#danielabrams

It was hard to leave Talia’s couch. Not just physically, though that was a difficulty Rory had to account for, too — getting shot really fucking hurt, as it turned out, and getting shot with a silver bullet probably hurt worse than normal for… someone like her — but emotionally, too. All Rory really wanted was to curl up with one of the cushions on the couch and hide from the world indefinitely, until things made sense again. Except… things were never going to make sense again. Everything she knew about herself — everything she knew about her life, her family — was wrong. How did you come to terms with that? How did you learn to accept it? It ached. It wouldn’t stop aching. 

She sniffed, hugging the pillow she was holding a little closer to her chest. Sharp ears picked up the sound of a key turning in the lock; her nose picked up a scent that was vaguely familiar, but not Talia. Immediately, Rory tensed. She reared back with the pillow and, as the door opened, let it fly. Sure, someone having a key to the house probably meant they weren’t a threat; if Talia trusted them, Rory ought to, too. But she’d just found out she’d spent her entire life being lied to by people she’d trusted, and she’d just been shot in the gut with a silver bullet. It was kind of hard to trust anything right now. The pillow — which wasn’t a great weapon — sailed through the air as the door opened, and Rory scrambled behind the couch despite the pain the action caused her. She ducked down to the side of it, clutching her stomach uncertainly. Hopefully whoever it was didn’t have, like, a gun or something. She was kind of over guns.

—

At least Talia had warned Daniel before he came home that there would be a young, wounded werewolf in the house. When he pulled into the empty driveway, he cursed under his breath that he’d gotten back to Talia’s cabin while she was gone. Tree perked up in the passenger seat and if it wasn’t for the lack of dog food for her, he would have headed straight to his camper so as not to disturb Rory. But his dog needed her dinner and he needed to clean off after spending multiple days out in the woods with a group who wanted to backpack and explore. The group was nice and easygoing, and for the most part, they knew what they were doing which made Daniel’s life easier; they just wanted a professional to ensure they didn’t get lost in the wilderness. 

As much as he wanted to take one of his weapons with him, Daniel decided to leave everything in his truck. He hoped this was going to be the same Rory that he’d met twice. Maybe he wouldn’t need a weapon—though if he did, he knew where he kept a few hidden around Talia’s cabin. 

He noisily walked up the porch step and jangled his keys at the door. He wanted Rory to hear him so it would be less of a surprise as he came inside. Once he opened the door though, a pillow whacked him against the chest, and he watched as Rory—definitely the same Rory—hid behind the couch. At least she didn’t throw an actual weapon at him. He picked up the pillow as Tree scrambled into the tiny cabin and ran right to her empty food bowl. “Uh, hey, Rory. Talia mentioned you’d be here,” Daniel said as he closed the door behind him and kicked off his boots. “It’s me, Daniel.”

—

The voice that greeted her was a familiar one, though not Talia’s. Rory had only met Daniel twice, but both had been memorable enough situations. The first time, Rory had been injured and spiraling after her encounter with the vampire and Brigit’s death; the second, it was Daniel who had been in rough physical shape and emotionally… weird, to say the least, even if she still didn’t really know why. Now here they were again, with Rory in tremendous pain both physically and emotionally. What, were they taking turns? Would the next time she saw Daniel find him in dire straits again? 

Poking her head up from behind the couch, Rory grunted. Even the limited movement was enough to exhaust her, making her feel as though she was going to collapse. She ached all over, the pain not just localized to the injuries she’d sustained in her encounter with Daiyu. And, maybe worst of all, she still wanted to cry. She hated the feeling of it, hated the tightness in her throat and the ache in her chest. She hated that Daniel was here to witness it, too. 

“Why are you here?” She asked, rather than offering him any kind of greeting. There was a bite to her tone; like a frightened animal snapping at the first person to come near it, Rory couldn’t help but anticipate something cruel despite the fact that Daniel had never once shown himself to be someone who might represent a threat. “Do you know Talia or something?” She didn’t move to sit back on the couch, though not because she didn’t want to. The idea of moving again at all felt too taxing, too hard. Easier to pretend she preferred the floor.

—

Daniel cautiously took off his jacket as he glanced over towards Rory peeking up at him. He wasn’t sure what exactly to say to her. It was awkward enough that time he helped her out in Nightfall Grove, and he wasn’t a comforting type of person—at least, he didn’t consider himself as such. He thought he sort of tried his best when they first met, but he was still uncertain about all of his weird feelings about shifters. Now it felt exacerbated as he looked at her and knew she was a werewolf—knew that she had just been hunted by a ranger like him, possibly a ranger he chatted with at The 3 Daggers. 

He couldn’t blame her for acting so fearful towards him coming inside, and maybe he should have waited until Talia got home. Though, would that have been weirder for her Rory? Would she have heard his truck pull into the driveway and then just sat there with him inside? Was that more threatening? He wasn’t sure what the right answer was to his questions, so instead he placed his keys down on the side table. “I’m dating Talia,” Daniel answered. “I live here. With her.” He hoped that was enough of an answer, until he remembered that the last time they saw each other, he was living with Eve in Deersprings. He cleared his throat. “I just moved in like … a little over a month ago.” It all felt so natural living with Talia again that sometimes he almost forgot about their time apart—he didn’t like thinking about those months and everything that happened during them. Easier to ignore and forget. 

“Just gonna feed Tree,” he said as he walked over to where he kept the dog food and filled the bowl for the dog that acted like she hadn’t eaten in weeks. Before he could even place the bowl back on the floor for her, she was already shoving her head into the bowl to get at the food.  

Based on how skittish Rory seemed, Daniel thought maybe it’d be best to announce what he was doing as he moved about the cabin. Though they’d met twice, he was still a strange man. And a ranger, at that. A ranger that knew she was a werewolf who had been shot and had a silver bullet lodged in her. He racked his brain through ideas of what might be comforting or nice for the frightened and traumatized werewolf. “Gonna fix me some tea before I head out to my camper,” he said. “Do you … Do you want any?” That seemed better than awkwardly trying to talk to her. 

