Love at First Gear Ch. 14

This chapter isn't spicy. If you want spice, try chapters: 1, 2, 3, 5, 10, or 13.

I really appreciate everyone's support for this story. I've just about finished the final chapter of it and will keep posting chapters here until the whole thing is up. Since I wrote the start of this story I've written a lot more and learned some things, and eventually I want to rewrite this story with what I've learned. But I won't make you wait for that. I plan to submit chapter 15 in the end of August, but I don't really know what will happen because I am still dealing with neuroendocrine cancer. Your encouragement really means a lot right now - so thank you. - Ava

─────

Something was eating at Mack. Although the wolf sometimes got control of his mouth Mack was never far away. He'd heard everything that it had said to Ashleigh in the shower and now he, too, had a bad feeling about The Growler. At the first opportunity he pulled Yosef aside.

"I think we should call John," he whispered, looking over his shoulder to make sure they were alone. Yosef gave him a look of questioning and Mack lowered his voice even more. "I don't know why but I have a weird feeling. Let's go in the office and just check on him, see if he has any new information for us." Yosef shrugged and followed Mack into the office, then listened as The Growler's phone rang and rang.

"Come on, John," Mack grumbled, "wake up and answer the phone, you drunk." He dialed again. And again.

"Something's wrong," Yosef told him, laying his hand over the phone as Mack started to dial a fourth time. "It's after four and he preps all the snacks before opening. There's no way he's not awake."

"He could be outside," Mack offered. Yosef nodded but still looked hesitant. "Maybe we should go check it out."

In desperation Mack picked up the phone and dialed one more time. Still no answer. "I guess we have to go over there," he reluctantly admitted, "but there's no way Ashleigh will stay here. And if she won't stay, Jana won't stay."

"Let's tell them what's going on. Maybe they'll agree to stay home," Yosef offered optimistically.

Of course they didn't. The Land Rover, slap-full of on-edge lycans, sped down the highway toward The Growler with Travis at the wheel. Mack still dialed The Growler over and over on Travis' cell phone, still getting no answer. Occasionally he shot a sideways glance at Ashleigh, who clutched her backpack in her lap and pointedly ignored him. Mack and Yosef had reluctantly filled her and Jana in on everything, and now both of the women were angry at both of the men. He wondered how long it would take her to get over it. His pleas that he'd just been busy and couldn't find the right time hadn't covered much mileage with her, and if she didn't forgive him he realized they'd have to have another difficult conversation.

"If someone did something to him, do you know what this means?" Travis' eyes never left the road as he spoke. He pushed the car to its limit, not caring if the cops saw him.

"There was a third person," Yosef answered. "And this is bigger than the two from last night."

"Bingo!" yelled Travis, obviously itching for a fight now. He violently passed a slow-moving car and took the last curve between them and The Growler at speed. The Land Rover slid into the bar's gravel parking lot, empty except for John's motorcycle and a black car none of them recognized.

"That shouldn't be at a biker bar," Mack mused aloud. "Check it out," Travis ordered him. They'd already agreed that Ashleigh would stay with Mack, Jana would go wherever Yosef went, and Travis and River would go together. Everett was a loose cannon and could lone-wolf it, like he usually did. Travis, followed by River, stalked up the porch and pushed on the door. It gave without turning the knob, and Mack watched as the two battle-hardened wolves drew their guns and headed into the bar. They reminded him of actors in a movie, clearing the doorway before slipping silently inside. He'd never been in the military and never had that kind of training. He was probably better off outside in the parking lot sniffing out a strange car, he figured.

Yosef and Jana stayed with him, Yosef helping him break a window and get into the car while Everett disappeared around the back of the bar. No one ever knew what the Hell he was up to and it was no clearer to Mack now than it had ever been before. "Smells human," Yosef muttered, unlocking the doors and climbing into the back while Mack tore apart the front of the car looking for anything to identify the owner. Ashleigh and Jana exchanged nervous glances occasionally. They were supposed to be look-outs, but they kept looking at the bar and wondering what was going on inside. "It's too quiet," Jana said. Ashleigh had no idea what it should be like, but couldn't shake the feeling that something was seriously amiss.

"Why haven't they said anything yet? If the bar is empty and John's not here they should have said something by now," Mack worried aloud while he went through the contents of the glovebox. "What if--" Ashleigh began to suggest they should leave the car and go inside when Everett reappeared and stomped up the porch to the bar.

