Page 34 of Hunt

“Yes, fuck it,” Shaun pointed to his mouth, reminding him happened when he slept with me and my obsessive stalker, Rourke/Gunner gave him a warning of what could happen if he hurt me. It did hurt me the way he slept with me, then flung me aside. “Let her go.”

The jock reluctantly released his grasps on me and I picked up my bag and fled to the door, pausing to wrangle the lock with trembling hands, terrified that they’d change their minds.

Once I opened the door, I turned back to check what they were doing, and I found that they were examining my broken phone, wearing an expression of concern. “Was it a setup?” I shouted. “You being friendly and worming your way between my legs, was it a setup? Did you even care about me?”

He glanced up but remained silent while a smirk spread across the face of the jock.

“Was it on Gunner’s order? Did you become my friend because Gunner Kaiser told you to?” I pressed.

Shaun’s brow furrowed as he bowed his head slightly, still gazing at me beneath his lowered eyebrows. “You’re not my type.”

Fine. At least I know what these men were about, and I shouldn’t trust them. But why did Gunner send Shaun to befriend me? Why me? Could Gunner see through my disguise? If so, that puts me in a hazardous situation.

Once outside into the sunshine, I shielded my eyes from the bright light and stumbled down the steps onto the flat.

“Riley?” I heard a familiar voice and turned around to find Cheetos following me from the library. “Where’s your glasses?”

I exhaled, feeling the weight of grief. I was so sick of faking everything. I was so sick of pretending to be someone that I wasn’t.

“Oh, they fell off my face and someone stepped on them,” I told her.

“Oh,” her reaction was the usual awkward and unemotional that I had come accustomed to from Cheetos. “Will you be able to see?”

“A little. I need them mostly for reading, but I have a spare pair in my dorm room,” I explained, then pulled her aside to add. “I really need that gun, Cheetos.”

The figures of Shaun and the jock emerged from the library and Cheetos read my expression and followed my stare. “Are you okay?” she asked, weighing them up mainly after they glared at me.

“I’m fine, but that gun, Cheetos. I need it. Or I’ll find one from somewhere else,” I stressed, stepping down the stairs to lengthen the space between us.

“I’m on to it. I know someone, so I’ll contact you with a price,” she called after me as I walked away from her.

I stalled in disappointment and turned back. “Ah, my phone is broken,” I sighed, aggrieved. “I need to get a new one.”

Cheetos looked back at the guys watching us closely, as if she were reading my mind and knew that my phone and glasses were broken because of them.

“Don’t worry,” she yelled after me, “I’ll get it sorted.”

14

Ipressed my phone against my ear, expecting to hear Riley’s sweet voice, but instead, I got distant voices in the background, including hers. I couldn’t catch exactly what they were saying, but the tone of their voices raised alarm bells for me. Riley seemed to speak methodically when she mentioned the basement under the Science Library, but the tone of the male voices got me concerned.

The male voices seemed to threaten her, and when she spoke to them, she sounded terrified.

Then the phone cut out, and I knew trouble was about to go down. I grabbed my car key, gun, and wallet, poked my head into Mikael’s smoke-filled office, where he was downing another glass of whiskey. “I’ve got an emergency to attend to. I’ll be back soon.”

“About what?” he snarled as if another drama amongst rats and naked toymakers would be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. He could handle the pressure, but he didn’t want it.

“I’m unsure. “I’ll get back to you,” I said, as I was in a hurry and didn’t want to stand around and chat. She sounded like she was in trouble, so I needed to get there before something terrible happened.

I ran down the hall as he yelled after me, “Where the fuck is Gunner?”

Jumping into my car, I put it into gear and sped off toward Gotland as I tried to call her back, but it went straight to voicemail. My heart was drumming against my rib cage as I swiped for Shaun’s number to call him and check on Riley, since I assumed he was on campus. But paused when I remembered that Gunner had beaten him black and blue just for touching Riley without permission.

The problem with Gunner was that he was a loose cannon and viewed Riley as his possession. He was pissed that Shaun broke rank and disobeyed him, so I didn’t blame Gunner for reminding him that he was under our command not the other way around.

It took too fucking long to arrive at Gotland, then even longer to find a fucking park, so I suspected that by the time I found her, it might be too late. I ran toward the Science library, hoping she was still inside, incredibly concerned for her welfare.

When I approached, the door was locked, and I pressed my ear against the wood, but it sounded empty. So, I found my key and unlocked the door, pushing it open with my hand resting on the gun tucked in the belt of my pants.

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