—

He was dating Talia? The news was more surprising than it should have been, if only because it highlighted how little Rory really knew about Talia’s personal life. She trusted the werewolf completely, had come here with her guts full of silver and her whole world shifting on its axis, but what did she know about Talia as a person, really? She knew she’d killed people, but didn’t anymore. She knew Talia knew more about hunters than Rory did, knew she liked karaoke and hung out at the Chimera. But beyond that? Rory looked at Daniel and wondered how it was she could trust someone with her life even without knowing the first thing about theirs. She wondered if it was strange that the trust wasn’t shaken by this realization in the slightest. Someone pulling a bullet out of you made the resulting bond a hard one to break, apparently.

“Okay,” she said slowly, as if she was testing the word on her tongue. Daniel lived here, though he hadn’t the last time she’d run into him. Had they been dating then, when he was all sad and beaten up walking his dog through Deersprings? Or was this one of those whirlwind things where he and Talia started dating and moved in together in the same breath? That had always seemed wild to Rory, who liked her space more than she liked just about anything else, but it probably worked for some people, didn’t it? “Have you guys been together a long time, then?” 

The mention of Tree saw Rory relaxing a little more, though there was a certain tightness in her chest. The last time she’d met Daniel — and the dog — she’d mentioned preferring cats as an inside joke to herself, a quiet reminder that she was still the same person she’d always been. But that wasn’t the case now, was it? She’d never been that person at all. Was that why Tree liked her, then? Could the dog sense some kind of kinship between the two of them? She didn’t like the thought of it, but mostly because she didn’t like any of this.

She shifted so she could lean her back against the couch, figuring she’d get back up onto it as soon as she’d gathered a little more strength. For a moment, the world felt like static. Even the small shift in position hurt, nausea tugging insistently at her gut. But things righted themselves, and Daniel was talking. It took her mind a moment to catch up to what he’d said; for a moment, when he asked if she wanted any, her mind — stuck on his earlier statement that he was going to feed Tree — thought he might mean dog food. The thought curled in her gut until she realized he actually meant tea, and she sighed. “Uh… sure,” she nodded. “That sounds good, I guess. Are you a tea guy? I would have thought coffee.”

—

Daniel wasn’t sure of how to answer how long he and Talia had been dating. He didn’t want to make it sound like they were some sort of on-again-off-again relationship, when that’s not how he viewed them. They may have broken up that one time, but it was for a valid reason. He had been lying to Talia about his identity and what he knew about her. He was built and sharpened to hunt and kill her—to hunt and kill Rory. During his time apart from Talia, he never once thought it was a mistake for her to end things with him. Sometimes he wondered if it was a mistake for her to let him back into her life, that maybe their relationship was a landmine waiting for one wrong step before exploding and destroying everything around them. 

“Um, guess we became friends last summer. Sort of started seeing each other last winter,” he replied, thinking through how he phrased things. “Had a … fight, I guess, and didn’t talk for a few months. Decided to give it another try.” Out loud the entire relationship sounded ridiculous to an outsider. Just two people who hadn’t even known each other for a year. Two people who sort of got together, broke up, and immediately lived together. Yet it felt right to him. No matter how stupid and fast paced it was. 

Daniel wouldn’t dare get into any of the feelings he had towards Talia. How she felt like a stable home to him and all he wanted was to return to each day and night. That second time he met Rory, he felt empty and devoid of everything, even as he was overwhelmed with thoughts of missing his family, friends, and Talia. He wasn’t sure how to explain how he experienced nothing and everything at the same time. But sometimes, when Talia wrapped her arms around him and nuzzled her face into the nape of his neck, he thought he could almost handle everything from his past. As if having her with him gave him the space to feel safe to think about his past. To think about seeing his sister’s killer at a bloody scene with dead humans surrounding them. 

Not that he wanted to talk with anyone about that. He barely could share it with Talia, sometimes. It was only a week or so ago that he mumbled something to her about how he thought there might be something wrong with his head, but he wasn’t sure what it was or how to describe it. 

He grabbed a mason jar with some of the loose leaf tea that he put together. Talia and Tabitha’s chamomile blend was right next to his tea, and his hand hovered over the jar as he considered steeping that tea for the two of them. But Daniel grabbed the black tea blend, with blueberries and blackberry leaves. “Yeah, more into tea,” he answered, glancing over his shoulder towards Rory. The water boiled behind him, and he leaned back against the kitchen counter to look towards her. “I go for coffee sometimes when I need that caffeine, but ain’t really in need of that right now. Too late in the evening. You?” He shrugged his shoulders. 

He scraped his teeth against his tongue as he tried to think about what to say about Rory’s situation. He didn’t want to betray Talia’s trust with him or Rory’s with Talia, yet Rory was clearly injured and frightened. If he had to make a guess, she might be trying to hide it from him—not that he could blame her; he would do the exact same thing—had done the exact same thing. “Talia mentioned you might be staying here for a while,” he said, as he grabbed onto the counter top behind him. “I’ll … um, I mean, I’ll still … I’ll be around. Since I live here and all. Just out in my camper though. Don’t wanna bother you while you’re …,” Daniel trailed off as he bit back the word recovering—recovering from a silver bullet fired at her by a ranger like him. “While you’re here.” 

—

Romance wasn’t something Rory had a lot of experience with. She’d dated people throughout her life, sure. Most people had. She’d had boyfriends in middle school, boyfriends and girlfriends in high school and the years after. Sometimes, she thought she probably loved them; other times, she thought there was no way. She didn’t think she’d ever experienced anything quite as intense as what songs and movies made love out to be — that thing that made people chase someone through airports or stand screaming in the rain, that thing that made you feel like you’d die without the other person in your life. Rory had never wanted to feel that way. The idea of needing someone else so intensely that you felt like you were nothing without them wasn’t one she found appealing, and it was strange to her that other people did. 

She wondered if that was how it was for Daniel, for Talia. Maybe if she knew Daniel a little better, if she’d ever met him when neither of them was having some sort of existential crisis, she’d be able to tell based on the look on his face when he spoke about Talia and their relationship. It didn’t sound like that kind of thing; they’d gone a few months without talking, and Rory had seen both of them in that time. They’d both seemed a little down in the dumps, but they’d also been a lot more functional than the way the songs made it seem like a person might be if the one they loved was out of their life. Rory thought that was a good thing, for both of them. There was some quiet relief to it, too. Maybe it meant she wasn’t some freak who’d never known what love felt like. Maybe the media had just exaggerated. 

