“Assault and robbery is a pretty serious crime, Mr. Larsen.”

I glared across the table at the old man whose chin wobbled with every word. “It’s not robbery if you’re taking back your own property,” I argued, but the prosecutor disagreed. The old man flipped a folder open on the gleaming mahogany conference table between us and adjusted his glasses, clearly poring over my record while he spoke.

“Even if you can convince the jury that he stole the hunting knife from you first, you still assaulted him. Over a knife.” The prosecutor shot back his own unimpressed glare over the top of his half-moon glasses. “Considering your already extensive record of similar behavior, fighting, stalking, battery, criminal mischief, stealing cars, underage drinking, and shoplifting, I think you need to prepare yourself to take a deal. No one is going to have much sympathy for an eighteen-year-old with a record like yours.”

Narrowing my eyes at the prosecutor, I puffed out my chest and tried again. “I did that other stuff when I wasn’t an adult, so you can’t consider that.” I’d heard it somewhere but wasn’t sure it was really true. My own lawyer, a mostly-useless, frumpy old man, shifted uneasily in his seat.

“Actually…” he muttered, but he didn’t have to explain. The prosecutor jumped in and told me the truth.

“If it’s relevant, we absolutely can consider it. You have a very strong pattern of behavior, Johan. We really only have one option for men like you,” he continued, then slid a pamphlet across the table towards me. “We can go to trial if you want, but you’ll lose. I suggest you accept the ‘offer’ you’ve been given. Six years in the Army will do you good, you might even find you like it. You’ll be in a unit with other soldiers like you–”

“I prefer John, not Johan. A unit of werewolves, you mean?” I spoke sarcastically, though deep-down I was intrigued. It wasn’t the first time the prosecutor had sent the pamphlet across the table, but it was the first time he’d mentioned other wolves.

“Exactly,” the prosecutor replied, ignoring my tone. “They’ve been working with people like you since the beginning of this country’s military history.”

“What happens if we go to court?” I was stubborn and I just had to try.

“Well, you will lose, without a doubt,” the prosecutor’s chin wobbled as he shuffled through my case, “and you’ll likely be ‘sentenced’ to a lot more than six years. They tend to add a one or a zero to whatever the judge suggests—”

“A one or a zero? So what, six years becomes sixteen, or sixty? How the fuck is that fair?” I blurted out, ignoring the discomfort of the lawyer beside me. My grandfather, Ivar, sat passively on my other side. He’d warned me to behave too many times to count, but at a certain point the single-parent had given up on trying to keep his “Johnboy” out of trouble. He still supported me, but we both knew this was coming.

“Your kind are long-lived. It’s your choice if you want to gamble with your long life and spend six years of it learning to be a better person, or risk losing a lot more of it. So, what will it be, Mr. Larsen?”

“Johan,” my grandfather murmured quietly, using his Norwegian-tongue to privately lecture me in front of the lawyers. “You know I have been a soldier for most of my life. It is a good profession. It would come naturally to you. I have told you this before. Do something smart, for once.”

ONE - John

Sometimes I still tried meditation. I can’t say my mind ever quit racing, but at least in meditation I had the opportunity to try and snatch some of my thoughts out of the maelstrom. I sat cross-legged on the rough wooden floor of my apartment, a small unit above The Growler, my bar. “How old am I anymore?” I wondered aloud while I thought about all the times I’d already had to remake my life. I squinted while I did the math in my head. “Thirty?… something.”

I couldn’t remember the last time I had celebrated a birthday or even marked it on a calendar. What was the point? I stopped aging when I was in my twenties, and most of the years since hadn’t been good ones. I was stuck in a cycle — live hard for a while, crash and burn, dust myself off, then live hard doing something else. I wasn’t sure anymore if I was entering a new phase of living hard, or crashing and burning.

“What if I aborted the mission before I crash and burn, this time?” No one was around to hear me, and no one had been around in months. The Growler was closed, temporarily out-of-business — maybe permanently, I hadn’t yet decided. I tried not to let myself feel the responsibility of operating the only Werewolf Bar in New Mexico while I reassessed my life. For way too long I had run away from my problems and had tried to keep pushing ahead, burying it under that crash and burn lifestyle. 

