Love at First Gear Ch. 13

Note: I'm finally back with another LAFG chapter for you, and this one is spicy. Normally I would give these sections chapter numbers instead of having the story "skip", but if I uploaded chapters that short I think we would all be disappointed. I thought I had finished writing this story but I didn't like the ending so I am rewriting the last five chapters again and already working on the next book. Updates will keep being sporadic while I address my Stupid Tumor.

Other spicy chapters: 1, 2, 3, 5, 10

In the last chapter: Mack and Ashleigh got out of the surgery center, Mack and the boys had a stakeout at John's bar, and Walker did a little spying on Ashleigh's phone.

John had to shut The Growler down early. It was obvious that Yosef wouldn't, or couldn't, stay downstairs and run it, and no one was as versed in torture as John. Sure, Travis could beat the answers he wanted out of Francis, but John could get them faster and with less effort. He also wanted to hear it firsthand. All of the patrons understood. A few hung back to keep an eye out and the rest filtered out quietly with a few muttered wishes that those who remained be careful.

John hated being told to be careful.

Upstairs Francis was zip-tied to a chair. The man Yosef had pummeled was laid out on John's bed, groaning and gasping, but not saying much although his eyes wandered wildly around the room.

"I think he paralyzed him," Travis muttered as soon as John joined him in the doorway.

"Can he talk?" John narrowed his eyes as he studied the injured man. If he couldn't feel most of his body that really limited John's options for getting him to talk, if he could.

"Sort of," Travis shrugged. That was enough for John.

"Alright, asshole," John slammed a chair down beside the bed and leaned over the man's face. "Why do you have pictures of Jana and my Persian friend on your phone?"

"He doesn't know anything!" Francis yelled from the living room, "he's just a horny idiot!"

Travis turned and glared at Francis while John refocused his attention on the man on the bed. "Why is Francis trying to protect you?" When the man stared up at him wide-eyed and didn't answer, John made him an offer. "There's still a chance you could be helped, but the longer you take to answer my questions, the less likely it is your spine will be salvageable." He bluffed. He had no idea if the damage Yosef had inflicted was fixable at all, and part of him hoped it wasn't.

"Don't tell him anything," Francis shouted, "he's full of shit! They're gonna kill us both anyway!"

Travis moved to gag Francis but John held up a hand. "Let him squawk," he shrugged. "Clock's ticking," he wagged his eyebrows at the man on the bed.

"Fine," the man gasped, "I just want Jana. I helped him on the computer."

"Helped him how?"

"Posting pictures and finding addresses for the bar's regulars--"

The assembled lycans crowding John's living room shuffled uneasily.

"He was getting paid and he gave me a little," the man grunted, "and told me he would help me find someone to get Jana."

John leaned back a little and listened while Francis let loose a stream of insults and threats.

"Do you know if he was working for anyone else? Who paid him?"

John watched while the man licked his lips and struggled to find the breath to speak.

"No, I think he just did it because he could, I don't know where the money came from."

"And who was going to help you get Jana?"

"No idea," the man choked and John could tell he was running out of time to get anything else out of him.

"Too bad you don't know more," John muttered at him, "I might have kept you alive longer."

"You lied," the man gasped, eyes widening even more.

John shrugged. "I used to work for the government," he told the man as he locked his arms around his neck and twisted, finishing the job Yosef had started while Travis turned way.

"I can't believe you don't feel anything when you do that shit," Travis murmured as John pushed past him.

"Oh, I feel something," John told him darkly before he turned his attention on Francis. "And you're about to find out what it is."

Francis' eyes darted around nervously. He locked eyes with some of the lycans who had come up from the bar to help and found no pity there.

"Come on guys, we've known each other for decades. You know I wouldn't do that," he laughed nervously while he spoke but stopped abruptly and flinched as John drew nearer.

"Get that guy out of my bed," John pointed at two of the bars' regulars, who nodded and immediately moved to dispose of the dead lycan. I'll have to wash everything before I sleep in that again,  John thought as he closed in on his desk. He felt everyone's eyes on him as he went through the drawers selecting tools that he hoped he wouldn't actually have to use.

With a fistful of everyday items he sat down in front of Francis and laid them out on the table beside him.

"Tell me what you were doing and who paid you and I won't have to use these," John offered. He watched the sweating lycan in front of him as his eyes roved over the items John had selected.

