Old Habits

Conor: assessment of the situation

Conor

I would have probably waited to call out the person watching us, but it was too late now. Tish was an impatient person. A woman shuffled out of the shadows, peering at us. She was human and looked quite disheveled.

"You don't look like the normal sort that comes here," she said.

I wasn't sure what the 'normal sort' meant.

"What's normal?" I asked.

"The pale beautiful ones," she said. "Like fallen angels. They come at night like your friends just did and vanish here."

"Cheery," Tish muttered.

"Vanish? How?"

"I've never seen any of them again," the woman offered.

She stared at the remaining chicken tenders and Tish extended the box to her. The woman took them with a mumbled thanks before backing out of the light. At least we knew that other vampires had come here.

"You're welcome," Tish grumbled. "Let's go sit in the car and call Mel; we should have called earlier."

We hopped off the hood of the car and into the back seat. I pulled Tish into my arms, leaning against the window as she pulled out her phone. Mel answered on the first ring.

"How's it going?" Mel inquired.

"Fine," Tish said. "We think we have a location; but we're going to check it out in the morning. To my knowledge Jackson hasn't eaten anyone, so we're winning on all fronts."

"That's good," Mel snorted. "Lacy and Susie Lynn are literally braiding each other's hair; I think Susie is glad for another girl close to her age."

"Is Jack there?" asked a voice on the phone.

"No, he's exploring the warehouses and told us to stay put," I said. "Hi, Lacy."

"Hello," she called from over the phone. "I like your pack better than I like Stefa, Conor."

"Thanks?"

"Though I would have thought you could tell Grant more about being a vampire," Lacy remarked. "He is shockingly uninformed."

"I don't know that much," I grumbled.

"You know more than you pretend," she observed. "Anyway, apologies, Mel."

"You two be safe," Mel told us. "Call anytime."

Tish hung up and yawned. "I shouldn't be tired," she said. "I feel like all we've done is sleep. Where are those vampires? We should just come back in the morning."

She rested her head against me and we were quiet for a while. I felt something odd against my stomach and Tish grabbed my hand, putting it against her.

"The baby's kicking," she said with a smile. "Or doing whatever it's doing. Punching, from the feel of it."

"I shouldn't have let you come," I sighed, sitting up. "You should be home with Mel and Susie, safe."

"I'm not worried about me," she snorted. "I'm not even worried about our kid. You're the problem one of the three of us, Conor. You've told me a lot about last year and I don't think I've heard everything that happened to you. And you didn't even try to put up a fight about coming with Jackson, almost like you were relieved that danger had found you again."

"That's not..."

"Conor, I happen to like you a lot, but you have been restless at the farm. More so than anyone else in the pack. Is it Stefa? If we find her, are you planning to go with her?"

"No," I shook my head vehemently. "I'm not going back to Stefa. I'm staying with you, Tish. I just...I thought that leaving was better than letting Jackson find out more about the pack, about our relationship with the hunters. I'm worried about Stefa, sure, but hopefully we'll find her and she can be Jackson's problem. I don't want any more severed heads in my bedroom."

"Same," Tish reflected. "All right, you have satisfied me for now. I don't know if I believe you fully, but I'll make do."

She settled back against me and sighed. The waiting was a little strange; I had expected Jackson and Mike to return with more haste than this. I was sure that we hadn't been left any car keys and I had hoped we could find a hotel or something to regroup.

"We'll give them another half hour and then we'll wander off for some dinner," Tish yawned. "I'll leave a note or something. Sound like a plan?"

"Sounds fine," I replied.

But time passed and neither vampire appeared. Tish rummaged in her pockets for a receipt and scrawled a note telling them we'd be back along with her number. I didn't know how to feel. Being worried about Jackson felt like a waste of time.

"What do you want to eat?" Tish inquired.

I shrugged. "I don't ever have money; I don't know why I'd get to choose."

"Oh please, I took cash from Jackson. Dinner is on him forever until we get home. So? What are you in the mood for?"

I looked around at the city. The area we were walking in was dark and I imagined that if we were human, was unsafe. I didn't feel very hungry.

"You pick, you're eating for two," I said finally.

Tish frowned at me but searched the area on her phone, dragging me across the street and down an alley. We crossed a bridge with the highway below; despite being in the middle of a city, it felt very lonely here.

Tish dusted my shoulder and straightened the collar of my shirt before we walked into a restaurant that I thought Stefa would have picked before Tish would. We were seated in a booth with more than one look of distain; we were not dressed up by anyone's standards. Tish took my hand across the table with a sigh.

"How are you doing?" I asked.

"I'm worried and annoyed," she said. "I don't like that we left the hunters pointing guns at each other. It's hard to convince STF that werewolves and vampires aren't inherently evil we pull crap like that. And I don't hate Aggie. She's set in her ways, but I never thought she was a bad person. Well, until maybe today. She would have let Phillip kill us, of that I am sure."

The waiter approached out table, but Tish ordered a set of appetizers before I had taken a moment to look at the menu. She grinned at me when the waiter retreated.

"Sorry, take your time with the menu. I just knew if I was hungry then you definitely haven't eaten enough today."

The menu was mostly pasta dishes in a language I didn't know, but fortunately, they had the ingredients in English underneath. I found the first dish with meat in it that I knew all the other ingredients and ordered it once the waiter came back. Tish checked her phone and tapped her fingers against the table.

"I mean, what if Jackson gets eaten or something?" she mused. "We could just leave and go back to Montana. I never thought in a thousand years that I could live on a farm and be happy. But I miss Susie Lynn. I miss the pack. It's weird here and everything is smelly."

"Yes," I agreed.

"And Mike is...odd. Like, the fact that he was watching us for months? So creepy. He seems nice, at least, as far as vampires go. But he's very very good if we didn't see or hear anything until he showed up."

"You didn't tell Mel about him," I noted.

"Well no. Nothing gets solved by doing that. She'd be very upset."

She was right. Still, I felt bad that I was dragging Tish into what I still felt was my drama. I knew now that I shouldn't have left the pack and gone with Stefa. Still, I don't know how refusing her would have gone for me.

Tish reached out for my hand and grinned.

"We'll go home soon," she said.

"I hope so," I replied.