“That’s cool,” she offered. “Uh, I hope you guys are, like… happy together, or whatever.” Talia certainly deserved happiness. It was something Rory was sure of, after how much the werewolf had helped her. Digging around in someone’s gut for a silver bullet that would hurt you just as badly as it hurt them wasn’t the sort of thing a person undeserving of joy would do. Daniel, too, had helped Rory when she’d needed it, even if his offering hadn’t been quite as intense. In the state she’d been in when he’d found her, a ride home and a conversation had felt almost as intense as Talia saving her life on the sofa, offering to do it again and again. Maybe that made the two of them a good match. Or maybe Rory was just tired and in a lot of pain and more emotional than she ever remembered being in her entire fucking life, and that made her think of the people around her as better than she normally might have. Either way, she thought she was happy for the pair of them, happy that they’d found one another.

Even so, she couldn’t quite bring herself to take her eyes off him as he moved around the kitchen. Her mind was still a little stuck in the fight or flight mode she’d been forced into in the woods; she thought it probably would be for a while. Getting shot probably did that to a person, right? Made it hard to relax, hard to focus. Having everything you knew about yourself ripped out from under you and being left floundering and thrashing in the open air, just waiting for gravity to catch you and yank you down did the same. Going through both at once probably wasn’t, like, great for her mental health or whatever, but what was she supposed to do? It wasn’t like she could call up a therapist and talk about how her mom told her she was a balam instead of a werewolf, and that misunderstanding meant she’d eaten at least a handful of people. She also couldn’t tell a therapist she’d been shot without them having to call the cops or something; she was pretty sure she remembered that from some medical drama or another. Rory was stuck dealing with all of this on her own, and that meant watching Daniel like a fucking hawk with her heart pounding uncertainly in her chest.

“I’m more into coffee, usually,” she admitted. “I like the buzz of it. Feeling more like tea right now, though.” She didn’t need any more buzzing in her gut, not with the constant thrum of anxiety trembling through her. Drinking coffee right now would only make that worse, and she knew it. Tea was relaxing; relaxing was what she needed. Absently, she ran her fingers over the fabric of the couch behind her. “Yeah,” she acknowledged. “For a bit.” Probably at least until the next full moon, she figured, if only to make it easier for Talia to help her figure out what to do when she shifted. “I’m not going to, like, kick you out of your house or anything, though. You can be around. It’s fine.” She hesitated. “How much did Talia tell you?” She wasn’t even sure how much Daniel knew about the supernatural. Did he even know Talia was a werewolf?

—

Daniel gave her a slow nod of his head. “Thanks. I think we are.” He left it at that, not wanting to go any deeper into his and Talia’s relationship. The whole relationship was difficult enough to navigate with so many people knowing about him being a ranger and her being a werewolf. Almost like he was stuck even more in between two different worlds. Not that that was a new feeling for him, as he grew up in some strange middle zone between hunters and non-hunting humans. Never truly feeling like he belonged in either. He got along well-enough with other hunters, but he sometimes felt like he was missing something in those relationships, something that had nothing to do with hunting. With other humans, he knew more than them—more about the supernatural, more about death, more about killing—that he found it hard to have normal, casual conversations with them. Though Talia was a werewolf—someone he should hunt—it almost seemed easy with her, easy to find a middle point between those two worlds. 

“Well, there’s always plenty of tea here, between me and Talia,” he replied. “If you’re ever in another tea mood, feel free to help yourself.” He wasn’t sure how much Rory could be doing that right now though, with her injuries, and he guessed that he and Talia would do most of the work until she recovered enough. Not that Daniel minded taking care of someone else, even if he knew it was for another werewolf. He couldn’t not see the weird predicament he was in in that very moment—dating and living with a werewolf and now taking care of a different werewolf living with them. His hunter instincts screamed at him that this was all a horrible idea. He didn’t know anything about Rory as a werewolf beyond her shifting outside of the full moon and being attacked by a fellow ranger. 

Part of him was curious though with how much she knew about being a werewolf. If she came running to Talia for help, then that meant she probably didn’t have any werewolf kinfolk in the area. No one to turn to for support, besides Talia. Was she bitten and transformed into this? Was she born into this? Did she not have anyone else to help with this? He wasn’t annoyed by her presence, but more … curious and wondering. He couldn’t help it. Nothing he did could turn off certain parts of his brain that had been molded into an investigative hunter mindset in his youth. 

“Still wanna give you some space though,” Daniel answered. “Ain’t gonna have me kicked out. I’ll be around.” Like when he needed to come inside for his clothes or to get ready for work. He also wasn’t going to explain that part of him preferred to stay in his camper right then. He didn’t know how much control Rory had as a shifter, and the last thing he wanted was to get stuck and find that out. Even his camper didn’t actually provide protection from a werewolf—she could easily claw her way through the thin roof or tear open the door that barely shut. He glanced over at Tree, who had now finished up her food and ran over to Talia’s bed, leaping up onto it and circling around until she found the perfect spot to lay down and rest her head on her paws. How concerned should he be about his dog around Rory? Maybe he’d need to ask Talia a few more questions, see what she knew about Rory. 

But he wasn’t going to hunt Rory. That much he knew. He only wanted to know a few more things before living with her. 

(Maybe, he realized then, he should have thought about those same things last year when he and Talia would go off into the woods together or when he practically moved into her cabin. Mistake after mistake. He really moved in with a werewolf even though he knew nothing about her shifting.)

Which all now sent him into a weird spiral as he tried to think about how to answer Rory’s question. Daniel couldn’t—wouldn’t tell her that he was a ranger. He wasn’t sure how much he should divulge to her either. Should he admit that he knew Talia was a werewolf and that she mentioned Rory was one too? Should he play dumb and act like he knew nothing about the supernatural? Even that one seemed a little ridiculous at this point. He thought back to their first meeting in Nightfall Grove, and now he thought maybe he was a little too obvious about knowing about the existence of vampires. Maybe it was already clear that he knew about the supernatural. 

“She … she told me enough.” He sighed and glanced over towards the tea. “She wanted to make sure that I was aware of … aware of things.” He cleared his throat and turned his gaze towards Tree, fast asleep on Talia’s bed. “Hard to live in this town and not know a thing or two about what happens around here.”