"Look," Francis started, flinching as John moved to grab something from the table. "No, wait, listen," he licked his lips and tried smiling at Travis. "I'm sorry I swung on you last night, man, can we just forget about it--"

I'm tired and this is already taking too long,  John thought as he snatched the pliers off the table and closed them around one of Francis' fingernails. He didn't give the other man a chance to say anything or anymore opportunities to delay. While the man howled and cursed at him John grabbed his throat and leaned into his face, "hurry up and spill or the next thing I take off will be a fingertip."

"Fuck, where did you find this guy?" Francis tried again to turn to Travis for sympathy but found only rage in Travis' eyes. "Okay, will you let me go if I tell you the truth?"

John looked to Travis' judgment on that one.

"It depends on what you tell us. Maybe, if you have a good excuse for what you were doing," Travis grumbled. John would have said "no", but Travis was in charge in whatever room Travis was in.

"Okay, look, I got behind on child support payments and at first it was just a hundred bucks here and there for pictures of she-wolves. I thought I'd get caught up in a few weeks and then no more after that, but I lost my job. Times are tough man, you know? Give me a break--"

"Why didn't you just ask for help?" Travis was incensed. John knew that even if there was bad-blood between them, if Francis had asked for help Travis would have given it just so Francis' kids didn't pay the price.

"Like I was gonna ask the guy that fucked their mom for help," Francis spat, laughing darkly before looking down at his bloody finger.

"So who put you up to it? Who was asking for these addresses and pictures?" John tried to keep the conversation moving along even as he could feel Travis' blood boiling from where John sat.

"No one, that kid helped me. I told him I'd find a hunter that could help him, but I have no idea where he thought he'd get the money from to actually get what he wanted. He was delusional, obsessed--"

Yosef growled from the corner where he'd been sitting. He hadn't paid much attention to the goings-on in John's apartment, but that had dragged him out of his dark thoughts.

"Not my fault, man," Francis muttered, "it just is what it is."

Travis sighed, then looked to John. "Do you believe him?"

"Unfortunately," John nodded, "I do." He couldn't tell Travis why he felt that way without getting himself in trouble. In all the snooping he'd done, he'd never come across any links from his contacts to Francis. He could waste time trying to get more out of him, but he was certain if Francis were part of something larger, it wouldn't have been so easy to get him to confess. "I want everybody out," John suddenly announced.

Travis frowned at him, then shrugged and gestured at the others to leave. He grabbed Yosef's arm and pulled him to his feet, then shut the door as he pulled the younger man into the stairwell. John listened until the sound of footsteps on the stairwell died away, then leaned very close to Francis and whispered.

"How did you find out about the forum?"

Francis blinked at him, opened his mouth, then closed it and shook his head.

"Who else did you tell?"

"Just the kid," Francis whispered.

"Interesting," John replied. "Very interesting." He mulled everything over, then nodded as he made up his mind. "Do they call from a Chicago area code?"

Francis' wide eyes told him everything he needed to know.

⏾⋆. ˚

Morning always came too soon for Mack's taste. He'd always been a night-owl, but the pack kids woke up at the crack of dawn.  I gotta get the fuck out of here,  he thought as he fought to ignore the sounds of beeping toys and singing dolls. He laid in the bunk, mostly because Ashleigh was still asleep, not because he needed or wanted to. She'd been a little touch-and-go since the surgical center, and her memory was patchy beyond what Brandon had led him to believe would be normal. Mack had started to wonder if she weren't suppressing things on purpose. The more he tried to question her about her time with the hunters, the more she seemed to forget the incident entirely. Sometimes, when she thought no one was looking, her expression was dark and he wondered what was going on behind her hollow eyes. But now, asleep in the bunk, she looked placid, perhaps even content.

Can I even tell her about this shit,  he wondered. He thought about John and how he often wore the same hollow expression. Maybe I need to talk to him about PTSD or whatever, find out if he thinks I should even talk to her before I try,  Mack wondered. I still don't know what happened when she was a cop. He thought about the forum-posting John had printed out, and the photo of her as a police officer. There's gotta be news articles, right? Does John already know?

John knows a lot,  the wolf crept into his mind and right back out, leaving Mack unsettled in its wake.

