Winning His War

7

Patrick's POV

I had almost forgotten everything that had happened last night until I was walking out of my office for the day.

The shadow Jem had assigned me was good at keeping his distance. He stayed camped out in his car all day and with the tented windows it had, I doubt anyone noticed him there.

But the second I walked out of the department and my eyes landed on that car, it all came rushing back.

My spirits fell as I climbed in the passenger seat. Devon didn't even look at me as he pulled out of the parking lot and drove us in silence.

The tension in the air was thick. The usually long was drive was much shorter due to the fact that we were speeding but I valued my life too much to comment on it.

Devon drove down the maze driveway with ease, never even pausing as the winding roads split into two or more and before long the car was parked and Devon was out of the car, the door shutting behind him.

I followed loosely behind him just to keep up but the second we got back to Jem's wing he was disappearing down one of the long halls.

"Did you piss him off or something," a guy with brown hair asked. He sat on the couch with a frown as he stared in the direction his friend went.

"I didn't think I did. I didn't even do anything."

"He's not very good with people," he shot down quickly but his frown stayed as he pushed off the couch before disappearing down the hall as well.

"I hope you had a better day than I did," Andrew sighed. He was in the kitchen but the smells coming from that direction weren't that great. "I don't think I've ever been talked to this much in my life."

"You're a therapist."

"Yea at a camp for troubled kids," he pointed out. "Most of them just glare at me the whole time."

"He couldn't have been that bad," I said, not bothering to stifle a chuckle. He turns to face me, his face becoming deadly serious, only making me laugh harder.

"I can already tell that I will be diagnosing him with 5 different attention and impulse disorders by the end of the week. Anyway, how was your dude? It couldn't have been worse than Barrett."

"We didn't even talk. He stayed in his car in the parking lot all day and when I was ready to leave for the day he sped back here. That was pretty much it."

"He didn't talk to you at all? Can we please switch tomorrow?"

"I don't think that's up to me," I sighed as I shrugged off my jacket. "What exactly are you making over there?"

The smells coming from the kitchen were steadily getting worse while Andrew continued to run around at random.

"It started as oven baked beef tacos but then Barrett said I was making them wrong so it turned into this weird casserole thing and now I'm just trying to make it work."

"You don't usually cook for yourself, do you," I laughed to myself as I eased into the kitchen

"No," he sighed while looking down at the mess he had made. "I make decent breakfast but beyond that, I have nothing."

I shook my head while rolling up my sleeves and taking the spoon Andrew had been using to taste his so called 'casserole'.

The second the food touched my tongue I was spitting it back out, not caring that it landed back in the dish.

The meat was over cooked while and since he didn't drain it before adding the hard shell tortillas they became soggy. That and he couldn't seem to figure out which spices to use so he just piled everything on he could find.

"It's that bad?"

"I don't see how you thought this was eatable." His face fell as he looked back at the ruined food.