Bounty Hunter [REWRITTEN VERSION]

Chapter 53: It's Always the Abandoned Warehouses

MAIZE

Where the hell could he be?

Maize was searching around the streets looking for the detective, hoping with the time she had been walking, she would have to run into him eventually. He needed to be made aware that they were on their own from here on out—and while logically she knew it would have been more useful to have Ryder around, her conscience told her she had done the right thing. Besides, it was her and Alec's job, they would handle it.

If only she could find him that was.

When she finally did run into him, it was nearly twenty minutes later, on the corner of some old city hall building that he was coming out of. She crossed her arms as he walked up to her and couldn't disguise the irritated look on her face.

"What're the hell have you been? I've been calling your phone for the past hour," she stated grudgingly as she shot him a pointed stare, waiting for an explanation of why he hadn't bothered to answer. Hell, what if something had been wrong?

"Sorry," Alec said distractedly as he pulled something from his pocket and flipped it once in the air. "You want a Swiss-army knife?"

Maize blinked at the bluntness of the odd question. "Where did you get that?" She asked, knowing he hadn't had it before.

What shocked her next was the brief run through explanation he went through, quickly explaining the encounter he had had with the two odd guys in shades, how they had been seen more than once that day, and how he oh-so-generously took out their tires so that they wouldn't be a problem again.

"Are you alright?" she asked without a thought, not seeing at initial signs of pain from the detective as he stood in front of her, but still, she felt the need to be sure.

"Of course," Alec replied, with a smirkingly satisfied look that irritatingly, made her regret even asking in the first place. She held back the urge to punch that smug expression off his face as she instead focused in on the more serious things. "Who were they?" she asked.

"No idea," he shrugged. "I didn't really stick around to find out."

"You think they could have been more hitmen sent to take us out?"

"Possibly."

She nodded to herself and released a breath. "Then maybe it was better you didn't stay and take your chances alone," she murmured in response.

"You think I can't handle myself?" He questioned with a teasing eyebrow raised at her, both slightly humorous and testing.

"I didn't say that," she replied even as the corners of her lips twitched upwards briefly. "But you're also an idiot," she stated. "Listen, it's back to just us again—so I need you not to get yourself killed."

"Back to us again? What happened to Ryder?" Alec asked with a look of confusion.

Maize answered, "I sent him off. He's helped us enough, I didn't want to drag him into any more trouble."

"Fair enough," Alec sighed.

"He'll be so mad when he finds out the only time you get his name right is when he's not here..."