The last couple of days had been weird. Not uncomfortable weird, but strange all the same. Silas couldn’t remember a time since before the fall where he went this many days without seeing Rae, even for just a couple minutes. But she hadn’t searched him out, and there had to be a good reason for that, so he hadn’t searched her out either.
Part of that was residual guilt for going off like he did about Rae going out with the twins and Bea. But he didn’t get why she’d take a risk like that, those people had taken two of their group, probably killed them. Why couldn’t she and Bea have left it alone? Let someone else handle it. Even in his head it sounded sexist, but he couldn’t help how he felt.
Then there was Bea’s bruised face, which obviously had a story behind it that she wasn’t telling. And he’d told both Regan and Brandon that he’d try to get information out of Rae. Why hadn’t he just texted her? He wanted to text her, see her, and make sure she was okay, but something stopped him. His feet kept betraying him too, taking him to the room that he and Rae had set up. He hadn’t worked up the nerve to walk in though, in case she was in there and didn’t want him around.
But today was different, he’d left a lighter in there, stupid thing that it was, and it turned out he needed it. It was stupid to avoid the room; it was even dumber to avoid Rae, thinking that he was giving her space. When all he wanted to do was see her, hear her laugh, and watch her smile; all sorts of sappy things that he’d never admit to out loud.
He was trying to retrace where he’d left the lighter in the room when he twisted the knob and opened the door, and stopped short of entering when his gaze landed on Rae. It looked like he’d hit the cap on how long he could stay out of her hair.
“Hey,” he said a little awkwardly, voice hitching a little when he took in the details of her face. She had a black eye that looked a couple days old, that added more information to the injuries Bea was sporting, and created an undercurrent of concern. Something had gone down, and Rae hadn’t told him about it. Probably because of how he’d reacted to the recon thing.