Eternal Flame

~15~

The sound of birds singing reached Ruben's ears, causing him to open his eyes and look around from where he was laying on his back on a forest floor. He sat up in a jackknife position, gazing around in confusion. He had no idea where he was or how he got there.

He stood up slowly, the forest slowly becoming familiar to him. It took his rattled mind a long moment to realize he was in his forest, his territory. He knew he'd gone in the woods in his wolf form to blow off some steam, and saw the 'C' on the tree which was covered with blood. . .talking to Katherine. . . After his conversation with Katherine, it was all blank. He vaguely remembered being in a lot of pain, but he felt perfectly fine now.

He gave his head a slight shake, shifted into his wolf form, and sprinted back to his house. Once he got there, he shifted back into his human form and walked in through the back door. He rushed to his den and found his cell phone laying on his desk. He picked it up and turned it on to call Katherine only to curse when he saw it was completely dead. He ran to his bedroom and scrambled to find his phone charger, plug it into the wall, and hook his phone up. As he waited impatiently for his phone to charge at a percent to where he could call Katherine, he walked through his house, checking to see if anyone had robbed or trashed his home, but nothing was out of place, like he'd never left.

After about fifteen minutes, Ruben walked back into his room and saw that his phone finally had enough charge to try to call Katherine. He saw he had multiple missed calls from Katherine herself, Morgan, Mrs. O'Neil, his parents, unknown numbers.

He called Katherine back first. She answered on the first ring. "Ruben is that you?"

"Yes, it's me." Ruben barely got the words out before Katherine started in on him.

"Do you realize how worried I've been? I've been searching for you all damn week! You completely disappeared on me! Where the hell have you been?" He noted the relief in her voice, how she sounded like she was on the verge of tears. He also noted how she said 'I', not 'we' like a team of agents had been searching for him. She'd been worried about him personally and had also been personally searching for him. For some reason, the information made his heart flutter.

"I have no idea where I've been," he told her. "After I talked to you last time, it's all blank."

"All blank?"

"I'm not making it up. I can't remember anything after we talked."

"Do you remember any agents coming by your house? About how we agreed to move you to a safe spot?"

He frowned. "I don't remember agents coming down here, and I don't really remember our conversation, just that we talked. And a safe spot? I agreed to that?"

"Yes. You said it was the best course of action to take with Caius around."

"But what about work?"

He could almost vision her rolling her eyes. "Seriously? You're worried about work right now?  Getting you to safety is more important, and all the supernatural schools have been shut down until further notice."

His brows raised at the last part. "Morgan actually agreed to do that?"

"Actually, no. He was the only one who protested against it. The rest of the school board agreed to shut the schools down."