"Four inside," he yelled at Mack.

"Four what?"

"Four humans."

A jolt moved through the four lycans gathered around the car as they realized Travis and River might be outnumbered. "Fuck this," Mack growled, and Yosef nodded in agreement. They thundered up the steps behind Everett, the ladies hesitantly bringing up the rear. Everett kicked the door open and peered inside. Everything was still except for the flashing neon lights that John never bothered to turn off. "Spread out," Everett whispered, and they fanned through the bar looking under tables and in closets. Jana headed to the kitchen and Ashleigh ventured down the hallway to the bathroom. She had no idea where anything was in the building or what any of it should look like. Was it normally this dark in the hallway? Her heart pounded wildly in her chest as she approached a door. Taking a deep breath she reached out and pushed it open, then exhaled slowly when she confirmed it was just an empty bathroom. "Nothing back here," she called out, moving quickly to rejoin the others in the center of the bar and get far away from the dark hallway.

"I wish I had a gun," Mack grumbled as they streamed into the storage room with the staircase in it. "Knowing John there's probably guns everywhere in here, if you know where to look," Everett told him, pausing as his eyes fell on the body at the bottom of the stairs. "There's one," he shrugged as he picked up the dead man's dropped weapon and headed up the stairs.

"Jesus Christ," Mack muttered to Ashleigh, pushing her behind him and heading up behind Everett.

─────

"I told you they show up early."

John stood swiftly, then slammed the chair into the hardwood floor. The back of the chair easily gave and the human, distracted by the sound of the pack's arrival, hadn't reacted quickly enough to fend off John's unarmed attack. The two men grappled each other, the human desperately trying to get his gun between them while John fought to get him into a headlock. "I'd love to know who you are, but I can't let you control the narrative," John grunted as he finally got one of his arms under the man's chin. With a hard jerk it was over. The gun clattered onto the floor and the man went limp, his dead weight throwing off John's already shaky balance. Too many hits to the head, he thought as he tumbled backward into a table, groaning when he felt his shoulder hit the corner of it and dislocate.

The door opened cautiously and he waved weakly at Travis with his good hand. He watched as River and Travis swept the apartment before coming to his aid. "Looks like you had some fun in here," Travis said as he knelt down to check John's injuries. "You know these visitors?" he asked, gesturing at the bodies that littered the apartment floor. John shook his head. "I have a lot of things I need to fess up about," he panted and winced as pain shot through his shoulder.

Everett crested the stairs just as Travis finished moving John's arm through a series of motions, the shoulder finally settling back into place with a crunch and a loud groan from John.

"Now I have two guys in slings," Travis grumbled. "At least your teeth will grow back," he told John as he knelt and picked one up from the apartment floor. "Do you want an audience or do you want to talk to me in private?"

It was too late. In the wreckage of the room Mack's eyes immediately fell on his ruined cell phone. "Where the fuck did this come from?" he asked, stooping to pick it up. John shut his eyes and exhaled sharply. "Let me explain."

Ashleigh reached out to hold Mack back but was surprised when he stood frozen to the spot, staring John down. "I'm waiting," he growled.

"I know you all noticed things have really slipped around here. The truth is I'm only here at night. I've spent my days and the nights the bar has been closed on a side project." Wincing, he reached across the couch where Travis had propped him up and grabbed one of the notebooks and a folder, flipping both open onto the coffee table in front of him. "I was working with a gang, really a pack, that traffics she-wolves. Or, at least, they thought I was working with them. What I was really up to was trying to track down who was funding these bounties." With his foot he kicked the folder closer to Mack.

Mack stooped and picked up the folder, flipping through it without understanding what any of it meant. "Why were you tracking us? You could have just asked Travis--"

"I didn't know it was you, not at first. And then I couldn't let the people I was working for know I knew exactly where she was, because finding her was not my goal. I had to make it look like we were strangers, Mack, for your safety and hers."

"What was the goal?" Travis scowled as his eyes perused the piles of documents spread over the couch. His gaze stopped on a photo of Sierra, John's dead mate.

John followed his gaze and laid his hand over the photo for a moment, then crushed it in his hand. "Like I said, the goal was to find out who put the bounty on her in the first place. I can kill hunters and traffickers all day, every single day, and never make it stop. But if I could find who was putting these ridiculous bounties out--"

"That's what the hunters were talking about in the car," Ashleigh mused aloud. Mack stared at her for a moment. Now she remembers something, he thought bitterly.

