by Amy Star
“Yo! Dylan!” Matthew padded out of his bedroom and found his friend and roommate seated in the living room, all his attention consumed by his laptop.
“What’s up?” Dylan glanced up from his screen, raising an eyebrow.
“We need to hunt,” Matthew said. “Or at least I need to hunt.”
“We can’t change until we know what places are safe,” Dylan pointed out.
“Doesn’t mean we can’t wander around,” Matthew countered. “I feel restless.”
“You travel to the other end of the fucking country and you only get restless now?” Dylan shook his head.
“You know what I mean,” Matthew said firmly. “We need to get to know this area.”
Dylan pressed his lips together, considering.
“Okay,” Dylan said, setting his laptop aside. “Strength in numbers, right?”
“Fucking right,” Matthew agreed.
He looked around the living room to find his shoes; neither of them needed them—especially not in the balmy South Florida weather—but the one-natured tended to notice barefoot wanderers in the night, and neither Matthew nor Dylan had any desire to attract any more attention to themselves than they had to.
In a few moments, both Matthew and Dylan were ready. Matthew slipped the house keys into his pocket and followed Dylan out through the front door, stepping into the cool, dark night. Matthew took a deep breath, sampling the air for scents, identifying each smell as it filtered through his brain: feral cats, a few rodents, birds, insects, and more lizards than he had ever encountered in Oregon.
The air was strangely heavy—heavier than it had ever been in the woods near Portland, like damp velvet against his skin. Matthew bristled at the sensation mentally, rejecting the sticky, wet breeze brushing against his forehead. His upper lip curled as the sounds of the night filled his ears: palm fronds clicking and slithering against each other, mockingbirds arguing over territory, movements of small animals through hedges and gardens. Matthew took another deep breath, closing his eyes against the yellow-orange light of the street lamps.
Matthew fell into step with Dylan as the other were-bear strode away from the house and into the darkness. The sounds of their steps blended into the other noises of the night, and as they walked down the street, following the sidewalk, Matthew’s tension started to dissolve. It wasn’t the forest, but at least they were outside; at least they were amid the tiny eco-system of the suburbs, in the darkness. He felt as if he could breathe deeper, as if his heart had finally settled into a steady, comfortable rhythm.
“We need to find a gym soon,” Matthew told Dylan quietly as they passed another house on the block; blue-white light flickering on the blinds told Matthew that either someone was asleep on the couch or still awake, passively absorbing entertainment.
“First paycheck,” Dylan said, nodding slightly.
Matthew sniffed at the air; he caught a whiff of pot smoke and smirked to himself. That, at least, was like home, though it smelled a little different in the warm breeze than on a cool, rainy evening air.
“Ah, something smells like home at least,” Matthew murmured wryly.
Dylan chuckled. “We should find a connection here. Probably lead us to more work at that.”
“Probably,” Matthew agreed.
They continued wandering the neighborhood, and Matthew began to identify landmarks, form a mental map of their environment. He scented more drug use, both illegal and legal, as they made their way around the little community their new home was in. Matthew made mental note of each of the locations; where people were using drugs, there was the possibility that something might get stolen to feed a habit, especially harder drugs, like meth. If something turned up missing, he wanted to know where to start asking questions.
They finally headed back towards their new house, and Matthew walked willingly, his restlessness—for the moment—satisfied. He knew it would be weeks until they could find a place to safely transform and roam, but for the moment, walking after the enforced idleness of driving across the country felt good enough. It felt enough like staking his territory to appeal to the animal in his brain. Now if we can just find a decent bar, get some work under our belts, and find some willing women, we’ll be all set.
“Still hate this place?” Matthew shrugged at the question from Dylan, kicking off his shoes as they walked into the house.
“It’s not home yet,” Matthew said levelly, “but it feels good to move around. We need to get on the job.”
“What about that guy you heard from?” Matthew shrugged again.
“I’ll check, but I doubt he’s going to answer this late at night.”
“He’s a lion—he’s up all night more than we are.”
“True,” Matthew agreed. “I’ll check. Maybe he’ll have us start tomorrow.”
Matthew walked across the living room and walked into his bedroom, feeling the slight twinge in his muscles that told him that he’d been active—he wasn’t so out of shape that he’d ache the next day, but he could feel the satisfying sensation of having actually used the muscles in his body. It would be better when they were working regularly—when he could rid himself of some of the restless, animal energy constantly buzzing in his veins. Everything would be better then.
Matthew opened his laptop, unlocked it, and opened his email. He preferred checking his mail on his computer rather than his phone—at least if he was at home. Matthew smiled slightly to himself as the computer chirped, letting him know that someone had emailed him. As it happened, it was the lion that had contacted them before.
You and your partner can start tomorrow. I’ll give you more details on the case in person. Meet me at Brew Urban in Fort Lauderdale at noon.
Matthew scrolled through the email thread, reminding himself of the details the man had given them already; it seemed—at least at first—to be a straightforward case. Missing property, with some suspects already available to investigate. Matthew replied to tell the prospective client that he and Dylan would be there.