The growls and chaos of little wolves disrupted his thoughts. The sounds of Everett and River's kids grated on his nerves and were a small part of the reason he avoided these kinds of big gatherings at the compound. Travis had assured him that his own children wouldn't have that effect on him, but he wondered about it more and more, whereas before he'd never really entertained the idea of having kids. He peeked over the bunk's railing once again, taking in Ashleigh's placid, deeply asleep face.  I wish I could drive, he tugged on his sling and winced. Memories of Ashleigh, tied up and moaning beneath him in the sleeper filled his mind - until a child threw something down the hallway that loudly bounced off the door and made electronic goat noises when it landed somewhere in the carpet. Ashleigh didn't even twitch in her sleep.

Slipping out of the bunk bed with a sigh he padded out of the room and softly shut the door behind him. Everett sat in a tiny pink beanbag chair silently reading a toddler book to himself, oblivious to the chaos going on around him.

"Do River's kids bother you?" Mack asked, "like, do they drive you kind of nuts?"

Everett looked up at him and frowned.

"Well, yeah," he replied as if this were the stupidest question ever.

"Do your kids drive you crazy like that, too?" Mack asked, hoping Everett would tell him no.

Everett scanned the room before his eyes settled back on Mack's. "Fuck yes," he grumbled quietly before returning to the enthralling storyline of "Red Block, Blue Block."

"Fuck," Mack grumbled, then made his way back to the bunk to sulk and wait for Ashleigh to wake. There were a lot of things he needed to tell her, but he wasn't sure how to broach the subject of the message board, especially when she seemed to be blacking-out her own memory at-will. The photos of her upset him and he couldn't imagine how creeped-out she would be. He also wasn't sure if anyone had told Jana, and he didn't want to get Yosef in trouble if Ashleigh went off and told her before anyone else had the chance.

He slipped back into the bunk room, then almost jumped when Ashleigh opened her eyes and looked up at him. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you," he murmured as he lowered himself onto the bunk beside her.

"It's okay," she whispered and smiled at him, then reached up to push an unruly lock of black hair away from his forehead. "What's going on in there today?" She wondered aloud.

"Ah, is my face giving me away again?" He laughed self-deprecatingly. "Just stressed out from all the noise," and everything else.

"I have an idea," she told him, and he watched as she crawled out of the bunk and retrieved something from her bag. "This bag is the only gift my step-mom ever gave me," she snorted as she rummaged through the backpack. "I'm glad you didn't tell me to leave it at the campsite. I do like it, even if I can't stand her," she muttered. Mack could tell from the tone of her voice that it had meant something to her. Things hadn't worked out between them, but clearly Ashleigh had hoped they would. Perhaps her step-mother had, too. Mack thought the bag looked expensive and he wondered what would lead someone to buy something like that, then send the recipient away.

Once she finished digging around in the bag Ashleigh led him from the bunk room to the bathroom. She locked the door behind them and he watched, mystified, as she dumped what she'd retrieved from her bag onto the counter, then turned on all of the showers. It didn't completely drown out the children, but it dampened the noise considerably and he relaxed a little. Ashleigh was still covered in cuts and bruises, which she reminded him of now as she stripped off her clothing and discarded them on the bathroom floor. She's still fucking gorgeous despite all that,  he thought before he realized he was grinning like a fool. Lean muscles tapered into a soft belly and full hips, sloping gracefully into her pert, round ass and toned thighs. The thought of getting between them again deadened the leftover noise of toys and little-wolf chaos outside the door as his senses zeroed-in on Ashleigh. Turning to him, she flirtatiously beckoned for him to join her in the shower.

Mack looked down at the sling. How much can I really get up to with one arm, he thought, and tried to think of positions they could use without having to tax his injured shoulder.

Let her do the work, idiot,  the wolf snarled at him, urging him on as he removed the sling and his clothes. Mack stretched his injured arm cautiously, wincing a little at first. Surprisingly, it wasn't as bad as he thought it would be, and he wondered if Brandon's estimate for his healing was wrong. Then again, I can't see if the bone healed, so I better behave.

He stepped in to the stream of water with her and she immediately began running her lathered hands over his body. "I really like your tattoos," she whispered, lightly rubbing her soapy hands over them and down his chest, giving each of his nipples a little extra attention. He wiggled and made a funny noise when she touched them, making her grin. "No one's ever done that before," he grimaced and put his hands over them as if to push away the odd sensation, but as soon as his hand was gone Ashleigh's was back for another assault.   "You never said anything about the tattoos, I thought you didn't like them," he quietly admitted, feeling a little more vulnerable than he liked in doing so. But she just smiled a wry grin and fired back with, "I don't get to see you nude and not furry very often, do I?" Then her fingers ran circles around his nipples until he squirmed. His cock twitched, thankfully drawing her attention away from her new fascination.