"I've known about the message boards and the bounties for a long time, just not this exact message board," John murmured.

Travis stared at him incredulously for a moment. "There are others? You knew about this? For how long? And you didn't bother to give any of us a heads-up?"

John hung his head. Some of the other pack members voiced their anger and confusion as well, all of them feeling differing amounts of betrayal. After a few minutes of tense confrontation Yosef stepped in, unable to believe that John would do anything to harm them. "You couldn't say anything because you were working in secret, yes?"

John sighed and eventually nodded his head. "I should have said something anyway. I just worried someone would figure out who I was and then the whole thing would fall apart, or someone else would get hurt." Leaning forward he flipped the pages in the notebook and looked up at Mack. "There were hunters after you, Mack. This old-school guy, Ben," he pointed at a picture of Ben that he'd printed off the Internet, "killed your uncle a few weeks back and was bragging about it online, saying he wanted to nail another Tucker before he retired. I think they tried to recruit Ben or his crew to help, once they figured out you two were together."

Mack could feel the moment Ashleigh put two-and-two together beside him. "Was your uncle your actual dad?" she whispered.

"That was the rumor," Mack shrugged. "It's really gonna piss off my cousin when he realizes he's only the second-oldest--"

"And not inheriting the gifts," Travis finished. Mack nodded.

"Shit, I'm sorry, dude," John apologized, "I wasn't trying to dig up family intrigue with all this, I swear."

Mack shrugged. "My mom always liked to screw around, but so did my dad. Not a surprise, honestly. Also makes a little more sense..." he trailed off, not wishing to unearth the way his "father" had always beaten him for every tiny infraction. Everyone here didn't need to know - Travis knew, and that was enough.

"We need to talk, Ashleigh, so I can figure out who sponsored the bounty on you," John continued, "and I don't wish to air out your family business in front of everyone."

Ashleigh shrugged. "Fuck them. This is my family now."

Mack squeezed her hand and tipped his head to plant a kiss just above her ear. "I can make everyone leave if you want," he whispered, but she shook her head.

"My dad had money of his own. He inherited my grandpa's lumber mill, but that conniving bitch he married, Beth, she's loaded."

Travis' gaze shot to Mack's eyes where he saw similar thoughts to his own beginning to form. Before he could follow them the sound of a car crunching over the frosty gravel of The Growler's parking lot met their ears. Mack quickly walked to the broken kitchen window and peered out at The Growler's parking lot. A gray luxury sedan pulled in, crunching a track in the patches of frozen snow as it parked between the Defender and the black car.

"Everyone downstairs," Travis ordered, hanging behind to help John. "You should just stay up here, you're in no shape," he argued with him, but John wouldn't stop for anything. "We need to find you a mate before you get yourself killed and lose your bloodline," Travis groused as John clumsily stomped down the stairs beside him.

"I already told you I'm not doing that ever again," John muttered at him, "so get my dick off of your mind." The pack leader laughed, momentarily putting aside his growing unease. As they exited the storage room into the bar heavy footsteps sounded on the porch. A large man approached and pushed open the broken door.

"Ashleigh." Mack recognized the tone of voice, but not the man. This was a father, a disappointed one, speaking to his child. He bore almost no resemblance to Ashleigh. There was a little something of him in her hair color, but that was all.

"Noah," she replied, not deigning to call him "dad."

"I want to talk to you alone," he told Ashleigh sternly, but she shook her head. "How did you even find me here? You've been lying to me about a lot, you need to explain yourself."

"I will explain everything, but in private."

"We can sit over there by ourselves and talk, but I'm not sending them away," she told him firmly. He eyeballed the assembled lycans and finally nodded, agreeing to follow Ashleigh to a booth in the corner farthest from the door.

"I take it you figured out what you are, since you found a pack." He didn't bother to ease into the conversation. Typical, Ashleigh thought as she sat across from him. Seeing his face again opened wounds that weren't as old as she would have liked, but she nodded and tried to stuff her anger away to be dealt with later.

"That's good," he sighed, "I wasn't sure how I was ever going to bring it up if you didn't figure it out on your own. You're so damn stubborn and cynical about everything, I knew you'd never believe me."

Ashleigh narrowed her eyes. "How did you find me? You still haven't explained that."