—

It was good, the fact that Daniel and Talia were happy together. Though Rory didn’t know either of them particularly well — despite apparently living with them, albeit temporarily — she thought she knew enough to know they both deserved that. Both had helped her when she’d needed help, after all. Talia was helping her still, offering to help her figure out how to shift safely so she wouldn’t hurt anyone else. She wondered if she ought to tell Daniel about all of that, wondered if it was unfair to stay here without making him more aware of the danger she presented. 

She could still see it, those hazy, wolfish memories. Every time she closed her eyes for longer than a blink, some horrid event flashed in her mind. Chasing people through the woods, tearing through flesh and bone. She even remembered some of the wolf’s thoughts throughout — some of her thoughts, really, because a werewolf was not a balam. There was no separate spirit living within her, no secondary consciousness on which she could shove her crimes. The wolf was Rory; Rory was the wolf. Those things the beast had thought — the joy it had found in ripping people apart, the need for a hunt, the curiosity in how long it kept its prey alive before killing them — weren’t they Rory’s thoughts, too? Didn’t that mean that there was some part of her, however deeply buried, that wanted to do those things? The thought made her sick, but so did all of it. 

She wished she could stop thinking about it, wished the memories would go back to whatever lockbox they’d been stuffed away in when she’d still been denying her nature, but it seemed like she couldn’t make that happen. The only memory still missing was the one surrounding the day she’d left her family behind. She used to long for it, used to need it to tell her what had happened, where they’d gone, but… she wasn’t so sure anymore. Maybe it would be better not to know. Maybe she should be happy that something was still locked away. After all, she’d learned that not every answer was an answer she wanted to have.

“Yeah, you guys have… a lot of tea,” she said absently, letting her eyes slide back over to Daniel. “Um, lots of different kinds, and stuff.” It felt awkward, stifled. She wasn’t sure how to talk to Daniel, but only because she wasn’t sure how to talk to anyone right now. Rory didn’t know who she was anymore. That made idle conversation a difficult thing to hold on to, and small talk hard to maintain. How could you talk to someone about tea when your world was crumbling around the edges? How could you offer a polite smile when everything you knew about yourself was a lie? 

Daniel assured her that he’d still be around, that she wasn’t kicking him out, and Rory only nodded. She was too tired to argue with him, which was certainly saying something for Rory, who argued as easily as she breathed. She probably should have argued, should have insisted that this was his house and not hers and that he shouldn’t have to feel like he could only be around sometimes for her benefit. But part of Rory was afraid that if she pushed, she’d be asked to leave. And she wasn’t quite ready to go back to her own apartment, wasn’t quite ready to face the pieces of herself scattered around that made such little sense. She’d rather be here, rather hide here.

There was some relief, at least, in knowing that Daniel wasn’t entirely clueless. She’d figured he knew at least a little something about the supernatural based on his reaction to finding her in Nightfall Grove, but she hadn’t been certain until his response here. And she was glad for that. Rory wasn’t sure she was capable of juggling her own feelings and aches with the idea of having to keep the wool of the world at large pulled over someone else’s eyes. It was an exhausting thing, hiding an entire society from someone who lived within it. She certainly didn’t think she could manage it while she was already spiraling. 

“You don’t have to be vague,” she pointed out with a tired sigh. “‘Aware of things.’ You can just, like… say it. We both know, anyway.” Rory was a werewolf. There was no more secret, there was no more denying. Rory was a werewolf, no matter how badly she wished she weren’t. She knew it. Talia knew it. And now, Daniel knew it, too. She wished she could think that that was the end of it, that those three people were the only ones aware, but she knew it wasn’t the case. Clem knew, despite how hard Rory had fought her on it. Owen, too. Mateo. Probably others. In some ways, Rory had been among the last to know what she was. The thought ached worse than the bullet hole. “Some people aren’t as quick at picking shit up as others,” she said, some quiet defensiveness rising in her chest. Was she so different from the people who lived in this town and had no idea that there was a supernatural world lurking beneath the surface? Probably not, in the grand scheme of things.

—

She didn’t want him to be vague about what she was, but Daniel struggled to not be vague about supernatural things around a shifter. (Sometimes he struggled not to be vague in general.) Even when he revealed himself to Talia, it was a stumbling chaotic mess that still made him cringe whenever he thought back to it. He still saw how Talia wrapped her arms around herself in heartbreak and betrayal, and sure, they found themselves together again with plans to make their relationship work. But he still tasted that betrayal and that need to keep things shoved out of sight between them. It was hard to be a weapon designed to kill her but choose to love her instead, especially as it meant opening himself up to situations with other shifters like this one with Rory. 

“Okay,” he said with a slow nod of his head, “so you’re a werewolf.” He could say that out loud and not have to mention what he was. “And you were hurt by someone. That’s what she told me.” He turned his back to Rory and grabbed two mugs from the cabinet, pouring the tea for both of them. His gaze followed after the tea cascading into the mug, and he held his breath for a brief moment as he avoided the whole predicament of his identity as a ranger. With a quick blink of his eyes, his thoughts traveled again to wondering what all Rory had done in her life as a werewolf. He didn’t think she’d shift right then, but who could be certain? 

Daniel placed her mug on the coffee table and wrapped his hands around his own as he returned to standing in the kitchen, giving her plenty of space. He questioned again exactly what he was doing—not just in that moment, but in how he conducted himself as a ranger. Nothing about him was the typical ranger experience, not with him dating a werewolf, befriending a lamia, and now sort of taking care of another werewolf. When he and Talia were first getting to know each other, he often questioned his sanity for disregarding the potential of her losing control and killing humans. Once he figured out she was a werewolf, he spent far too many of his nights wondering if she tore apart humans during her shifts. If she created the bloody, gory scenes that he sometimes found in the woods. Like when Maya—

He took a sip from his mug. No, no, he didn’t want to think about that again. He knew now that Talia had killed plenty of humans in her life—hunters, certainly—and he had to … live with that. Just as she had to live with him having killed shifters in his life. If Rory was running around killing innocent people then … well, everything his mother taught him told him that he needed to take care of the problem and kill her. That he needed to protect innocent humans. But it wasn’t like Daniel knew anything about her, though he could certainly speculate and wonder about it to himself. With his promise to Talia, he had to ignore everything he knew throughout his life and just let shifters live, despite what he might learn about them. (And it only became more complex and confusing when he thought too much about Talia’s past as a hunter of hunters, how she would be a target of his.) 

