I woke early in the morning to Tyler shaking me, panicked enough that I could feel it radiating off of him. I gasped, my heart pounding.

"What's going on?" I demanded blearily. It was barely even dawn. It must not have been that long since I'd let Tyler in, even.

"He's gone, Ben. He's gone, and he's pregnant."

He shoved the pregnancy test in my face, and I took it, staring at that little indicator line.

"Fuck," I breathed. He must have panicked when he'd seen it. Who knew what sort of trouble he could be in?

"How did he get out?"

Tyler shook his head, sitting down.

"I'm sorry. I let him go into the bathroom to take the test, and then he locked the door, and... the window was open. He must have slipped through it somehow, but even he isn't that skinny..." He seemed honestly baffled, and he ran his fingers through his hair, distressed. "I already went out and walked around the whole block of the building, just to make sure he didn't jump... I couldn't find him. I could smell him, a little, but he's long gone."

I growled. "It's not your fault," I reminded both him and myself. I pulled out my phone and went to the security app that I had set up and found the camera outside the bathroom window. I rolled it back about an hour.

"Look, there he is. He shifted into his wolf form. Clever son of a bitch. Fuck. There he goes, down the fire escape."

I looked at the time stamp. It was over an hour ago, more like two. Tyler must have given him some time before he broke open the door, and then searched for him before waking me... I wracked my tired brain desperately for some sort of plan.

"Where is he going? There's nowhere safer than here, if he... His cellphone. We can track his cellphone, can't we?"

Tyler thought about that. "Maybe, yeah, but to get it done quickly, we'd need to hack in... I'd have to call Julia."

I winced. The last thing I wanted was to call my ex to help me search for my current lover, but I knew Tyler was right. Julia and Tyler were both incredibly smart, but together they became geniuses. If I wanted to find him, I had to call in all the troops.

"She has Tommy, doesn't she?"

"I'll call Stefan. We'll get them both over here." Tyler reached out and squeezed my shoulder, warmer with me than he had been the night before. "We'll find him," he promised.

I nodded, feeling sick to my stomach. If only I'd been there with him when he'd found out. If only I'd told him in some better way in the first place. I was going to be a father, and I didn't even have time to be elated. I was too worried about James. He mattered more to me in that moment than any future baby I might have.

"We might be able to figure out where he's going...what he's planning," I said desperately, turning on the TV. But it was too early even for the news, they were just replaying last night's.

There was a candidate's debate that night. But James couldn't be stupid enough to head right to Cal. Could he? Pregnant with our child?

I groaned, rubbing my calloused hands over my tired face helplessly. It was straight out of my nightmares, all of it. I wouldn't be able to breathe again until we found him.

Julia and Stefan were both there within the hour. I hugged Tommy close as Julia and Tyler set up their laptops and began to try to break into the cellphone towers. Stefan made breakfast, but I couldn't eat. Even bacon couldn't settle my stomach. All I could do was cling to Tommy until the little boy got tired of me and squirmed out of my arms. I went to hover by Tyler and Julia, who quickly became annoyed as well.

"I can't work like this," Julia snarled, looking at Tyler directly. It was clear to me that she wasn't there for me, not at all. She was there as a favor to Tyler, and he would owe her, and I would owe him.

Tyler sighed.

"Ben, we'll work better if you go and sit down. There's nothing we can do until we know where he is. The city's too big."

"I know," I admitted, swallowing hard, shutting my eyes. "I know, I just feel like I need to do...something," I growled. I hated the feeling of helplessness. I could hear that screeching, piercing noise in my ears again, ringing painfully.

Stefan pulled me over to sit on the couch and turned on the TV once more. It was a mistake. On the news was Cal’s stupid face again, and this time he was baiting James even more than ever.

“I’d like to announce my engagement to my fated omega. I’ll introduce you to him soon, but I think you’ll really like him. He’s a good guy. He’ll make a good father. I’m taking questions--yes, you,” he said, gesturing to a reporter.

I felt like I was going to throw up.

“He’s trying to get James to go to him. He’s trying to start a confrontation.”

Stefan shut off the TV and squeezed my strong shoulder. It didn’t help as much as it normally would.

“We’ll find him,” he said.

I shook my head. James was smart. We could be doing all the work to track his cellphone only to find the location of a dumpster.

“But what if we don’t?”