Ch. 21 – Heroic Wolfblood, Part 2 of 2

The tension in the Smiths' house could have created a dozen nervous breakdowns as Gerwyn walked slowly into the Smiths' living room. With the downstairs layout wide open he could see everyone at the tables and everyone could see him. Maddy could hardly breathe. She had to remind herself to blink.

Emma shot up from the table. "Madeline, go up to your room."

Maddy didn't even try to argue. Of course that didn't mean she was going to do what she was told either…

Has Gerwyn lost his mind? Maddy could feel her entire body trembling with curiosity as she trudged up the stairs. She pretended to go to her room, making the footsteps believable. Then she snuck back, crouched at the top of the stairs. Listened.

"Natasha, I'll remind you this is my house," Emma began. "Please sit while I greet our unexpected—"

"This is the Gerwyn I spoke of," Natasha hissed. Her low growl threatened to unleash something worse.

Rhydian couldn't help it. "Dad?" Dan placed his hand on the boy's shoulder. He looked uncertainly at Emma, who looked back at him just as uncertainly.

"There's no need for trouble," Gerwyn said, looking Natasha squarely in the eyes. "I haven't come to resist. I've come because…well, it's the right thing to do. To turn myself in. Whether or not I'm innocent of what you think I've done—and I am, by the way—in the end it doesn't really matter. I don't, I don't want anyone else to get hurt on my account." He turned his focus to Rhydian. "I'm tired of being selfish. Of sacrificing the other people in my life. I shouldn't have involved anyone else in my mess with Dr. Kincaid, Victoria Sweeney, Segolia, all of it—least all of you and your new pack, Rhydian."

Rhydian began to get up, but Dan pressed his hand down on the boy's shoulder to keep him still.

Gerwyn shrugged with a self-effacing grin. "I've never been a part of your life, Rhydian. I know there's nothing I can do to make up for that, but I'd like to try." He sighed. "Of course, if you think you're better off not having me in your life, I'll accept whatever you decide. Segolia can lock me up and throw away the key if they like. I wasn't in your life before, and maybe…who knows, maybe your life is the better for it. Maybe your life will be all the better for it, if things stay that way. I guess that's for you and the powers-that-be to decide." Gerwyn took off his hat. He stared at it. "I've always thought about my own needs above anyone else." He glanced over at his former mate, at Ceri. The wolfblood woman's blue eyes churned like waves in a hurricane.

"Your mum knows that better than anyone," Gerwyn said. He looked around the whole room then, actual tears forming like pinpricks. "I deserve whatever's coming to me, so why fight it? Why put my family through this when I could spare them that. All of it." His gaze finally slid back to Natasha, and in his face there was only a solemn depth. Like a man about to ask for his last meal.

"Will you just leave Rhydian and the Smiths alone? You have me now. You don't need to hound them or hurt them. Please. This is all I ask." Gerwyn's tone dipped low. His face contorted with pain and grief as he swiped at his tired eyes. "Maybe this is the first GOOD decision I've made in my life in a long, long time. Help me make it count." He came over to Natasha and put out his wrists. A hush had fallen over the whole room.

It was like no one could believe their own eyes. Natasha recovered first. She motioned to one of her enforcers. "Cuff him." The wolfblood moved to obey when suddenly the smell of smoke drifted into the room. A bright glow sprang up on the other side of the closed window curtains. Everyone in the dining room sprang out of their chairs and at that exact moment a Molotov cocktail smashed through the dining room window, setting the curtains on fire. Followed by another. And another. Soon the tablecloth had gone up in flames too. The third cocktail caught the rug alight. Smoke drifted everywhere. The fire was spreading. Maddy rushed to the second-floor guest bedroom window to look out.

A wall of fire blazed around the house. She sniffed and caught the distinct whiff of lighter fluid or some kind of accelerant. She quickly ducked back inside to avoid looking too long at the flames. From downstairs meanwhile she heard whimpers and panicked growls. Someone's trying to kill us…ALL of us. Maddy tried to think, which was nearly impossible because her wolf didn't want to let her. The wolf was frantic. Fire. A wolf's worst fear—the stuff of wolfblood nightmare. She knew that this very second all of the wolfbloods, even the strong alphas, they'd be frozen in panic with their wolves completely terrified. It brought her back to that day she had tried to save Shannon from the fire at the Bradlington High chem lab. Once she'd seen the fire, she'd hardly been able to move, she'd just crouched down with her wolf in a complete panic until she'd passed out from the smoke.

