Hunting You, Hunting Me (Watty Awards 2012)

Chapter 13

A/N: For those of you hoping for Estela’s POV, I apologise. It was imperative that I write this chapter from Alpha Bill’s POV to let you know what is going on at home and also move the plot along. I hope you don’t find it boring! : )

All rights reserved, © 2012

Not edited.

Chapter 13

RECAP:

My fingers tidy up automatically while my mind wanders. What are my parents doing right now? I pray to God to keep them strong and to help them find peace. I also pray for them to miraculously find me and take me back home. I wonder what Abby is doing…she was supposed to go away with her parents this upcoming weekend for a special sixteenth birthday pilgrimage to an Indian reservation. Weird choice for a trip…but to each their own. Was she carrying on like nothing happened? Did she feel guilty? What had she told my parents about where I was? Did they believe her? Why wasn’t anyone looking for me?

Yawning widely, I realize that the events of the day have finally caught up with me. I am exhausted. Unfolding the blanket, I wrap it around my body, covering my head with the hood. Since that night of the party, tonight will be the first time that I have laid down, and for this I am truly grateful. I pull the blanket tightly around myself and go to sleep.

Alpha Bill POV

I am sitting in my office attending to pack business when the chaos from the living room distracts me. Families whose children have turned sixteen this month are preparing for the official right of passage ceremony, which will take place at the Reservation this weekend.  This ceremony will bind them to the pack and allow them to access the pack’s mind-link. Being the Alpha automatically makes me the master of ceremonies; for it is to me that they are pledging their allegiance. But because of the events of the past few days, I will not be making the trip with them. Trying to focus on the bills before me, I catch my mind drifting to the girls. Sighing with frustration at my inability to concentrate on anything besides the disappearance, I put the bills away and let my mind wander.

It has been three nights since they went missing. As the Alpha, my job is to protect my pack. I have failed. I am a good tracker, always have been.  And even though Estela does not have a scent, Abby does. So, why can’t I find Abby? I just hope that wherever they are, they are together.  I put away the bills and rub my tired eyes. To say that I have not slept is an understatement. In the last few days, I have made all the perimeter runs myself. I was able to track Abby’s scent to the border of our town and then, nothing. It is unlikely that they left, because pack rules forbid anyone to leave this town unless they notify me first. It is a small precaution we have to take since humans do not know that werewolves exist. We don’t want to draw attention and we don’t want outsiders interested in our towns.

Mike, our ‘sheriff’ has also put out an APB on Abby’s car, without any luck. This disappearance has me completely baffled. People never go missing from our town, our pack. We are werewolves for Pete’s sake. Well, except for last year…when Bree Butler suddenly disappeared. But that was different; we think she left the pack to find her mate.  Though, I still find it odd that no one has heard from her since, including her parents. When Bree ‘left’ she was not yet sixteen and therefore hadn’t shifted into her wolf. Ironically, Abby had turned sixteen last week, which meant that she could now shift into her wolf, albeit without the mind-link. She was meant to join in the pack initiation ceremony this weekend with the rest of the April born weres. If Bree and Abby shared in the mind-link, I would be able to find them with ease. I could just ask them where they are. Reminding myself that I cannot change the past nor control the future, I let the what-if’s go. I return my focus back to the facts. What else do I know?