Managing a smile- though it was a lying, deceitful one- Wesley looked at Claire. Her cheeks were flushed, and there she sat in crystal-clear water in her naked glory.

Scrambling to her clothes that lay beside the embankment of the small pond, Claire hurried to get dressed. The last thing she wanted to do was be seen naked by a man, much less a man that's twice her age. Attractive, nonetheless, but still twice her age.

She wasn't into older men. Not much older, anyway.

"Wesley! Turn around, you pervert!"

With reddening cheeks and a smirk, Wesley obliged, turning to face the trees as Claire hastened to return her clothes to her body.

"How long have you been standing there? Don't you find it rude to watch people while they bathe?" Claire screeched, her hands shaking with her inner light as she tried for the third time to succeed in pulling up her pants.

"I just got here, I-I-"

"Save your excuses! Ugh!"

Once she was situated, Claire let out a frustrated sigh, rolling her eyes.

"You can turn around now."

Turning his head first, Wesley spun around to see Claire, now fully clothed, staring him down with her arms crossed on her chest.

"Why were you watching me?"

"I had just gotten here when I called out your name. I didn't stare at you, and I wasn't watching you. You just happened to be here when I came by."

"Then why did you come by? Why are you here?"

Wesley laughed softly, shaking his head at the still cross-armed Claire. "Full of questions, aren't you? Come here, I need to show you something. I'll show you why I came out here. I was looking for something."

Wesley had reasonably grown better in his fabrication of the truth, being his skilled deception. Though his ADHD kept him fiddling with his fingers in nervousness, Wesley still looked to be the tough older guy he had claimed to be.

Claire let her arms down beside her, grinning only slightly. Part of her wanted desperately to trust him, to go with him, but Maddox's words echoed through her mind like a pendulum- ringing back and forth. "He's part of Chaos... We can't trust him."

A million thoughts ran through her mind, but she couldn't forget one of them: "I haven't been out in a while except for with Maddox. I can do what I want, right?"

Letting her guard down, Claire smiled widely and walked toward Wesley. Reaching out to her, Wesley grabbed Claire's hand, helping her up the bank of the small pond and onto the sandy Sedona floor.

The pine trees, though there were few left, surrounded the pond, nearly enclosing the two into the woods.

Once Claire had reached the top of the bank, she looked up at Wesley, her eyes glossy and a smile still prominent on her face. "So, what were you trying to find?"

Wesley's grin turned into a stern grimace, his brown eyes turning to stone- cold and heartless.

With a growl, he sealed the distance between Claire and himself as he gripped onto her hand harder, nearly breaking her knuckles as he watched her hiss in pain.

"You."

"Ugh."

Maddox groaned, rolling out of bed. His hair was an absolute mess, and he looked like a trainwreck. Felt like it, too.

He threw the blankets off of him as he sat up, rubbing his face. He'd fallen asleep in the same position he'd woken up in, and he was as stiff as a board. Standing up and wearily rubbing his eyes, he walked into the living room and was greeted by silence.

"Claire?"

He walked over to the couch she had slept on the night before. She was gone, leaving only a sweaty couch cushion behind.

"Oh God," Maddox mumbled under his breath, turning quickly around himself in circles looking for Claire.

None of the doors were left open, and in walking around the old wooden house, Maddox discovered the one thing he'd grown to hate since he was sixteen years old- an empty house.

"Out of the door. There's water. Directly behind it, go East."

The omniscient, beautiful voice rung through Maddox's head. Though he could not see her, he recognized her almost immediately.

Anaia. 

Without grabbing any of his things- even though he didn't have much to start- Maddox made haste out of the door, extending his white, feathered wings and ascending into the air, East of the small pond of water.

The sound of his wings flapping against the unruly gave Maddox an undeniable sense of empowerment. When he flew, no- when it came to Claire- he felt his muscles grow underneath his skin. His adrenaline being taken to a new high, and his determination skyrocketing through his mind.

She had become the one and only thing he had cared about; the one and only thing he knows he has to protect.

Glancing down on the desert-like place that had become Sedona, Arizona, Maddox saw no trace of Claire. Hardly any footsteps marked the way through a few pine trees, and the wind combined with the sandy ground provided no avail in finding her.

"Keep East, Maddox."

Anaia's voice sounded again between his ears. If he ever saw her face-to-face again, he knew he'd ask questions.

How does she know where I am? Where to go? And why can't I tell her no?

Maddox continued East. His "protector" side dominated him, not allowing him to think of anything beyond Claire's return.

All of his other emotions seemed not to exist at that moment as he searched for her, spare anxiety. He was flushed, yet he couldn't allow himself to stop flying.

Or something wouldn't allow him to stop flying.

Maddox wasn't in control of his thoughts, much less his actions when it came to Claire. To wake up and see that she's missing? Something fired off in his brain, a mighty trumpet with a loud blow that won't stop until he finds her.

I'm getting her back. I don't care what it takes.

Whatever it was that had control over Maddox, guiding him as if he were being dragged along on a leash, now dominated him completely.

His thoughts were no longer his own, and he had no control over the path in which he flew.

He was trapped inside of his own body, pushed back into a corner of the shell that he had once inhabited.

Someone, something, wants to protect Claire.

And this time, Maddox doesn't think he's her true protector.