Fighting with Fire #2 ✔

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟏𝟏 - 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨

"Jade! Stop!" I'd yelled, already much, much too late.

Jade had her hands around Ember's neck, ruthlessly squeezing all the air out of her lungs.

I'd managed to drag Jade off her and push her towards Jason, but not before Ember had passed out. She was still breathing, but barely, her heartbeat was weak, her face bloodless and pale.

She was still alive.

I'd scooped her up in my arms and carried her inside, wishing that Abi and Storm were there; maybe if they were, Ember would've been safer, instead of wandering outside.

Why did she wander outside?

Now, she was lying in my bed. Still unconscious with bandages carefully wrapped around her swollen, bruised neck. I sat next to her, clutching her limp hand in mine.

As I was still recovering from the full moon, it was hard to grasp what had gone so wrong with Jade.

We'd gotten about 20 miles away from the ranch — almost all the way to Coloma or the smouldering remains of it anyway, before transitioning. That should've been far enough for us not to wander back to Bonner Mountain, where the ranch was.

That full moon wasn't a supermoon, just an ordinary moon; meaning it was difficult to tell why we'd travelled so far, so quickly. We weren't hunting a deer, or anything, it didn't make sense the way we'd journeyed.

Maybe Jade was hunting though... hunting Ember.

And then the pack instinct would've made me, Jason and Ryder go with her, to back her up, to help her with the kill. Just as real wolves would do.

But this was no deer.

This is Ember.

I glanced down at Ember's cold hand clasped in mine, thinking that it had twitched and that she was waking up.

I thought wrong.

For a moment, I watched Ember, wondering how she came to change so much. Her hair was constantly tied back, her thin skin, the weight loss — not that she was overweight at all, she was ordinary, average, but now she was borderline skeletal. The constant coldness of her body continued to agitate and unsettle me. I had no idea how to get her warm, or if she'd ever be warm again.

Well, you can think of one way to warm her up... Can't you, Theo?

Anyway. She didn't want me like that.

None of us — that being me, Jason, and Ryder — had any idea what the hell was going on with Jade. She'd totally lost it.

It was extra terrifying for me because it made me think of a traumatising night terror that I had a couple of times back in Lake Oldoy. A night terror that contained Ember being attacked by Victoria... And seeing Ember being attacked by Jade in that way was pretty damn close.

As I sat watching over the wounded, sleeping Ember, Jason and Ryder were occupied with keeping an eye on Jade, who they'd wisely decided to chain up in the cellar beneath the ranch. Of course, the effects of the full moon were wearing off by now, but Jade could've still been unpredictable and psychotic.

I don't understand what's happening or why it's happening...

Exhausted due to still recovering from the full moon myself, I rubbed my free hand over my face. I really need a shave, I thought gruffly; I hadn't had time to shave properly in a long while, so I resolved to do so. As soon as Ember woke up; I wasn't planning on leaving her side until she did.

I just hoped it wouldn't be long.

Just because dealing with comatose Ember sucked, that's all. No other reason. Other than that, she was being a total pain in the ass... So many — too many things about her were different.