Daniel hadn’t responded to that quick defensive comment from her, but he also wasn’t entirely sure what to say to it anyway. He didn’t want to pretend too much that Wicked’s Rest was the first place he ever learned about the supernatural, especially if Rory was someone important to Talia and might be someone he saw more often. He didn’t want to fall into some big lie where in a few months she found out that he was a ranger, and that he and Talia hid that from her—fuck, he realized similarities between his hiding his identity from Rory and his hiding his identity from Talia, except this time Talia was part of that secret. He hoped it wouldn’t turn into some mess if Rory ever found out. 

He wondered if he could pry more information out of Rory to better answer his questions and figure out just how much of a danger she was. 

Instead, he just leaned back against the counter and thought about what all he’d need to take out to his camper. Clothes, snacks, a couple books, some of his CDs, dog treats and toys for Tree. She’d probably be disappointed to not get to sleep in Talia’s bed. 

He realized he was probably being weird, not saying anything to Rory, instead stuck in his head and thinking about staying in his camper for a while. “Do you … want to talk about what happened?” he asked, thinking that probably wasn’t the best question. “If it helps, I’ll tell you that I didn’t break my arm in a skiing accident by running into a tree. Fucking awful lie. But I was attacked by some cat-like creature, and I … escaped. Got away from it.” 

—

She flinched at the simplicity of his statement. You’re a werewolf. Even now, an argument rose up in her throat, an urge to tell him he was wrong despite the fact that she knew for certain he wasn’t. Would she ever be able to shake that? Or was it a part of her now, something permanently lodged in her throat? She was a werewolf. She was not a balam, though she still felt like one. She still felt the urge to murmur reassurances to an ocelot spirit that had never existed, still wanted to try a partial shift despite knowing it wasn’t possible. She felt so unsteady, like she had no idea who she was supposed to be. Talia could help her with parts of it, but not all of it. Rory didn’t know if there was anyone who could help her with all of it.

Daniel, it seemed, didn’t have all the facts. Rory was grateful for that, even if she already knew she’d been right to trust Talia with all of it. It made sense to share pieces with Daniel, especially if Daniel already knew what Talia was. But Rory was glad it seemed that Talia hadn’t given him the full story, was glad he didn’t know that she was a werewolf who was supposed to be something else. 

She knew it was silly, but the thought of it burned with a level of humiliation she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around. Talia, she knew, would tell her she had nothing to be embarrassed about, but she was, anyway. She’d argued with so many people, so adamantly. She’d torched her friendship with Clem, had missed out on Oliver’s life the last few months he was alive, had driven Guillermo away. She’d refused to let Owen show her the truth, had told Mateo he was stupid. And for what? To have to crawl back to those who were still around and tell them she’d been wrong after all? For someone as proud as Rory, that was almost worse than the realization she’d been lied to. 

So it was nice that Daniel got a simpler version of the story. To Daniel, Rory was just a werewolf who’d fallen on hard times. He didn’t need to know the details of it, didn’t need to know that there was more to the story than that, didn’t need to know how much of it was her own stupid fault. It wasn’t quite a lie, even if it wasn’t quite the truth, either. Rory could accept that, could roll with it.

She took the mug when he offered it to her, letting it warm her hands. “That about covers it,” she said, the words sticking in her throat. She was a werewolf who’d been hurt by someone. It was funny to see it boiled down into something so simple. Things always felt so much bigger when you were the one living them. Daniel could condense it into just a few words; for Rory, it was the biggest thing on Earth.

For a moment, the pair of them sat in silence. It certainly wasn’t the comfortable kind of silences she’d experienced with Talia since arriving, but it wasn’t the most stifling thing in the world, either. Rory stared down at the mug of tea in her hand, trying to make out her reflection in the murky surface. It was more of a distorted silhouette than anything else. 

When Daniel spoke again, it caught her off guard. She jumped a little, heart leaping into her throat for no reason as she glanced back up at him. She tried for a smile, but it was a weak attempt that didn’t quite meet her eyes. “I mean, I figured you didn’t run into a tree,” she admitted. “I didn’t know it was something like… that, though. Something supernatural. I just… I don’t know. I don’t know what I thought.” It probably didn’t matter. She’d learned that her assumptions weren’t particularly good ones when it came to things like this, hadn’t she? Rory could no longer trust her own judgment; she never should have in the first place. 

Absently, she tightened her grip on her mug. Did she want to talk about it? At first, she wasn’t sure. But when she opened her mouth, words spilled out, anyway. “I was in the woods,” she said quietly. “I don’t usually… I mean, I’ve never been able to remember it before. What I do when I’m shifted. It’s like… there was this wall up, between me when I’m me and me when I’m that. But this time, when I shifted back on Talia’s porch with a — with a silver bullet in me… I don’t know. It’s like it broke the wall down. I remember being in the woods. I remember smelling her, I remember going after her. And I remember her taking the shot. I remember it hurt.” She swallowed, feeling sick. “I just wanted to get away after that, to run. I remember…” She trailed off, squeezing her eyes shut. “I remember I didn’t want to die, mostly. I remember that.”

—

Daniel expected her to know that he had been lying—all the joking about Tree’s name being traumatic made it clear at the time that she wasn’t falling for his bullshit. Even he didn’t believe his lie at the time. “That’s okay,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders. It didn’t matter to him what he thought he was lying about at the time. “A skiing incident sounded more realistic than some supernatural creature attacking me.” 

He wasn’t the best with identifying or understanding his own feelings, let alone the feelings of someone else, but everything about Rory’s demeanor told him that she was struggling—which, of course she was; she had just been shot at by another ranger. She was yet another victim of this endless killing cycle that he was growing tired of. Even when he first met Wyatt, he threw out a comment against the neverending back and forth where hunters killed supernatural beings, who then killed hunters, who then killed supernatural beings, and back and forth for time eternal. He wanted out of it years ago, long before Maya’s murder, right around the time he had seen too many of his friends killed. (Sometimes he still saw their deaths when he slept—how he recalled one friend’s piercing screams right before she drew her last breath, or how another gurgled and gagged on his blood as Daniel held him in those final moments. He’d gotten a little better since moving in with Talia, but sometimes he still sat up panting for air or jumping out of the bed ready to fight, especially as he sensed a shifter nearby. He never knew how to explain it to Talia, that sensing her after a nightmare memory sent his body into fight mode as he reached for where he hid weapons around her cabin.) 

