Red in the Blue

Chapter 13

CW: Brief, mild sexual content at end

The better I felt, the longer my days seemed. Bowen and Irene both stayed two more days, during which we cooked and watched movies and played cards. We took short walks a couple times a day, the three of us, Irene focused on me and what my body could handle, and Bowen alert on the area around us. We seemed to be in a fairly secluded and quiet neighborhood tract, and I never interacted with any neighbors, though I saw them sometimes.

I learned that Bowen was freshly 21 and a recent addition to Cade's enforcers, who were trained by Elias—former U.S. military turned lieutenant for the pack. I asked him how he got the scar through his eyebrow, but he only hinted it was in a wolf fight and wouldn't say more. Irene teased that he had probably just tripped and wanted to seem tough.

Lying in the grass in the backyard—Irene with a towel from the bathroom under her head and the pants of her scrubs pulled up, Bowen leaned back on his elbows with one knee folded, a strand of grass in his teeth as he kept his eyes scanning the tree line—we dozed in the late afternoon sun. I had been told that it was Irene's last night and that Bowen was being relieved of duty, another enforcer cycling in. But when I asked when I would be allowed to go home—they'd exchanged glances and evaded the question. Dr. Cooper had done the same thing that morning, even though I was nearly recovered and weaning off the painkillers.

"Why do I need to have a babysitter at all?" I was asking from where I stretched on my stomach, toying with the grass. My hair blew loose in the breeze, hot sun warming my bare legs pleasantly. I was finding I more greatly appreciated the pleasant sensory aspects of being an embodied person since I'd been so miserably sick.

"Like if I have to continue staying here—for a mystery length of time and reasons no one will explain—why do I need a literal bodyguard?"

I looked at Irene, but she shrugged and looked to Bowen, who seemed to ponder for a minute before answering.

"Some are worried that we don't know where your ex is. Could be a while before the council tracks him down."

"I really don't think he'd come here," I said. "He's a dick but he's not like...homicidal."

"He bit the shit out of you in a bathroom," Irene interjected.

"I mean, yes, fair. Still. He's not Jason Bourne; I don't think he could like track me down here."

Bowen shrugged and lifted one hand to shade his eyes.

"I wasn't consulted in the threat assessment, I was just assigned to you," he said dryly.

I considered for a minute whether I would even feel comfortable here by myself and realized that, yes, I would. I felt so far removed from anything I knew it was like another dimension. Nothing bad had happened to me here and it simply couldn't. I was living another life.

"I'm burning through my sick time at work," I said. "I do have a job to get back to eventually."

"It's not just Eric though, is it, Bow," Irene pressed.

"Nah, we've got this beef with the pack in Lowell," Bowen conceded. Cade had said something about that.

"What kind of beef?"

No one answered me at first, so I looked between Irene and Bowen until Bowen sighed and reached up to take the blade of grass from between his teeth.

"I dunno all of it, but we haven't been on great terms with them for a while."

"Surely something started that."

"Yeah, they hate Cade," Irene said, barking a laugh. "Like it really pisses them off that he's alpha over here."