The Alpha - Joel Abernathy Page 0,70

run away. He was obviously fucked up about what happened, and Colt had chosen the worst possible moment to make things weird between them. Even weirder than they already had been lately.

Breakfast was going to be horribly awkward, and that was if Ronnie even showed up. The alternative was far more concerning, but Colt tried to remain optimistic as he walked down the hall.

He turned the corner and nearly ran into Susan, reaching out to steady her. “Whoa,” he said, looking her over. “What’s wrong?”

“Have you seen Ronnie?” she asked, her eyes wide with worry.

Colt tried not to look as guilty as he felt. Nothing had even happened between them the night before, but if it had… “Not since last night,” he admitted. “Why? Is he not in his room?”

“No, and he’s not answering his phone.”

It was hard to comfort her when Colt’s mind immediately jumped to the same conclusions. After the last year, he was a bit jumpy about people he loved just up and disappearing. Especially when Ronnie had been acting so strange.

Colt took out his phone and sent a text to Ronnie, hoping maybe he just wasn’t wanting to talk to Susan for some reason. He didn’t reply right away, but that didn’t mean anything. Unlike most guys his age, Ronnie wasn’t glued to his phone at all times. In fact, Colt couldn’t remember ever even hearing it ring.

Colt hesitated. With his guards crawling all over every inch of the area, he didn’t feel he had any real reason to be freaked out, other than the fact that Ronnie hadn’t been acting like himself, but admitting that to Susan felt like a betrayal. Then again, if something was wrong, that was a stupid reason to keep it to himself.

“I saw him last night out on the balcony,” he confessed. “He was acting kind of off then.”

“He’s been that way for weeks,” Susan said, wringing her hands. “Ever since…”

“Yeah,” Colt muttered. He knew exactly what she meant. It was a subject they had all been tiptoeing around in one form or another. Not only did their lives depend on it, but none of them really seemed to know what to do with the fact that sweet, innocent, ‘vegan’ Ronnie had taken a life, even if it was in defense of himself and his friends.

Ronnie was sensitive. What if all this had hit him harder than Colt thought? He had been distracted with his own self-inflicted problems, moping over Jason, but Ronnie was dealing with a crisis he knew all too well. Colt was still shaken up whenever he thought about that night in the alley that seemed like so long ago. There was something about the moment where a man crossed the threshold from an everyday human being to a killer that stuck with him no matter how hard he became, and no matter how many lives he’d taken since.

“I’ll go out and look for him,” Colt said, expecting Susan to tell him not to worry about it and that she was just being paranoid like she usually would have. When she didn’t, he realized her instincts were firing off as much as his were.

She followed after him as he headed toward the main hall, and when he saw the front door open, his chest clenched so tightly in relief he could hardly breathe. Ronnie was standing there, his backpack slung over his shoulder. He looked even more exhausted than he had the night before, but he seemed unharmed.

Ronnie stopped and looked at them both. They must have looked as worried as they both were, because he raised an eyebrow. “Something wrong?”

“Where were you?” Susan demanded, pulling her arms around him.

Ronnie half-heartedly returned the hug, looking up at Colt as if he should know better. “I just went out for a bit. No need to freak out.”

“There is under these circumstances,” Susan said, pulling away to look at him. “Especially with how you’ve been lately. What’s going on?”

Ronnie set his jaw with a look of stubbornness Colt had only rarely seen on him. “I’m not a child, and I don’t have to answer to you every time I leave the house.”

Susan raised her eyebrows and stared for a moment, as if she couldn’t quite believe what she’d heard. Colt couldn’t blame her. Ronnie was a smartass, sure, but Colt had never actually heard him talk like that to either of his parents.

“Excuse me?” she finally asked.

“What? It’s the truth, I don’t,” Ronnie said, walking past them.

Colt caught up