Feeling This...

“Okay Charlie you can do this, just act like you're going to Josie's house, walk right out the door and run like hell!” I had given myself this pep talk twenty times today, ten times after I had thrown my bag over the window onto the front lawn, after I was sure everyone was inside and accounted for.

Right, like any other day...

“There you are, I was wondering if you were going to come downstairs today or stay held up in your room all day,” Uncle Joe's large frame filled the doorway to the kitchen as I reached the bottom step.

“I'm going over to Josie's, I'm still not talking to any of you!” I hmphed for added effect and began my march to the door with my head held high.

“You need to stay here Charlie!” Matt yelled from the kitchen, where I assumed everyone else was at. That disgusting tug was at my navel again, when he spoke it was beginning to get harder to ignore him, sweat instantly began rising to the surface of my skin.

“Or what? You'll murder me too?” I yelled out, reminding them all why I was furious at them. They had murdered my father, the man who I was like in so many ways, especially in the attitude I was flaunting right now, but something in me didn't mourn him, a darker side of my body knew they did this for a reason, it was something that had to be done; it was probably some kind of werewolf voodoo.

“Char, seriously, it was for you,” Jack's voice jumped me, almost making me regret my decision to leave, he had been my best friend for as long as I could remember, but he was a part of it too, and I needed to find my mom.

“I'll be back later,” I snapped pulling my sunglasses down over my eyes, grabbing my car keys and I never turned back to see the face of my uncle before hitting the door.

As quickly as possible I grabbed my overnight bag from the bush under my bathroom window and hot tailed it to my car before anyone thought better of it.

Brian's POV

Hours after Charlie left Josie came through the front door alone.

“Where is Char?” Joe asked his niece, looking around her to the door for Charlie.

“Haven't seen her all day,” Josie replied, “I was coming to see what she was doing, she's not picking up her phone,”

Every body in the room stood to there feet, yelling different things, none of it making any sense with all the other voices.

“Shut up!” Matt yelled quieting everyone. I remained seated, the heat in my body rising to the surface. My mate, the girl I didn't even want, had run away.

“She said she was coming to see you!!” Matt just about growled at Josie.

Which immediately caused her to rise her hands, “I haven't seen her,”

“She's gone to find her mom,”Zacky spoke out the last one to come to the obvious.

“Where is she Brian? Can't you feel her?” Matt demanded of me, “We need to find her, especially if those damn witches are after her.”

I set still for a while, trying to act like I was trying to feel whatever wolfy thing I should feel towards her, something I didn't want to feel, she was that constant tug at my gut, a twitch that made the hair on the back of my neck stand.

“Nothing,” I stood the anger finally hitting the top layer of my body. I didn't feel the tug at my spine, the constant ring in my ears, all the things that accompanied her presents, “I feel nothing at all, she's no wheres close,” I slammed my fists against the table, flipping it over sending everything flying.

“We need to find her, NOW!” Joe tried to tell us the obvious.

“She'll go to New Orleans, she thinks her mother is there,” Josie threw her purse over her arm, making her way to the door.

“No, we don't go that way,” Matt stood, giving her a direct order, Josie stopped dead in her tracks. “We run, it will be faster,”

We needed nothing else, we had our orders, that sinking feeling of the wolf within making it way out sent goosebumps on all our skin.

“Mom, I got away from them, I'm coming to find you, but I need to know where you are, I love you.”

That must have been the fiftieth voice mail I’d left my mom, it was always the same thing, a few rings and then straight to voice mail.

It took a few hours on the road before I felt safe driving away from Huntington, before I knew a car full of wolves wouldn't run me off the road, they must have known that I ran coop, Josie had been blowing my phone up for five hours, and I'd been to scared to stop and pee for the last three.

“Now for an oldie but a goodie, Bat Country by Avenged Sevenfold!” The radio somehow always had a way to make life ironic.

“What a band of assholes,”I muttered turning pandora on, anything to not hear them, anything to not think about them. The further I got from them, the lighter the air felt, cleaner if smelt, freedom is was even more freeing when you didn't know you were trapped.

My phone interrupted my pandora escape, with an unknown number. I immediately answered hoping it was whoever had been texting me.

“Hello?” I just about screamed, whoever was on the phone probably didn't need it to hear me.

“Where are you Charlie?” I knew the voice, and I hated to admit that my heart instantly began beating faster, and goosebumps formed across my arms.

“Who is this?” I played stupid, I needed to, I could never let him know about the change in my body at the sound of his voice.

“Brian,” he sounded like he had to think about it for a minute too. “Where are you Charlie?” he repeated himself.

“I'm fine,”

“I didn't ask how you were, clearly you are fine, I said Where,” anger was rising up in his throat, I didn't need to be in the room with him to know this.

“I'm fine,” I repeated, not wanting to give anything away.

“Tell me where you are, NOW!” he snapped, before a different voice filled the speaker.

“Charlie, you listen and you listen good, you are going to tell me where you are NOW and you are going to PULL OVER and you are going to STAY there until I get there,” Matt's voice ripped through the speakers of my car. Without fighting it I instantly put my blinker on to pull over to the side of the road, something took over me that I couldn't explain, it like my real self went on auto pilot and some ghost of a girl took over.

“Where are you?” he repeated, a growl deep down in his large body echoed.

“On the way to New Orleans,” I didn't want to say, I tried to stop myself.

“Stay where you are!” he snapped before hanging up.

The silence in the car shifted me out of my trance.

'come on Charlie, you can do this, get on the road,' I began fighting my inner self. 'he is no one to you, Matt can't control you, get on the road and find your mom'

I must have sat beside the road for twenty minutes, starting my car and turning it off repeatedly before my phone seemed to vibrate my whole car, from my mom.

You better run, they are going to kill you..

I frantically began typing back

Who mom? Why do the guys want to kill me? What are you keeping from me?

“US!”

A voice startled me through my open window, before everything went black.