Think! Think Mads! Judging from the smoke pouring up the stairs, the fire had already reached inside the house. The moment I see those flames close up I'll go into full-out panic just like all the others. Then I'll be useless—huddling in some corner growling or whimpering. They would all stay trapped in the house as fire and smoke filled it to make it their tomb.

"Maddy!" Rhydian's anguished voice sailed up the stairs. He sounded like he was caught in the same throes of terror as all the others downstairs, yet still he yelled her name. "Get out! Just go!" Here he was, about to burn to death, and all he could do was worry about her? Maddy would have been furious at him if she didn't have a crisis on her hands. Her phone was downstairs out of reach. It was night, dark, the smoke would be hard to see. By the time Fire and Rescue came it would be too late. Someone had to escape and raise the alarm.

An idea sparked through Maddy's head. She tore through the upstairs bathroom, yanked open the linen closet door with so much force it bashed a hole in the wall as the door bounced off. She pulled out a spare blanket and turned on the shower full blast. She threw the blanket in the bath tub and stepped into the tub herself. She picked up the blanket and wrapped it around herself as both she and the blanket became completely soaked.

You get one chance at this, Mads. One chance. She waited until she felt fifty pounds heavier with water soaking her shirt, her bra, her jeans, everything, then she bolted into the hallway and ran for the nearest upstairs window. She kept her eyes closed as soon as she reached the open window. She remembered the distance by heart. I can make it. She jumped to the ground, crouching to absorb the shock as the earth rushed up to her meet her. Then she sprinted ahead towards the wall of fire which glowed beyond her closed eyelids. The wolfblood girl ignored the pummeling of her wolf's fears. She pulled the sopping-wet blanket up over her head as she felt the aura of heat curling around her. It became so intense she felt as if she'd been set on fire. She didn't look as she ran through the flames with just a soggy blanket for a shield.

Then she was through. The sensation of being trapped inside an oven set to 'Bake' at 500 degrees vanished and she just kept running. The wolfblood girl flung off the soggy blanket, which was now smoking after being exposed to the flames. She ran as if fire still licked at her heels. She ran with a will she'd never known before. Her feet might as well have been wings because later she couldn't remember a thing. Suddenly she was just there, a mile down the road at her neighbor's house, banging on the door and screaming for all she was worth.

"HELP US! HELP US! PLEASE HELP US!" Maddy was about to kick down the door as Mrs. Wheatley opened it.

THREE HOURS LATER…

A pretty brunette sat in her sterile blue gown surrounded by sterile white walls. Nurses, doctors, and EMTs rushed to and fro like busy ants in a colony. She could hardly contain herself. The short wolfblood girl strained her neck, trying to see over or around the shifting sea of people as she sat in the emergency room.

"Mum? Dad? Rhydian?" she called out. "Jana? Matei?" She called out all their names, increasingly frantic. They'd been separated in the chaotic aftermath. Maddy wasn't sure if she'd have a house to go back to tomorrow and she didn't give a damn. She just wanted to know that the people she cared about were all right.

A straight-backed nurse with glasses bustled over. Maddy squinted at the nametag. Ruth.

"Sweetheart, stop shouting."

"I need to find my parents. And my boyfriend. They were in a fire. Someone set our house on fire and nearly killed us and I need to make sure they're okay!" Maddy all but shouted. The nurse actually reminded Maddy of Tom's mother, Dr. Okanawe. Just then a no-nonsense figure clothed in white practically knocked the nurse out of the way.

"Maddy?" Dr. Okanawe's warm brown eyes tightened with concern. "Let's take a good look at you. Sweetie, are you all right?"

"Yes…no! Please, can you help me, Mrs. O? Someone set our house on fire and I heard they got everyone out, but no one's told me anything. My mum and dad—"

Dr. Okanawe put her hand on Maddy's shoulder. "Stay put, Maddy, and I'll find out what's going on. Don't move, yeah? I mean it." Maddy nodded, trying to sniffle and hold back her tears. What if I wasn't fast enough? What if Fire and Rescue didn't get there in time? Maddy thought of the last words she'd said to Rhydian. 'Don't touch me.' Were those the last words he would ever hear her say? Even if they'd gotten everyone out, most people in a fire didn't die from the fire itself. They died from breathing in the smoke. Rhydian could be dead. Her parents could be dead too. Maddy recalled the look of disappointment on her parents' faces after they'd discovered how she'd kept yet another secret from them, the whole Gerwyn disaster.

