Come Hell or High Water - Striker x Reader (18+)

123. Guilty

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The party music grew louder as Striker descended the stairs to the lobby, Charlie directly behind him. Striker could almost feel her eyes staring daggers at his back. If this had been any other situation, he would have incapacitated her the second she told him to leave. But he knew she was greatly important to (Y/N), and she was upset with him enough already tonight. That, and he wasn't quite sure just how powerful the daughter of Lucifer truly was—and he certainly wasn't going to try his luck now.

"When did it happen?" Charlie said, breaking the silence.

Striker shook his head slightly in thought and answered, "It's been about nine months now—nine or ten."

"And it's still healing?"

He scowled at the animosity in her words. "It got infected about a month or so after it happened," he said calmly. "It's almost closed up now, though—we've been keepin' it clean and changin' the dressing every day."

"'We?' "

Striker finally turned his head to look back at the princess, flashing her an almost contemptuous glare. "Yes, we," he seethed. "I've helped her since she left the hospital—with it and pretty much everything else—tryin' to make up for it in some way."

"Nothing you do or say now could ever make up for what you did," Charlie snarled, matching his glare. "And I think you know that."

They held eye contact for a long moment, an uncomfortable and tense silence passing over them before Striker turned and pushed open the front door, stepping outside to be greeted by the humid night air.

Charlie promptly shut the door behind him and briskly crossed the hotel lobby to head back upstairs, but was stopped halfway by a low baritone voice asking, "She okay?"

She turned her head to see Husk and Angel Dust both exiting the banquet hall. She stopped in her stride and said, "She's fine. I just—I had to escort Striker out of here."

Husk raised an eyebrow. "Why? 'Cause of the fight?"

"No," she said, crossing her arms. "It's—"

"Charlotte Morningstar."

Charlie turned toward the staircase, where (Y/N) now stood clutching the banister in one hand and holding her aching stomach in the other. She fixed the princess with a hardened glare, her mouth twisted into a deep, angry scowl.

"Oof," Angel mumbled to Husk under his breath. "Pulled out the government name—that's how you know she's pissed."

(Y/N) quickly staggered toward Charlie and grabbed a fistful of her scarlet red blazer, roughly dragging her back across the lobby to a door near the staircase. Once the two were inside the vacant office, (Y/N) slammed the door behind her and screamed, "Charlie, you fucking hypocrite!"

"He shot you with an angelic weapon, (Y/N)," Charlie countered. "He could have killed you!"

"It was an accident, Charlie!" (Y/N) shouted. "He had his pistol out, and I got in the way. He would never deliberately do that!"

"It doesn't matter if it was an accident, (Y/N)," she retorted, a razor-sharp edge in her voice. "He's a danger to you."

Tears of frustration pricked (Y/N)'s eyes as she spat venomously, "And I suppose Neil was totally harmless, huh?"

"(Y/N)—"

"Did you think I'd just forget how you took your sweet-ass time deciding whether or not you'd let him come back here?" She shook her head in staunch disapproval. "You're supposed to be all about redemption and second chances, and yet you're just going to throw out the fucking love of my life and keep him from seeing me?"