"Ember?

"Hmm?" She replied, only half-listening; presumably focusing solely on her voodoo crap — or her 'Sight' as she called it.

Faltering, I told her, "I... want to admit something." Though why I wanted to admit it, I wasn't even sure of myself. Perhaps the sudden aching in my bones was forcing me to try total honesty with her.

"Go on." Ember prompted, and I felt a trickle of blood run down the back of my neck.

"Is that—?" I began.

"Yep," the blunt, brief reply revealed the agitation evident in her voice. "It's bleeding again."

I tried to sit up and place a hand on my neck, but she stopped me, placing her heat-radiating palms against my back with forceful pressure. Her fingers made my skin tingle slightly as minuscule jolts of electricity passed between us.

"Leave it be," she insisted, "And let me focus."

Annoyed, I huffed "Fine. Does that mean I can't talk at all?"

"No..." She stated, "It just means don't move, but I suppose you can talk — it could relax you. So, when did you actually get this tattoo?"

"It sounds stupid, but I actually have no idea," I admitted. The back of my neck wasn't exactly somewhere I checked often so it could've appeared any time between my pack's disappearance and the night before Neal took a picture to prove that I truly was an Omega.

"Oh," she let out a short, exasperated laugh. "Well, that's good to know."

I was expecting for her to remove her hands, but she didn't and instead continued to push against my muscles, making it feel like a massage. Guess I don't need to talk to relax myself; she's doing that just fine.

"The thing I was going to tell you a minute ago, before that stupid, cursed tattoo started bleeding again," I paused mid-sentence in order to exhale a sigh, "Is that my surname isn't actually Aquila... I lied about it."

"Everyone lies," Ember replied simply, and I could almost hear a shrug in her voice. "But why would you lie about your surname, unless you are on the run from those hunters?"

"You make it sound like I should be on the run from them." I spat back, my temper firing up quickly. "The Agency got me here, didn't they? Surely that's far enough away, at least for now? I told you I didn't kill them. Someone set me up, okay? God, Ember, why do you always have to complicate things like this?"

"I didn't mean to complicate things. Sorry for caring if you live or not." Her tone became cold, and I realised that she was only trying to ask why I lied about my surname, not accuse me of murdering my pack.

Pushing my palms against my eyes, I realised I had screwed up again. I wished I could see Ember's face in that moment. Here she was in the middle of the woods, trying to figure out who, or what, cursed a tattoo on the back of my neck.

Damn it, she does care, I thought stupidly. I was being such a dickhead — no wonder she keeps trying to avoid me.

"Look, Ember, I didn't mean to attack you like that... I don't know what I was thinking, and I guess that any mention of my pack or of those hunters just sets me on edge. So, I'm sorry for that, and you don't have to keep doing this."

"Oh, shut up!" She exclaimed. "Of course I'm going to keep doing this, just tell me about your surname already."

"Uh, okay then," I said, slightly taken aback. "I've never used my real surname after my parents both died, and I never had a surname until I found my pack. Being bumped around foster homes, you don't need to have a surname, or an identity at that."

I paused to exhale, only to feel a sharp stabbing pain in the centre of my back. "Ahh!" I cried out; the pain was almost a new sensation — it felt like I was having a hot rod of iron twisted into my back.

"Shh, it's fine. It's okay," Ember soothed, wiping my bleeding back with a soft material of some sort.

"What... was... that?" I gasped for air.

"A side effect," she told me bluntly. "I think whoever did this to you might be using a voodoo doll, or something like that."

"Oh, what a relief," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes.

"I'll let you rest for a minute before I continue." She decided, her warm hands leaving my skin.

Shutting my eyes tight, I replied, "Thanks."

She laughed a bit as she sat herself down on the forest floor beside the bench. "You know you can sit up, right?"

"Oh, right. Yeah." I said, fumbling for words and shifting around on the bench so I was sitting.

My back felt tense with numb pangs of agony, so I seized the moment in which I was sitting as opposed to lying face down to stretch out my back. Tilting my hips backwards and arching my back away from Ember, I rolled my shoulders back and down. I could hear several joints click due to built-up pressure.

When I returned from my stretch, I caught Ember staring at me, an incomprehensible look on her face.

"What are you thinking?" I asked her, and she snapped back to consciousness.

