Panic swept over Sehun like a tsunami after an earthquake.

“(Y/N)!”

He launched himself at the open window, eyes scanning the immediate area for any sign of you. Not even a bird or raccoon seemed to be around. The clearing surrounding the farmhouse was empty of any sign of life. One difference he noticed, however, was the bush below the window was much bigger than Junmyeon had every let it get before. Did you really leave this way?

“Sehun, what’s going on?” Kris was in the doorway, his breath heavy from rushing to get here. 

Sehun’s throat was thick, swollen almost to the point of being unable to speak. “(y/n)’s gone.”

Kris narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean she’s gone?”

“We had a fight and she locked herself in here. I left to give her some space, but she’s disappeared.” Sehun collapsed down on the tile floor, banging his fist against the wall beside him as he put his back to the window. “This is all my fault. Again. I should have just kept my mouth shut.”

“Junmyeon told me,” Kris nodded with a frown. “In times like this, staying quiet might be the best option.” He stepped up to Sehun, hand out. “Come on. Let’s go find her. I’m sure she couldn’t have gone far.”

Sehun thought about it for a moment or two. You left for a reason. Didn’t you once say that you were able to work through your thoughts best when you were alone? So maybe that’s all you were trying to do right now. But the woods were dangerous. If you wanted to think, he’d rather you did it somewhere safe. He’d leave you alone, but he needed you near, where he could be there for you in a moment’s notice. 

Taking the offered hand, Sehun let Kris pull him up to his feet. They left the empty bathroom behind and headed for the first floor. 

“Where are you two going?” Jongdae asked as they passed through the living room. 

“To go look for (y/n),” Kris replied bluntly. Sehun cringed. Why did it always sound like you were his child he’d lost in the grocery store?

Jongdae raised an eyebrow. “She’s gone again?” Jiyoung, who was sitting beside him, gave a very pointed nudge. The two of them exchanged a silent conversation driven purely by facial expressions. Then he stood up. “Alright. I’ll come help.”

“Thanks,” Sehun mumbled. As worried as he was about you, he didn’t want the whole pack trailing along. He knew that would frustrate you even more and possibly make it worse. They needed to head out before anyone else volunteered. “Let’s go.”

Outside, the wind blew at a speed that was unusually fast for this area. The trees audibly rustled, the mix of leaves and pine needles whispering taunts to Sehun. They mocked him. Would he be able to track your scent? Would the pull come through for him and allow him to find you? They teased with the possible negative outcome. 

The thought that you were the one creating this wind lingered in the back of his mind as he stripped out of the constricting clothes and headed for the treeline on all fours. Kris and Jongdae flanked him from behind, following his lead. Sehun kept his nose down as he tried to find the direction that you went. But he found nothing. No scent, no trail, no evidence, absolutely nothing. He couldn’t even feel what direction you were in. How was this possible? He’d seen his brothers do this a dozen times. 

Sehun, Kris called out after traveling in circles for what seemed like hours. Have you picked up anything yet?

No, Sehun growled. The wind had not died down even a little bit to help him out. The ground was too rustled up for him to find any footprints that would give way to your location. Or at least what direction you went. I can’t sense anything. This isn’t supposed to be possible.

Well, she is a witch. Maybe she knows how to cover her tracks? Jongdae pointed out. 

Kris looked up at the thickening clouds overhead. Let’s head back before the weather gets worse. 

But-

We won’t find her like this, Kris said, too reasonably for Sehun’s liking. And we’ll need Soomi if (y/n) really is covering her tracks with magic. 

Sehun stared off into the distance. He willed for your location to just come to him, to know where you were so he didn’t have to go back and try another method. He was your mate, your wolf. He was supposed to feel you without even trying, but here he was, useless. 

Fine. We’ll head back. 

Maybe we’ll get lucky and she’ll have decided to go back to the house on her own. Would certainly save us a lot of trouble.

Kris threw Jongdae a look that told him shut up in a way that didn’t quite satisfy Sehun, but he’d take what he could get. 

With great reluctance, Sehun followed his older members back into the direction of the farmhouse to try and find you another way. 

**

This was much harder than you thought. 

You didn’t really have that much of a plan when you left the farmhouse and the evidence of that was starting to come to the surface. Your emotions were running high causing the wind around you to blow harder than you were meaning for it to. All you were trying to do was cover your tracks so Sehun wouldn’t be able to follow your footprints or your scent. At one point you even crossed the river to throw it off even further. 

Just get to town, you told yourself. Get to town and find Dana and Mina. 

Maybe you’d get lucky and you’d find the latter alone. Or maybe you could find the right ingredients and perform an incantation that might give some sort of hint to Mina’s motivations. 

Really, you needed to find out what she even was. Was she human? A secret witch? Something more?

Supernatural creatures weren’t limited to just witches and werewolves. The world was vast and diverse beyond comprehension. It was possible for there to be “others” you weren’t aware of, races that you knew nothing about. And that was terrifying to you. 

Did you even know what you were walking into? What would happen if you confronted Mina? Were you really prepared?

