Fighting with Fire #2 ✔

𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟐 - 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨

"Theo?" A voice came at my door, along with a knock. Much to my surprise, it was Maia — I was expecting it to be Ember, but then I remembered that Ember had gone for a run in the woods with Abi.

It was mostly to get Abi out of the house, otherwise, she'd sit with Zack all day long, and she needed some time to herself.

Zack was healing slowly. But, according to Abi, he was healing at the usual rate for a human. He still couldn't sit up; his ribs were too sore. Sometimes, I'd sit and talk with him — mostly about nothing, avoiding all the heavy stuff. Most of the time, though, it was Abi that stayed by his side.

"What's up?" I turned to Maia, as she stepped into my room, firmly shutting the door behind her.

"Can I... Can I talk to you?" She asked hesitantly, fidgeting.

"Of course." I frowned. "What is it?"

I sat down on the edge of my bed, and gestured for her to sit in the armchair — hoping that to make her more comfortable; hell, I was getting second-hand anxiety from her chemosignals.

"Is it about your wolf?" I asked.

Maia nodded. "I know that I should probably be talking to Jason about it because he's the Alpha, but because it's really that important I thought that—"

"That you'd talk to another Beta about it?" I filled in, nodding. "Yeah, I totally get that."

"Can I show you something?" Maia asked, but she was already standing up and lifting the back of her t-shirt.

Getting up, I stepped closer to her, seeing an ugly-looking shotgun scar along her spine.

"Holy shit," I swore. "When did this happen?"

Maia dropped her shirt and turned to face me, eyes full of tears, "I don't know."

"How do you get shot and not know about it?" I interrogated; brows joining together in confusion.

"It must've happened in between me being at Lake Oldoy with Tom and me crawling through the woods in Montana." Her eyes were full of worry and the anxiety pouring out of her was extremely potent-smelling.

"Are you sure you don't remember anything?" I probed, knowing that deep down, her subconscious would've remembered something — some tiny detail that could make all the difference.

"I really don't know." Her eyes teared up again. "But I remember something about that night that I transitioned."

I remembered a lot about that night; Ember stayed in the ranch, and whilst Jason, Ryder, Jade and I were running around the woods searching for a newly-transitioned Maia, Abi and Storm arrived back with a wounded Zack.

"You were really hard to track down that night, you know?" I told her lightheartedly, "Harder than a normal werewolf."

"Sorry..." Maia shrugged. "But that night, I came back to the ranch before you found me. And I... I saw Ember through the window..."

"And then what?"

"I saw this... this shape around her body." Maia frowned. "It was like flames and the shape of a bird."

I nodded. "That's her Phoenix."

"But... her Phoenix did something," Maia continued, "And Ember hadn't done anything."

Dread hit my stomach as I sucked in a shaky breath — whatever Maia was about to tell me couldn't have been good. "What did it do?"

"It..." She swallowed hard. "I can't explain it, it burned brighter, and its head turned and looked directly at me..."