I raised my gaze. Matthew met it, then glanced down at my neck and smirked. I knew exactly what he was looking at. I screwedup my nose in distaste and sighed“I’ve never seen anything like this before.”
“I know.” Matthew patted my arm “come on, you have to get over this.”
“Matt.” Jack snapped “the skin has been peeled off.”
“Yeah, that’s what we were told, Jack.” He replied without turning, maintaining eye contact with me “what should we do?”
“Stryker said he searched around and found nothing. So did the others. We need dogs or something, Matt.”
“I don’t think even dogs could pick up anything.”
“Maybe we should-“
“Hey.” A voice said. The small group turned towards Stryker, who’d emerged from the trees “we’re heading back to do some research. We can’t find anything.”
“Sounds good.” Matthew murmured. I noticed that he was still standing right in front of me.
Jack stepped over the body he’d been examining and greeted Stryker with a smirk.
“Dude, you havegotto start working on this kid, he’s a rookie through and through.” He laughed, thumping Stryker on the back. I stopped and glared at him, affronted.
Matthew rolled his eyes and gave me a small push in Stryker’s direction “he just needs to get used to unpleasant sights. Try not to loose him, hey? He’s your responsibility.”
“He’s not my mentor, he’s my partner.” I saidindignantly.
Stryker chuckled “yeah, but until you’re good enough I’m also your mentor.” He winked.
Jack huffed “I was loosing Matt all the time.”
“Nah, you were abandoning me all the time.”
“Same thing.” He shrugged.
Stryker just smiled “yeah, well. The bodies were skinned, not burnt. The villages, however, were. Something weird is going on here.”
“Clearly.” I muttered, folding my arms.
“John said we’ll stay the night, do some research, maybe ask around.”
“Does he have any leads?” Jack asked.
Stryker just shook his head.
“Come on, we should head back.”
Matthew trailed behind, kept glancing back at the village. Jack snapped at him to hurry it up.
“There’s something weird about this.” He swallowed hard “I don’t like it, is all. Were there any survivors?”
“I’m not sure. I’ll have to ask John.” Stryker said, shrugging “might help a load.”
“Don’t you think he’d already have thought of that?” I asked sceptically.
“Maybe. You never know.”
Matthew only took a few more steps before he suddenly tripped and crashed to the ground. I was quick to crack up laughing. Jack smirked.
He sat up with a curse “what-“ he tugged at something “why is there a chain…”