I found myself at a crossroads. I could see the crash on the horizon, feel the heat of the burn already. For the first time in a long time I had a reason not to throw myself at it. Rejoining my old pack had given me a new anchor. I had people to protect, things to do. For once I was more interested in being the person they needed me to be than I was in pursuing self-destruction. Or maybe I was just dressing up my self-destruction as a selfless act. Whatever — something was different this time around.

I took a deep breath and finally got up, groaning a little as my joints unsettled from criss-cross-applesauce. “Immortality in a broken body. The gods must have a fucked sense of humor.” A few boxes were already packed. I think I always knew what I was going to do, but it took me a long time to accept it. I’d acquired a stack of boxes a few weeks into my “mental breakdown”, if you could call it that. Some of them were already packed. I threw a pile of notebooks into an empty Banker’s Box and finished cleaning off my small desk in the apartment. The shelves in the little office, really more of a closet with a sloped ceiling and one high, small window set in a dormer, were already empty and dust was beginning to accumulate where my books and binders had been. A gun safe and a cabinet full of tactical gear was all that remained in the room, and one sad photo.

Picking it up, I ran my fingers over the silver frame, chewing on the inside of my cheek while I looked at her one last time. Dirty blonde hair, big brown eyes, a smile that could charm anyone. “And a mean mouth, great tits, no concept of loyalty, a drug addiction, and sharp little fists. You were a rotten bitch, Sierra. But I forgive you, because Ashleigh told me I have to.” I gave the photo my biggest smile and then chucked it into a trash can, still wincing a little when I heard the glass crack.

I cleared out the last drawer in the desk, a behemoth metal thing that had started life in a government office, then I checked the time. “I better get a move-on.” I left the box on the desk and stripped off my clothing on the way to the apartment’s small bathroom. The building was old and the apartment was an afterthought, so the bathroom was a step higher than the bedroom to allow plumbing to run beneath the floorboards. It was also just barely big enough to accommodate a narrow sink, a toilet, and a shower just large enough to stand up in. Like the office, it had a sloped ceiling and a small window set in a dormer, and even though I couldn’t stand up from taking a shit without smacking my head on the ceiling, I was going to miss it. The springtime sun beamed down on me in the shower, warming me along with the water. I was a little too tall for the shower and ducked down to wash my hair, then spent extra time running soap and water over the tattoos on my arms. The water seemed to bring the colors back to when the tattoos were fresh. That was the only part of my appearance I really cared about, my tattoos.

After the shower I smeared a little lotion over the older tattoos on my arms and the fresh piece on my chest. The sleeves were a collage of my life in the military: Parachutes, guns, truck parts, all woven together with a Persian carpet motif. On my chest, the design was totally different. An attempt to embrace my Norse heritage, I suppose. The Tree of Life sprouted up from my abdomen, a Valknut, a symbol for fallen warriors, at its roots. The branches of the tree spread out over my chest, wrapping around my rib cage in some places, and over my shoulders in others. I wasn’t vain by any means, but I did like to take care of my art. Then I got dressed in my best outfit; black jeans, a black button-down shirt, and a pair of black boots I hadn’t done anything nasty in. Yet. I grabbed my little present, slipped into my leather jacket, then exited the apartment and stomped down the stairs into the bar.

Walking through it was like walking through a ghost town. It wasn’t that long ago that I had vivid memories there, but the bloodstained floors of the apartment marked the end of everything The Growler had represented for me. It had been my home, my haven, I hate to call it my “safe space”, but it was my little world — until my own actions brought consequences to my doorstep.

I passed by the dusty tables and the dusty bar, grabbed my helmet, then locked up behind me. The state of the bar had worn on me in recent days, but as of this morning, I’d decided it was someone else’s problem and they could dust if it bothered them. In the parking lot only one vehicle waited, my trusty Indian Scout I’d bought once upon a time with a bonus I’d gotten for reenlisting when my “prison” sentence ended. It was a dumb move when I needed a car, and somehow I’d gotten this far on that motorcycle and never once purchased an actual car of my own. 