Rory seemed smaller as she spoke, and he held back any grimace or disgust as she explained that she usually didn’t recall what she did as a werewolf—and he kept his face especially neutral as she described stalking and hunting a ranger in the woods. He had told Talia that it was probably a random by chance hunt, not a ranger specifically going after Rory. Her memory of it confirmed that for him. Maybe she was up on the bounty board, maybe she wasn’t. Though Daniel wasn’t certain when he would go back to The 3 Daggers anyway, not when he felt more out of place there than usual. 

(And he guessed that she would be the exact type of shifter that he would have hunted in the past. He would have caught wind of her, tracked and stalked her, and deemed her a danger to humans. If she went after a human that she smelled in the woods, well, he could only imagine what she did other times when shifted …) 

“I’m sorry,” he said softly. If he wanted to push further, he probably could. Find out what else she recalled. But he didn’t want to do that to her and learn that information. He didn’t want to view her as his prey right then, not when she’d be living with him and Talia for a while. Not when he knew he would need to comfort Talia. “Ain’t the same situation but … I get the … the not wanting to die.” Daniel sighed. “I remember that. Practically begging the universe to keep me alive as I got away.” He paused and took a sip of his tea as he tried to remember everything that went through his head that night. It was all still bits and pieces of memories that he wanted to block from his memory, but he recalled thinking about Talia, Robbie, and his parents while Eve bandaged him. He glanced down into his tea as he thought once again about reaching out to his parents before it was too late and he never had an opportunity to see them again. “Maybe it’s fucked up, but I guess it made me realize how much I wanted to live.” 

—

“Not to somebody who knows about supernatural creatures,” she replied with a snort, though she understood what he was saying. When you didn’t know how much knowledge the person you were speaking to had about the supernatural, you figured anything sounded more realistic than the truth. Madison found it easier to accept that a wolf had chased her through the streets of town and attacked her than she had to jump to the possibility of werewolves being responsible, and how many other people did the same? How many impossible things had Rory seen explained away with ludicrous handwaves that made no sense whatsoever? A skiing accident wasn’t the weirdest thing Daniel could have come up with, all things considered. Rory knew that.

Maybe Rory herself had fallen into something similar. She’d spent years now explaining away details that should have acted as dead giveaways that something wasn’t right with her, had found excuses for every difference, big and small, that existed between her and her siblings. She’d invented a world in which every hint to her nature was just a quirk that had to do with something else entirely, told herself a bedtime story where she fit in to a family she was no longer sure how she belonged to. She couldn’t laugh too much about the ridiculous things humans believed when she’d spent her entire life clinging to a lie that was just as silly, could she? Madison let herself believe that a giant wolf materialized in a populated area and chased her through town; Rory let herself believe that she was a balam who only shifted successfully when the moon was full because the spirit that lived in her chest liked the way the light of it felt on its fur. Both were silly, childish things. Both ached more with retrospect, with all the things she knew now. The wolf that had chased Madison was not a wolf, but a monster. And the monster had done far worse than chase her friend. The monster had torn people to shreds; the monster had ruined Clem’s life; the monster had killed without hesitation. The monster was Rory. 

What a horrible thing to accept. What a horrible thing to deny.

She didn’t look at Daniel as she spoke, didn’t want to map out the lines on his face and try to determine what they meant. He’d be disgusted with her, surely, because how could he not be? How could anyone hear her story and not think less of her? She could hardly claim to be a silly little girl who’d acted without purpose when people were dead because of her. She thought the right to claim ignorance had to end somewhere. The line had to exist before the pile of corpses left in a person’s wake, didn’t it? Regardless of what Talia said, regardless of what Rory wanted to cling to. People were dead, and she had killed them. Didn’t that kind of mean she deserved exactly what she got? Didn’t that mean she probably deserved worse? 

Daniel spoke, recounting his own experience. Not the same thing, exactly, Rory knew. Daniel had been attacked by a creature, and Rory was a creature who attacked people. Wasn’t there a world out there, somewhere, where it was her who tore into him in those woods? Wasn’t there a universe where it was her he was trying to get away from, all the while thinking that he didn’t want to die? She was sure the people she remembered killing now had felt the same, was sure most of them felt the same thing she’d felt with that bullet in her gut, the same thing Daniel felt when he was trying to get away from whatever attacked him. Rory tried to push the thought from her mind, because she didn’t want it. She didn’t want to think about those people, even if she couldn’t think about anything else. “I’m glad you didn’t die,” she offered, still staring into her mug. “And I guess… It’s good that you realized that, right? Good that you know it now. Even if learning it sucked.” Was the same true for her? Was it good that she knew what she was now, even if learning it sucked? She didn’t know. Maybe she’d have a better idea sometime in the near future.

—

Daniel grinned as he heard her snort and retort that she wouldn’t have been surprised by his story. Of course he knew that—even when he lied about skiing, he knew that it wouldn’t be too surprising for her to learn about a supernatural creature attacking him. Her retort reminded him more of that second time they met, when she was probably more like herself than when they first met. He thought she still had some of that flame and fight in her—good, if she expected to make it out of another situation with a ranger, which he guessed was only bound to happen, if she was shifting outside of the full moon and going on bloodthirsty hunts. 

Though even with that, he thought that maybe it’d be good for another ranger to take her out if she was possibly going on killing sprees. He wasn’t entirely sure what Talia’s plan was for Rory, other than taking care of her for the time being. He knew very little about their relationship, and he didn’t know if it was his place to ask too many questions. Maybe Talia had some sort of plan to help Rory with being a werewolf—he knew a little bit about Talia teaching younger werewolves in her former pack, but he also knew that those teachings went back to hunting hunters. 

