Chase the Moon (On Hold)

Twenty

This was my first real time in a big city, so my only prior knowledge about New York came from movies and television shows. Let me tell you, it wasn't quite the same. You see, in the city, you can go one instance staring up at glistening sky scrapers that looked like pure crystals jutting up into the sky, and the next you could be looking at dirty, run down buildings that only served as a haven for the drug abusers and the homeless.

I never expected that my mate would live in one of those buildings.

Granted, it wasn't as bad as some of the places I'd seen, though I definitely wouldn't call it a diamond in the rough. It was more of a sketchy and greasy apartment building, with shingles and bits of trim laying haphazardly on the streets beneath it.

It was only seven at night, but with the sky progressively growing dimmer, I had to admit I no longer felt comfortable standing alone on the sidewalk. My heart broke for my mate, who was living her life in such a shady hellhole.

But at least she wasn't one of the homeless people laying in sleeping bags in the subway tunnels, or huddled up in piles of trash with only garbage bags and old newspapers to keep them warm.

Looking up at the building, I took out Amelia's wallet, reread the address, and then stuffed in a few extra US twenty dollar bills before deciding to go in.

The air was stale as I walked in, and I immediately recognized the scent of cocaine and marijuana. My nose wrinkled in disgust, and as I looked around, I felt even more appalled by the yellowish stains on the faded green wallpaper. I could hear someone coughing miserably down the hall, and I suddenly felt sick. I felt unsanitary and disgusted. How could my mate, my beautiful, amazing mate live in a place like this?

With the number 13 drilled into my head, I set out to search for her apartment. As I passed doorway after doorway, the state of disrepair became all the clearer to me. Numbers on the doors hung haphazardly from one screw, a bit of black fuzz lining the walls near the ceiling indicated a mold problem, and the state of the inhabitants themselves made me even more worried for my mate.

Making it through the entire main floor without spotting the number 13, I peered reluctantly up at the stairs. They looked almost as bad as the rest of the building, and I feared they may not hold my weight.

One step at a time, creak after creak, I slowly made my way to the second floor. Several younger people who were in obvious rough shape sat huddled in the hallway, passing a joint between them and taking long drags of the poisonous smoke. I clutched the straps of my backpack a little tighter as I stepped over their legs. The stench of marijuana nearly drowned out the scent of lilac, but I let it lead me to her door.

The brass number three was missing, but the outline was still visible on the door. Taking a deep breath of her lilac and cotton scent to calm myself, I raised my closed fist to knock on the door. 

There was shuffling from within, and a few minutes later, the door opened, releasing a wall of her intoxicating scent that drifted forward and engulfed me in a swirling haze.

When I finally opened my eyes, I looked down to see my mate, who even in this dismal place seemed to glow with an ethereal beauty, looking back up at me. I opened my mouth to say something, but was cut off by a voice from within.

"See you later, Doll Face," a very sleazy looking man said as he leaned down to place a kiss on her cheek. He had scabs and scars dotting his face. His dark hair looked greasy enough to stand up straight and hold shape without any help. He wore baggy clothes that showed off the bruises speckling his inner arms before he shrugged on an equally as sleazy coat. I glared in distaste, disgusted by the fact that this scumbag had the audacity to touch my mate.

"Call me that one more time, Scottie, and I will shoot you in the foot," she threatened with an icy glare of her own that could drop any man dead. Pride bloomed briefly in my chest before the man grabbed her ass and slipped past me with a chuckle. I nearly growled out loud as he passed, and if I had been an Alpha, I knew there would be no force on this earth that could prevent me from liberating that man's head from his body. As it was, I was only hanging on to my rage by a string.

In the end, it was my mate's heavenly voice that kept me from going after the man.

"How can I help you?"

Looking back down at her, I saw she was leaning against the door frame with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked rather bored and completely inconvenienced by my presence. Even still, she looked beautiful.

Realizing she had asked me a question, I blinked myself back to reality and said breathlessly, "I'm Mark. We met earlier today."

"And?" she looked unimpressed.

"And I- You- You dropped this," I stuttered, holding her wallet in my hand. She looked down at it with pursed lips before she reached out to take it.

"Is that all?"

"Well, I- uh-"

"Spit it out," she said sharply.

"Why are you here?" I found myself asking.

"You a cop?" she asked, sizing me up with a white knuckled grip on the door.

"What? No," I said with a furrowed brow.

"Then I should be asking you that," she narrowed her eyes in a glare. 

"I- I just came to give you your wallet back," I stuttered again, feeling completely defenseless against this woman.

"You're not from around here, are you?" she didn't give me a chance to answer as she glanced down the hall at the younger people I had passed to get here. "You should leave before it's too late."

"Too late?" I asked, intrigued by her cryptic statement.

"All the crazy people come out to play on the full moon."

Then, with a smirk, she closed the door in my face. Even still I couldn't help but stare at the door in shock.

Was it really the full moon already? Malachi hadn't really been forcing my shifts over the past few days. I hadn't even realized it was here. But even as I thought about it, I knew there would be no escaping the shift tonight. The moon would force it out of me.

With a panicky feeling settling in my stomach, I realized one very important thing.

I needed to get out of the city.

Now.