Two guards were standing watch outside.
She wished it was bitterly cold, and the sky was pelting with hailstones the size of melons. But it was twenty eight degrees and sticky. Her 'Life's A B*tch' t-shirt was glued to her dripping back. She wriggled uncomfortably as a droplet of sweat left a trail between her breasts. She sat on the sofa, facing the front door, her foot tapping against the coffee table it rested on. Her arms were folded so tightly she lost the feeling in her hands.
Edda stayed with her for two hours and then left just after eight-thirty when the silence dragged on. She'd tried to convince Jaz that Nik was doing it for her own protection but the words fell on very pissed off ears.
When Jaz was alone she muttered, “How could he? That bastard. I wasn't planning on escaping. He can't even trust me.” She stood up, pacing back and forth across the room. She stormed into the kitchen and opened the freezer, grabbing a pot of double chocolate fudge ice-cream. It was for special treats. Now was as good a time as any for sugary comfort food.
She slumped on the sofa and scoffed the lot whilst watching Miss Congeniality.
Two hours after the had movie finished, she was just coming out of the shower, dressed in fresh pyjamas when she was alerted to the sound of frantic, hushed knocking on the door. She jumped out of her skin, straining her ears to listen, thinking she'd imagined it. The knocking came again, more urgent this time, and she rushed to the door, opening it just enough for her to peer out of.
Alf stood there, a little breathless, a determined look in his eyes. She opened the door wider to find the two guards slumped unconscious on the floor.
“Help me carry them in,” Alf breathed. Jaz stared, her astonishment swallowing up her words. “Skin, come on!”
She jumped into action lifting up Leif, a Pack member. Alf grabbed the large man's shoulders, and she dragged his legs until he was sprawled onto the living room.
The other unfortunate man was Garth, the same Were Jaz had worked under during the barbecue construction. He was bulkier and much heavier than Lief. Jaz nearly dropped him twice on the short trek to the living room.
When she caught her breath, with her hands propped on her hips, she demanded, “What the hell is this?”
Alf looked up at her with a hard mouth. “I have a bad feeling.”
“Seriously? Okay, give me a heads up next time you have a bad feeling in case you try to smash my skull in instead.”
“I'm serious, Skin.”
From the hard look in his big eyes she knew he was. “Tell me.”
He said it was small things he'd noticed: a slight change in the food menu that day, from the night before. Only it seemed to only affect Nik. For some reason, the cook had changed Nik's menu, apparently due to a few things going missing.
The cook, Ron, who mainly served for council members or special dinners, had been throwing up all night and morning. Alf had gone to investigate and heard him mention through his repeated vomiting fits that he'd not eaten anything bad, and no one else had got sick. “But he said last night, he'd been taste-testing the new food he'd planned to serve for Nik. A bone soup dish was his second choice when the steak went missing. Nik had it this morning.”
“I'm not sure what you're-”
“I think someone's poisoned Nik.”
Jaz's eyes widened. “How do you know? Is he okay?”
“I don't know. I haven't seen him since this morning, just before he left.”
Jaz slapped her hand to her forehead. “Shit, what time is it?” She glanced for the first time at the clock. It read 2:45 p.m. “Of course, they're there already. They were supposed to be there by midday, right? So... he's already in the arena?”
Alf nodded.
She'd been so mad at Nik she'd forgotten to be worried for him. She'd purposely ignored the clock on the mantelpiece. Maybe that had been his plan all along? “Well can't you call someone, find out if he's sick?”
“They don't allow phones or any technology in the arena. In case it can affect the outcome in anyway.”
“Morons,” Jaz scoffed. She thought for a moment then gazed at him. “Why would anyone run off with a steak?”
Alf shrugged. “Maybe it's easier to put poison in a soup?”
Jaz bit her bottom lip. “Have you told anyone?”
“Yes, but I don't have proof. It's just a gut feeling. Our most basic instinct is to use that feeling, but when it actually counts -like our Leader possibly being weakened so Kain stands a chance at fighting him- which now shows his whole standing up against us actually makes sense- well, they won't do anything about it. Because they're more concerned about me disrupting the duel than his possible death.”
“Like I said... morons.”
Alf cocked his head sideways as he nodded in agreement.
“What if we're already too late?”
“We'd feel it,” he replied.
Jaz shivered. If it was anything resembling how she'd known Lora had died she wouldn't stand it.
“We need to go.”