Nobody Knows (SWAT Generation 2.0 11)

“It’s like a book scene playing out in my head.” Hastings punched the air again, she’d already done that four times in the last ten minutes. “If this was one of my books, the heroine of Zach’s story would’ve been mistaken for someone else and left for dead.”

Something in the way she said it made a niggle of worry curl into the back of my brain.

However, Sammy started talking again, and momentarily allowed my brain to halt thought on that niggle.

“Mom wants you to come to dinner,” Sammy said, changing the subject.

I thought that he would be looking at Sierra when I looked up, but when I did, it was to find him staring at me.

“I was going to ask him, chill the fuck out,” Sierra growled.

I looked over at her with surprise.

“I got the text while we were… occupied,” she muttered under her breath.

“Gross!”

Grans, who hadn’t left like I’d assumed she had after Oston did, peered over the couch.

“I think I got the wrong couch. This one is so much more comfortable.”

And that was my grans, folks. Not embarrassed to have caught her grown grandson having sex with his new, pregnant girlfriend.

Nice.CHAPTER 15You’ll do.-Sierra to MalachiMALACHIGabriel,

Since we’re allowed to talk about personal stuff now that we’re both adults, let’s talk about the fact that I had sex for the first time and hated it.

Like, I’m talking, I’m not sure what the big deal is, hated it.

I’ve sworn off all other men from here on out until the attraction for them is undeniable. That’s the only way I’ll ever be able to look past the fact that they’re awful in bed.

Anyway, I haven’t heard from you for months, and I’m sending this to your last known address that we wrote back and forth from.

You’re starting to really worry me, Gabriel.

So much.

Write me back already, or I’ll start to think bad thoughts.

Sierra

• • •

The next morning, I wasn’t sure what drove me to the hospital. What made me think, I need to go get a good look at the girl that was hit.

But I did it, and now I was standing in the nameless woman’s hospital room, studying her brown hair.

“I’ll wait outside,” Saint, who’d decided to tag along with me today upon hearing where I was going, said.

I nodded my head at him to acknowledge that I’d heard him, but my eyes were on the woman in the bed. Or, more importantly, her build.

She was roughly the same size as Sierra. Like, almost exactly.

I was just standing in the doorway, wondering what her face looked like when it wasn’t all bruised up, when there was a clearing of a throat behind me.

I’d heard the man coming, of course. His steps were heavy as if he was tired, and he was wearing motorcycle boots, making it to where they squeaked and clunked against the just-shined floor.

I looked over my shoulder.

“Sorry,” I said to the haggard-looking doctor that came in. “I didn’t mean to…”

I knew the doctor.

He was a very good friend of a few members of the SWAT team.

He also did not look good.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

The doctor, Zach, looked at me with worried eyes.

“No, I’m not okay.” His voice sounded odd. Like it’d been put through a wood chipper. “That’s the girl that I love. The one that…” He trailed off. “I’m not okay.”

I didn’t say anything to that.

“When I decided that I was going to start picking up shifts in the ER because I was bored as hell on the maternity floor, I never imagined that I’d have to work on someone that I love…” He trailed off again, almost as if he hadn’t intended to say that aloud. “Do they have anything more to go by?” he asked me, assuming that I knew more than he did.

I had a suspicion that I didn’t.

He looked very fucking capable of getting information, using whatever means necessary to get it.

“I didn’t even know that the accident had happened until well after it’d happened,” I said. “I just…” I looked at the girl’s hair. “My girl runs on that road a lot. She also walks the dog. And she has the same build as your girl…”

“Juniper,” Zach finished for me. “Her name is Juniper.”

My chest jolted at the news of her name.

Why hadn’t I gotten that earlier? I would’ve remembered instantly.

My parents are flower children. They love ‘interesting’ names. You should hear all my sisters’ names.

“Does she work at the DMV?” I asked, hoping above hope that there was another Juniper in this town.

His eyes flashed up to meet mine.

“Yes,” he said. “Why do you ask?”

Well, now I wasn’t so sure.

Except… this couldn’t have been that much of a coincidence.

It just couldn’t.

“I went there the other day to get some information from her,” I said. “It was related to a friend.” I then went on to explain why I’d gone to the DMV.