Here was much harder.
She was in my classes, where I had to interact with her. Outside of class, we had barely been in contact except for the occasional update, and each one of those had been a little piece of hell itself.
Unlike after our missions, even if I wasn’t interacting with her, I still saw her around campus. In the lunchroom. In the hallways. Withthem.
There wasn’t a single moment of respite except when I hid away in my apartment at the end of the day. But even that she had taken away from me.
I needed to put my foot down. Tell her that it was inappropriate for her to hide in my apartment. That she had to find somewhere else to take refuge. Yes, that’s what I’d do. She could pout and complain all she wanted, but it was her idea to expose her identity. She had to take responsibility for her actions.
Every thought I had about telling her off disappeared the moment the scent of blood hit my nose. Not just any blood... Jack’s blood.
I dropped my briefcase by the door, shoving the unlocked apartment door open. Panic pounded through my chest as I practically ran through the apartment, each step like a chant telling me to get to Jack by any means necessary.
Bypassing the empty kitchen, I darted down the hallway. The shower was running in the bathroom where the scent of blood was the strongest. I threw open the door, hands braced on either side of the door, my heart racing as I got ready to go into medic mode when I came face to face with Jack.
Sitting in her bra and jeans on the sink counter, she had a length of string in between her teeth as she struggled to sew up a cut dripping down the backside of her arm. Her eyes drifted to mine from where she was working and she dropped the string, offering me the needle.
“Finally,” she huffed as if it was my fault she was wounded in my bathroom. “Do you know how hard it is to close this kind of cut where it is? I might be flexible, but I just don’t bend that way.”
Scowling, I dropped my arms and took the needle from her. “You about gave me a heart attack. You could have texted me.”
Jack arched a brow, shifting so I could reach the cut she was trying to sew. “I didn’t think that was necessary, it’s not like it’s a fatal wound. Besides, I thought I could do it myself.”
I grunted and turned her arm toward me, my fingers moving over the edges of not one but three stripes across her arm. “Hunting werewolves again?”
She shrugged, then hissed as I thread the needle through her flesh. “You should get a real first aid kit in here. What kind of hunter are you?”
I eyeballed her, then focused my attention back on what I was doing. “The kind that is undercover as a professor. I didn’t think I’d need to patch anyone up at the school.”
Jack snorted. “We might be undercover, but that doesn’t mean that the rebels won’t try and hurt us. You should get better supplies.”
“And maybe you shouldn’t go out hunting alone,” I shot back, carefully working my way across the biggest and deepest cut. “These are pretty deep. Must have really pissed them off.”
She avoided my gaze, her free hand picking at the dried blood on her jeans. “I may have antagonized them... a little bit.”
My eyes darted from her face to the wound, suspicion filling my chest. “And why exactly where you out hunting wolves in the middle of a school day?”
Not answering me, I tugged a little harder than necessary on the string.
“Ow, fuck, Julian.” She tried to pull her arm away from me, but I held tight. “You’re supposed to be patching me up, not hurting me further.”
“Then stop avoiding the question.”
Jack’s almond-colored eyes bore into mine. “You’re not my superior right now. I don’t have to tell you anything.”
“Fine. Patch yourself up.” I went to drop the needle.
“Now hold on second.” Jack grabbed my hand and scowled. “You’re a real dick you know that?”
I kept my gaze locked with hers. “And you’re still trying to avoid the question. Why were you on an unauthorized hunt in the middle of a school day?”
Rolling her shoulders, she cracked her neck and then winced. “I was just blowing off steam. And it wasn’t unauthorized. Tristen told me about them.”
My hands continued to sew up her arm, moving from one slash to the next until they were all closed as well as they would be. Her fast-healing abilities would take care of most of the damage, sewing it up only helped it along.
I wet a washcloth and swiped around the edges, trying to get as much blood off as possible. “And did President Fleming know you were going out to hunt on your own?”
Jack chewed on the inside of her cheek before she answered, “I didn’t tell him.”