It was one thing to lose the people you loved the most, and without being able to say goodbye. But losing the people you loved when the last words or expressions you told them or remembered about them were ones of heartbreak—that possibility made Maddy want to howl in pain—as if someone had torn her beating heart right out of her chest. She felt like she was trapped in a cage and that she'd die if she didn't break free in two seconds. The wolfblood girl tried to keep the black veins from racing up her arms and wrists.

Oh Mum. Dad. Rhydian. Please…I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. She just broke down and sobbed. With the adrenaline wearing off, she finally could. Maddy's survival-mode had finally collapsed, leaving her to fend for herself with the storm of her emotions raging.

Maddy couldn't properly gauge the passing of time. A half hour might have passed. It could have been a lot more. She cried so hard that tears had even dripped down to soak the upper part of her hospital gown, and the waterworks weren't showing any signs of stopping. Then, a small miracle happened. Suddenly two familiar faces came into view as Tom and Shan rushed into the emergency room and made a beeline for Maddy.

"Mads!" Tom shouted. He rushed up to the hospital bed she was sitting on. "Mads, are you all right? My mom said you and your parents were in a fire?" Before Tom could say another thing Maddy had latched onto him with the most desperate hug in human history. She cried into his shoulder as he hugged her back tightly. "Hey, I've got ya." Maddy felt Shan hugging her from behind. To have two of her best mates surrounding her with their warmth, their scent—it restored Maddy's sanity in a way almost nothing else could.

"Mads, your parents are all right. Tom's mom told us which room they're recuperating in. We'll take you there now," Shan said gently.

"They're okay?" Maddy cried. She let Tom and Shan lead her through the hallways. She had a surprising limp to her gait. Her ankle throbbed painfully with each step. Apparently she hadn't pulled off the leap from the second-story window as perfectly as she'd thought.

"My parents, they're…?" Maddy's thoughts came in semi-coherent fragments. "Thank you. Without you…I would've lost my mind just waiting there. Not knowing. I moved as fast as I could. I went through the fire and then I made it to the Wheatleys' to get help and then—" She sniffled as Tom squeezed her hand. Shan tugged her by her fingers as they led her gingerly around the corner. Shan was now patting her hand.

"Mads, try not to think too much. Just relax. Maybe get a little sleep once we get you reunited with your parents, yeah? You must be exhausted after what you've been through," Shan said.

Maddy nodded, trying to empty her mind, but she couldn't…not until she knew everyone had survived.

Then—there they were, Room 207. The door opened and two adults in the same boring blue hospital gowns came rushing up to Maddy. Emma and Dan squeezed her in a group hug as fresh tears of joy spilled down Maddy's cheeks. Maddy's heart leapt through the ceiling.

"Mum! Dad!"

"Oh Maddy." Tom and Shan withdrew to give the Smiths a little privacy. Maddy sat down on the bed between her parents, leaning against her dad's side. Emma stroked her daughter's hair. Daniel rubbed her daughter's shoulder lovingly and kissed her hair, which to him might as well have been precious strings of brown pearls.

"We're so thankful you're safe, pet. We were worried to death," Emma whispered.

Daniel nodded. "Your mother was a basket-case, I can vouch for that." Mother, father, and daughter all chuckled at that even as they wiped away the last of their tears.

"You saved us, Maddy. You saved us all," Emma said suddenly.

Maddy looked up at her mother's face. Gone was the disappointment. In it she could see only two things. Admiration. Love.

"The doctor told us if you hadn't acted so quickly and gotten help when you did…" Emma and Dan both squeezed their daughter in a tender hug for the ages. "You were so brave," Emma murmured. "Jumping from the second-story window and running through that fire." Maddy heard a note of disbelief in both her parents' voices.

"We're so proud of you," Daniel said. And suddenly it was like the whole world had tipped back onto its proper axis. There was just one thing Maddy still had to know.

What about Jana and her pack? What about the others? And most of all—what about Rhydian?

A/N - Hi Everyone. Finishing up this chapter was so much fun, and I hope I didn't leave you all hanging too long after that last chapter's cliffhanger ;) I also hope you enjoyed some classic Maddy here. She can be exasperating sometimes, but when it comes to doing the incredible to keep those she loves safe and sound, she's a true fighter.

Maybe that's the thing I love most about Wolfblood—that idea of how sense of belonging and friends' loyalty to one another as a pack can make people, no matter how young or old, do the most extraordinary things. The upcoming questions for the story now—after everything that's happened, what's Gerwyn's fate? Rhydian's relationship with his dad? And of course, what about Maddy and Rhydian after all the secrets coming out into the open? Plus, who started the fire that nearly killed everyone? There's still a lot to wrap up and I promise to have a great ending and to have this story finished soon :) You guys deserve no less :) :)