Chapter Three
His dreams were always of home.
Always of pack meetings.
If he was lucky, he’d get to talk to his mother or sisters. He was the man of the family, but they were all equals. Everyone would be drinking, enjoying themselves, being alive.
Alive.
There was a bang on his window, and Anthony startled into wakefulness. His face was wet. It didn’t matter if it was sweat or tears. He wiped it off with his shirt and tried to make sense of where he was.
A field in the middle of nowhere.
In the backseat of his car.
He remembered why he was there, and it was like they’d died again. He fought this down and swallowed the thoughts with a dry mouth. He would kill for water.
There was a knock on his window again.
Anthony startled, looking over, and squinting in the morning light. A man, probably in his late sixties, was leaning against his car and looking in.
“You’re on my land, son,” the farmer said, backing away from the door.
Anthony noticed a shotgun by his side. Being in an open carry state, he was lucky the man didn’t shoot him for trespassing.
“Sorry,” Anthony’s voice came out in a deep gravel from disuse. “I thought it was just a country road, I was just trying to sleep a bit. I’ll be on my way,” he said respectfully. His tongue was dry like sandpaper in his mouth, and his stomach growled.
“Do you have any guns or weapons?”
“No.”
The farmer stared off at the distant highway for a moment, and then looked back at Anthony.
“The wife told me to offer you breakfast and coffee if you want it. Come on.” The farmer motioned to him, heading off to a farmhouse not far away. Anthony would have killed for a life like this. Comfortable, able to trust people. Having someone who lived with him and loved him.
Anthony shut his car door and straightened his clothing before following.
***
The rest of the day wasn’t so kind.
He’d lost time. He had wanted to arrive in the morning, and as he finally got back on the road, it was already after noon. He didn’t let himself stop for anything but gas stations, didn’t take any breaks or breathers.
The sun was setting, pouring painful, grapefruit colored light right into his tired eyes when he finally neared West Valley.
Anthony's body ached from the drive; sitting so unnaturally for so long wasn't great for his back. A diet of mostly junk food from drive-thrus, save for the farmers who served him a proper breakfast, wasn't great for the rest of him either. He tried to work out between drives. He was still in good shape, but he could feel his joints and stomach paying for it. He was dog tired, sick of the quiet that filled the car when the radio stopped picking up stations, and was ready to collapse into whatever soft surface he could find to sleep on.
His mind was racing out of boredom, though, and he let his thoughts go where they pleased.
He couldn't stay in town tonight, that much was clear.
Packs are, for obvious reasons, extremely territorial. Shifters can come or go through an area without knowing about a pack, and there are no hard feelings, but if a shifter deliberately goes into another pack's territory without permission there can be problems. Especially in recent times.
Anthony missed having a pack, having a family, but he shoved it down and swallowed the feelings. It was something he'd deal with after a good meal and enough sleep to settle his mind. No use running his brain ragged when his body was already exhausted.
A large, glittering sign, garish with flashing lights and words, came into sight. It almost outdid the eyesore of the setting sun, and he squinted at it to make sense of what it said.
“The Casino, only three miles out, Stay A While,” it blinked and shimmered at him, a siren’s call to enjoy himself for a while. It felt like a place to trap not only tourists, but also the locals. Probably a good spot to gather information on the local pack, if he was smart about it. He turned on the road it pointed to, leading him away from West Valley and down into the shadow of the mountain.
He silently hoped they had alcohol as well as food. He obviously couldn’t drink before driving, and the last town he stopped in was in a dry county. Alcohol and a game or two would be enough to unwind him for sleep.
Sunspots glittered golden in his vision every time he blinked, the aftermath of not bringing or buying sunglasses. The road looked freshly paved, and as he started down it, he realized he wasn't the only driver out and about anymore. More cars than he expected were filing in and out of the area. He tried to catch glimpses of the faces of the drivers, but he couldn't see much of them. It wouldn't have helped, as it's hard to just look at someone and see if they're a shifter or not. His desperation to know anything about the pack was clouding his logical thinking.
The Casino – just as bright and showy as its sign was – finally came into view, and he was relieved to see there was a hotel attached.
