's up, Abi?" I asked her as she joined me on the deck.

"Something's going wrong," she told me, frowning into the sunshine, "Someone's about to die... Or get hurt badly."

"In our pack?" I rushed.

"No." She shook her head violently, "Thank God, no — not in our pack. Someone close to one of us..."

"Could you be any vaguer?" I inquired, sarcasm dripping off my voice.

"Ha, bloody, ha, Theo — you know it doesn't get much clearer." She rolled her eyes at me but continued to fiddle with her locket.

"What did you do when you didn't have your locket to fiddle with?" I frowned, realising how long she'd gone without it.

In response, she pulled down the neck of her t-shirt to where her locket would usually hang, and there was a red pinch mark, that looked as if she'd been twisting it.

"Holy shit, Abi!" I exclaimed.

She let go of her top and shrugged. "Anyway, someone's in danger."

She left it at that and walked towards the wild horses, where she proceeded to tell her opinion to Jade, Ryder, and Storm — that we should let the horses go.

Jason appeared next to me after stepping out of the house. "You texted her back yet?"

"Yeah, and I was just talking to her, but it's like midnight where she is so I told her to get some sleep." I didn't look at him, studying the horses instead.

I could understand why Jade wanted to keep them; they were beautiful. But that was also a reason to let them go; they were beautiful, untameable.

"Abi says that someone's gonna die, or get injured seriously." He looked at his hands.

"She just told me." I nodded. "Either someone we know, or someone that's close to someone we know."

"Clears it up, doesn't it?" Jason joked, and I finally looked at him.

"Why does it feel like we're stuck?" I asked, "I mean, it just feels like we're not going anywhere or doing anything."

"I know." He dipped his head. "We're gonna try and clear our names from arson, maybe blame it on that bastard Ryan, then we should probably go back to school."

"Oh no," I instantly protested, "School was bad enough in the UK. And I'm pretty sure several schools wouldn't accept us."

"We still need to graduate." Jason shrugged. "But I'm pretty sure we might have to redo a year."

"How many times do we have to redo a year?" I laughed, shaking my head a little. "Well, at least Ryder and Hayden will still be in the grade below us," I said without thinking.

Jason threw a wide-eyed look at me.

"Oh shit," I rushed, "I'm so sorry, I didn't think. Oh God, I'm such an idiot."

"It's fine."

My eyes found Ryder, and I watched him arguing, glad that he hadn't heard my huge screw-up.

The guy had had it so rough in his life — he'd been through a hell of a lot of shit.

He had ADHD and anger management issues — those combined with being a werewolf made him a ticking bomb sometimes. After his mom died, his dad used to beat the crap out of him, as if a 12- or 13-year-old kid was to blame for cancer.

Ryder finally ran away from his dad, leaving Fresno in California and heading north up into Oregon, where he met Hayden. The both of them were attacked by an Alpha and accidentally turned; we knew it was an accident because they were pretty much left for dead at the side of the road.

Then Jason found them lying there, half-dead.

And the rest is history.

The next two weeks passed without much happening, only a few notable things occurred.

We cleared our names from the arson charges and stuck them on Ryan, who turned out to have arson charges already — so that turned out pretty well.

We got back into high school (the same one that we were at before — Hellgate High) and somehow all of us ended up in the same grade — 11th Grade, Juniors. So, we weren't too far behind, and somehow Ryder managed to skip a year, which he was incredibly smug about.

Jason found some money from I don't know where and converted the front seats of the GMC Sierra so that you could fit four people instead of two. Well, that wasn't really notable, but still: more of us could fit in the truck without having to ride in the bed.

Ember didn't text or call me for the entirety of those two weeks, which got me a little worried.

A little worried? Please! Understatement of the century right there!

I sent her a couple of texts asking if she was okay.

Still nothing.

"She still not responded?" Jade asked as she collapsed next to me on the couch as I stared at my phone on another lazy Saturday morning.

"Nope." I sighed, letting my head roll back onto the back of the couch.

"Have you asked Storm or Abi about it? Maybe they know something." She suggested, but I could tell that she was just being polite.

"No, and they've not offered any advice either." I faced her. "You don't have to be all polite and nicey-nicey about it, Jade; I know you don't like her."

