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"Here's what I don't understand," Heck, sitting to Matteo's left, piped up, "why was Jake so close by? What was he doing?"
At the mention of Jake, Zorah's spine tensed, and all concerns about Nico and Ty evaporated. In all her conversations about the incident, she'd endeavored to avoid discussions of the day's unlikely hero. Given her swim lesson subterfuge, she figured the less anyone associated the two of them, the better.
Riddick set his cup down and wiped his lip with his thumb. "Hunter sent him up to the ridge above the lake. He's camping out up there and building a watchtower."
"No shit." Matteo stabbed at a chunk of potato. "I hadn't even noticed he was gone." He gave a loose, unconcerned shrug and popped the bite into his mouth.
Zorah kept quiet. Jake had mentioned the watchtower, and it made sense. It also explained why she hadn't seen him around the settlement or felt the presence of his mysterious, invisible touch on the back of her neck.
With one hand flat on the table and one hand on the bench seat behind her, Riddick encroached further into Zorah's space. "I don't like it," he said with a growl. "He shouldn't be that close to you."
Hewas too close. Thisconversationwas too close.
Zorah subtly angled her body back, seeking air not tinged with Riddick's pungent cedar and smoke tang. "Jake? Why?"
Riddick tapped an agitated finger on the table. "He's not right in the head. Unstable. Dangerous."
Zorah bristled; that strange urge to defend Jake bubbled up for the second time today. "He wasn't dangerous today. He rescued Nico. He's... he's a hero."
"Riddick's right," Matteo said, for once not disagreeing with Riddick as a matter of competition. "After what happened in OT, you should stay away from him."
Pushing her plate away, Zorah folded her hands in her lap, her appetite replaced by leery foreboding. "What happened in OT?"
"He kidnapped Miz Kess," Heck said, his usually sweet, open face tight with hostility. "She and Hunt were having a drink, Miz Kess went out to relieve herself, and he just grabbed her."
"It was worse than that," Matteo added. "You didn't see where he took her.Idid."
Zorah rubbed her thumbs together, her feelings about Jake growing more confused by the second. No question he had a vague and shadowy past, but... abduction? Was she defending a kidnapper? Or, worse, had she inadvertently finagled to be alone with one in a secluded area?
She swallowed around the lump in her throat. "Where did he take her?"
"A bad place." Matteo's expression darkened. "A cleaned-out garbage truck. A big, hulking vehicle from before TheEnd. Old and rusted, reeking and filthy. He took her inside, tried to hold her there. Even roughed her up a bit."
"He hurt her?" Zorah asked in a small, timid voice.
She'd never been afraid of Jake, not the night by the rocks or during their conversation today alone on the beach. Butshouldshe have been? Was there some sinister aspect of him she'd overlooked in her naivete?
Matteo nodded grimly. "We ran into Hunt — Cal, Simon, and me — and helped him track her to a bad part of town. We got her back, and she had a split lip, twisted ankle, scared to death." He picked at a piece of dried food on the table with his fingernail. "I've been all over OT, in quite a few shady places, but even I never ventured that far. Only the lowest of the low set foot in that area, you know what I mean?" He gave Riddick a look that sent chills down Zorah's spine. "He was a mess, too. Filthy, hair matted, sores all over him, smelled terrible. Lived like an animal."
"That's giving animals too much credit," Heck said with obvious disgust.
"You need to stay away from him, Zorah," Riddick warned, his hot breath blasting her cheek like a brand. "Maybe he did a good thing today, but he's not safe, especially for unmated Omegas."
"We should talk to Hunt, have him send the fucker farther away to build a watchtower." Heck's posture straightened, puffed up with his own idea. "He doesn't need to be anywhere near the lake, where you and the pups are."
But if Jake hadn't been there, Nico would've died.
Zorah's stomach lurched with the sickening memory of standing on the side of the lake as Nico's head dipped out of sight.These Alphas could talk all day about Jake and his deficiencies, but they hadn't been there. They hadn't come to the rescue. Jake had. Zorah glanced from face to face. Riddick, Matteo, Heck all knew what happened. They knew that Jake saved Nico's life, but they still hated him, still feared him, still looked at him as an object of disdain.
And that made her... angry. She'd chewed Jake out for acting like a beaten Beta dog, but here were his "brothers" going out of their way to treat him as such. Was she correct in wanting to defend him, or was she misguided knowing what he'd done to Kess?
"I don't understand," Zorah said carefully. "Why let him join the Pack if he's so dangerous and... unwell?"
The Alphas grimaced almost in unison. "He's a friend of Hunter's, from before TheEnd," Matteo explained. "Hunt felt he owed him a second chance or something. By rights, he could've killed the guy for stealing his Omega, but instead, he made him a deal: get cleaned up and join the Pack or get beat to death in the dirty streets of OT."
"Doesn't seem like much of a deal," Zorah said under her breath.
"That's not all," Matteo said. "He's banned from all contact with Omegas."