Her soapy hands worked up and down the length of him, cupping and tickling his balls and the sensitive skin of his inner thighs. He leaned against the wall, thrusting his hips out towards her and grunting as she got into it, stroking him and rinsing away the soap. Mack closed his eyes and tipped his head back, then cried out in surprise when she took him into her mouth, deep-throating him and rapidly bobbing up and down on his cock.

"Oh, holy shit," he whispered, trying not to alert anyone else in the house to what exactly they were up to. He put his hands on her head, thrusting into her mouth and shaking. It had been too long already. Being around her at the compound had driven him a little crazy, despite all the distractions of children, hunters, and constant drama. Whenever something else hadn't been tying up his thoughts, he thought about her and what he wanted to do to her when he finally got into that new truck. "I'm not gonna last long," he warned her, his muscles tightening and relaxing while he fought not to come in her mouth immediately.

He rocked against her chin, sometimes pushing on her to take him deeper, other times stroking her hair and whispering to her. "You're mine," he whispered, clenching his eyes shut as he rode another wave of pleasure, "such a good slut." She moaned too and he looked down, saw that she was rubbing her clit, and sank his fingers into her hair as he lost it. He panted while she licked him clean and swallowed every drop.

"I'm so glad I found you," he whispered, kissing her and tasting himself on her tongue. "What do you want now?" he asked. She held up a finger and went back to the counter, retrieving a tube of something from it. He took it from her, curious about its contents.

"Spermicide," he read aloud. "Jana gave it to me," she whispered, "because of the rules you gave me."

For once you obey, thank God.  He kissed her again and read the directions, and the rate of failure, which immediately flattened his hopes. Please let this shit work,  he thought before flipping open the tube and putting a little on the tips of two of his fingers. "Spread your legs," he growled, and Ashleigh flashed him a wicked grin as she turned and put her hands against the wall, her legs spread wide. He grabbed her ass with one hand and slid the fingers of his other hand inside of her, aiming for her cervix and smearing the lube as deeply inside of her as he could.

Stop that,  the wolf snarled, but Mack ignored him and focused on Ashleigh's moaning instead. He fingered her for a while, enjoying the sensations of her clenching around his fingers and the sound of her begging him for something more. He slid a third finger into her while he looked around the bathroom for solutions. His eyes finally landed on a teak stool that had never been used for anything except holding a few washcloths and a bundle of eucalyptus.

Withdrawing his fingers from her, he left Ashleigh pouting in the water while he retrieved the stool. Mack knocked the clutter from on top of it, then carried it back into the water. He sat down and grabbed his cock, stroking the length of it while she watched. "Come fuck yourself," he ordered. She obediently straddled him, reaching down with one hand to hold herself open. Mack rubbed his tip against her slit until he felt her opening, then held himself there while she lowered herself onto him.

"Oh God," she whispered, "I forgot how big it is." She bit her lip and he grinned as he watched her slowly slide onto his cock. She had only made it halfway down his length before she started to lift up and try again. Mack moved his hands to her hips, "come on, you've had it before." He pushed down on her hips, clenching his jaw as she squeezed over him. Her moan rose dramatically in volume as he pushed into her and Mack was left with no choice but to clamp one hand over her mouth. He was certain Everett, who was still reading in the bean bag chair, knew what they were up to but he was also certain he didn't care. Everett had five kids and he knew by now where they were coming from.

"Come on, slut," Mack whispered again, urging her to ride him. Pulling one of her nipples into his mouth, he bit it gently, then a little harder until she whined and finally began pumping her hips against him. "Be quiet," he hissed, pulling her hair with one hand and spanking her with the other while she bounced on his cock.

"Are you happy with me?" she whispered as she leaned forward and rested her head against his chest, still pumping frantically and rubbing her clit. "Very," he groaned, spanking her, then tipping his chin down to kiss her.

"You can barely take it, but I think you need more," Mack whispered.

"More?"

"I don't want you to forget how to take my knot." She bit his shoulder as he worked a finger into her beside his cock, then another.

