Life With A Werewolf

Suicidal Power Play Part 1

          Watching Valyur and his new love get aquainted was nice. It was a cute sort of sweetness that you only get from the best and cheesiest romantic comedies. The new lawn gnome was quite skittish of us, which I didn't blame her. The crack in her head that ran jagged down from her hair to her face told a story of cruelty she kept unspoken. I wasn't sure if her crack was healing, or if it was a scar, but it seemed rude to ask.
          We still had the same vehicles that kept rolling through town and kept the local PD busy. A Sentra from twenty or so years ago that looked as if it was more rust than metal. A Buick sedan from about ten years ago, and occasionally, a posh European sports coupe. German engineering at it's finest and most complicated. The kind of vehicle that someone who grew up without money would think was stylish and sporty when they came into money.
          Whoever they are, whatever drug or weapons deals they may have been involved with never caused us any trouble, so we did our best to ignore and avoid them. True occasionally they'd slow down near our property, but none of them would stop, none would stare too hard. All three vehicles had deeply tinted windows, so they could have been mooning us with sparklers in their butt cracks and we wouldn't have seen it. The Nissan's tint was bubbling badly, but the tint still did it's job. As much as I end up getting roped into trouble, I figured this was a job best left to local police. After all, I'm not a cop, and I was certain they wouldn't appreciate me defending my home from random people driving around it without even violating the speed limit. Having ultra dark window tint doesn't seem like a capital offense.
          So, you could argue I was ignoring the issues that was sparking up around us. I still feel bad about that. Like I should have been more vigilant in doing my job. Maybe things would have turned out differently had I been doing my job more. Of I had given those riding around with ultra dark window tint warning shots. Perhaps if I'd have been more careful and doing my self-appointed job in protecting this pack, maybe things wouldn't have turned out the way they did.
          Regrets. They're like ugly family heirlooms. You get them for free. You'd throw them out if you could, but you know you'll never be able to. They sit in the darkest corners, waiting on the right time for you to see them, and despair.
          But, I kept myself blissfully unaware of the goings on with excuses, an extra helping of "not my job" and a dose of "Crash doesn't seem upset." The first minor clue that I had been ignoring something big was when that snub nosed .38 was shoved in my face. It was in the evening. I was standing in the middle of the local grocery store looking at items for dinner.
          Our grocery store is the size of a large convenience store in some places. It has room for just about everything you need, but nothing you'd want but don't need. The isles feels crowded when you walk through them alone with your buggy. But apparently there's at least enough space on the floor to wrestle for your life.
          Over by the frozen burger patties was where everything started going sideways. The silver of the muzzle flashed in the corner of my eye. My next actions was entirely automatic, thanks to hours and hours of drilling and practice when I was in the mlitary.. I ducked, grabbed the guys arm. The next action was going to twist his arm then strike the elbow so he'd drop the weapon. However, that's not what happened.
          It was when I grabbed his wrist that I noticed something strange. He was a skinny man, wearing a dirty, once white colored wife beater and what I think was blue jeans, but they were so filthy God or the universe only knows what color they were supposed to be. His face as well as his arms were covered with the typical meth scabs, with his cheeks sunken in, his hair greasy, and his skin shiny from head to just about his toes. The shine was from fryer grease. It smelled like he had gone diving in a vat of used oil in the back of one of those fast food places.
          When I grabbed his wrist and pulled, the damn thing slipped right out. Before he could shove the pistol in my face again, I tackled him. Most of my military training in hand-to-hand combat was nearly foiled cause of how slick the bastard was. Everything I'd grab slipped out of my hand until I, too was covered in the disgusting fryer grease.
          He tried raising the pistol. I struck his hand with my elbow and punched him as hard as I could in the face. The pistol slid several feet across the floor. I dove for the gun, grabbed it and aimed.
          It was here that I found out or little ruckus had attracted a crowd. Five different people had started recording our strange encounter, no doubt to put on TikTok, complete with smiley face stickers over faces, stupid music blaring too loud, and cartoon sound effects. I couldn't shoot him for fear of hitting one of them. Not that the loss of a TikToker who thinks it's funny to record a guy fighting for his life would be tremendously devastating. But the law tends to look down on shooting innocent bystanders, no matter how much they deserve it.
          I sat on the floor, now covered in my own fry grease, waiting. The cameras' didn't go away. So, I gave them a wave. A one fingered salute sort of wave, but a wave. If I had more grease around, say if it was in a puddle, I would have thrown some on the TikTok jerks. Instead, I sat there on the floor until the police arrived.
          After questioning, and more questioning, after hearing witness statements and watching TikTok videos, one of which already had over 100,000 views, I was allowed to go home. Being the impromptu unwilling star of a TikTok video was strange and not surprising all at the same time. The only thing I really felt from it, was a numbness and tingling down my leg, that radiated itself into my brain and mood.
          By the time I finally made it home, I was snarling. Limping to the counter, I set the grocery bags on it. Seeing Crash preparing for his night shift routine, I told him, "Put those up please, I'll cook later." Then I stripped my greasy clothing off and laid down in my boxers.
          Crash stepped into the room with a panicked look on his face. I could tell he was about to force a shift into werewolf mode, which meant a lot more growling in pain, and painful pops emanating from him. "What," I asked.
          "Could be nothing," Crash said. "But Zack hasn't made it home."
          Suppressing a painful wince, I rolled up into a sitting position, and began to check my ammunition. "Should we call Rodriguez?"
          There was a snarl on Crash's face. Then it began to pop as it stretched, and I looked away. He I could hear him suppressing a moan. "No, they'll just start a war and we'll have to get Zack on our own, anyway. When Kris and Sean get home, tell them to stay inside and away from the windows."
          With a wince of my own, I laid back down, holding my pistol close to me. I rested my sore hip and back as best as I could, knees up to the sky, head staring straight at the ceiling, breathing low and slow through my mouth. I heard the door slam, and knew Crash had disappeared into the woods.
          My phone rang. It was a strange number. I answered it, then sat upright as quick as I could. Limping to the door, muttering a prayer that Crash hadn't gone so far he couldn't hear me, I shouted into the woods "Hospital!"
          Less than a minute later, Crash was back in the house, breathing hard, his ears folded back, a snarl on his muzzle. "What?!"
          "Zack is in the hospital. He got jumped outside of work."