His body recognized it as well, and he physically slouched into his seat a bit in relief. He'd been close to considering just pulling off on a dirt road and sleeping in the backseat again. There weren't any restaurants in view to help with his roaring stomach, but he was sure the Casino would have at least a little something.
He got a room for the week, unwillingly giving them his name and credit card. He didn’t carry cash on the road – too easy to rob and take advantage of – but he didn’t want to have a paper trail either.
Anthony hated anything that could identify him, anything that could cause a bit of his past to be able to hunt him down.
He unpacked.
It didn't matter how long he'd stay somewhere, or how often he moved. Anthony always unpacked. It was some vestigial action that held strong, this tiny hope that someday he'd be able to unpack and never have to pack up again. That he'd be able to finally grow his roots deep and let his belongings gather a little dust from sitting still. It didn’t matter if he was in hotels and obviously wouldn’t be staying in that room even if he moved to that town, he unpacked.
When he was a kid, he used to dream about leaving his small hometown. To get on a plane and never look back.
He would pay every last cent of his money now to never have to see the open road again.
It doesn't work that way, though. A shifter needs a pack.
Those who go without social interaction with other shifters, those who can never shift again, eventually lose their minds. They slip into a deep depression and disordered way of living that they can't control themselves anymore. Outbreaks happen. People get mauled or attacked. One shifter in Florida a few years back half shifted in public and wasn’t stopped until he’d eaten part of a stranger’s face off. He knew that what he was doing was for a reason. He just didn't want to have to deal with it anymore.
Showering to remove any stink of travel, he changed into a clean pair of jeans and a shirt, and headed out to the Casino.
A large crowd of people were loitering out front of it. Cigarette smoke filled the air like it was replacing it, and the people spoke loudly and energetically like they'd not seen each other in years. One woman who was bragging about her wins eyeballed Anthony like he was a far better prize.
He nodded his hello, and then headed in.
He wasn’t going to waste his energy starting a relationship somewhere he may not stay, much less get himself raveled up in any small town drama that might happen from that.
His thoughts vanished the moment he stepped in.
The place was filled with the stench of other shifters.
They were there, all right, but he couldn't be entirely sure which people they were. Shifters, especially Alphas, had a certain smell that was instantly recognizable. Only problem was that when they were packed in tight with non-shifters, it was hard to tell one from the other.
The music that was pumping out of the speakers was fast paced and loud, something he'd expect more from a nightclub than from a casino filled mostly with people in their forties. He slipped through a few people and made his way to the bar.
There was food on the menu.
Thank god.
He ordered a burger, fries, and a beer. He'd be ashamed of the cliché if he even gave the slightest fuck what anyone around him thought. While he waited, he watched the room for any signs of shifters. There were definitely people who were stressed. He could smell the worry on them, could tell that a lot of people had a lot riding on what they were doing in there. Only a couple people seemed to be strangers from out of town like him. He narrowed them out of the pool of possibility.
His burger came, and when he looked up, he realized it wasn't the surly barkeep who had taken his order.
The woman in front of him was to die for.
Any appetite he thought he had for food was borderline nonexistent for how he felt when he saw her.
She was about six inches shorter than him, but her curves could have knocked him flat out. The skimpy uniform she was wearing was basically a glorified Halloween costume – snug and sexy, hugging to her hips and her chest. Her heels made her ass stand out, made her legs look longer, and he wanted his hands on every bit of her.
Don’t get him started on her face, though.
Her features were soft, beautiful. She had makeup on and was trying to look serious, but he was still taken aback by how gorgeous she was under that facade. Large, intelligent eyes, a perky nose, big, plush lips with a red lipstick he wanted to make a mess of. Her light reddish-blonde hair was sleek and back, and he wondered how it would look down and on her shoulders.
How she'd look disheveled, out of this costume.
“Thank you,” he managed to say as she set down his food.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked. She looked like she was already prepared to go do what she had to do next.
She was on the job, and he knew better than to be sleazy to people who were being paid to be nice.
“Just your name,” he answered anyway, unable to help himself.
“Sierra,” she said as she walked off. He couldn't help but watch as she left, that miniskirt hugging to her like she was vacuum packed into it. Even if he couldn't get in contact with the pack, this stop didn't have to be a complete waste.