"I can't," she panted, but Mack wouldn't take that for an answer and a third finger soon joined the others. She bit him harder and moaned, her thrusts becoming more erratic and less rhythmic as he worked his fingers in her.

"Come for me." He had to pick up the pace he realized as he was losing control of himself, another orgasm coming faster than it normally did. I really needed this, he thought as he pushed his fingers deeper into her and began thrusting upward to meet her halfway.

"Mack, oh my, oh fuck," she moaned and shook in his arms, her legs threatening to give out as she came. She tipped her face up towards his and gave him such an intense look he almost stopped as she bit her lip and dug her fingernails into him with one hand while the other rubbed her clit at light-speed. He wiggled his fingers deeper in her cunt and she squirted, bringing the night in the tent back to his mind. He grinned. "Are you squirting?" he asked, knowing full-well that she was as it ran down his balls and legs. She didn't answer, only blushed and dug her teeth even deeper into her own lip. "You fit me so perfectly," he told her, abruptly withdrawing his fingers, still wet from her pussy and wrapped them around her throat, wildly thrusting into her while she shook in his arms.

His thrusting lifted her feet off the floor and she gripped his arms to hang on. She squirted again and again while he pounded her, his eyes flashing orange as he struggled to control himself. "Not every woman can take an alpha dick like this," his voice was a low growl now, and Ashleigh realized he was starting to shift. "You're still so tight, so wet," he purred, angling himself just right to draw out another squirting orgasm. His cock grew inside of her as he shifted and she had to clamp a hand over her own mouth to keep from crying out as he reached new depths inside of her. "That cream isn't going to stop me from knotting you," he growled, squeezing her throat a little tighter. "If anything, I'm going to fuck you twice as hard."

Ashleigh realized she wasn't fucking Mack anymore -- now the wolf was out and Mack was gone. "I'm sorry," she whispered, "please fuck me harder, I need it," she begged quietly, her voice still seeming to echo in the hollow bathroom. The wolf tossed back his head and closed his eyes, smelling the air around her. "No more of that filthy cream," he growled at her, "it ruins your scent. If you have to thwart me come up with something better." He clamped his hand over her mouth and knotted her roughly, a look of intense satisfaction in his eyes as she melted around him. It wasn't enough, he needed to punish her. Pulling his knot loose, he savagely knotted her again before taking her to the shower floor where he ravaged her. "I want you to beg for mercy," he growled in her ear while he rammed into her, but she shook her head and wrapped her legs around him in answer.

"Tell me to stop, I know you want to," he goaded, but even as he drove her hips into the hard tile of the floor she wouldn't admit defeat. "What do I have to do, huh? Fuck you like I want to kill you? Right now, I do." She stared up at him, eyes wide above the hand that still clamped over her mouth. "You couldn't get away if you wanted to. Don't provoke me again," he warned her, "you won't like how this goes next time." He savored her muffled moans as he impaled her on his knot again, viciously bottoming out and shooting his load into her all at once.

"I hope that gets past that cream, you slut." Grabbing her leg and lifting her ass off the floor, he spanked her roughly, then nipped at her throat. "You submit to me, stop listening to him." The look he gave her was ferocious, clearly meant to intimidate her. Then he went too far.

"No Growler for you."

"What?" She snapped at him, making his nose twitch in annoyance.

"Something about that place I don't like. He can go if he wants, but not you. Not ever."

Ashleigh narrowed her eyes at him, then winced as she pulled away and let his knot slip free. The wolf scowled and grabbed at her waist, "you leave that in there until I say so," he started to snarl, until she reached out and smacked him on the nose.

"Bad wolf," she snarled right back at him. "I submit to you because I want to. We both know you're afraid of me, just like everyone else."

He recoiled, confusion distorting his features.

"You don't tell me what to do. I'll rescind my submission whenever I want. You can be out on the prowl tonight if you want but until Mack comes back you're in time-out with me." Ashleigh finished her shower in silence and was surprised when she turned around again to find Mack, back in his human-form, staring at her in stunned silence.

"Can you do that more often?"

She frowned. "Why, do you get off on it or something?"

"No," Mack shook his head, "he's quiet, like... silent."

Ashleigh toweled off and grinned at him. "He's just licking his wounds. I'm sure he'll be even more of an asshole when he comes back."