Noah cleared his throat and and refused to meet her gaze. "You know that nice backpack Beth gave you for your birthday?"

Ashleigh shifted in her seat.

"It was manufactured for someone with special needs, like kids who run away. Or werewolves who don't know what they are. Beth's idea, but I agreed with it."

She glared at him. "What does that mean?"

"It's trackable," he shrugged. "I've been tracking you, asked a few people to help. I knew it wouldn't be a good idea to approach that house you were staying at. They told me it's a compound or something, full of lycans. I tried to call you, but that didn't work. This was my first opportunity."

A noise emanated from where John sat at the bar.

Ignoring it, Noah forged ahead. "Look, I think you misunderstood my intentions and I'm here to apologize and take you home."

Now Ashleigh laughed, rudely and loudly. "I am home. I'm not going anywhere with you."

"Oh, I think you will once you hear what I have to say."

The pack hung around the bar, a few of them tending to John's injuries, but she knew they were being quiet so they could eavesdrop. It warmed her heart a little that they cared about something as stupid and aggravating as a conversation with her egomaniacal father.

"Well, let's hear it, then," she taunted him, "what is it that you have to say that's so great?"

"I should have been honest with you from the start, and I'm sorry about that," he admitted in a tone that wasn't sorry at all, "but Beth only wanted what was best for you. I never expected you to actually choose leaving when I gave you that ultimatum. I've been trying to pay people to bring you home but that hasn't worked out yet, so I'm here to take control of the situation."

"How is ordering me around and treating me like a domestic servant 'best' for me?"

Exhaling in annoyance, he tightened his mouth a little before explaining. "She was trying to get you to embrace a more domesticated life--"

"Ew," Ashleigh interjected.

"--because she knew what you are and wanted to help you find a good match."

Ashleigh rolled her eyes, realizing as she did that Mack was glaring dangerously at the back of her dad's head.

"I found my own match, thanks," she fired back, but he shook his head.

"I don't give my permission for it. I promised you to someone else."

"That ship has already sailed," Ashleigh grated at him, her muscles tensing more with each mention of an arranged match. What the Hell is wrong with him, she wondered.

"Did he mark you?" He turned now and glared at Mack, and Ashleigh wondered how he even knew it was Mack. Her eyes met Mack's and she watched as his jaw shifted a bit. "I didn't think so," her father said smugly as he turned back to face her. "One of those new-age wolves, I take it. So, that settles it: Get in the car."

"I already told you I'm not going with you. You can get in that car all by yourself and drive back to wherever you came here from. Go tell whoever you promised me to that you made a mistake."

He laughed at that before leaning in to snarl at her, "you'll get in the car or I'll use my considerable resources to make life Hell for all these people. And not just mine - Beth's brother will be very unhappy with you, and the big guy, especially." He jerked his thumb over his shoulder to indicate Mack. "I suggest you shut your mouth right now and get in the car, no more arguments, or you'll make things very bad for these nice people here. Besides," he glanced over his shoulder at Mack, "he's an alpha, right? He can get another woman by sundown. He won't even miss you."

Ashleigh knew that probably wasn't true but his words still hit something inside of her. She thought about what Mack had snapped at her in the hotel room, that when he told her to she would have to run and leave him behind for her own safety. He would do this for me, she realized.

"She's mine," Mack snarled, taking a few steps forward before Ashleigh rose from the booth.

"Fine," she said stiffly. "I'll go with you, but you have to promise to leave these people alone."

"You're not leaving," Mack growled at her.

"You don't get to decide for me," Ashleigh told him.

"That's actually the very definition of our arrangement," Mack barked at her. "I don't trust him and I'm not letting you leave with him, so if you won't listen to me I'll have no choice except to go with you."

"Mack," John's voice held a warning but Mack shrugged him off.

"You absolutely will not," Ashleigh's father gruffly laughed at the suggestion. "What would I want you for? Be smart and stay out of this or she'll be the one to suffer for it." Mack's eyes smoldered as he watched Ashleigh's father put a hand on her back and push her towards the door of The Growler before he nodded at Travis. "Thanks for watching out for my daughter."

Mack watched them leave, then followed to look out the window. He watched Ashleigh obediently climb into the back seat of the car while her father opened the door of the Land Rover and retrieved the backpack she'd insisted on bringing from the campsite. I should have made her dump it and the computer, he thought angrily, full of her life's work or not. If I made one mistake, that was the one I couldn't make. He punched the wall beside the door, barely managing to rein himself back in before the pack had to intervene. A woman waited in the car, her stepmother, he figured, then wondered who the Hell she was.

