Chapter 19 - Cillian
Cillian padded along next to Franco, trying to focus on the patrol and their surroundings to see if they could uncover where Eric and the Night Pack might be hiding.
But so far, they hadn’t turned up any evidence of them.
They had hunted all along the west of town and come up with nothing.
If the pack were over here, they had hidden their tracks well.
The problem was that Cillian was half-certain that he could be standing straight in front of the Night Pack’s camp and still not see them, considering how distracted he was at the moment.
Every few seconds, his mind wandered back to Amber, and he had to drag his thoughts away.
Each time, it took more effort than the last.
Why had he locked Amber in her room? It had seemed like the right idea at the time.
He had done it to keep her safe, after all.
But now when he thought about it, he couldn’t smother that flicker of guilt and doubt currently rippling through him.
He didn’t think he would be able to forget her expression when he closed the door on her, or forgive himself for the betrayal he’d seen in her eyes.
You did the right thing, a voice said.
Did I? another asked.
The first voice didn’t have an answer.
He pushed forward, trying to focus on the patrol.
He wanted something else to fixate on besides Amber.
It was half the reason he had come on this patrol at the last minute instead of staying at home.
He hadn’t known how to apologize to Amber in a way that would have made her understand what he had done.
So he’d come out hoping for a distraction while he could get his thoughts in order.
Except it was nearly impossible in a situation where most of the time was spent walking in silence.
He tried to focus on the earth, hunting for signs of their quarry: overturned dirt, broken brush, unfamiliar scents.
Only if the Night Pack were anywhere nearby, they were better at hiding their tracks than he would have liked or expected.
Which was why he kept thinking about Amber.
Couldn’t she see that he was trying to keep her safe? That was all he wanted.
You’re not exactly going about it reasonably, a voice said.
Cillian snarled. If he could find Eric and put this behind them, then he could hash things out with Amber without that threat looming over them. The problem, though, was trying to find the asshole. They had been out here for hours and had come up with nothing.
Eventually, they headed back to town. Once they were out of the woods, Franco shifted, turning back into his human form. Cillian followed suit, trying to keep his scowl off his face.
“Well, I think at this point, we know the Night Pack isn’t nearby,” Franco said.
“We would have caught some scent of one of them by now. There’s a chance that they slipped around and are either north or south.
They might have realized this was where we would look first if we were monitoring things. ”
“We should still keep regular patrols here,” Cillian said. “Just in case we’re wrong and missed something. Or they aren’t actually here yet.”
“Already on it!” Franco replied.
“Thanks,” Cillian said. He glanced down the road in the general direction of his house, his brows knitting together, his lips a thin line. His mind drifted to Amber yet again. He gritted his teeth. Why couldn’t she just understand that he was trying to help?
Since when is locking someone in their room helping them? a voice hissed in his mind.
He flinched internally. He didn’t have time to think about that right now. What he needed to do was focus. If he couldn’t catch Eric, then everything he had done would have been for nothing. That wasn’t going to happen. Not if he had anything to say about it.
Dragging his attention back to the present, he noticed Franco watching him with a curious expression, his head tilted.
“What’s up?” Franco asked, raising an eyebrow.
“What makes you think something’s up?” Cillian grumbled.
Franco barked out a laugh. “Come on, Cillian. It’s not like it’s that hard to see.”
“Everything’s…” Cillian was about to say “fine,” but something made him pivot at the last minute. He sighed. “All right, so things are kind of shitty.”
“Amber?” Franco asked, and Cillian nodded. “What happened?”
Cillian shrugged, unsure how to describe what happened between them.
What was he supposed to say? That he had forced his protection on her when she didn’t want it a second time?
That she was mad at him for locking her in her room?
No matter which way he framed it in his head, he still came out looking like the one in the wrong, even if he had only been trying to help.
That probably means you were in the wrong, he thought.
Franco was still waiting for him to respond.
“I might have fucked up,” Cillian grunted.
Franco’s eyebrows shot up. “What happened?”