“Yo! Dyl!” Matthew heard his friend’s steps approaching his room; a moment later, Dylan opened the door and stepped in without knocking. “He wants us to meet him at noon, some café in Fort Lauderdale. I told him we’d be there.”
“We’ve got our first gig, then,” Dylan said, smiling slightly in approval. “See? This place isn’t that terrible.”
“It’s bad enough,” Matthew said, his lips twisting in a wry grin. “But it may not be the worst place we’ve ever been. Do we have any beers left from that grocery store run, or did you drink them all?”
“We’ve got a couple. Let’s drink to this new business opportunity.”
Matthew snickered and put his laptop aside, beginning to feel at least a little optimistic. He followed his friend into the kitchen to grab the last two beers from their last grocery run; once they got paid for the gig, they’d have more than enough to celebrate in style. Dylan cracked open one of them and handed it to Matthew before opening his own.
“To new business.”
“To fucking up some asshole thieves,” Matthew countered.
Dylan snorted. The two men clinked their bottles together and downed half of the contents in a few gulps. Matthew belched and sighed with satisfaction.
“This place isn’t half bad.”
CHAPTER TWO
Nadine scrubbed at her face as she stared at her computer screen, wishing she’d had the backbone—and the accrued time—to call out of work that morning. But her boss, Darren, had harped on and on how important the reports for the quarterly meeting were. She had to suffer through the day as long as humanly possible, get them done, and turn them in. If I drink any more coffee, I’m going to throw up, she told herself firmly, pushing the temptation aside. Her headache had done nothing but get worse since she’d gotten up that morning. At first, Nadine had been optimistic that the usual jolt of caffeine and a couple of Aleve would fix the problem—but three hours into her work day, she was certain it was goi
ng to keep getting worse until her head exploded under the pressure.
“How’s it going, Nadine?”
She barely glanced at her boss as he paused at her desk, on his way to yet another meeting with the “higher ups.”
“It’s coming along,” she said as brightly as she could, sitting up straight in her chair. “Some of those assholes in accounting must have been high when they were putting in the figures.”
Her boss tsked—not at her expletive, but at the poor quality of accounting’s numbers, based on the sympathetic look he gave her.
“Do what you can with it. You’re the best we’ve got.”
Nadine gave him a smile for the compliment.
“I think I might leave early once I get this done, if that’s okay,” she said, looking at Darren intently.
He shrugged. “As long as your work is done and we’ve got the reports finished.” He shrugged again. “Let HR know that you’re leaving early and CC me on the email.”
“Will do,” Nadine said.
Darren turned away from her desk and she sighed as quietly as possible, wishing the throbbing in her temples would subside for even thirty minutes—just long enough for her to be able to make sense of the huge mess of figures and details she’d been given to turn into a coherent report.
Nadine reached blindly for the bottle of water on her desk, finding it by a mixture of touch and muscle memory. “You can do this, Nadine,” she murmured to herself quietly, looking at the screen. “Get it done and you can go home.” She took a deep breath and swallowed a few gulps of water, hoping against hope that it would put a dent in the headache making her so miserable.
She worked away at the reports her boss needed so much, focusing on the screen in front of her. Nadine had been working at the agency in Analytics for eighteen months. She had taken the job in spite of not being particularly enthusiastic about data analysis because after spending her college years bouncing from one part-time job to another—and after racking up considerable debt to go to college—she had been happy to take the first decently-paying job that came up. Over time, she’d found herself somewhat stuck, partly because she had fallen into the trap of making friends with some of her coworkers, and partly because she was just starting to make enough money to both pay off her loans—and to pay her bills—and to have something like a social life.
As the rest of the office departed for lunch, Nadine continued working, putting headphones on and sipping water to isolate herself in a world of her own creation. All she wanted was to make sure she had the reports finished and polished well enough to pass muster. Once she had that done, she could go home, crawl into bed, and sleep off her headache. Hopefully, the next day she’d wake up feeling better, and everything would be back to the way it normally was.
After what felt like hours, Nadine sat back and took a deep breath, exhaling slowly as her fingertips moved on her mouse, scrolling through the finished report. Her head was throbbing so much that her eyes watered, but as she forced herself to carefully read through what she’d written to go with the graphs, spreadsheets, and graphics, she thought she had managed to pull the whole mess together with something like skill.
“If it sucks, it’s not going to be my fault,” she murmured to herself, nodding slightly as her gaze trailed over a few of the cogent points she had made in the report. To the best of her knowledge, as well as she could tell, there weren’t any glaring typos. Nadine yawned, blinking a few times as she came to the end of the last report, and told herself that even if there were one or two things that were wrong, someone else would be looking over the reports before they went live in the meeting—they would catch it if she didn’t, and if whoever proofed her work didn’t catch it, the people reading the reports at the end of the line wouldn’t notice them either.
