Broken Chains

Part 3

Chapter 3

I swung my eyes from side to side a frown appearing on my face in spite of what Carl had said about Derek avoiding areas the pack would check he couldn't be here. I spun around slowly surveying the perfectly manicured lawns. The perfect pampered family hatchback cars parked in each driveway. All the little clone houses each concealing an identical little cereal box cloned family. Me and Carl had been strolling around the streets for several hours now. I didn't have a scent trail to follow, so I kept wandering off in the wrong direction until my whatever it was that I was following kicked in and told me I was in the wrong place. At this point I just backtracked until I found that little prod in my mind which seemed to whisper to me that I was on the right track. Carl sensibly chose not to comment on the amount of backtracking I was doing. He didn't understand what I was following any more than I did but he trusted me, he trusted in what I was doing so I maybe frowning at the neat little suburb I had led us to but Carl wasn't looking at all fazed by it. I breathed out noisily as I looked around the cul de sac. There was nothing telling me to go back like I'd experienced before, but there was also nothing pulling me on I didn't know where to go. The pull I had felt towards Derek whatever it was wasn't like a scent it didn't lay as a permanent path I could follow it was more a sense that he was over there somewhere. So this had meant we had wondered on a meandering sort of path. But this sense couldn't seem to lead me to his side I had come as far as this suburb and I knew he was in there somewhere but that was as much as I could know from our bond whatever that was.

"Jess." Carl said gently as I groaned and flopped down sitting on the pristine curb.

"I don't know where to go." I groaned rubbing my face roughly.

"It's alright." Carl said sitting down next to me. "It's too exposed in there anyway. We'll wait until dark and then we'll go in and find him." My backtracking and our meandering path as well as the fact that we both froze like frightened rabbits whenever a black four by four approached meant that the daytime was now rapidly becoming dusk. I snorted; Carl looked over at me simply his eyebrows raised quizzically.

"Lets face it we have no clue where the fuck he is? I'm guessing."

"No." Carl said turning to look at me, "I watched you today you were following something."

"What, what the fuck could I have been following you said yourself you couldn't smell him."

"The bond between mates it's more than scent." Carl said softly.

"Who really knows that?" I said reasonably, "who in our pack was even mated to a natural. We can't align ourselves with humans you of all people know that they aren't like us. So being paired up with a mate who is like us it has this romantic illusion to it. "I shook my head "It's not like that." Carl reached out and stroked my cheek.

"I've been with you my whole life Jess and I saw the love between the two of you every time you looked at each other." That was completely true he was only four months older than me "It was one the one reason I didn't believe those stories were romantic fiction. When he thought he was dying he was calling out to you. He says your name in his sleep. You two are meant to be together. You were following something, I believe you."

"but you can't smell him we have no scent trail you know that as well as I do and you know that if he was here if he had ever been here there would be something here some hint of him but I can't find anything."

"He wasn't necessarily right here." Carl said " this is suburbia people are noisy they'd notice if a pack of twenty year olds moved into number fifty three." I smiled,

"Where did you get that from desperate housewives?" he smiled in return and my heart fluttered just a little.

"You forget Jess I maybe young but I am an enforcer I've spent a lot of time out in the world hunting. I've had to talk to these kinds of people before. Look." he said casually jerking his head at the house opposite us where a pair of curtains was clearly twitching. Carl raised his hand and waved at the middle age woman who was squinting at us, he threw in one of his best smiles. She regarded him suspiciously but drew back. "Dean's much better at this sort of thing than I am." He said lightly "but really we should get out of here for a bit." I nodded as he got up to his feet and leaned over extending his hand which I took and he pulled me to my feet.