I had never had to do anything like this before. As a result, I let Stryker do the talking and introducing and essentially followed his lead. The worry in the mother and brother's faces was obvious, making the twinge of guilt I’d felt earlier intensify for not having done anything sooner.
Examining the area around me, I scanned the ground, then something caught my eye. Moving suddenly, I crouched, then dropped to my knees and sat back on my heals “found something” I called out, waiting for Stryker and the mother and son to fall in place behind me before speaking.
“There’s about four bushes in a row that have been walked through. There’s broken branches here, different pairs of footsteps there and there” I pointed “and, uh…” I gestured towards a specific spot, and Stryker leant forward to take a look, sucking in a breath straight after. Drops of blood sprayed the ground, and continued in a trail along with the footsteps.
“It’s hard to tell the extent of the injury we have here. A bleeding nose or skinned knee, or…well, something much more serious. Could be a blown off leg for all we know, cauterised so it barely bled a drop.”
“Not helping” Stryker grumbled as the woman gasped.
I stood, not offering any form of apology “it’s the facts. No point hiding anything, though I doubt it’s that serious seeing as he’s just a kid.”
I stopped, examining the dirt near another trampled bush, then followed the trail of steps, not taking my eyes off them. I stopped again, looking back at the three “he was running. Being chased.”
“How can you tell?” Asked the brother, his name completely lost to me.
“Everything adds up. The lack of care he took with the sheer amount of broken branches and trampled bushes, even with being a kid, the length of his strides. There's only three pairs offootsteps, one pair smaller than the rest which suggests he had two pursuers. And” I added solemnly “judging by the fact the footsteps suddenly disappear, he was caught”
Strykerlooked at the crumpled expressions of the pair and sighed “we can still find them. They must have messed up at some point.” He announced just before staggering and grabbing onto me, who immediately sat him down on a nearby tree stump before I even allowed myself to think, fishing a bag of biscuits out of my pocket and forcing it into Stryker’s hand “eat.”
“Theo, I’m fine. It was just-“
“Eat.”I repeated “I don’t care what it was, you’re still recovering and you shouldn’t be out here at all and Johnathan was stupid for allowing you to.”
“Theirkidhas gonemissing, Theo. Has been kidnapped. Of course he wanted me to do it, I’m the best-“
“I’m taking over. Eat that, then stay sitting. You’ve been doing too much.”
“I’m not-“
“Stryker” I said, forcing my tone to soften “there’s no good in you hurting yourself. You’ve been rubbing at your forehead and you’ve been stupidly pale for at least the past half hour and I’ve been trusting you to say something but you haven’t so I’m drawing the line. I’ve got this, and you shouldn’t be pushing yourself too much.Eat.”I rested a hand on the back of his neck and pulled him close enough to press a kiss to the top of his head “we’re just worried, hotshot. And you would be too if you’d witnessed one of us do that. Have you eaten anything today?”
“You’re acting like Jack.” Stryker breathed, pressing his nose into my shoulder.
Ichuckled “just trying to be responsible. So? Have you?”
Stryker furrowed his eyebrows. I knew the answer before he gave it.
He slowly shook his head “think I forgot.”
“Shit” I mumbled “definitely biscuits then, got me? All clear?”
“Yeah” Stryker mumbled back, reluctantly pulling away.
I squeezed his shoulder before standing up and walking back over to the watching pair- mother and son. The mother cleared her throat, voice trembling as she spoke in a clear effort to keep tears at bay “is he okay?”
“Yeah” I said dryly “we just…he had quite bad sepsis which led to hypoglycaemia and he’s still recovering. John shouldn’t really have sent him out here, but he’s our best and he said he felt up to it but we don’t…he got a little dizzy so I…just don’t want him overexerting himself. He didn’t have anything to eat today either, and that doesn’t typically end well.”
I think I just over shared a little. Oops.
“Oh” the mother replied, glancing back over to Stryker, who was gingerly nibbling on a biscuit “how…how old is he?”
“Fifteen,” I murmured.
“And he’s the best?”
“Yeah. Between talent and his dad teaching him and John having been his mentor since he was really young. He’s the best at a lot.”
“You seem close.”