All Daniel could do was trust that Talia knew what she was doing. That’s what he reminded himself. He needed to turn off that instinct—and god, it would be so easy to–

“Yeah, guess so,” he said with a sigh. He worried for a moment that maybe he had said a little too much, hinted too closely that he wasn’t exactly human. Rory now knew that he was aware of the supernatural world, and he would need to be careful about what he talked about in the cabin—what he said to Talia when they sat out on the front porch or when she came to chat with him in the camper. He didn’t want Rory to accidentally hear something that she shouldn’t. He didn’t want her connecting too many threads just yet. And though he guessed that Rory’s hands were covered in blood from indiscriminate killings as her werewolf raged through the nights, he knew that his own hands dripped blood from all the lives he took—lives taken as he planned and calculated exactly when and how to kill a shifter, as he justified the reasoning for their death. He wondered which was worse, sometimes. 

“Anyway, I’m glad you were able to get here—to a safe place,” Daniel said, and he tried to force himself to fully believe that. He took another drink from his tea before placing it down on the counter. He glanced out the window towards the woods behind Talia’s cabin, as if he expected to see a familiar ranger creeping through the trees. He told Talia that he would inspect the area to make sure he didn’t spot any familiar signs of a ranger stalking their prey. He should probably do that before he lost daylight. 

“I’m gonna grab some of my stuff and take Tree for a walk.” As if she hadn’t already walked and hiked plenty, but it seemed like an easy way to get out of this conversation before he revealed too much about himself and learned more about Rory. Tree could tag along to sniff out anything—or to chase and catch chickcharnies. “I’ll be back in about an hour or so. If you need anything …” He trailed off as he turned towards the notepad on the refrigerator. He jotted down his cell phone number, tore off the sheet of paper, and placed it on the coffee table. “Just call or text me. Ain’t gonna be far.” Close enough to get back in case a ranger came knocking. “Think of what you want for dinner the next few nights. I’ll be making a grocery run tomorrow.” 

—

Being here felt a little like lying about something, though Rory knew it wasn’t the case. She was more honest now than she’d been her entire life, even if she’d never known she was lying before. She had accepted the part of herself she’d long been denying, had opened up to Talia about most of what she’d done. (There were still some things she didn’t know how to compartmentalize, of course. She hadn’t told Talia about Clem. She wasn’t sure what to do with that information herself yet.) She was having a conversation with Daniel that was far more open than the ones they’d had in the past, even if at least some of the truth had come to him in way of Talia letting him know. And still, she felt as though she was lying. 

Maybe it was the guilt. In fact, it was probably the guilt. She was sitting here on the floor of someone else’s living room, and she probably shouldn’t have been. Her gut ached where Talia had dug the bullet out of her, her head hurt with all the things she was coming to terms with, her chest felt tight with the knowledge that she’d been lied to, and it still wasn’t punishment enough. How many people had she killed? She’d need to start up a count, mark down the ones she remembered. She knew it was enough that she didn’t deserve this softness, knew it was enough that Daniel ought to be looking at her differently than it was. But she did not correct him, did not try to convince him he was wrong to treat her with kindness. And wasn’t that a lie of sorts? She was letting someone believe something she knew wasn’t the truth. Wasn’t that presumably the same thing her parents had done to her?

She made no move to correct it, though. She didn’t open her mouth to tell Daniel the truth, to warn him away from the monster. Maybe that made her a coward; maybe it just made her selfish. Either way, she didn’t think it was a good thing, even if she had no intention of changing it. 

“Thanks,” she said quietly. “I’m glad I got here, too.” She didn’t want to think about what might have happened if she hadn’t. If not Talia’s, where else could she have gone? Guillermo was… gone. (She wouldn’t let herself think the other word.) So was Oliver. She couldn’t show up on Harvey or Cleo’s doorstep like this, or Madison’s. She didn’t even know where Owen lived. And even if she had, would he have known what to do? He knew about the supernatural, sure, but did he know how to dig a bullet out of someone? Talia had been the only safe place she’d had available to her. It was lucky that she’d been nearby enough to make it here. Her sitting here — her breathing, still… It was all just luck.

Daniel’s voice pulled her from her thoughts. She thought it was odd, walking the dog when he’d only just come home, but she didn’t say that. She was tired and, shitty as it was, kind of wanted him to go so that she could relax a little easier. She nodded, still looking down at her mug of tea. “All right,” she said, looking up when he placed the paper on the table. “Yeah. I’ll do that.” After a moment’s hesitation, she added in a quiet voice, “Thanks, Daniel.”

Daniel glanced both ways as he darted out across the road to get back to where he parked his truck. He stopped at a few spots to buy a few needed things—dog toys, dog food, and groceries—but now he was ready to get back on home. He opened his truck door and tossed the bags into the seat. A shape of white caught his eye, and he turned his attention to his truck’s windshield where he spotted a piece of paper tucked beneath the windshield wiper. He frowned, guessing that maybe someone hit his truck and left behind their contact information. He yanked the paper out and noticed instantly how someone used magazine clippings to write a message to him. He turned his head around to look around the area, an attempt to spot whoever left something ominous like this on his truck. No one stuck out as specifically suspicious for this message, although any of these people could be a suspect for something else. No one could be trusted in this town. 

He looked back down at the note in hand. It read: Free Knives Free Worms Free Free Free Knives Come Get Knifed. The note included an address, and though he knew he had never been to the address, he recognized it as on the outskirts of Gatlin Fields. Daniel was not interested in any free knives or free worms (well, he was sort of interested), but he guessed that this was a threat. Someone wanted to draw him out to a remote location in Gatlin Fields. Someone knew something about him, and he needed to get to the bottom of this. To threaten that person’s life to leave him alone. 

He crumpled the paper in his hand and threw it into the floor of his truck. The truck door slammed shut behind him as he got inside and started the engine. He knew how to get close to the address, and if not, he could figure it out once he got into the neighborhood. He sped off down the street, weaving through the various side roads until he found himself near the address that the note gave him. He refused to park his truck too close—it was too noticeable and red—so he found a spot to park off the side of the road in a wooded area. He kept his truck out of sight and crept through the woods to the address, where he found an abandoned building. It looked like it was a store back in the day, and the glass windows were shattered. He peered inside, noting the glass across the scratched and dirtied wooden floorboards. 

