Page 59 of Beastkin
“Do me a favor,” I said quickly. “Keep it to yourself, okay? It’s not that I’m ashamed, because I’m not. But Phoenix’s family… well, they’re not good people. They wouldn’t approve.”
“Homophobes?”
I shook my head. “Purists.”
Silver’s eye’s widened. “Fuck buddy… that’s rough… But Phoenix isn’t like that, right?”
“He wouldn’t be with me if he was.”
“True,” Silver nodded. “Well, I hope you two can figure it out. You deserve to be happy.”
My chest swelled with affection toward Silver. He’d always been good to me. “Thanks, Silver,” I replied, placing my hand on his shoulder and giving it a squeeze.
“Alright,” he chuckled, shrugging me away. “Get out of here and go see yourboyfriend.”
The cool night air hit me as I stepped outside the athletic building grinning ear to ear. Immediately I started scanning the dispersing crowd for familiar faces. Students were heading back toward the dorms in groups, still buzzing with excitement from the game. But as I stood there looking, I didn’t see Phoenix waiting for me. Usually, he was pretty distinctive with those bright eyes of his.
I found a spot out of the way and turned my attention inward, searching my bond with him. But now that I was focusing on it, I realized I couldn’t feel him. That sometimes happened when we were on opposite sides of campus, and the connection wore thin with distance. But why would he be across campus right now? He was watching the game. I’d seen him in the stands. So where did he go?
A cold feeling settled in my gut. Something wasn’t right.
“Hey, have you seen Phoenix Emberwood?” I asked a group of students walking by. They just shrugged, too caught up in their post-game excitement to care about my problems.
I started walking toward the stands where I’d last seen him sitting with Lila. Most of the spectators had cleared out by now, but I spotted a few stragglers still making their way down. My heart jumped when I caught sight of a familiar figure rushing through the thinning crowd.
“Lila!” I called out, jogging over to her.
She whipped around, and the moment I saw her face, I knew something was wrong. Her usual composure was gone, replaced by wide, panicked eyes.
“Karrick!” She grabbed my arm the second I reached her. “Thank the goddess. I can’t find Phoenix anywhere.”
“What do you mean?” My voice came out rougher than I intended. “Wasn’t he with you?”
“He went to the bathroom during the fourth quarter and never came back.” She was speaking fast, her words tumbling over each other. “I thought maybe he ran into you after the game, but when I didn’t see either of you...”
The cold feeling in my gut spread through my entire body. “Did you try looking for him in the bathrooms?”
“Of course I did,” she snapped, then immediately looked apologetic. “He wasn’t there. I’ve been looking everywhere. He’s just gone.”
I tried to stay calm, but my mind was racing through increasingly terrible scenarios. “Maybe he just got caught up talking to someone? Or went back to his dorm to change?”
Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. Phoenix wouldn’t have disappeared without telling Lila, and he definitely wouldn’t have missed meeting me after the game. Not after how excited he’d been about our plans. Besides, as far as I knew, he didn’t have any other real friends on campus.
“We need to split up,” I decided, already scanning the areaaround us. “You check the academic buildings. I’ll check the dorms and circle back to the stadium.”
Lila nodded, already turning to go. “Send up a flare if you find him. You know the spell, right?”
I nodded. It was a simple enough charm we’d learned in Elemental Theory. “Same to you,” I called after her retreating form.
I spent the next hour searching everywhere I could think of. The dorms yielded nothing. Phoenix’s cold and disapproving roommate hadn’t seen him since that morning. The library was closing up for the night, and the librarian assured me no one matching Phoenix’s description was inside. I even checked the hidden spots where we sometimes met up to be alone, hoping against hope that he’d be waiting there with some reasonable explanation.
Nothing.
By the time I circled back to the athletic fields, my adrenaline from the game had transformed into pure, cold fear. I met Lila near the gates which had already been closed for the night. She looked more panicked than ever.
“I don’t know what to do,” Lila said, her voice breaking. “This isn’t like him at all.”
My hands clenched into fists, claws digging into my palms. “We need to tell someone. A professor or?—”