Ember and Theo were driven apart as each of them searched for the answers they so desperately needed to find...will fate pull them back together?
*****
Ember left for Svalbard to t...
I'd almost crashed the truck into parked traffic at a traffic light when Ember said that Chris Woodman — the son of a hunter — saved her life in Lake Oldoy. After she'd dropped that bombshell, we'd spent the rest of the ride back to the ranch in silence, not exchanging any words.
It was late by the time we arrived back at the ranch, so I skipped dinner and headed straight for a shower, all too aware of my sticky, sweaty body.
As hot water poured down on me, Ember's words reverberated around my head: Chris saved my life.
Sounding like some sort of essay, my brain was filled with the questions: who, what, where, when, why, how?
What Ember had told me made zero sense; how, why did Chris Woodman, the son of a fricking hunter, save her life? When did her life even need saving back in Lake Oldoy?
Then it hit me: the fire at the warehouse. What if Chris was there? What if he saw what happened, saw what Ember did?
That has to be it, I convinced myself as I scrunched shampoo into my hair; that has to be it.
Chris probably saw what Ember was doing, and maybe caused some sort of distraction so that the other hunters wouldn't go after her.
Probably, maybe. No, definitely; nothing was certain. Not in my mind, anyhow.
By the time I'd finished my extremely long shower, Ember was already in bed, and appeared to be asleep. Facing away from her in my room, I quickly pulled on a pair of comfy, grey jogging bottoms, and a loose vest, lazily discarding my towel on the floor.
I watched Ember for a minute or two. I watched her deep, steady breathing — ensuring that she was actually asleep, before I collapsed into my uncomfortable armchair.
Instead of sleep beginning to droop my eyelids, worry was beginning to gnaw at my insides. Though not about Ember, or Chris. No; this worry was about Abi and Storm and Zack. Abi and Storm had been gone for a couple of weeks now, and we still hadn't heard anything from them: no calls, no texts, no emails, no letters, no postcards, no nightmarish messages from Storm transmitted to us via sleep.
I know Ember told me that I should give myself a break, cut myself some slack or whatever, but the lack of knowledge about where Abi, Storm and Zack were or weren't was irritating me.
When sleep finally reached me, it was a harsh and brutal sleep, filled to the brim with a twisted mix of my darkest dreads, deepest desires, and deadliest delusions.
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Tears were streaming freely down my face (shut up) and I had no idea why — until I looked down and saw Ember's broken body lying in my arms like a limp rag doll. Her eyes shut, a trickle of blood coming down her face from the side of her temple... And she was cold, so, so cold. Too cold — almost like she was dea—
No, I can't think like that.
"Ember?" I tried to shake her awake. "Ember, wake up!"
Desperation and anxiety filled me as she lay oblivious to my efforts. Those beautiful blue eyes remained shut.