One hour of somewhat leisurely-riding later I pulled up at The Compound. From the highway it didn’t look like much. Just a fence with a gate in it. I pulled up to the keypad and punched in the code, then rode through once the gates had rolled just enough to fit my bike through the opening. The driveway of the pack’s compound was long and wide, large enough for two semi-trucks to squeeze around each other. The landscape on either side was dotted with small pine trees and creosote bushes, wild New Mexican plants and a few small clumps of flowers intentionally planted here and there. I crested the hill of the driveway and the house finally came into view — a stucco and timber house that looked like an old adobe dwelling, but was actually pretty new. A custom-designed home with all the modern amenities and a security system I had designed myself. Around it, the yard was in chaos. Several stacks of picnic tables were waiting and a rental company was setting up a dance floor on the compound’s patio.

In the middle of it was Travis, one of my best and oldest friends. He was like me in a lot of ways; an Army veteran, immortal, another Standard Issue White Guy, although the life around him was anything but standard. He’d stopped aging in his forties but he was a pretty good-looking dude. Brown hair, like mine, but streaked with a little bit of silver. Gray eyes, unlike my hazel eyes. His hairline formed a slight widow’s peak and his features sort of matched. He had a sharp personality and a face that suited it, and he was fit from years of hauling heavy shit around in his garage. Despite making a ton of money in his long life he still went to work as a diesel mechanic five days a week. The rest of the time he played grandpa to the pack’s children and caused me as much trouble as possible.

“Where’s Jana?” I called out as I spotted him and made my way towards him.

“Getting ready, of course.” He replied like it was a stupid question, and I guess it was.

“How long does that take?”

“Ages, apparently. Yosef was supposed to get the picnic tables laid-out, but I haven’t seen him this morning, either.”

“No problem, boss,” I stripped out of the leather jacket and got to work, unstacking the picnic tables and setting them wherever it made sense to do so. While I worked a small cooking area took shape around a large gas grill. I knew that’s where I would spend most of the wedding, cooking food and serving drinks as Travis had asked me to do. He could have afforded an extravagant affair for his “only” daughter, but she wasn’t that kind of chick. I had to respect it. I couldn’t really see her getting married in a church, anyway.

At length other pack members started appearing; my buddy Mack, a giant wolf whose origins we weren’t totally sure of, and then the groom, Yosef. I grinned at him. He had no idea what I had planned for him that day. He was always a nervous guy, kind of a nerd, but he had a shocking vicious streak in him. Despite being an Iraqi refugee he came across as sort of sheltered and naive, but in private conversations I’d found out a lot of it was an act for Travis’ sake. Yosef was a devastatingly handsome pervert with creepy alpha gifts. He could see and talk to the dead and things in the astral plane, whatever the fuck that was. I was nosy and liked to follow people, spy, stalk, whatever you want to call it. Yosef was on another level. He could just look at you and see your past, hear people talking about you on the other side, I’m not even sure what. I didn’t want to ask questions. It bothered me too much to think about.

Besides that, he could make a mean Manhattan. Really, he could make any drink you wanted and he was a great cook, too. Yep, he’ll do nicely. I chuckled to myself as I thought about the afternoon ahead of us. We talked a little bit while we set things up, but mostly he was busy running to-and-fro and stressing out about making everything perfect. With the tables taken care of and Yosef accepting a floral delivery and then decorating with it, I was free to set-up the bar and grill area to my heart’s content.

As mid-morning melded into afternoon and everything was just about ready to go, I finally saw my opportunity to get Travis alone. Around the corner of the house I penned him in and made him listen to me.

“I made up my mind.”

“About?” He scowled at me in a mix of confusion and annoyance. He probably still had a hundred things to do, but if I knew him, he was going to be very interested in my answer.

“The Growler.”

One eyebrow quirked upwards on his forehead. “And?”

I pulled the keys out of my pants pocket and held them out. “I want to trade: The keys to the bar for the keys to a new truck.”

“You wanna go back to trucking?” He asked in a mix of astonishment and alarm. My last stint as a truck driver had gone well until it ended in disaster. I could tell both of us were trying not to relive those events while I dangled the keys to my world in front of him.

“Yep. Flatbed, industrial. Like before. No Sierra this time.”

His eyes searched mine, then he nodded. “You sure about this?”

“Absotootely,” I replied with a smirk.

“I think I know who to give these to,” he murmured as he took the keys from my hand. I knew exactly who he was going to give them to, because if I knew Travis, he hadn’t bought a wedding present yet.

