Bonded

Chapter 19

"Kaya!" I yelled, running down the stairs. "Kaya! Something's wrong! Something's very wrong! I can't feel him!"

Jacob's bone-chilling telepathic scream of my name had jolted me out of my sleep and it only took me half a second to realize that it wasn't part of my dream. I was instantly hit with this eerie empty feeling inside me; all of his emotions, his thoughts, his energy. It was gone. All gone. "Kaya!" I shouted.

"I heard it too, Leah. And I can hear you. You don't need to shout," Kaya rushed past me, her face hard and her eyes trained on the ground.

"I can't feel him anymore," I repeated, following behind her.

"I can't either," she whirled around to face me. Her eyes were panicked for a second before she blinked it away. "I need you to go get dressed. Meet me down here in 10 minutes. We'll take a ride around the reservation and see if we can find him." When I opened my mouth to speak, Kaya covered it with her hand. "Leah, we do not need you to panic right now. Do you want to freak out or do you want to handle this?"

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, ignoring the flutter in my stomach. Nodding my head, I opened my eyes to meet hers. She sighed and dropped her hand from my mouth. "If you freak out," she continued, "it will send the pack into a frenzy. We need to evaluate the situation before we involve anyone else."

"What if he's—" I started to ask.

"He's not dead. Trust me, you'd be in a lot more pain if he was." Her body shuddered a little bit. "We'll start at the garage. Go."

I rushed upstairs to throw on some clothes and then made my way back downstairs. Kaya was already waiting for me, but right as we were about to walk out the door, we both felt it. I looked at her, confused, as I walked over to the door to open it. And making their way up the path was Sam, Paul, and Embry. They looked panicked when they saw me. "What are you guys doing here?" I asked, stepping onto the porch.

"Are you kidding?" Paul said.

"The completely deafening cry of your name posed some cause for concern." Embry commented.

"You heard it too?"

"Is everything ok? What's going on?" Sam asked, wearing concern all over his face.

Kaya crosses the threshold behind me and closed the door. "We both can't track Jacob," she said bluntly, "Leah and I were about to go find him and see if he's ok," she said carefully.

"Since you're up, we wouldn't mind some extra help," I said. "Paul, can you go with Kaya to the garage?" He nodded. "Sam, will you check my house and Billy's with me? And Em, I need you to go get Seth and run the perimeter. Keep this quiet until we know something, got it?"

They all nodded. I put a hand on Sam's arm to turn him around so we could head to the house. "Hey," Paul called. "Make sure you're real quiet when you sneak into Billy's. You know he keeps that shotgun next to his bed."

"Billy keeps a shotgun next to his bed?" Embry snorted.

"Yeah, he says his fingers work faster now that his legs don't," Paul shrugged. "I got a shell in my ass sneaking out of Rach's window when we first started dating."

"And we'll have plenty of time to talk about that later," I said, sternly. "After we find Jacob."

Sam and I started to jog to my house, clear across the other side of the reservation. About halfway there, I found myself getting a little out of breath. I tried to slow down without Sam noticing, but I was honestly dumb to think he wouldn't notice. Especially considering I was the fastest in the pack. I was a pace or two behind him when he turned around with his brows furrowed. "What's wrong?" he asked.