dove in the darkness ‏‏‎ ‎ ‏‏‎ ‎ ‏‏‎ ‎ ‏‏‎ ‎ ‏‏‎ ‎ ‏‏‎ ‎ ⋘ jason todd ⋙

•Chapter 20•

<Jason's>

You would think the idiot sitting across from me would have the decency to stop staring at me; at least when I have a knife in my hand.

After Hazel left, this idiot had the audacity to blame me for her leaving. As if. She was more than willing to stay until he showed up.

"We need to send someone!" He barked, glaring at, well, me.

I raise an eyebrow at him and say, "Who? Jake?"

"Listen here-"

"You listen," Bruce cuts in between our conversation, "-Brooklyn and Barbara are already going out to find her. You don't need to worry."

"You have an army here and you send two?" He mutters, testing all of our patience.

"Two of the best." Brooklyn snaps, her tone full of annoyance. "And we can't exactly send out Jason or you. You guys will only make her worse."

"I beg to differ." I say matter-of-factly. But even as I say it, I don't really believe it. She didn't seem to ken on staying with me. That thought sends a weird stab through my chest.

"You can beg to differ, but you are still wrong." Barbara calls out from the other room.

I glance at the clock, seeing that 15 minutes has gone by since she left and practically thirty seconds since I had last checked.

I run a hand through my hair and let out a sigh as Brooklyn and Barbara rush out of the room to find her before something horrible happens.

My eyes catch the two cups of hot chocolate sitting innocently on the counter.

"Don't stress." Dick whispers as he pats my shoulder, "She is probably fine."

"Who on earth is 'fine' after finding out your dad has been lying to you?" I say loud enough for her father to hear.

His glare only intensifies, but I don't even care. Once you have had a stare down with Bruce, no glare matches it.

I glance at the clock again, the minutes not going fast enough, yet going too slow.

I groan out and push my chair back with a loud screeching sound. "How long are we going to just sit here and wait?"

"The girls will get her back here." Bruce says, his eyes still studying me which is just making me even more annoyed than before.

"This what you did with me?" I snap, "Wait until you heard something?"

"Jason-"

"Shut up!" Tim suddenly bursts out. His face turns red as he continues when he has our attention, "You guys are always fighting and I'm sick of it. At least take a break until we find Hazel. Heck, one of the reasons she left was probably because of all of the bickering and snarky comments."

"It adds to my charm." I say flatly, ignoring his comment completely, because I know Hazel secretly thinks my snarky remarks are hilarious. I see the little smile she gets when I make one. The one she tries to hide; she one she is afraid of everyone seeing.

My gosh, where is she?

"I can't-"

"Shhh!" Dick cuts me off as his phone starts to ring. "Hey? Good, good. It's ok, just get her back here. We will worry about that later." He says through the phone, causing us all to listen in. As soon as he hangs up, he says, "They found her, pulled over, on the side of the road not far from here. They said she was shaken up, but she didn't have anything physically wrong with her."

"That's good to hear." Her father says, speaking up for the first time in a while.

"I liked it when you didn't talk. Try it again." I glare, fully knowing the impact that he has on her. She wouldn't stop talking about this man, her father, being worried for her and her feeling horrible because he didn't know she was alive... now she knows he was the whole reason she was taken without any warning and he isn't even telling her the truth about it.