“It’s a deal then. I want a Cummins, manual,” I snapped, then turned and headed off to heat up the grill. As the guests started to arrive they made a beeline for me. Almost everyone invited to the wedding was a regular at The Growler and wanted to know when it would be open again. I couldn’t blame them; it was the only place for people like us to safely socialize.

“I don’t know,” I told each of them. “It’s not mine anymore.” Each time I said it, I felt better about the decision, firmer in it. I was doing the right thing. I was giving it to someone who would take care of it properly, would brew beer and cook hot food and keep it alive the way it deserved to be. Not half-ass it while he ran around, secretly working as Travis’ Fixer like I had done.

Finally, once the benches of the picnic tables were fully-loaded with asses, some music began to play and I spotted some of my friends a little distance away. They emerged one-by-one from between a couple of pine trees, then walked through the backyard towards the floral-covered arch I’d watched Travis and Yosef curse and cuss over for an hour. River, another Army veteran, had stepped-up to be Yosef’s best man, and Ashleigh, Mack’s ex-cop girlfriend, had stepped-up to be Jana’s maid of honor. One of the pack kids ran along, frantically scattering flower petals and making an adorable mess, and another trailed along behind her with the rings. Finally, Travis emerged, holding Jana’s arm in his. She was radiant in a pale pink wedding dress, her dark skin contrasting nicely against the light satin. I winked at her as they passed by and watched a faint blush creep into her cheeks.

The ceremony was short, shockingly officiated by Mack, who had gotten ordained on the Internet for the occasion. The two lovebirds said their vows, and then the party started while I grilled burgers, chicken, and vegetables to go with the spread of food Travis had been slaving over all week. He loved to cook, especially for the pack, and whipped up giant trays of pulled pork, macaroni and cheese, coleslaw, and other American classics. I wasn’t sure where the cake came from, but it wouldn’t have surprised me if he or one of the other pack members made it. When it was finally time to start serving food the music was turned down and the toasts started.

A few people stood up and made little speeches, more to impress Travis than anything, and finally Travis stood and cleared his throat. His speech was short, a little bit about welcoming Yosef into his family, and then something about passing on a gift that would enable him to build a future for himself and find his place in the community. Then he dangled the keys that used to be mine in front of Yosef’s face.

With a furrowed brow Yosef guessed, “a truck?” It was a good guess. In addition to repairing the things, Travis made most of his fortune selling big rigs. But he shook his head.

“The Growler.”

Yosef’s gaze whipped around to lock on mine. “John, I cannot. This is too much,” he started to argue, but I shook my head.

“I sold it back to him. It’s not mine to give away, Yosef.”

The two hugged as a little murmur moved through the party. Several heads turned to look at me with different expressions on their faces, but I didn’t give a fuck what they thought about it. “I couldn’t imagine a better set of hands to leave it in. Congratulations, Yosef, and Jana.” I raised my beer to them and fielded more questions about it through the night, but I kept my answers short. If anyone was looking for a reason to give Yosef shit about his new ownership of the bar, they wouldn’t get it from me.

“I’m going back to trucking,” I told them instead. “I miss the open road.” Wolves are all gossips and I knew from the looks on their faces that they were all hiding their concern behind a thin veneer of surprise. I tried to stuff-down my own reaction and just get through the evening, playing the happy bartender one last time.

That night I slept-off my over-indulgence atop a picnic table, beneath the stars. Now that I’d made my decision to leave it, I didn’t want to go back to The Growler. Eventually I would have to get my belongings out of the apartment, but Yosef didn’t really need that space and he could have everything that came with the bar. I had no need for the furniture or the brewery equipment. When the sun came up, I got up with it, finding my way back to my motorcycle in a sea of cars and bikes now clogging up the driveway. Quietly and carefully I walked it down the driveway and out of the gate. I finally started it where the driveway’s concrete bib met the highway and hoped it was far enough away that no one would be disturbed by the noise.

I wasn’t sure where I was going, but at least for a little while, I was done being around other people.

TWO - Piper

Why won’t they just leave me alone?