"What just happened? Are we seriously just letting him take her? Dad!" Jana yelled as the car crunched back through the frosted gravel out of the parking lot.

"We need to figure out who that woman is," Travis told John. "Are you fit enough to do your creepy stalker shit?"

"Tonight I will be, definitely," John nodded. "I need time to get my gear together, figure out what the humans took, and how to track that backpack." Despite the aches in his body he stood and turned to hobble back up the stairs to reorder the chaotic paperwork in the apartment. Before he could leave Jana erupted.

"Are you seriously just letting them go? You're not even going to start tracking them right now before they're so far gone we can't find her? Don't you care at all?" She reached for Travis' coat pocket where she knew the keys to the Land Rover were waiting, but he grabbed her hand and held it firmly in his grasp.

"Don't talk to me like that. I can't act rashly until I know for certain what they intend to do with her."

Jana stood staring at him, his hand still locked around her wrist until she yanked it away. "What are you hiding? What do you think is going on? He just said he arranged a marriage, do you think there's more to it?"

The pack leader ran his tongue over his teeth, studying something on the wall behind Jana's head while the pack around him grew increasingly restless. "I just think something doesn't add up."

"You're still leavin' shit out." Mack's voice was quiet but dangerous as he turned his attention fully on the pack's leader. "I have to go after her--"

"Don't," Travis shook his head vigorously. "We'll figure out where they took her and get her back out, but we need to have a plan, figure out what her dad is actually capable of."

Mack scowled at him for a long time, then shook his head. "It doesn't matter. I'm not waiting for your permission to do anything ever again," he growled, thinking over and regretting every time he'd listened to Travis. "I never should have listened to you! I should have marked her!"

"You might have killed her, Mack! Stop reacting and think," Travis pleaded with him, but it was no use.

Mack ignored him and turned his attention to John. "Where are the keys for that black car?"

John shrugged. "I don't know which one of the humans was driving, but I don't think anyone should drive it. Could be tracked, reported already, I don't know." Paranoia was eating at John. A trackable backpack, he thought. What else is trackable? His gaze slid around the bar as he considered each piece of electronic equipment contained within its walls.

"Can I borrow your motorcycle?"

John nodded, "I just put gas in it and aired up the tires last week. The keys and my helmet are in the hallway. Be careful, it's slicker than shit out there."

"Don't help him," Travis snapped, but John just shrugged at him while Mack crammed John's helmet onto his own head.

"Mack, you're not cleared to drive," Travis tried again, but in response Mack ripped the sling off and threw it at him before he flipped him the bird. He stormed out of the bar without looking back and slammed the door behind himself.

"I can't believe you're scared," Jana muttered, "we should be on the road right now trying to follow that car." She shot him another dirty look, then brushed past him to hurry ahead of John up the stairs. "Let's figure out where her dad is taking her, John," she called out, biting her tongue at the thought of saying anything more that might rub the salt in her father's wounds. At least Mack had wasted no time, and they could all hear the cold motorcycle start after a few tries. Travis closed his eyes and said a prayer, for whatever it was worth, that Mack would be fine or come to his senses. When the motorcycle roared onto the highway back in the direction of the shop he sighed, his shoulders sagging in defeat.

Travis ignored the stares of Yosef, River, and Everett as he moved to try and secure the bar's broken door. "People will be here soon," he muttered to anyone listening. "I have no idea what we're goin' to tell 'em."

"The truth," Yosef blurted out in a tone of exasperation. "This is enough secrets. If everybody would just talk to each other none of this would be happening." After a minute he softened a little. "I actually don't know that, but maybe it would be better."

"Maybe they can help us," Everett offered. Travis quirked an eyebrow at him. Everett was an avowed pessimist and the last person to ever ask for anything from anyone. "We're in seriously deep shit, Travis," Everett scowled at him, "so quit lookin' at me like that and open up your heart or whatever." He grumbled and walked around behind the bar where he poured himself a couple shots of whiskey. "Gotta wash that shit right outta my mouth," he raised a shot glass in a toast to himself, winking at River when he caught his gaze in the mirrored back bar.