The answer was probably no. You were grossly unprepared with a handful of confusing visions in your head and powers that you had a shaky handle on. A tiny, nagging feeling kept at you, saying that you shouldn’t have come out on your own, that this was stupid and you were going to embarress yourself - or get killed. 

You must do this. 

There is was again. That whisper. 

You whirled around to try and find the source. The presence felt like it came from somewhere else, but there was no source, no one around that could have let those words out into the air. You were alone. But you knew that thought wasn’t your own. 

Keep going.

You obeyed, albeit at a slower pace than before. Each step was hesitant, worried that you were doing exactly what the whisper - what possibly Mina - wanted. The possibility of you walking into a trap was great. For a moment, you considered going back. You could bring Sehun with you and-

No.

You couldn’t explain it, but anger and rage suddenly boiled inside you. He wasn’t needed. You didn’t need protection or for him to be by your side. You were fine. You could and would do this by yourself. He didn’t want a witch for mate? Fine. You’d show you didn’t need him either. 

As you pushed yourself farther and farther, the trees in front of you began to thin. Past the trunks, you could make out a clearing. When you passed the final row and broke through, you gasped. It was the clearing. And you weren’t alone. 

“Hello, (y/n),” a twinkling voice greeted you. It matched the delicate figure that stood before you.

But it wasn’t Mina. 

**

“So what do you think we can do?” Kris asked Soomi. 

The witch was sitting on the couch, worry etched and carved into every line on her face. When Kris had first sat the witch down to fill her in on the situation, she’d insisted that you would never do anything like that. As many opportunities as you’d had to run away in your life, you’d never taken them. So why would you now?

Sehun went on to explain that he could find you, either by scent or by the pull. Soomi couldn’t understand that part. Even though you could easily cover your scent from the wolves, as far as she knew, you didn’t know how to magically hide yourself from the pull. That was never part of your training nor would you have access to that information. 

“I can try a locating spell,” Soomi offered. Her tone, however, was not hopeful. That was not a good sign. 

The witch got up from the couch and disappeared upstairs for five or so minutes before coming back down with a small square box made of a dark red wood and a bracelet Sehun had seen you wear once or twice. 

“You don’t happen to have a map of the area, do you?” Soomi asked as she kneeled down between the coffee table and the couch. 

Jondgae left the living room and was back with a folded map in his hand. He set it down for Soomi to take before resuming his position back against the wall, arms folded over his chest. Jiyoung poked him in the cheek, pulling the faintest of smiles from him before he pulled her into his chest. 

Taking a deep breath, Soomi unfolded the map, spreading it out and smoothing the lines so it would lay flat. She lifted the lid and pulled out a chain where a quartz rock as long as Sehun’s pinky hung. The surface reflected a pearly shine in the light. It reminded Sehun a bit of the moonstone necklace that Evie always wore, though her stone wasn’t quite as opaque. 

Under her breath, Soomi began to recite in a language that Sehun didn’t know. With your bracelet in her stretched out palm, she began to gently spin the chain around the map with her other hand. The crystal circled the area at a slow pace as Sehun watched it go round and round. 

After a while, nothing happened. Soomi dropped the crystal and shook her head. “I can’t find her.”

“What do you mean you can’t find her?” Sehun snapped. “She couldn’t have just disappeared off the face of the earth!”

“Sehun…,” Kris warned. 

“No, he’s right.” Soomi pushed herself back to her feet. “She couldn’t have just vanished out of existence. Someone very powerful is masking her essence.”

Sehun growled in frustration. “I thought you said (y/n) wouldn’t know how to do that?”

“She can’t,” Soomi said. “That type of magic is ancient and rarely taught in the covens. Certainly not ours. Whoever is doing this is very powerful… and most likely a practitioner of darker magic.”

“So, it’s probably safe to say that whoever is hiding (y/n) is also the same person that she’s been seeing in her visions? The one who’s coming?” Kris guessed. 

Soomi nodded solemnly. “Yes. I dare say that is a safe conclusion. If they’re already masking her from my magic and the connection to her mate, she might already be with them. And if she is…” She looked up at Kris with fear in her eyes. “If she is, then (y/n) is in insurmountable danger.”

A roar erupted from Sehun as he stormed out of the living room. He stopped on the porch, gripping onto the railing so tightly that he could hear the creak and whine of the wood under the stress. His eyes searched the area as if by some miracle you’d come walking out of the forest and back to him. 

This was all his fault. He’d driven you to this. He’d pushed you away with his words and right into the hands of whoever was haunting his family. 

Their Plan B had turned into a dead end. And now what options did he have? 

“Sehun?”

With a sigh, he turned to Kris standing in the doorway.

“Yeah?”

“We’re getting the pack together. We’re going to go back out once the storm is over and we’ll find her. Together. Don’t you worry.”

Don’t worry. That was much easier said than done. But Sehun nodded and went back inside, ready to move on to Plan C. Because he would find you. No matter what it took. He would find you and he would bring you back home.