When Rhydian had left the house, he had no clear plan in his mind of where to go. 'Really, where can I go? I'm not going back to Ceri ever again, the Vaughans (his last foster parents whom he lived with in Stoneybridge) have probably moved on to having some other foster kid and will have completely forgotten that I ever existed, and Maddy… the guilt's too much to bear, especially around her parents. I know that they haven't said anything yet, but that's because Maddy's been injured. Pretty soon they'll tell me that re-joining their pack is out of the question after what I did, and me and Mads will be separated again, so what difference will it make if I start now?'
Rhydian went round and round in his head, thinking over these same thoughts for hours. He was allowing his guilt to consume him, he was being convinced to leave again, for good this time, by this one emotion alone. Guilt was being put before everything else, including his feelings for Maddy and the things they'd been through, together and in their dark periods apart. Rhydian had just started letting this emotion make him think that Maddy would be fine, in fact better off, without him, when suddenly he felt himself compelled to kneel to the ground in the deep covering of the forest's trees, and he found himself unintentionally using Eolas.
Maddy was surrounded by men twice as tall as her and at least four or five times her age. She was in a place that Rhydian could not identify, but it looked like an alley – with no way out.
In the woods, Rhydian was still knelt down, his face creased in concentration, the hairs raised on the back of his neck, and his black veins beginning to show. He felt anxious about his vision. A mixture of anger and fear were beginning to make his stomach turn as he watched.
The drunken messes were closing in on Maddy now, who was crouched on the floor, willing herself to change – she didn't. She couldn't. After her earlier attack, she had been left too weak to transform without a full moon, even if it was as soon as tomorrow. Maddy's eyes didn't even make it to the golden orbs of a wolfblood, although she was wishing for the colour to flood her eyes and scare the men away, they barely made it to the inky black stage which came before the fully blown, golden, fiery, suns appeared. Maddy really was trapped. She simply stayed low and wrapped herself up in a ball, trying to conceal her petrified face.
Rhydian had never seen Maddy look so vulnerable, or frightened, before. In truth, the closest thing to actual, mind-warping, milk-curdling, fear he could ever remember seeing on her face before was on the night of her first full-moon transformation, whilst staying with their peers on Lindisfarne island , and even then, she seemed to feel more nervous than scared.
Rhydian rose from his spot, with this comparison still lingering on his mind, making him realise the severity of Maddy's current predicament. In the few moments that Rhydian had stood watching Maddy, next to the river which flowed between the trees, her fear had become his fear. Her problem was now his problem.