Page 104 of My Revenant
Roy nodded firmly. “Alright, then. Now what do you need from me?”
“Time.” I cleared my throat. “I need to find someone, and Jonah can’t come after me.”
“Okay. I can handle that. What else?”
“I don’t know.”
“You gonna be safe?”
“I don’t know,” I repeated, and the honesty of it threatened to pull more tears from the well.
“Whatever this situation is you’re in, you ain’t alone. And I’m not losing you too. So if I can help, you tell me.”
“What if you don’t like what I tell you?”
“Mm, I suspect I probably won’t. But I’ll help you all the same.”
I wasn’t about to tell him that my rabbit was directly involved in the murder of three people, whether they deserved it or not, but maybe I could tell him something. Maybe it was safe—he was safe—like my father had been safe. “I have to go before Jonah gets back or he won’t let me leave alone, but later?”
Roy nodded, clearing his throat and wiping away any remaining dampness on his cheeks. “Right. Best get on with it, then. You need me—”
“I’ll call,” I finished for him. “I know.”
I didn’t have high hopes that Henrik would be at the Strays’ house. With the bastard being as mysterious as he was, I really didn’t know where to find him if he didn’t want to be found. But I had to try.
When I walked through the front door, I heard a commotion from the next room over. It was Archer, tearing apart the cushions of the sagging sofa like they owed him money.
“All good?” I asked from the doorway.
He startled, scrambling to his feet to face me. “Oh. It’s you. What do you want?” he asked, returning to his destruction of the furniture.
“I’m looking for Henrik.”
“Haven’t seen him,” Archer responded distractedly.
“Do you know where he might be, then?”
He didn’t respond, instead flipping the sofa over onto its back with a crash.
“Archer?” I snapped.
“What?” he shouted, turning to glare at me. “I don’t fucking know where he is, okay? I haven’t seen him, and I’m fucking busy.”
“Busy?” I scoffed. “Is this why you’ve been so hard for everyone to contact lately? Because you’re fucking up sofas?”
“The point, dickhead, isn’t to fuck up the sofa.”
“Then what is the fucking point?”
“I’m looking for something.”
“For what?”
“Just something!” he snapped, but I wasn’t tolerating it.
Archer had been a shitty leader lately, but that hadn’t always been the case. When he’d first brought this group of misfits together, he’d been an anchor, the solid foundations that held up everything we’d built. He’d found broken people and given them a home, a purpose. But he’d been absent far too often lately, and the ripples of whatever was happening with him were echoing throughout the Strays.
It wasn’t just my conversation with Henrik, there was doubt creeping in when it came to Archer’s leadership. Some of the Strayshad lost their faith in him. He was unreliable, unreachable, unfocused, and therefore they sought me out instead.