Cillian’s jaw tightened. He didn’t want to rope Franco or the others into this. It wasn’t their problem. It wasn’t their fight. He was so used to doing things on his own that he didn’t want to burden his friends by telling them about his own meaningless problems.
Except that mindset was exactly what got him into this mess in the first place.
He didn’t know what Franco could do to help, but maybe there was some benefit to roping him in.
Cillian had trusted these men with his life on more than one occasion.
Having someone he could trust and just vent to felt like a relief.
He had never been the kind of person to talk about his issues, but the thought was now strangely appealing to him.
To his surprise, the first person he wanted to talk to wasn’t Franco, but Amber.
It unsettled him a little. They were in the middle of a fight—a fight about her.
Wanting to talk to her about that problem seemed bizarre to say the least, but he couldn’t shake that thought.
Still, Amber probably didn’t want anything to do with him, so she was out of the question, and Franco was here.
Letting out a breath, he told Franco what had happened. Franco listened with a blank expression, not giving his thoughts away. It took both longer and shorter than Cillian had expected to tell the whole story.
When he finally finished, Franco didn’t respond at first. He stared, his tongue poking the inside of his cheek as he considered what to say.
“Anyway,” Cillian said when Franco remained quiet. “That’s pretty much what happened.”
“Why, though?” Franco asked.
Cillian frowned. “What?”
“Why?”
When Cillian continued to stare at him, Franco rolled his eyes. “You went through a lot of trouble to make sure Amber was safe. Why?”
Cillian opened his mouth, then closed it, frowning. The question of why hadn’t ever really occurred to him before. And now that it was presented to him, he had to pause and think.
Except he didn’t, not for long. The answer was obvious. It had been there for weeks, even if he hadn’t admitted it to himself.
He loved her.
He should have realized it a long time ago.
He loved her fire, the way she called him out when he was being an idiot.
He admired her quiet strength and her intelligence.
He liked that she stood up for others, even if she wasn’t always capable of standing up for herself.
He enjoyed how she played off his banter.
He liked it when she was open and vulnerable with him, that she felt safe enough to let him in when she put up barriers to protect herself.
Or she had. He had fucked everything up when he locked her in her room. He had taken away her agency. What he should have done was go somewhere with her, considering how worried she was. He had been a massive asshole.
He had to fix it.
“I need to get home,” he said. Then, before he could even fully register Franco’s mildly bemused expression, he turned and raced down the road.
How could he have been so stupid? He’d been an idiot. Despite that, an overwhelming lightness wrapped around him at the same time. He loved Amber. Admitting it to himself felt like a breath of fresh air.
Now, he just had to hope that Amber would forgive him after his massive fuck-up.
He arrived home in what had to be record time. Something seemed off the second he stepped inside the house. Frowning, he slowed, ears pricked to listen for footsteps on the floor above or any sign of life.
Nothing.
She could be asleep, he thought. But something about that didn’t sit quite right. Frowning, he moved up the stairs, still trying to listen for anything while his instincts continued screaming at him that something was wrong.
He got to her door and paused. The light on the other side peered through the crack at the bottom of the door. She had to still be in here.
He knocked. “Amber?” he called.
Nothing. He knocked again. “Amber?” he called, this time louder.
Again, nothing.
He jammed his ear up against the door, listening, trying to hunt for the sound of rhythmic breathing or snores in case she was asleep. But the only sound he heard was a gentle rustle of wind, which made no sense.
Unease crawling up his spine, he grasped the key still sticking out of the lock.
He stayed like that for a long moment, hesitating, his instincts screaming at him that something was wrong.
It took all his willpower not to break down the door to get inside quicker.
Slowly, not sure what he would find on the other side of the door, but knowing he wasn’t going to like it, he unlocked the door and cracked it open.
The room was empty.
He stared at the perfectly made bed, as if no one had so much as sat on it. His eyes swept across the room, hoping that maybe he had missed something, but there was no sign of life anywhere. It was as if she’d never been in here in the first place.
He stepped further in, hoping that she might be pressed against the wall or hiding somewhere he couldn’t see from the door.
“Amber?” he said. “I need to talk to you.”