I slumped against my bedroom door — if you could even call it a bedroom. It was only a walk-in closet in my roommate, Kendra’s, bedroom, but it was better than living in my car. My other roommate, Veronica, and her little daughter Evie shared the other bedroom. It wasn’t glamorous, but between the three of us we always made rent and Evie was safe.

Or maybe not.

The letter in my hand felt like a curse. For months I had lived in my car, trying to shake the cult and throw them off my trail. Nothing was in my name in Kendra’s apartment and I didn’t even own a cell phone. I had nothing traceable, but somehow, they kept finding me. I had only made it for three months this time, three months of living peacefully in an apartment with running water and electricity before they found me again. I let my head thump back against the door while I realized what I had to do next; I had to leave again.

How would I even explain myself to Kendra? I would have to see her at work, face her after leaving them short on rent money. At least I still had the car, even if it didn’t run anymore. I wonder if it’s worth anything, I thought, then grabbed my phone and loaded up Facebook marketplace.

Two days later I stood in the parking lot, watching an older man walk around the car and assess it. “I can give you five-hundred-dollars,” he offered. “It’s only good for parts.”

Part of me wanted to refuse and insist the car was worth more, but it wasn’t, not really. I couldn’t move it but if I let the registration lapse the landlord would have it towed. It would cost me money to keep it any longer. “Alright. Deal.” He handed me five crisp hundred-dollar-bills, then he loaded my former home onto a trailer and drove off with it. At one point I had worked three jobs to buy that car, but it seemed like no matter how many steps forward I took I was always sliding backward.

In the morning I packed everything I could carry on my bike. A few comic books, my clothes, the bedding I’d bought for my little closet-room. It wasn’t much more than a twin mattress and a shelf, but it had been sweet while it lasted. And now it was over, like every other sweet thing in my life.

I wanted to just sneak out, but I couldn’t do that. Through the thin wall I could hear the coffee maker running, my cue to find Kendra. She was a beautiful human, tall and thin with willowy limbs. Long brown hair to her waist and big, amber-colored eyes. “Kendra?” I asked timidly as I entered the apartment’s small kitchen. She turned to face me, smiling and holding a cup of steaming-hot coffee.

“What’s up, Pip?”

“I, uhm,” my hand shook behind my back, clutching a handful of letters that had been left at our doorstep over the last few days. Finally, I held them out to her. “I have to leave. Move. I have to move.”

Her pretty, freckled face crumpled in confusion and disappointment, then she took the letters from me and flattened them out on the counter. I stood behind her until I couldn’t take just standing there any longer and poured myself a cup of coffee.

“Pip, we should call the cops.”

“No, we can’t.” She couldn’t understand, and I couldn’t tell her the truth. How would she even believe me? Yes, well, I’m actually a werewolf and I was raised by this pack– no, I don’t shift, I never figured that out, but I’m still a wolf and I still belong to them. She would think I’d had a stroke. “They’re really dangerous. This happened to me before, the last time I had roommates. It’s why I used to live in my car. They will find me anywhere, and they will hurt you, Veronica, and Evie if I stay. I wish I could. But it would be wrong.”

For a while she tried to convince me to stay and just call the cops, but I already knew the cops wouldn’t do anything. “I’ve tried that before, Kendra. I swear, if I could stay here, I would.” I didn’t want to tell her about the economy apartment I’d found. She was better off not knowing where I went, and she would only feel bad for me if she knew where I was going. But I didn’t have a choice. They would never stop hunting me.

THREE - John

I managed to be alone for about two weeks, staying in a cheap AirBnB until someone from the pack really started looking for me.

“Ashleigh,” I greeted Mack’s girlfriend at the apartment door. “What can I do for you?”

“You could answer your phone. For starters.”

I pursed my lips and shrugged at her. “I look at it. Isn’t that good enough?” I already knew where this was going. She was trying to leave behind cop-life and finish her psychology degree, and I’d stupidly agreed to let her practice on me. For months we had one or two phone calls a week where I spilled my guts for an hour and she took notes for herself and supposedly, to help me.

“You can’t just leave us all on ‘read’ and expect no one to worry about you.”

“So you used your piggy skills to come find me. Classic.” I tried to shut the door on her but I didn’t try very hard. In normal circumstances she couldn’t have stopped me, but Ashleigh wasn’t normal. She was a female Alpha and “gifted” beyond that. As soon as I put my hand on the door hers shot out and slammed it back into the rubber doorstopper. Then she slipped around me and instantly began assessing the apartment, either as a cop or as a therapist, I wasn’t sure.

