Chapter 21
Lynn
It took me an hour to find Cobra when everyone got back from the raid, and the more places I found empty of him, the more worried I became.
I’d had a bad feeling all day; I wasn’t superstitious but I knew something was wrong.
The Knights were acting differently now, expressions heavy and dark.
Instead of cheers of celebration at catching their target, a silence hung over the rec room.
I was five minutes away from hunting down Devil to demand he tell me what happened when I poked my head out the back door on a hunch and spotted Cobra.
He was hunched over in a chair at the round, iron table ChaCha, Jessia, and I usually drank coffee at in the mornings, listening to the former complain about whatever Sweetie had done to annoy her that morning, as if she didn’t love the bones of him.
I longed for an easy, carefree conversation. Something told me talking to Cobra now would be the opposite.
I scuffed my shoe on the patio as I walked towards him, letting him know I was here if he didn’t already. “Hey.”
He shook his head, an abrupt movement that drew my eye to the cut on his cheek. Shit. I hurried closer, scanning the rest of him. His knuckles were broken.
“Who did you fight?” I sighed, softening.
“Not today, Lynn,” he replied, each word bitten off.
I slowed my approach, hovering a few feet away. Something was severely wrong, and I didn’t know how to handle this. I was so used to being the one who needed handling. Should I leave him alone, or keep pressing because he clearly needed comfort?
“Whose face did you break?” I asked tentatively, taking another step.
He stared ahead at the garden, growing dark as the sun sank below the horizon. “I can’t talk to you right now.”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “You made me talk to you when I didn’t want to.”
“This is different.”
“How?”
“It just is,” he snapped, breathing hard, fast.
“Okay,” I conceded, pulling out a chair and slowly sitting a good distance away. “Then I’ll just sit with you.”
His expression was distant, hard. A muscle fluttered in his jaw. “Go inside, Lynn.”
“No.”
His shoulders tightened, and I knew I should back off now, but Cobra had never abandoned me when I was in a black mood. I couldn’t walk away from him. I didn’t say anything, just stayed where I was.
He dug the heels of his palms into his eyes. “You need to leave me alone right now. I’m fucking serious.”
“Let me help,” I breathed.
“No,” he snapped, a growl darkening his voice, slicing into my chest.
“Right,” I laughed bitterly. “Why would you let me help? We’re just friends with benefits.”
His hands flexed, curled, fingernails gouging into his forehead.
“All the shit you’ve helped me work through, and you won’t even let me fucking sit with you so you’re not alone with your demons.”
“I’m always alone with my demons,” he snarled. “I don’t need help. I need you to get the fuck away from me.”
I flinched.
“Fine.” A wounded laugh came from me, a stranger’s laugh. I knew he was having a bad day, and I was making it worse, but Cobra was my person, my lifeline, and it fucking hurt that he wanted rid of me. “You want me to stay away? I’ll stay away. Enjoy your fucking space.”
I shoved out of the chair hard enough that it scraped across the patio stones, and left him there even if everything in me screamed to turn around.