Looking for Matt

Caleb sneaked into his room to take a shower before going out. Despite being a little uncomfortable, he was in good enough shape to roam around, and his scent was low enough to be masked by a commercial pheromone.

With almost no contact with the outside world from the Cabin, especially in a situation like this kind of drove him crazy in there. After coming out and getting changed he felt his brother was trying to link him. Realizing that it must be an emergency, he responded immediately. 

[What is happening?] He asked without any further ado.

[Where is Matt?]

[How would I know?]

[His parents are conviced you would. He left the house to meet up with you]

[I got out of my Cabin like an hour ago, I literally have no idea.]

[Apparently he said, as quoted by his mother, "for some soccer talk"]

That was not an unfamiliar sentence to Caleb. As soon as he heard it he sighed with relief. [That's his code for sneaking out to his girlfriend. He has used that one before. I am sure he went to see her.]

[You think? He didn't answer his phone, he is been gone for a whole day. He disappeared last afternoon]

[That… that is too long even for him] Caleb hesitated. [Give me a moment, I will call Sara and tell you. Meanwhile don't tell his parents anything. Why bother them with nothing]

[Alright] his brother let go of the link.

He took out his phone and dialed Sara. She was one of the few sophomores he had contact info of due to her being his best friends girlfriend, "Hello"? She answered.

"Hey, do you have any idea where Matt is"? He asked in a normal voice.

"Haven't heard from him since yesterday, why"? She asked with concern. 

"Nothing, that jerk owes me money and he is not picking up"! He lied to her. "If you hear from him tell him I called".

"Will do" she replied and hung up. He was almost a hundred percent sure that he left to go to her house. The thing is, her house was indeed quiet far away. Being a human and all she lived outside their pack premises.

There are a lot of ways he could have been abducted from on the way, assuming that Matt was still alive. If he left the pack border some or the other wolf must know. He tried to link the wolves that were under patrol duty and sure enough the southeast team confirmed Matt passed by. The border closest to her house.

Worried he linked his brother and informed him of the situation, [I got it, I will go check out that border] his brother affirmed. 

[Let me come] Caleb insisted.

[Your heat?]

[It's over anyways. I can check it out] he said. He disconnected the link without even bothering to wait for his brother's reply and ran to southeast border.

With his speed he reached there before his brother. As much as he was impatient to find out what happened, be fought his instinct and waited for his brother. He knew how potentially reckless leaving all by himself could be.

"You shouldn't have come". That's the first thing his brother told him the moment he saw him.

"What do you mean"? Caleb shot him a dirty look. "He is my friend. I need to find out what's wrong. Stop treating me like a kid"! 

"I know you are hyped up. But you are too personally involved with this. I don't want you to make any mistakes that you may end up regretting" his brother tried to explain it to him.

"Don't worry, I will be cautious," Caleb promised his brother before they left for their venture. Matt being an Alpha had strong enough pheromones. But tracking him using that was proving to be quite hard. The release of pheromones depends on a lot of factors for a wolf. While the amount of scent does not become zero (Unlike Ashton), it is pretty low.

Since he was here a day ago it was so faded that after reaching the busier part of the town they couldn't even find it.

"What should we do now"? Christian, exasperated, asked his brother. 

"I don't know" Caleb hit the wall next to him out of frustration.

"Let's look around a little bit. Meanwhile try calling him as well". Christian suggested him. Caleb nodded and did as he was asked. 

He looked around trying to sniff as much as he could and for the first time he felt frustrated about the fact that his sense of smell was weaker than the other wolves. He decided to try the popular method of lost and found, and thus dug out his phone, searched for one of his picture, (which was hard given how neither of them were photogenic) and asked people around.

"Have you seen this boy"?

"Did you see anyone who looked like him"? And so on.

Most of them didn't pay any attention. Some of them shook their heads no politely, while some actually bothered to look at his picture before saying no. Amongst one of them was an old lady who was selling some traditional hand made pieces of jewelry. But unlike others, upon being asked her answer was yes. "He was here yesterday. He bought a bracelet for someone from me. I think he went that way". She showed him the direction. 

Caleb wanted to call his brother as well, but due to the crowd he didn't bother at all. He took the road and along the way he had hoped he would be able to sniff his scent again. 

After a while he fumbled upon an amulet which was an heirloom in Matt's family. Naturally he was very possessive of it, and thus finding it lying in the middle of the road raised his suspicion to a higher degree. He turned around to go and call his brother but unfortunately that was the moment everything turned black for him.