“You aren’t drinking again, are you?”

“I don’t have a drinking problem,” I scoffed at her.

“You got a DUI in your last semi-truck, so you’ll have to excuse me for asking questions.” She frowned and picked a beer bottle up out of the sink, then gave me an, “I told you so” look.

“I got a DUI on the,” I hesitated as I counted bad days on my fingers, “fourth-worst day of my life, twenty-four hours after my girlfriend overdosed in the truck, and almost three years to the day that my parachute didn’t open and I went splat into a German tree. Just a little therapist tip for you, you can’t use your client’s worst day as a baseline for their behavior. So I had one beer,” I winced as she carried it to the recycling bin and put her foot on the pedal to pop open the lid. The lid caught for a second and finally sprung free with the sound of jingling glass. “That looks worse than it is. So what if I like beer? I still don’t have a drinking problem,” I argued while she stared down at the thirteen-gallon can full of empty bottles. Ashleigh carefully crammed the last bottle into the bin and let the lid flop shut onto the can’s contents, then she turned and studied me for a lot longer than I felt comfortable with.

“John, I’m really worried about the direction you’re going right now. Travis says your truck will be ready this week, but if you’re relapsing I don’t think you should go out and drive–”

“I’m not relapsing,” I snapped at her. “Look at the bottles. They’re all different varieties and brands. That’s not what alcoholics do. I had two weeks of personal time and a couple sampler cases from the bar that I always wanted to try. I had two or three every day, so what? I drank a lot more than that when I was in Germany. I don’t have a problem,” I insisted, though she didn’t look terribly convinced. Piled up around me were the Banker’s Boxes of my belongings and I watched her prowl towards them and open one. She laughed at the contents, a bunch of guns and knives, then gave a wide berth to a small potted birch sapling on her way to the coffee table.

“You’re journaling? That’s actually really good for PTSD,” she smiled encouragingly, then bent to read what I’d written. “Jesus Christ, John.”

“What?” I turned my back on her and opened the fridge, grabbing one of the last things I hadn’t sampled from my biergarten collection before she robbed me. She glared at me while I chugged it, gasped for air, then read the label aloud. “Aecht Schlenkerla Lentbeer — it’s a smoked beer. They actually smoke the barley to give the beer a smoky flavor. I bet you’ve never had that before and I would have offered to share if you weren’t such a killjoy.”

For a long minute she said nothing and I wondered if I’d finally pushed too many of her buttons. “It’s like you want me to think you have no personality other than the Army and beer.”

“I don’t. You’re finally figuring it out.”

After shooting me an unimpressed glare she stooped and picked up my journal from the coffee table. To my horror she flipped to the first page, cleared her throat and started reading aloud, “‘Got shot at again today. Didn’t die. Again. Saw some tits and didn’t have to pay for it. Pretty good day.’ That was six months ago. What were you doing?” I didn’t answer and she flipped to the next page and kept reading. It didn’t take her long to make her way through most of the journal; I only ever wrote a few sentences at the top of the page before I got bored and moved on.

“This isn’t really journaling,” she complained, “you’re supposed to write about your feelings and what triggers your PTSD.”

“I don’t have PTSD,” I corrected her. “I have spicy nostalgia. Big difference.” I made a move for the journal but she side-stepped me and started reading the most recent entry.

“‘Day thirteen, still no sign of the enemy (Ashleigh). I will not make NCO noises, I will not make NCO noises, I will not make NCO noises–’”

“I wrote it twenty times, you don’t have to read them all.”

“What are ‘NCO noises’?” She wrinkled her nose at me, trying to understand.

“Non-commissioned officer noises are mostly yelled curse words,” I muttered, then made another attempt. “If you don’t give that back I will take you down, and then Mack will have to beat me up, and then I’ll have to kill him. It’s a pride thing. Choose your next move wisely. You could destroy the whole pack if you’re not careful.”

“You know,” she exhaled and finally dropped the journal back onto the coffee table, “I really empathize with you. Not a day goes by that I don’t miss being a cop, even though I didn’t get to do it for long. But I also know that’s not where I’m supposed to be right now. I also don’t miss getting punched by people I was trying to help, or getting bitched at by command. But you roll with the hits to keep getting the highs.”