"That you should either put a shirt on or lie back on your front," she said, narrowing her eyes at me, and I thought I could see a slight blush rise in her cheeks.

"Why, feeling distracted?" I teased, causing the redness in her cheeks to increase.

"No— I... I mean we should just continue, right?"

"Depends if you feel like you're getting anywhere with it." I shrugged, "There's no point in continuing if I'm just going to end up with more pain and no answers. I'm not having a go at you, I promise," I reaffirmed, not wanting for her to get the wrong idea.

"Well," her face crumpled a little, "I'm actually not getting anywhere at all, whoever did this is stronger than I thought... I just don't want to see you hurt by it."

"Ember, trust me when I say this, but I know how to handle pain." I insisted, searching for the right words to bring her solace, "I'll cope with it."

"You were right. Wednesday would've been better..." Ember said, trailing off.

"Hey, it's fine. You tried, right?" I shrugged, "That's good enough for me. And besides, I could always try and find some herbal remedies to combat it. I'll be fine." I reassured her, seeing the anxious look on her face.

As long as it's just my body and not my emotions, then I'll cope fine.

"Okay, fine. As long as you're sure," she replied hesitantly. "Well, we're already pretty sure it's something to do with the hunters so I don't think we can narrow it down much more than that, considering we don't know who any of them are, or what they want...." She trailed off before changing the topic; "You never finished telling me about your surname."

She handed my shirt back to me. Taking the hint that she was uncomfortable, I pulled the shirt over my arms and did up a couple of buttons.

"Well, believe it or not, I kinda had some other things on my mind, like the pain splitting through my back..." I paused. "So, as I said, I didn't need a surname after my parents died in a house fire. In fact, not many of my pack had kept their surnames. Living off-grid is easier when you only have one name." I explained, not that Ember would know anything about that, with her middle name and everything. "It was one clear night in Coloma when we all renamed ourselves, well, our surnames at least."

I trailed off and stared across the lake. It was breaking me up inside talking about them, especially since I didn't even know why I brought it up in the first place... Renaming ourselves had been Abi's idea. Her home was so broken that no one could possibly know how to put it back together again; being able to sense death has got to cause some issues —one of the many cons of being a banshee, along with insomnia and paranoia.

"Theo?" Ember said, voice small, thousands of miles away from me; I was in Coloma. "Theo, where are you?" She asked, and she came to sit on the bench next to me, our arms brushing.

"Home," I whispered as if the entire concept would disintegrate if I spoke about it too loudly.

And then I remembered, with an obliterating notion, that I had no 'home', nowhere that I could feel truly safe, nowhere that I truly belonged. The people that I had held close to me were either abducted or dead. Probably abducted and then killed.

A single tear blurred the vision in my right eye, though I couldn't feel anything. I felt numb — yet not with pain as I usually do — I felt emotionally numb.

I turned to face Ember and apologised — for everything.

She said it was okay and then she saw the tear quivering at the edge of my eye, threatening to spill. Her mouth dropped open to form a perfect and sympathetic 'o' shape, her heart-shaped lips framing her concern.

Wishing I could also rub away the pain, I rubbed my blurry eye roughly.

"We chose our surnames from the star constellations we picked from the night sky." I started up again, continuing from before my soul broke a little more. "I chose 'Aquila', the Eagle that carried Zeus' sacred thunderbolts in wars. It's also a cool-shaped constellation." I picked up a twig and drew out the outline of the Aquila constellation in the dirt.

"It was Abi's idea." I continued telling her, explaining, "Abi was — is — a banshee, and she never had much of a home. She hadn't had a surname that she used in at least two years, and I guess she felt at home in the pack. Being in that pack was like being home, but better." I shrugged, "And now they're gone... I don't know if I'll ever find a home like that again."

Ember hesitated, "You'll find them again. And I know that Lake Oldoy isn't home for you, but it's home for me so I'm going to make you feel welcome — even if I've not done a great job of that so far..." She nudged me, "You'll be fine."

"Yeah... Thanks," I said, there was nothing else I could say.

We sat in silence for another few minutes, the lake water gently lapping at the shores; there was nothing to say. The silence we kept falling into seemed to stretch out for miles; as if the whole country became quiet whenever she and I weren't talking.

I thought about Coloma, even though it was killing me to do so. I thought about how bad I wanted to go back there, even though I knew it wasn't safe. I thought about whether I would ever be able to go back there — and I hoped that I would, eventually, when it was safe again.

