He seemed seconds away from turning into a ferocious, spitting bear- the type that roars at you and a load of slobber flies out of its mouth and drips off its fangs whilst their little beady eyes keep getting angrier.
“Did I not tell you the dogs were a bad idea? Huh?”
“Octaviawas a bad idea.” Stryker growled.
“Don’t-“
“It’s true.” Matthew said darkly, subtly running a hand down my back, a little like what he’d done earlier to help me relax,“they were late coming back so me and Theo went looking for them and when we got there the whole place was on fire and Octavia basically admitted it was all her fault.”
Johnathan groaned loudly “two dogs and a soldier. For asimple kidnapping case.How useless can you get? Seriously? All this for WHAT?”
It went on for a while. We figured it was best to let him blow off steam. He finished with another warning to Stryker and an order to Matthew to start cooking, so, reluctantly, I let him get up.
“Need anything?” He asked me gently “more ice for your knee?”
“It’s okay.” I promised him, collapsing along the whole length of the sofa “go cook. I’ll sleep.”
He rolled his eyes fondly.
CHAPTER 21
Matthew
Something was wrong.
Stryker was acting wrong.
He’d gone home that weekend to see his dad and since he’d come back he’d been withdrawn, quiet, kept backing away from conversations.
Theo couldn’t put his finger on it and had kept asking me if I’d picked up on it too.
I had, of course, but I told him to stop being nosy.
Thenhe asked the three of us to go out with him and get high. We headed down to the lake, smoking weed and drinking Theo’s concoctions, and then I spotted a female figure making her way towards us. My eyebrows drew together and I stood, nudging Stryker because- as the only one who wasn’t high and could see properly-it was apparent that her glare was directed towards him.
I watched his eyes widen, then he grabbed Theo’s arm and dragged him towards the girl. I hesitated, then followed along, catching his slurred “save me. You’re gonna have to protect me.”
Theo laughed; I laughed with him, but was cut short pretty much as soon as we got to her- beautiful, with tan skin and dark foxy eyes with matching dark hair, plump lips.But her hand raised and she slapped Stryker right across the face, features twisting into a snarl- it was evident that she’d been crying.
“Yourstupiddick got mepregnant! Fuckinghell, Stryker, you piece of shit!”
I watched the scene unfold, mouth agape. Theo shook my arm “you heard that, right? DidIhear that right?”
I limited myself to nodding.
“You’re pregnant?” Stryker repeated, suddenly brought back down to earth from his high.
The girl, with tears streaming down her face, nodded once.
“You’re pregnant?” Stryker repeated again.
“Yes.”
“With a baby.” He said dumbly.
Theo shot him aduhlook that he didn’t even take notice of, his eyes glued to the trembling girl in front of him.
She gave another clipped nod.