I hated it when she did that.

“I’m not expecting you to change overnight, but you can’t disappear like this. I know the wedding was a lot of social interaction and giving away the bar in front of everyone was more stressful than you want to admit. There’s some grief there, too, I’m sure. But you have to stay in touch with me or Travis. You’ve missed three of our appointments and blown off a bunch of attempts from him. He needs to talk to you about work things,” she reminded me like I didn’t already know I was still working under-the-table for Travis.

Moving around her I collected my journals, pens, and various bits of paper from the coffee table and moved them to a box. She kept talking, trying to show me she could relate. I knew that she could to some degree, but with most of it I was still on my own. “You’re being a really nice pig right now, so if you want to and you promise to stop lecturing me about drinking, I have two more German beers. We could sit on the balcony and shoot the shit like a couple of old soldiers. Or you can watch me drink them and keep lecturing me like you’re my mom.”

“I’m not your mom,” she laughed a little, but still glared at me. “I’m your little sister if I’m anything. And you’re my big, crashing-out brother. Get me a beer, then.” I popped the lid off for her and handed it over, smiling as she complained about the size of it. “This is like two beers,” she observed.

“More like one-and-a-half, prissy American beers. Prost,” I clinked mine against hers and let myself out onto the balcony. I figured she wasn’t done harassing me about the distant past, but to my surprise she let it go and settled for more recent events.

“So, what were you doing six months ago?” She asked with a wry grin on her face.

“Uh, John stuff.”

“John stuff, eh? You know I’m not a cop anymore. I can’t do anything about it if you were doing things you weren’t supposed to.”

“I think that was a Monday, so usual Monday things: Fly to Chicago, make an appearance in front of the gang I was trying to infiltrate, get shot at by another pack of wolves, burn down somebody’s house, catch a couple hours of shut-eye in O’Hare and then get on an airplane and remind myself I don’t have to jump out of this plane if I don’t want to,” I answered nonchalantly while she giggled and rubbed her eyes. “Sometimes I really miss it, pretending to be a guy in a gang. On those nights, I just put on the silly little mask they gave us for covering our faces when we committed crimes, and then I jerk off in front of a mirror.”

“Oh my God, what the fuck?” She sputtered and laughed despite her momentary shock, even while I had my own laugh at her expense.

“You’re going to have to develop a poker face if you seriously want to treat veterans with PTSD,” I warned her. “You will hear worse things than that. A lot worse than that.”

“Oh?” She raised her eyebrows at me, eyes still twinkling with amusement. “Like what?”

“I wouldn’t know. I’m innocent,” I turned away from her to hide my own laughter. She didn’t believe me for a second, and nobody else would, either. The crazy thing was, for a long time I had been pretty naive about sex. I’d only ever been with three people: A bored hausfrau that gave me a pity-fuck when she found out I was a twenty-four-year-old virgin, Sierra, and Travis’ vampire ex-girlfriend, Reina. That German MILF had started something, though. Up until that moment I had been curious but not obsessed. I can’t pretend I didn’t understand her shock, either. I was a hardened killer by then, a quiet professional, a Special Forces Operator and I had never even fingered a woman. The weird contrast hadn’t totally escaped my notice. After that encounter, I was obsessed, and I thought about sex constantly. Then I met Sierra and she got me into so much twisted, fucked-up, sadistic shit I didn’t think I could just have normal sex and get anything out of it anymore. I wasn’t fit for a nice girl, either. After Sierra, all I deserved were more women like her.

At that thought, my whole mood soured. Ashleigh felt it and tried to bring me back, but I just clammed-up, shut down. I wish I wasn’t like that, that I could just be the life of the party all the time. We finished our beers in silence and she gave me a really nice, long hug.

“Tell Travis I’ll be ready to pick the truck up by the end of the week,” I told her as she stepped out of the apartment door.

“Don’t disappear for two weeks after tonight,” she pleaded. “We’ll talk about whatever just happened during our appointment on Thursday, unless you want to stand me up again.”

“I won’t do that,” I told her. “Thanks for sharing a beer and a few laughs with me.”