Unexpectedly, Ember exclaimed, "I've just had a crazy and brilliant idea!"

"Go on," I said, preparing myself to hear her out — I needed a change in mood and Ember's tone suggested that she felt the same.

"Do you want to swim in the lake with me?" She asked, her alluring eyes alight with excitement.

"You're just trying to cheer me up, aren't you?" I accused her but couldn't suppress the smile that was beginning to creep onto my face.

"Maybe... Is it working?" She asked, her mouth twisted mischievously.

"I mean, maybe I shouldn't be swimming in a dirty lake with an open wound on my back" I teased.

"Okay, first off, Lake Oldoy isn't a dirty lake at all, it's classed as an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty," she said matter-of-factly. "Second, I'd hardly call that tattoo an 'open wound.' And thirdly," she began, her voice lowering as she whispered in my ear, "Why wouldn't you want to swim in a lake with me?"

I turned to face her, our faces inches apart, and asked her daringly, "You just got me to put my shirt on, and now you want me to take it off again?"

Those beautiful, brave, blue eyes glinted with light as she smiled at me, returning the daring gaze; no words were needed.

"You're playing a dangerous game, Ember Milburn," I warned her light-heartedly.

"You're the one that's playing with fire..." She replied, her mouth twisting mischievously yet again. "And boys who play with fire get burned..." She said, her words fading away as she trailed her finger across my jawline — sending those undeniable, pleasure shivers down my spine.

There it is again, I realised as the wind blew... That one inexplicable emotion of attraction.

Teasingly, she began undoing my shirt buttons, not breaking eye contact with me. Her mesmerisingly stunning face was so, so close to mine. I'd play with fire more often if I knew this was the result.

Newfound excitement and anticipation rushed through my body. Genuine physical intimacy is an experience that cannot be captured nor explained if one has not experienced it. The passion that Ember was igniting within me was stronger than anything I'd ever experienced before.

As she leaned toward me, I could see the outline of her body through her shirt. And damn, I wanted to—

Some bushes rustled to the right of us, causing Ember to spring away from me and onto her feet. And from the rustling bushes, a boy around our age emerged, staring at the two of us — as if he hadn't seen people in months.

"Ember?" He asked, meaning that he knew her, yet Ember continued to stare at him.

With dark blonde hair and light brown eyes, his contrasting and unusual features seemed to suit him. He had a full duffel bag slung over his shoulder and I was pretty sure he wasn't one of those spirits Ember was talking about.

She tried to speak, but her words got caught in her throat as she spluttered out "K–Kaden? I... What are you doing here?"

Subconsciously, I started rebuttoning my shirt; who the hell is Kaden?

"Kaden..." Ember tried again, yet words failed her as her eyebrows knitted together in a stubborn frown. "I thought— we all thought that—?"

"Thought what?" I asked, standing up and facing this Kaden guy.

"Well," she began again, before finally spitting it out, "We all thought you were dead."

"Not dead," he replied hoarsely, shrugging, "Here, I'm not a ghost either." He held his hand out for Ember to touch.

She stepped towards him and an urge in me rose to yell at her to get away from him, but I didn't. They were friends... or they had been friends. I have to trust her, don't I?

When she hugged him, ugly jealousy writhed in the pit of my stomach.

I waited for an introduction that wasn't coming and so I sat back on the bench, trying as hard as possible not to overhear their conversation. I sighed and looked at the sky, not allowing myself to wonder what would've happened next if Kaden hadn't shown up and wishing that he hadn't shown up.

When he showed up, half of me thought that he was one of those spirits Ember had been talking about — wishful thinking, much?

I looked over to see the two of them talking, so oblivious to me that I considered getting up and walking off.

Something was off about him; though what it was I couldn't quite tell. His scent was confusing, and I was struggling to figure out whether he was human or supernatural — a phenomenon which usually happens when supernaturals learn how to mask their scents, or when a human has spent ages around supernaturals.

I narrowed my eyes to look across the lake, blocking out my hearing and sense of smell. Already, I had so many questions about him — number one on the list being 'what the hell is he doing here if he's supposed to be dead?'

Cruelly, I half-wished he was dead.

That would certainly make things a whole lot easier; both now, and in later days to come.