Nadine saved them all one final time, checked to make sure that they were aligned properly and nothing was out of place, and sent the reports to the printer. People had started to come back from their lunches; if she was lucky, she could get the whole thing over with and on Darren’s desk, and be out of the office before anyone could ask her to stay “just a little while longer” to finish another project. I’m not even sure that I’m safe to drive, she thought wryly, shaking her head as she carefully stood up and started to walk towards the communal printer for her department. Pages upon pages of her reports slid out and into the tray in a torrent of paper and ink. Nadine watched them, almost hypnotized by the sight, breathing in the smell of toner and brittle ozone radiating from the big, old printing station.
She gathered up the reports, sorted them out into their individual packets, and grabbed an armful of binders. Glancing around to make sure no one was descending on the printing station, Nadine snatched up the hole punch and carried it with her back to her desk. The quicker I can get this done the sooner I can get in my car and drive home. Nadine set down the hole punch and the binders and began assembling the reports, moving more quickly than she had managed for most of the morning, fueled by the hope of freedom to go home. She checked over the binders and their contents one final time and carried them to her boss’ office, tapping on the door to make sure he hadn’t managed to somehow slip back in while she was distracted.
Darren’s office was empty. Nadine went in, deposited the binders on his desk where he would see them as soon as he sat down, and left, pausing at her desk long enough to retrieve the hole punch. She put it back where she’d found it at the printing station, and hurried to take care of the last few details she would need to cover before she could gather her things and go home. Nadine wrote a quick email to Darren explaining that she’d finished the reports. She attached the documents to the email in case he wanted to make changes to any of them himself—or refer them to anyone else to make changes. She sent that message and opened a new one, tapping out an even briefer email to human resources to let them know she would be leaving early, putting her paid leave time to use; she added Darren’s email address to the recipient field and sent it.
Nadine gathered up her things and shut down her computer, setting her desk phone to “overnight” before she strode away from her desk. She tried to appear to be confident—not sneaky—but she worried, as she walked to the elevator in the lobby, that if someone saw her, they might think she was leaving because she simply didn’t feel like working. Try to look sick enough to merit going home, but not so sick that people think you’re disgusting, she thought, frowning as one of her temples throbbed particularly viciously. She made it to the elevator—blissfully, blessedly empty—and pressed the button for the first floor of the building, where her car waited.
Nadine leaned against the rail in the elevator, pressing her forehead against the cool metal wall, and shifted as it went into motion, moving down the floors with agonizing slowness. I need to make one stop on the way home—I need to get something better for this stupid headache than Aleve. Maybe Excedrin would do it. She shook her head slowly from side to side, fearful of making the throbbing ache worse, trying to remember what had worked in the past when she’d gotten one of the truly terrible headaches.
The elevator chime cut through her head, making Nadine wince, and she stirred herself to look at least marginally presentable in case anyone was on the other side of the door; when she saw that no one was, she took a deep breath and reached into her purse for her keys. Nadine walked through the hall and turned at the corner, nearly colliding with the wall before she rebounded and straightened. She stepped out into the parking structure attached to the office building and winced at the heaviness of heat and humidity that washed over her.
Nadine wove her way through the parking structure to find her car, thinking longingly of her apartment: the cool of the air conditioning, the softness of her bed sheets, the fact that once she arrived she could close all the blinds and pull all of the curtains shut, and in moments she would be asleep. With any luck, after a few hours she would wake up and the headache would be a thing of the past, banished to memory and no longer a constant,
thudding presence in her skull. She found her keys at last and fumbled with them as she reached her car, a sun-faded Plymouth Neon. Nadine unlocked the driver’s side door and climbed in, throwing her purse into the passenger seat and closing the door behind her quickly.
In moments, the car was on, the air conditioning running, and Nadine pulled out of her parking spot, turning to navigate out of the labyrinthine parking structure. She reached into the passenger seat as she came out of the structure, wincing at the eye-watering brightness of the day. Nadine found her sunglasses by touch and managed to get them on as she maneuvered onto the street proper and turned towards the intersection that would lead her away from the office and towards home.
Her headache receded somewhat as she drove home; not enough to make her feel guilty about leaving early, but enough that she was capable of stopping at a pharmacy on her way. She bought a jar of Excedrin and wandered around for a few moments, trying to decide if she needed anything else. She carried her purchases to the register and waited behind an older woman to finish her argument about whether a particular brand of supplement was on sale or not, and then finished her transaction with as little conversation as possible, managing a wan smile when the cashier asked if she was feeling okay.
“This headache might actually kill me,” Nadine told the woman.
“I know what you mean,” the cashier said, smiling sympathetically. “I get terrible migraines myself. Get yourself into a nice, cool, dark room and wait it out.”
“That’s the plan,” Nadine replied, gathering up her bag and turning away with another wan smile.
She sighed and climbed back into her car, thinking about the rest of the day at home. “I can’t get there fast enough,” Nadine muttered to herself as she got back on the road, stopping at the light that stood between her and her apartment building.
She told herself firmly that she wouldn’t check her phone for the rest of the day—the temptation to check her emails, to make sure she wasn’t missing anything important from work, would be too great. She had taken the time off, and she was going to treat it as true time off; that meant not worrying about anything, and not finding reasons to do more work when she was supposed to be resting.