Guardian [Completed]

Five (Devina)

For the second day in a row, I woke up tangled in Josh’s embrace. I sighed in defeat.

Oh, who was I kidding? It had been so long since I had been held. It felt nice, even if it didn’t mean anything.

For some odd reason, my mind drifted to the realization of how lucky I was. I was in bed with Josh Hutcherson. Pre-pubescent teenagers all over the world would kill to be in this position.

 Oh, god.

 The idea made my stomach flip.

 “Blech!”

 Josh groaned.

 “Good morning to you too,” he mumbled.

 “Good morning. Sorry. Just… Post-waking thoughts and… No. You don’t want to know,” I said.

 “Tell me, Dev.”

 My phone started ringing.

 “Trust me. You really don’t want to know.”

 “Did it have to do with me?”

 “Indirectly.  But I wasn’t making that noise because of you.”

 I reached over to grab my phone. It was Thomas.

 “But I don’t—“

 “Hello?”

“Hey Devina,” Thomas replied.

I sat up in bed. Not only did Thomas rarely use my given name, but I could hear in his voice that something was off.

“Thomas? What’s wrong?”

Josh sat up too.

“Is Josh nearby?” Thomas asked.

“He is,” I answered.

“Put me on speakerphone. I need to talk to both of you.”

I took the phone away from my ear and hit the speakerphone button. I then placed the phone on the bed between us.

“Go ahead, Thomas.”

“Devina, you know we’re following a lead,” Thomas began.

Josh looked up at me. It was clear at once he was upset with me for not telling him. Thomas was a step ahead of me though.

“Josh, don’t be mad at Devina. I wouldn’t allow her to tell you until we had a considerable amount of information. A good strategy, too, because we’ve reached a dead end.”

I looked over at Josh again. A multitude of emotions were playing across his face.

Even though it hadn’t been used in ages, the part of my brain that I used to comfort my subjects kicked in. I reached over to grab Josh’s hand and held onto it tightly.

“This guy isn’t working alone. The name connected to the credit card we were tracking showed up in Colorado. So we followed that one as well and it ended up being the true owner. False lead. So we’re pretty much back at square one.”

“Is my family safe?” Josh asked, his voice cracking.

“We’ve moved them to a safe house up north,” Thomas answered.

Josh was about to break so I quickly said, “Thank you, Thomas.”

Thomas knew me well enough to know this was not a dismissal, but rather a signal that I needed a moment to absorb and react to information in private. Or in this case, Josh needed a moment. The line went dead and my phone automatically exited the call screen.