The sound of footsteps rumbled down the stairs again as Jana, followed at a little distance by John, reappeared with armloads of messy paperwork. "We need somewhere to spread this out where there isn't broken glass, couch stuffing, and blood everywhere," she huffed as she spread her armload out on the bar, leaving John to start sorting through it while she went upstairs to retrieve more.

As soon as she was gone John turned to Yosef. "Keep her busy. I'm going to tear that car apart, see if the humans knew anything about that backpack." Yosef nodded and watched John limp out of the bar. Good thing we didn't go through it much, Yosef thought, John knows what he's looking for, I hope. Yosef helped Jana get the rest of the errant paperwork out of the apartment, then watched as she began trying to collate the mess.

It was dark when John finally returned to the bar empty-handed. "Nothing?" Yosef asked. John shook his head. "A dead end," Yosef murmured, "sorry."

Before long Jana and John were busily sorting paperwork into chronological order while Yosef and Travis bumped and thumped overhead, cleaning up the gory mess in the apartment. Jana tried not to laugh while River cursed at the broken lock on the door, pausing occasionally to blow heat onto his cold hands. "Let me do it," Everett made an attempt to grab the tools from River and sighed when the older man yanked his hand out of reach. "I'm the one fuckin' this monkey, you just hold the tail," he snarled at him before thrusting the door back into Everett's hands for him to hold it steady. Jana snorted before she lifted a page and came to the crumpled photo of John's dead mate.

"What do you want me to do with this?" She was too-aware of the impact Sierra had had on John, and while she hated the woman, she didn't want to do anything that would upset John. Not when it came to Sierra.

"Throw it out," he told her dismissively, not bothering to even look up.

"Are you sure?" She gave him her most sympathetic look, hoping he would meet her eyes and understand it was okay if he wasn't ready to throw it away, and okay to talk to her if he needed to. Instead he shrugged, then nodded.

"Yeah, get rid of it. You heard your dad. I need to move on."

She nodded and slipped it into the trash beneath the bar. The bar was silent for a few minutes, other than the sounds of shuffling paperwork and River tinkering with the door. "Aha," he finally muttered quietly and the sound of the door clicking shut made them all smile. "Good," John groaned as he stood, wincing as he tested his bruised limbs, "now I don't feel so bad about leaving all of you in the cold."

Without another word he turned and slipped into the storage room to climb the stairs to his apartment. Travis and Yosef had gotten the bodies out into the backyard of the bar but the wooden planks of the apartment floor were still stained with blood. The round braided rug beneath the coffee table was stained, too, and most of the furniture was damaged or stained. John stood, taking it all in for a few seconds, then sighed and moved to his bedroom where he shut the door behind himself. He quickly stripped out of his bloody clothing and scrubbed the dried blood from his skin in the shower. His head still felt a little shaky but he knew he would have to make do.

I have to get back to the hotel, he went over his plan as he dressed in a long-sleeved black shirt, black pants, and combat boots before checking a tactical vest for its stock of throwing knives and ammo. I have to figure out how much of this is random and how much of it is connected. He put the vest on and threw a black coat over the top before raking his fingers through his brown hair and evaluating himself in the mirror again. With his coat on his colorful tattoo-sleeves were covered and he was just another standard-issue, brown-haired, hazel-eyed man. Perfect.

Grabbing two of his favorite guns and the hotel key card, he slipped them into the vest and gave himself one last glance in the mirror. He looked rough, but wasn't in the worst shape he'd ever been in. I fell out of a plane once, he smirked as he thought it, then turned and exited the bedroom. The apartment didn't look much better than before and he briefly wondered if he'd have to paint the hardwood floor to get rid of the stains. Maybe my days here at The Growler are finally coming to an end, he thought as he rumbled down the stairs in his heavy boots. The hot shower had helped a little with the residual aches and pains from his beating and the realization that people had started showing up to the bar gave him another reason to do his best to act normal.

"Hey sarge," he called out to River, who immediately yanked his head up from the papers spread across the bar and gave him a, "what's up" nod. "You're the getaway driver, and my lookout." River nodded and snatched the Land Rover keys up from the bar. "See y'all later," he waved at the patrons as he followed John out.

"Where we headed?" River asked as he started the car. "Downtown," John answered without explanation. After a few miles John turned on the radio and searched until he found a heavy metal station. "You expectin' a fight or something?" River asked, smirking in the growing darkness inside the car, but John just shrugged. "I don't know what I'm expecting anymore." It was true. For months he'd thought he was in control of everything, then a human who somehow knew too much and nothing all at once had upended his whole plan.