After shutting and locking the door behind her I went to the box where I’d stashed all of my journals. Thankfully, I’d only had out the one I shared with Ashleigh when she asked during my therapy sessions. The others would have either sent her running for the hills, or had her filling-out paperwork to have me hospitalized. Buried among them was something I really didn’t want her to know about, but with her safely out of my hair, I dug it out from beneath the contents of the box.

To anyone else, it was just an old cell phone. To me, it was a time capsule. The cracked screen was evidence of the drunken rollover accident that had destroyed my last truck. I had really fucked my life up back then, and for once I could say it was just me, myself, and I who bore the responsibility. Yeah, things were hard, but I made shitty choices and was lucky no one died.

I held the button on the side until the screen lit up, then waited until Sierra’s smiling face greeted me. I punched in my old password, then navigated to the camera roll. I’d gotten the phone not long after I met Sierra — phones never seemed to survive flatbedding for very long, not for me. I always forgot to take it out of my pocket and ended up crushing it somehow. The first videos were sweet: Sierra cooking in our truck, Sierra driving and smiling, a close-up of Sierra’s ass while she threw straps over a load. There were dozens of videos of vanilla sex, me loving her and her supposedly loving me back.

Then it all stops. The dark interior of her apartment comes into view, blurry because I’m drunk and recording Blair Witch-style. Sierra’s screaming is the loudest thing in the video, the sound of my fists pummelling the sweaty accountant I found on top of her the next loudest thing. He tried to fight me and found out why smart people don’t start shit with me, but guess who went to jail? Fair enough, I guess — no doubt I won that fight and came out with the better end of the deal.

The videos after that all suck, but sometimes I needed to remember. Even though she was dead and couldn’t bother me anymore, I sometimes told myself it wasn’t as bad as I remembered. For a few months, I turned the camera on and set the phone down, just recording her voice. “You’re a worthless asshole, John. If you weren’t dead inside I wouldn’t have done it.” At first I laughed it off. I kept team-driving with her and sharing a truck because we both made more money that way and somehow I thought it was worth it. Then I couldn’t admit I needed to quit.

“How many were there?” I hear my own voice, yelling even inside the tight confines of the semi-truck. “Just tell me honestly, how many was it? Do you even know?”

"I don’t know, John. Does it make you feel better to hear that?”

“That you slept with so many guys you can’t even guess at how many times you cheated on me? No, surprisingly, not really!” I sounded sarcastic, but I always default to sarcasm when I’m pissed off.

I thumbed past that video and a few others, then stopped on shaky camera footage, my first attempt to document the unbelievable shit that was happening to me. I’m a combat veteran and bounced at my own bar for years, but in the video I put my arms up and tried to block her while she screamed incoherently and slugged me in the face. It wasn’t like how most women hit, probably. I actually can’t say, since only one woman has ever decided to test me like that. Sierra drove flatbed and strapped and tarped her own loads. She had no issue dealing with a tarp that weighed more than her. Getting hit by her was no joke.

Those videos were interspersed with others, all taken after I made yet another terrible decision. [censored so I don't lose my website hosting lol]

I thought I needed proof of what a bitch she was, that no one would believe me if I didn’t record something. I started staying away from the compound, afraid the pack would ask why I always had a black eye or a bruised jaw. I didn’t think they would believe the excuse that I was fighting with other truckers all the time. When Sierra’s downward spiral finally terminated and sucked me down, too, I found out they all kind of knew it. Nobody liked her and they all would have believed me.

For that old version of myself, I had to do what I did next. “It was as bad as you thought it was. Don’t ever question that again.” I stepped out onto the balcony with the phone and one of my guns and finished off what the truck-wreck started, smashing the phone to pieces with the butt of the gun. I kicked the pieces off the balcony, scattering them into the rocks and landscaping below, then I sank into one of the chairs Ashleigh and I had sat in just minutes before.

I had expected to feel something. Release, relief, something. “I guess I was more over that than I thought I was,” I mused aloud, watching the last rays of sunlight break through the low cloud-cover that was moving in. “Too bad I gave Ashleigh my last beer. A little celebratory drink would be nice right about now.” I went back into the apartment and picked up my helmet and the keys to my motorcycle, then thought better of it. “I can walk.”