⏾⋆. ˚

John had been up most of the night cross-referencing data from the forums, his notes, and the information he'd gotten out of the blood-soaked wallets Travis had left him with. He scratched two names off his list, then added one, and scratched it off, too. Eventually he'd passed out on the couch for a while, sleep embracing him like a neglected lover. He drifted through the sky, peacefully at first. He loved the rush of each jump, then panic seized him as he realized his parachute should be open by now. His limbs moved slowly as if through mud while he struggled to deploy the reserve chute. Nothing happened.

He thrashed in the air, punching at the reserve chute until the spring finally gave. It was too late - he knew he might live but he could see the injury coming before it happened. Worse than that he'd gone off-course during his struggle with the chute and slammed into the tree-line, his right hip driving into a tree as his parachute caught in the branches. His back jarred painfully as the chute tore, then caught on something again, stopping his uncontrolled fall with a hard jerk. Pain racked through his body as he swung in the tree. I can cut myself down, he thought, but my back can't take the fall, I don't think...

Hours passed. Lights moved in the dark forest below him. "He's right there," someone whispered.

John jerked awake. He'd had this dream a thousand times since the accident and no one had ever whispered that before. Listening closely to the apartment around him, he realized something moved on the stairs that led from the bar up to his apartment. Is someone still here?  He replayed the events of the evening before, like the mess he and the others had made in the apartment getting rid of Francis and that kid that was helping him. No one had stayed behind after that. Some had tried, but John hated company. There shouldn't be anyone else here,  he thought, carefully reaching into the gap between the cushions to feel for what he always kept stashed there. His fingers closed around a knife and he waited, closing his eyes and pretending to be asleep.

After a few minutes of quiet the air shifted in the apartment. He knew the door was open now. The building was old and the floor squeaked, but he pretended not to notice. He counted footsteps belonging to two people. Ten feet away. Six feet away. Three feet. He exploded upward and elbowed the first person in the throat. As soon as he confirmed he didn't know these men he turned the second man into a human pincushion, rapidly stabbing into his guts and kicking him away to contend with the first one. John turned to face the first assailant who had started to recover, then recalculated as a third appeared at the top of the stairs. Spotting a gun in one of his hands, John threw the knife at him and bought himself a few seconds to hit the floor. Glass exploded somewhere in the apartment as an errant bullet struck a window. Guess I brought a knife to a gunfight, he thought as he thrust his hand between the cushions again and grabbed one of several pistols stashed throughout the apartment. His entire apartment was full of hidden holsters and hiding spots like these - whoever had done this didn't know him well enough to know they shouldn't try. He fired a few shots through an armchair and grinned as the sound of a body thumping down the stairs met his ears. The first man raised something over John's head and caught a bullet in the gut and one between the eyes for his efforts. Rolling under the coffee table allowed John to avoid him as his body collapsed onto the rug.

The man he'd aerated groaned, bleeding out, but for now, still alive. John scrambled to him and grabbed his throat, warning him that more pain would follow if he didn't cooperate. "Who sent you?"

"Fuck off," the man sputtered.

"Not original," John snarled, lifting the man's head and slamming it into the hardwood floor of the apartment. "Tell me who sent you or I'll slice off your dick. It wouldn't be the first time so don't think I won't."

The man's eyes shifted upward and John realized too late he should have cleared the bar instead of trying to interrogate the bleeder. Something hit him hard and even though he fought it, eventually, everything went dark.

He was falling through the sky again, catching in the tree, then groaning as the branches whipped across his face. Gradually he realized he was awake, the branches whipping him across the face shifting into the hands of a man he didn't recognize.

"Come on, Walker," the man taunted him, "rise and shine."

John spat blood onto the floor between his feet. His vision swam a bit but it wasn't his first concussion. Won't be my last, either,  he thought as he eyed the human standing in the middle of his apartment.

"Did you really think you could play both sides against the middle and get away with it?" The man chuckled and waved a gun around, his finger carelessly perched on the trigger.

"Keep your booger hooks off the bang button, would ya?" John growled at him

"You Army fucks are all the same," the man sneered, ignoring John's advice. "Just a bunch of alcoholic fuck-ups that don't know when to quit."

John grinned. "Maybe you're not the dumbest man alive after all."

"No," the man agreed, "I'm pretty sure that honor is reserved for you. So, who all are you working for? I know about your little fuck boys and the gang, who else?"

