No One Will Ever Hurt You Again I Promise-Chapter 74
They embark on a frantic race that leads them straight as far as the eye can see toward the place that will define the fate of New York shortly—or even the course of the lives of these two youngsters who launched themselves blindly toward danger for the sake of a loved one. They don’t really know what awaits them, but that’s not what matters; they just know that Howie is in a nameless mess that requires their presence at his side. He’s not the kind of guy to beg people with such a desperate voice, so they expect the worst.
Howie begged El to come get him out of that shit. El, as a good and loyal friend who knows his friend better than anyone else, deduces that his behavior was due to a misfortune that happened before his eyes to his friends, the twins, and his soul mates.
They are on the same length, El didn’t use his superpower that could make him move at light speed for Theo’s sake, but he runs fast at least which equates to Theo’s lycanthrope speed, and Theo is good at running, he is awesome.
In a short time, they have razed miles of rocky terrain on foot, despite the obstacles they encounter which serve them as challenges, they kept the tempo by activating all their senses to avoid trees that seemed to come out of nowhere, branches that whipped their faces, dead trees that had fallen askew in their path, huge tree trunks still rooted in the ground, big rocks and big holes dug by God only knows who and for what purpose.
All this fast and furious race at foot leaves Theo almost speechless, he has never run so much in his life. He does run out sometimes but he does everything in his power to stay under cover, the less he uses his abilities the less he gets noticed and that’s why they have this bunker at home, and a training ground worthy of a commando base.
All this with the aim of unrestrained as much as possible their desire to give free rein to their wolf to run when he feels the need and to stay as long as possible out of the Rufus’ hunters radar. He devotes himself to high-level training, every day is a new challenge and his pack stays awake with what he gives them.
He had never felt such a sense of well-being and freedom since he had his first transformation, with his eyes closed he challenges himself to run without seeing where he was going using only his other senses. After all, he’s not the alpha of his pack for nothing. There are things he can do without using his eyes but he’s never tried before, it’s a good time to test his abilities and limits a bit and then El is there to watch over him, after all.
A coaxing beautiful smile came to life on his handsome face, glowing like the sun as El looks at him out of the corner of his eyes. He witnesses and enjoys the joy Theo was experiencing by running so freely. When he sees him close his eyes, he too smiles ready to attend the show that is going to take place.
Theo doubled in speed, rocketing through the woods and branches, all his other senses on alert. He jumped over the obstacles, he avoided the branches that came right in his face with unparalleled skill and agility under the admiring gaze of El who is tailing him a few inches away to better admire the show.
Suddenly He takes a detour, which makes El frown but he follows him anyway as Theo slows down, he opens his eyes hastily as his features twist in fear and anticipation.
"Blood," he whispered, fearing the worst but after a few seconds his features softened and he turned to El almost with a smile of relief plastered all over his adorable face and shouted, "it’s not the twins."
El, smiles back at him charmingly, before looking away still smiling though, all this cuteness is way too much for him to handle then he answers, "yeah, you are right, it’s not the twins, nice job honey." only when he heard what he said did he realize what he called the other. Theo was startled to the core, his heart skipped a beat or two consecutively at the endearment "honey" that the latter pulled out of nowhere before freezing in place like a statue.
’Hey, man have mercy on me,’ Theo cried mentally, ’how am I going to stay away from you in the days to come when you become your real yourself again?’ he lamented inwardly, apart from Hugg who was taking pleasure by calling him Papi, baby when they are in full action, he has never had a partner with whom he shares these kinds of things before. And when these moments come he often runs away at full speed without looking back but for some odd reason, it sounds good to him coming from El.
But that was Hugg’s thing, it was just a game for him, first thing first he called him the first day they met which prompted Theo to talk to him. Just a look at Hugg he knew he was there for fun nothing more, sex just sex, and it never made him hot or cold that the latter called him baby or papi like a rabbit in heat. It was just words for him nothing else. They never make him sweat or yearn to hear him call him that more often.
However with El it’s different, it’s not the same atmosphere the same vibe. The guy gives him signals that make him lose his means, which gives him wings and hope to resell. ’don’t play with other people’s feelings filthy bastard,’ he grumbled to himself His heart skipped another beat or two, and all of a sudden he felt hot all over but he tried to keep calm while remembering that the guy is not in all his right state of mind at the moment. ’You have to stop making up your mind bud, he doesn’t even realize what he said.’
"Hey, let’s go, let’s follow the blood scent to them," he says to El, gathering his courage in both hands, he has to come out under this spell that El put on him before he begins to have hope fill his pocket to the brink. It will be too stupid to be heartbroken over a one-sided love, but he still liked the ’honey’ he received out of the blue from the bear boy.
He led the way, giving El time to digest the consequence of his own words or tongue slip. El shook his head from left to right stunned at himself, ’no kidding mate, but what’s going on with you? Don’t you think you’re going a little too fast here, you want to scare him away, is that your plan?’ he scolded himself, even if it wasn’t a bad thing to have made that little mistake, he’ll just try not to pile them up until then.
He follows Theo towards a clearing, they are amazed to see the place ransacked like a house that has been robbed wildly, they did not know that they could come across such a mess in the middle of nature. "Someone or something trashed the woods," Theo whispered to El.
"Yeah, and our precious Howie had something to do with it," El replied, glancing around and searching for evidence. "He should be fighting something huge, from the damage I can tell it wasn’t just a simple fight and it wasn’t a wolf either. What could he have gotten himself into behind my back?"
"Yeah, I wonder too," Theo almost growled in annoyance making a weird face at El’s way of talking about Howie, like the latter is some kind of precious treasure. As he advances to the crime scene, the smell of blood becomes more and more powerful. "But there is no hint of Howie being there, he was careful, so it was something more complicated than we think." he spat reluctantly as if he was fighting some invisible enemy.
"That’s what I just figure out," EL replied slowly before rushing towards Theo. He was trying to track the scent of the thing Howie had to fight with no avail and if it wasn’t Howie who did all this damage and created this forced clearing, so there was a human bulldozer going after the trees like crazy.
Either way no matter what it was, if he has to come back to the scene, he won’t find Theo’s scent on the stage to hunt him down later to do God knows what to him. The little one smells like heaven, he will be an easy target for any psycho who is looking for eternal life. Arriving near Theo, he whispered to him, "you have to hide your scent and now" he wanted his voice to be calm and composed but he missed everything, he was in total panic.
