Chapter Eight

Kyra was trying her best to stay out of the way of a raging Michel, Red and Wolf, who had gone absolutely crazy, tearing up all the furniture in the meeting room. Cinder and Thorne were trying their best to calm him down. Jacin was facepalming while trying to Winter and Harry out of the way of Wolf's rampage. Both Kais were cringing, trying to dodge the broken pieces of bamboo, iron and plastic chunks that flew everywhere.

"And we definitely don't like that antique wooden table that is well over 200 years old." Kai cringed as Wolf launched himself onto the large wooden table in the meeting room. He shielded his eyes as Michel, now looking fully lupine, tore into Kai's armchair at the head of the table. "And I definitely detest my favorite armchair."

Red, who had stopped by now, had started crying and howling by Winter's feet. Winter was trying her best to soothe her, but in the end, managed to start howling along with Red. Harry and Elliot stood awkwardly in the corner, trying to distract themselves by pointing out how well Michel was ripping up the armchair. Cress was fiddling with a portscreen, trying to comm Iko to try and help.

Cinder finally managed to grab onto Wolf's shoulders and stop him. Thorne seized the opportunity and steadied Wolf, who had rage, sadness and pain in his big green eyes. "Wolf. Listen to me." he said, speaking smoothly and slowly, waiting for Wolf's attention. "Scarlet is gone, we know, and we are trying our best to find her whereabouts, but you are not helping by acting like this. If she was here, she wouldn't want you to worry and almost starve yourself to death like you did last time she was gone. So start being helpful and man up."

Cinder whistled, impressed. "Wow, never knew that Thorne had this in him."

"I'll decide to take that as a compliment." he bowed.

Kai, looking quite amused, cleared his throat to get everyone's attention. He waited until Wolf had calmed Michel down and everyone was looking at him. Then he spoke. "We need to locate Scarlet Kesley's location right now. She is of vital importance, for many reasons, as you all might know. Her location is our number one priority."

Cress nodded and quickly opened up her portscreen, fingers dancing across the screen. "I have already sent a comm to the security teams in the Eastern Commonwealth. I have asked them to double-check and triple-check anything that is leaving the Commonwealth. Nothing is going to leave the country without it being checked."

"Good." Kai nodded, mouth pressed into a thin line. "Now, Wolf. Where is the last time that you have seen your wife?"

"She said she needed to go to the bathroom and I was waiting for her outside. The toilet flushed, but she didn't come out. I went in and she just wasn't there."

Kai nodded. "I will need to think about this. Torin? If you would come with me to my office. And Cinder and Cress as well?" The four adults withdrew from the meeting room, faces concerned. Kai and Torin looked as though they were already thinking of a strategy, Cress and Cinder were talking in hushed tones to each other as they left. After the door slid shut, Thorne clapped their hands together and tried to look as cheerful as he could in the situation.

"Alrighty, people, you want to play a game?"

A chorus of no's, never's and 'don't even think about it's passed around the room and they all dispersed, leaving Thorne alone in the meeting room. He chuckled softly to themselves and looked around, unsure of what to do. Elliot was probably with Harrison and Kai Jr. and the twins. Leave it to his son to abandon him. He quickly took out his portscreen and sent a comm to Cinder.

CCCIIIINNNNDDDDEEEERRRRRR. I'M BORED. HELP MEEEEE.

Cinder immediately replied. Oh my lucky stars, Thorne. WILL YOU PLEASE SHUT UP?!

Thorne sighed, closed his eyes for a while and ran a hand through his hair. A sudden blast of cold air flowed all around. Was that the air conditioning? When he opened them, he felt strange. There was something that wasn't right in the air. It was almost... unfamiliar. He should be familiar with this environment; he had spent the last three weeks in the palace in the Eastern Commonwealth and he had spent a lot of time in this meeting room before. He looked around. This time, the antique table and the armchairs were fixed and were all in one piece. There were no bamboo sound dividers that lined the walls and the the room was much brighter as well.

"What the hell?" Thorne mouthed to himself.

"Hello." a voice said from above him. Thorne looked up, but there was no one there. There was a throaty laugh, the same one that he had heard at the Peace Ball. "Look again."

And this time, standing in front of him, was a man. He was around his height, just an inch taller, with pale blonde hair and pale blue ice and was wearing a white t-shirt and black jeans, the same thing that someone he had seen was wearing today. Thorne knew that he knew the person closely, but just couldn't place his name. When he remembered, he was staring at the other man in shock. The pale blonde hair, cold blue eyes that only softened when his son and wife were around, that hard jaw that for some reason never seemed to relax and his pale lips that were always pressed into a hard line. He could picture him in Lunar palace guard uniforms and the military tank top and green cargo pants. He had known him so well... but not anyone did really. Perhaps only Winter knew him well, she had grown up with him after all. But never would Thorne had expected it to be him.

Jacin Clay stood in front of him, wearing his usual smug smile and his blue eyes sparkling with amusement and a certain malignity in them. But... how is that possible? He had left the office around two minutes ago. How in the world did he manage to capture him and fix everything in the office when he had clearly left two minutes ago?

"Jacin?" he asked, tentatively.

Jacin smiled, and that definitely didn't look like Jacin now. When Jacin smiled, it was a soft and fragile thing. This smile was hard, coy even. "Ask again." he taunted. There was a flash of dark-colored metal followed quickly by a loud bang. Then Thorne's world lapsed into a deep black that he was sure he would never awake from.