"They aren't my fuck boys," John retorted. "Nothing against it, but I don't go for men." And if I did I wouldn't go for any eighteen-year-olds,  he thought.

"Sure. They sure squealed on you, told me all kinds of interesting things."

"People usually do say whatever you want when you hurt them enough," John mused aloud while wondering if Prodigy and Vicious had already been eliminated. "That doesn't necessarily mean any of it is true, however. You'd probably know that if you were one of us Army fucks."

The man grinned, then lashed out at John, hitting him hard with a closed fist. "You think you're so smart, don't you? Yet here you are, caught."

"Caught, but not talking. You might as well give up."

"Oh, you'll talk," the man waved his finger in John's face, "just give it some time."

John rolled his eyes then took stock of his surroundings. He'd knocked off two of his assailants at least, both of them lying bloodied on the floor at his feet, and he didn't see the one he'd shot on the stairs. His hands were bound to a wooden dining chair, but he knew a few things about that chair that this guy didn't: Number one, the glue holding the back of it together had given up years ago, and number two, there was a holster with another lightweight Ruger tucked away inside and fastened to the bottom of the chair. Afternoon light and snowflakes filtered in through the broken kitchen window and John could tell from the angle of the sunlight on the floor of the apartment that it was nearly 4 PM. "The bar opens in a couple hours," he warned the human, "but daylight is fading fast and some of the regulars always show up early. You better get to work, tough guy."

The man perched on the arm of one of John's couches and grinned, tilting his head to the side as if he'd just had an idea. "I could just wait until the regulars start showing up and show 'em all those creepy little files you've been keeping. Ask if anyone recognizes this phone," he held aloft Ashleigh's phone, "or this one." He reached into his pocket and pulled out the other phone that John had left charging in the hotel room. So he really did get in there after all. Shit.

"How long have you been following me today?" John nodded at Ashleigh's phone, or what remained of it. "I tossed that pile of junk on the way here. How'd you find it?" The Uber car must have been tracked,  John surmised. But how, and who tracked it? My phone? The man ignored him and returned with one of his own questions.

"How much did you get paid to track her down and retrieve her phone?" John shrugged and didn't answer.

"Who paid you to do it?"

Again, John shrugged.

The human lost his patience and hit him a few more times which only drew rough barks of laughter out of John. He'd never had an issue keeping secrets and his training had only reinforced his naturally secretive personality. This guy would never get anything out of John, but all John had to do was get him flustered enough to let something slip.

"Hey, I have a better question," John announced, "who is paying you to bother me, and better yet, how much do you get paid for a suicide mission like this?" He laughed as the man scowled and hit him again. "I'm just wondering if it's time to raise my rates. Let's compare notes, one dipshit to another!"

"No matter," the human ignored him, then moved some things around on the couch. John hadn't noticed them before but now he spotted several photos and a pile of notebooks and file folders. I really should have locked that shit up somehow, he thought as the man sifted through it, touching some of John's most private things.

"Who is she? Is she a wolf?" The human held aloft a photo of a face John wished he could forget.

"Nah, not a wolf," he answered quietly, grinning bitterly as he did.

The man held it up and studied it for a moment, then grinned at John. "I'll find her, find out for myself. How's that sound to you?"

John shrugged. "You'd have to go to Hell to find her, and I was already planning on sending you there. Tell her I said 'hi' when you see her."

Clearly annoyed by having hit on nothing but a sad memory, the man shuffled through some of the files before he turned back to John and asked, "who is Travis Fortier to you?"

John debated saying nothing, but he just couldn't help himself. "One of my fuck boys," he answered, laughing even as the human pistol-whipped him. John spat out a tooth and grinned, big and bloody. "You don't actually know shit from Shinola, do you? What are you, a freelancer? Or does the gang call you a 'private contractor'?"

"I'll ask the questions," the man said, his demeanor giving away that John had clearly hit a nerve. "I'm going to ask you one more question, then I'm going to get that baseball bat over there and fuck you up real good," the man threatened, gesturing at the bat John always kept behind the apartment door. John shrugged. He doubted it would have anything on falling out of the sky without a parachute. "Who is the big Persian hanging around Jana Fortier?"

John licked the blood from his lips and smiled before he leaned forward and whispered, "My newest fuck boy."

"Alright, that's enough of your smart mouth," the man said as he stood, then froze as the sound of car doors slamming met his ears.

"I told you they show up early."