Page 29 of To Hunt A Wolf
“Nothing cold about it,” I say, but he’s right. I don’t really believe he had something to do with Crigger’s death. The problem is, I don’t know if I still believe Levi did either.
“What was Levi doing there that night?” I ask.
I don’t actually expect an answer. Like everything else I’ve demanded to know, I fully expect him to ignore me or change the subject. I almost fall out of bed when he says, “They had a meeting.”
A meeting with Crigger. What the hell for?
“What were they meeting about?”
He hesitates, but I’m pretty sure if he shuts down now, I will brave the venom and a slow death if only to get up and kick Tripp’s ass.
“Jadick,” he finally says.
I blink, my mind racing ahead with what the hell Jadick and Levi and Crigger have in common.
“What about him?” I ask.
Tripp’s phone dings again, and a second later, there’s a knock on the door.
He rises quickly, his finger to his lips in a reminder to be quiet.
I roll my eyes. Someone just tried to kill me. As much as I hate being forced into this bed to recover, I’m not looking for a round two. So I don’t plan on alerting anyone to my presence here.
I watch while he pads silently to the door and checks the peephole.
Satisfied, he opens the door and then closes it again, a bag of food in hand.
“Hungry?” he asks.
“You know me better than to even ask,” I say, and he grins.
We dig into the food, and I proceed to eat just as much as Tripp does. He used to tease me about it until said teasing devolved into a wrestling match that, back then, wasn’t an easy win for him. Eventually, sophomore year, he hit a growth spurt and finally managed to beat me, but I refuse to let him live down the fact that, for most of our childhood, I kicked his ass.
His eyes sparkle as he watches me devour my food, and I know he’s thinking about all those fights just like I am.
“Don’t you dare make a comment,” I warn him. “I haven’t eaten in two days.”
“I wasn’t going to say a word.”
“Right.”
“Here.” He holds out two white pills.
“What are those?”
“It’ll help with the pain.”
I don’t move to take them, and he rolls his eyes. “If we were going to kill you, we would have just left you in the woods, dumbass.”
“Whatever.” I take the pills and down them with the last of my soda. “Happy?”
“Thrilled.”
We lapse back into silence for a while, but reruns of House Hunters aren’t enough to distract me for long.
“Why was Levi meeting Crigger about Jadick?” I ask.
Tripp doesn’t seem surprised by the question. He knows me too well to think I’d let it go.
