According to my dad, Laric hadn’t been welcomed home by the town he’d left behind, and had gone as far as to practically wish him gone again.
Instead of being grateful for his service, they’d all but terrorized him. Only after he’d been three sheets to the wind, though. And when you terrorized someone like Laric, things didn’t often go that well.
Hence him vandalizing practically the entire town he’d once lived in.
Though, I suspected there was way more to the story, and I had a feeling my parents did, too.
“You’re an extraordinary person.” I closed my eyes, my head feeling fuzzy. “Do you honestly think that an everyday Joe would all but carry me into a house and protect me with his own body? Someone that he doesn’t even know? No. I can tell you now that they wouldn’t.”
And with that, I promptly passed out from the pain.
Thank God.
• • •
When I next opened my eyes, it was to find the room semi-dark, the entire place no longer packed with people, and my immediate family whispering.
“Can’t find him anywhere.”
My dad.
“They’ve had a manhunt going for almost sixteen hours now. They’re not going to find him.”
My brother.
I allowed my eyes to scan the room. Nobody was there any longer but my mom, my brother, and my dad.
“She can’t go home.” I heard my brother reply. “She can’t go to my house or y’all’s house, either. Thor’s going to surely look there first. We need to find her a safe house.”
I nearly rolled my eyes.
I was not, under any circumstances, going to a safe house.
I was not spending any time alone during this period, because I knew that was what would happen. They would dump me somewhere ‘safe’ and then I’d lose my mind while I recovered on my own.
No way, no how.
“No,” I told them all, my voice croaky with disuse. “I’m not leaving here.”
I was a social person. I thrived in social situations. Though, saying that, I thrived in social situations that I controlled.
I needed my family and friends around, or things didn’t end up going well for me.
There was just something wired in my brain that made me always need someone around.
Unless I was working, I was either always at my parents’ place, or Adam and Amelia’s place. If they weren’t available, I would hijack a couch at Sam and Cheyenne’s place, Blaine and Elliott’s, James or Shiloh’s, Max and Peyton’s, or Gabe and Ember’s. Or even my Uncle Tai and Aunt Mia’s place. All of them being my pseudo aunt and uncles, or actual aunt and uncles, who couldn’t care less if I was occupying their couch for long periods of time.
It wasn’t that I couldn’t handle being alone, I could.
I just didn’t like being alone. Being alone sucked.
Being with people made me happy.
My dad and mom liked to say that I was always in need of someone around because in the womb, I’d lost my twin. My forever partner in crime.
Anyway, the idea of being at a remote place, with nobody to talk to, seriously made me more worried than the bullet wound in my shoulder.
The bullet wound that was thankfully feeling much better. Thank freakin’ God.
“Cat…” my brother started.
“No,” I disagreed almost immediately. “I am not going to go someplace and sit there on my hands while y’all look for Thor. It’s not going to happen. And, just sayin’, but he’s not going to show his face if I don’t show mine. He’s not stupid. Plus, he knows I wouldn’t go to either of y’all’s houses because I wouldn’t want to put y’all in danger. He’ll expect me to go home. So I’ll go to a hotel. Or something.”
My dad sighed. “She’s right.”
“She can stay with me.”
My eyes blinked open as if I’d been jolted with a lightning bolt.
My head turned, and I saw Laric standing in the doorway, a dog at his feet.
A dog that had a muzzle on and looked really freakin’ scary.
Were Labs supposed to look that scary? Because this one did. He had some beady little black eyes that were staring right at me like he knew I was the weakest link in the room.
“Is that dog going to be with you?” I found myself asking, making it sound like if he was, I wouldn’t be going.
Only half kidding.
Laric looked down at the dog, then back at me. “Not with us, no. He’s too… volatile. He has a room that I leave him to rest in when we’re not actively working with each other. When we are, he always has his muzzle on.”
Volatile was one word for it, that was for sure.
“That the one that bit you and caused you to get stitches this morning?” I wondered.
“Yesterday morning,” he corrected. “And yes. This is Al. Al just got home from Iraq where a multitude of things have caused him to have PTSD. We’re working on them but… I don’t know if he’s going to work through them or not. If you catch my drift.”