When they arrived at the hotel John instructed River to pull into the back parking lot and park in a corner where the street lamp had burned out. "Wait here. If I don't signal you within five minutes, leave." He pointed at a window to indicate which one River should watch and the two men nodded at each other before John left, silently slipping into the early winter night. As he moved toward the hotel he pulled a mask out of his coat pocket. It was the same as the ones Prodigy and Vic wore when they handled their pack's shady dealings - a black mask with a wolf skull's bony maw printed on it in white. He knew if he encountered anyone from the gang it might buy him a few seconds to drop them before they recognized his scent or the eyes above the mask.

His room was paid up through the week, so he wasn't surprised when the key card unlocked the door. Determined not to make the same mistake he'd made earlier, he swept the room and made certain he was alone. It wasn't fair to say the room had been tossed - it had been scoured. Almost everything John had brought with him was gone, meaning it was all in his apartment at The Growler now, or left somewhere else. The question of where it all was haunted him. He wouldn't know for sure if it had all been inadvertently returned to him until Jana finished putting it back into order, if she could. He hated the idea of his files being spread out on the bar for all of the patrons to see, but the idea that anyone else might get hurt bothered him more. The realization that some of his files might still be in enemy hands was even worse.

Feeling around in his vest he found the lock-picking set he knew was always in it and went to work on the door that separated his suite from the room occupied by Vic and Prodigy. This was the real test. If Vic's dad had hired the guy that supposedly "interrogated" Beavis and Butthead before busting up John, he figured the hotel room would be vacant or at least occupied by someone besides Vic and Prodigy. After all, why pay for a room no one is going to use?

The lock was cheap and easily picked, and John was soon cautiously swinging open the door. The room on the other side was still and dark, and once satisfied that no one was currently in it, he crept forward to investigate. It held a musty odor that reminded him of a mens' locker room but there was no sign of the two teenagers or their stuff. The beds bore fresh linens and the whole room was reset, ready to welcome new guests. So they left early enough for housekeeping to clean the room. What is that, ten, eleven? Fuckers.

He prowled to the window and parted the curtains ever so slightly, giving River the "all-clear" signal until River flashed the headlights once to indicate he'd seen that John was safely inside and alone. Then he shut the curtains and went over the room, looking under the mattresses and peering in the closets for anything housekeeping might have missed. There was nothing left, and John swore as he accepted he'd been double-crossed and his own duplicity had been found out.

I could have done a better job of all this if I'd not had to divide my time between this and The Growler, he thought bitterly as he left the second suite and locked the shared door behind him. Back in his own room he assessed what remained. The bag he'd left in the room had been ransacked and he growled when he discovered they'd stolen the expensive set of throwing knives he'd left in it. It was bad enough that they had messed with his notebooks and all of his notes from stalking and spying on packs like Prodigy's, but it was salt in the wound that they'd also stolen his gear. The coffee cup still sat on the table where he'd been reading Ashleigh's texts and otherwise the room seemed normal, but something still nibbled at John's mind.

He packed whatever remained of his belongings into the bag and slung it over his shoulder, then stood in the center of the dark room with his eyes unfocused, trying to let his subconscious clue him in to what he had missed. Finally he saw it - the coffee maker had been moved. When he approached it he realized the lid was slightly open, the corner of something papery sticking out of the filter basket. Cautiously he lifted the lid and found a crumpled piece of hotel notepad paper inside. He unfolded it in the darkness and laughed a single, harsh bark of unimpressed laughter.

"Vic snitched - run"

Smoothing the note on the counter, he reached into his pocket and pulled out another piece of paper he'd found earlier in the evening. A small scrap with a username and password, and the website of a backpack manufacturer scrawled across it in cramped writing had been left on the floorboards of the Land Rover. The handwriting on this new note was different. Were two different people helping him, or were they both cries for help?

He left the room, tossing the key card in the trash beside the elevator before taking the stairs out to the parking lot. He took a brief detour to the dumpster, where he tossed the bag containing everything else he'd left in his hotel room. Fuck that, not making that mistake, he thought.

It told him a lot that Prodigy would snitch on Vic, if he truly had. I wonder what happened in that hotel room, he pondered as he jogged back to the Land Rover. Perhaps I misjudged one of those kids.