"I've never even met her; how could I not like her if I haven't met her?" She blinked innocently at me.

"Whatever, Jade." I rolled my eyes. "I can tell you don't like her."

"Fine, you're right." She snapped out of her 'nicey-nicey' mood. "I don't like her. I don't like the idea of you and her. But I also don't like this kicked-puppy-look that you've got going on at the moment. Just sort everything out between you and her and then things can get back to normal — or some sense of normality at least." She huffed loudly and stalked out the room, leaving me blinking like an idiot as I absorbed all of that.

Abi, who obviously couldn't give me just a minute on my own, rushed in and leapt onto the couch next to me. "Call Ember. Call her right now."

"Why? What's the point?" I complained and realised that Jade was right: I was like a kicked puppy. Ugh.

"Call her; I've had one of my feelings." She shoved my phone into my hand.

I dialled her number because Abi's feelings are usually right. But Abi only has those sorts of feelings about death, so it was kinda unfortunate that those feelings are usually right.

As the dialling tone rang in my ear, I glanced at the clock on the wall. It was 10:30 in Montana, meaning it was 6:30 in the evening where she was.

"Theo...?" She finally picked up.

She sounds worried.

"Ember, is everything okay?" I frowned, ignoring Abi who was standing directly to me, listening to our conversation.

"Not really." She swallowed. "My dad... he had an accident — a car accident. He's alive, but only just. He'll never be able to walk again." She rushed on, not even pausing for a breath, "And Uncle Rob's moving back to the UK so he can help my mum at home..."

"I'm so sorry, Ember, I truly am," I told her. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine, yeah," she replied and I could hear more people talking down the phone like she was in a busy place. It also sounded like she was holding something back.

"What else is it? Where are you now?" I questioned.

"I'm... I'm at the airport in Svalbard. Please don't be mad, Theo, but I can't go home, and I've got nowhere else to go." Her voice quietened at the end.

"What is it, Ember? Where are you going?" I frowned, and so did Abi beside me.

"Don't be mad. But I'm about to get on a flight to Missoula International Airport," she told me.

My phone slipped out of my hand, clattering to the floor.

Abi rapidly picked up my phone and held it to her ear and continued to talk to Ember, "Yeah, sorry about that, he, erm. He just, erm...He dropped his phone."

Ember's coming... here? Why here?

"Ugh," I groaned in confusion and collapsed face-first onto the couch.

Abi kept on talking to Ember, about what I wasn't sure; I'd buried my head in cushions. The ultimate moment of teen angst, I know. It wasn't one of my best moments.

"Okay. Bye, Ember," I heard Abi say, "Yeah, see you soon, bye."

She hung up and threw my phone at my back.

"Ow?" I groaned; my voice muffled.

"You are a total and complete dipshit, you know that, right?" She pushed me up so I wasn't being suffocated by cushions like I wanted to be.

I threw her a dirty look.

"Ember is coming here, whether you like it or not," Abi said sternly, pointing her finger at me accusingly. "She will be here after a two-day flight. And you are going to meet her at the airport."

"Fine," I huffed, standing up and walking off.

Later that night, whilst sleep evaded me, I was lying flat on my back in my bed, staring at the ceiling, thinking why?

Why did Ember have to come to Montana? Why couldn't she just go home and be with her family?

I rolled over a couple of times, struggling to get comfortable.

Admittedly, there was a part of me that was looking forward to seeing her... It'd been so long since I'd seen that unruly, wavy, dirty blonde hair, those beautiful, dark blue eyes, that stunning face, that perfect body...

I rolled over again as I felt lust growing in my body just thinking about her body.

I squeezed my eyes shut, trying and failing to shut out the images of Ember flooding my mind.

Again, I was back in Lake Oldoy, next to the lake after Ember had tried to work out how I'd gotten the Omega tattoo, just before Kaden showed up. And she was asking me to swim in the lake with her.

I let out a groan — why can't I stop thinking about her? She doesn't love me, she never did, so why am I even thinking about her like that still?

God, it would be so easy just to head into Missoula and get laid.

But, like I'd told Jade, I really didn't like using girls just to pretend I was with someone else. And I'd screwed up massively with Fern.

I sat up in bed, turning my bedside lamp on. I dug out an American History textbook from my pile of school stuff and began reading through it, trying to focus on something that wasn't Ember and her body...

Read the goddamn textbook, Theo.

No good; Abe Lincoln just wasn't quite doing it for me that night, and neither was JFK.

Chucking the textbook back onto the floor, disrupting the entire pile, I turned to grab one of the many paperback books that lined the bookshelf that resided in my room. I chose one at random, only wanting to read something. It turned out to be Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens — a British novel by a British author, set in Britain.

Great, as if I need reminding of the UK anymore.

I read it anyway, all 544 pages of it. The creases in the yellowed paper showed how often it had been read. Maybe Ryder's mom used to read it before she got sick...

There were a couple of lines that stick with me, especially when Pip, the main character, talks about his unrequited love for Estella:

'I loved her against reason, against promise, against peace, against hope, against happiness, against all discouragement that could be... I loved her nonetheless because I knew it, and it had no more influence in restraining me, than if I had devoutly believed her to be human perfection...'

The way that Pip felt about Estella was similar to the way that I had felt about my own Estella, about Ember. By the time I finished reading it, the sun was probably starting to rise, and my eyes were tired and strained.

I placed the finished book on my bedside table and sunk back into my bed, finally finding sleep.

Two days after Ember had told me she was coming to Montana, I was stood in the Arrivals section of the Missoula International Airport, waiting for her plane to land.

Abi had convinced me to go, and the rest of them had been on it as well — Jason gave me the keys to the truck, and they promised that they'd come up with a good excuse for not being in school.

I'd need a great excuse — not a month in and I was already skipping. I guess old habits do die hard.

I fidgeted, glancing up at the Arrivals board hanging above me.

TERMINAL: 1 — FROM: SVALBARD — FLIGHT NO.:304 — REMARK: ON TIME.

I kept watching it until the remark changed to LANDED. A couple more minutes later, it changed to BAGS ARRIVING.

God, this is killing me... I thought, obviously having forgotten how much of a drag waiting for someone, especially at an airport, could be.

It had taken me ages to find somewhere decent to park in the crammed parking lot of the airport. And when I'd finally parked, which was literally the other end of the parking lot from the airport, I'd rushed into the Arrivals area, worried I was going to miss her.

But at that rate, I could've driven around the parking lot at least seven times before her flight even landed.

The way I was feeling was similar to how Pip was feeling when he was waiting for Estella's coach to arrive, that anticipation morphed with excitement — why am I thinking about Great Expectations so much?

Brushing my thoughts away, I checked my phone for about the billionth time in the space of two minutes, but it wasn't like anybody was going to be texting me — all my pack were in classes and Ember wouldn't have been able to text on the plane.

Ting! I glared down at my phone incredulously.

1 New Message from Lis

LIS:

Hi Theo. Just checking to see if everything's alright with you, and hopefully, you've found your pack by now. Neal and I are settling quite well into life in the UK. I got a social services job the other day, hoping to help more kids like you! (Though preferably with less trouble than I had with you). Hope you're okay, Lis x

Glad for a distraction from just waiting, I instantly texted her back.

ME:

Hey Lis. Yeah, I found my pack, and we're getting back to how things used to be. Three of us are dead, and one missing. But we'll find him. I'll call you when I get a chance, sorry for not being in touch recently. I'm happy for you and Neal. Theo.

I hit send and glanced up at the Arrivals board — the remark now read BAGS DELIVERED, meaning that Ember would be walking out of that terminal any minute.

Any minute now...

My jaw dropped when I saw her. She wasn't looking exhausted, like I thought she would be after a two-day flight, instead she looked fully awake and ready. Ready for anything.

Her body had drastically changed shape — her legs were longer, her waist and hips skinnier, actually all of her was skinnier — has she been starving herself or something? Even her face seemed to be sharper and have more definition to it, her cheekbones were more prominent.

When she saw me, she walked faster toward me, a smile on her face. But I was frozen, dumbstruck; she was so different.

And all I could splutter out when she said "Hi" was, "You've changed."

The smile fell right off her face and was replaced instantly by a cold, merciless glare. This wasn't the same girl I met at Ashley's at the end of last summer.

This wasn't my Ember.

This wasn't the girl I knew.

This wasn't the girl I fell in love with.