The sound of movement grabbed his attention, and he turned his attention towards the wooded area where he heard the sound. Daniel took out one of his knives and headed towards the direction of the movement. A low whistle rang through the woods, and he guessed that something was drawing him in for something. Murder, probably. Something wanted to murder him—he was certain about that. 

Further in the woods, he located an old mining adit, which gave him a brief moment of pause as he considered if he should go into the mine. He grew up enough in coal country to recognize the dangers of abandoned adits and shafts, but he was also a ranger who hunted supernatural beasts in mines. Daniel may have almost died recently, but that was not going to stop him risking it all again. He patted where he kept his handgun hidden, in case he needed something other than a knife for a quick slit throat. With knife in hand, he crept through the adit, taking his time with each step to not alert anyone—or anything—to his presence in the tunnel. 

Something banged against the metal tracks on the ground, and Daniel turned towards the sound as it echoed through the mine. He wanted the element of surprise, so he moved slowly and quietly, barely making a sound, until he recognized a familiar human shape in the mine. The person who wanted him dead. He was about to jump at them, hold his knife to their throat, and demand to know what they wanted from him. But as the figure turned around, Daniel groaned and rolled his eyes. “What the fuck, Milio?! Did you fucking bring me down here?”

—-

Someone knocked on his door. It was something that always set Emilio on edge, something that made him uneasy every goddamn time it happened. People who knew him knew that the lock was broken and that he rarely answered knocks, anyway, so they were happy enough to let themselves in. People who wanted to hire him tended to stroll in under the assumption that you didn’t need to knock when entering a business. This meant that people who knocked belonged in a third, unknowable category, and that made him uneasy. 

He approached the door with caution. It could have been Diana again, he figured, come for another quick case like the one they’d worked before. Maybe one of his neighbors, come to tell him about something happening in the building. He held a knife in his hand, anyway, ready to use it if need be. He opened the door a crack, suspicious eyes ready to meet whoever was on the other side…

…only to find no one waiting instead. His brow furrowed as he took in the empty space in front of the door. Opening it fully, Emilio stuck his head out into the hallway to look around, but there was no sign of anyone. Not impossible for someone to have made it from the door to the stairwell in the time it had taken Emilio to get up to answer it, but suspicion curled in his gut all the same. Knocking on the door and then not waiting for anyone to respond before running back to the stairwell was a strange behavior. Emilio stepped out into the hall, though he knew whoever it was could be out of the building and down the street long before he made it to the ground floor of his building. Then, a flash of something white caught his attention.

There was a note taped to his door. He tilted his head, reaching out to yank it down and unfold it. The letters were… odd. Not typed or handwritten, but cut from magazines and newspapers. It only served to further set Emilio on edge. His eyes darted over the letters carefully. FREE KNIFE, the note read. FREE KNIFE FOR FREE. FREE GOOD KNIFE. COME GET FREE KNIFE. GOOD. Emilio’s eyes narrowed, and he crumpled the note in his hand. 

This was a trap. He knew this was a trap. The scar on his chest — the one from the knife wound that lurked beneath the ones Ishan had carved into him in his quest to remove his dead heart — itched with the memory of the last trap he’d fallen for. He didn’t think this was the same people — the stylistic differences in the laying of the trap were too stark to ignore — but it could have been. And if it wasn’t, it meant there was someone else out there trying to lay traps for Emilio to fall into. He needed to investigate. He needed to find out who wanted him at the address on the note and why. 

He grabbed some supplies from the living room. Knives, stakes, holy water, iron, silver. He grabbed the flamethrower, too, strapped it carefully onto his back. Whatever was waiting for him in Gatlin Fields, he’d be ready for it. He got onto his bike, drove out to the location indicated. As the buildings grew sparser, his paranoia grew. Someone was drawing him to an isolated location under false pretenses. It could only be with the intent to harm.

It didn’t take him long to find the mine entrance, didn’t take him long to venture inside. He no longer had a slayer’s night vision to make the journey easier, so he flipped on the flashlight on his phone and stuck it in his pocket with the light shining out. It was dim, but it allowed him to see and keep his hands free. He gripped a knife so tightly his knuckles were white, moving quietly through the empty mine shaft. He didn’t know how long he’d been searching when he heard a sound that spun him around, knife at the ready. But instead of one of the vampires who’d killed him or the angry husband of some client he’d helped get evidence of an affair, the face that greeted him was Daniel. This did not entirely set Emilio at ease. He narrowed his eyes at the ranger, trying to determine if Daniel might want to kill him. He didn’t think so. But how could he know for certain?

“Did you leave a note on my door?” He demanded, though he wasn’t even sure Daniel knew where he lived. But then, Daniel asked a question of his own, and Emilio’s confusion only grew. “Why would I bring you down here? You’re the one who brought me.” 

—

“No, I ain’t left a note on your door,” Daniel replied. “Don’t even know where you live.” Maybe he should change that sometime, figure out where the slayer lived in case he ever needed him for some sort of hunting situation. But Emilio’s confusion at Daniel’s question only made Daniel confused too. Emilio did not exactly seem like the type to lure him into a mine to kill him, but anything was possible in this weird town. Maybe the slayer wanted him dead for some weird reason. 

“I ain’t got a clue why you’d bring me down here. And I did not bring you here. Why the fuck would I do that, man?” He wished he still had the note to prove that he received the weird message about getting knifed, but the crumpled piece of paper was on the floorboard of his truck. (Also, what did the note mean by “get knifed?” Someone wanted him dead. That’s for certain.) If he hadn’t parked so far away, maybe he would have suggested going back to his truck just to prove how correct he was. 

A bang of metal just slightly off in the distance caught his attention. Daniel glanced over towards Emilio, not wanting to fully remove his attention from the slayer just in case he tried to attack him. He wanted to believe that Emilio would not jump him, but he could not be certain. Some hunters were very paranoid individuals—Daniel included—and the dark mine tunnel and strange notes only increased that feeling of paranoia. But another bang and shuffling of feet made Daniel turn his gaze away from Emilio and towards the other sounds in the tunnel. 

Another quick glance over towards Emilio. Daniel put a finger over his lips to indicate they should be quiet, and then he motioned towards the direction of the sound further into the tunnel. If they both received weird notes, maybe whoever wanted to kill them was further down the tunnel. He stepped forward, his back now facing Emilio. He kept his focus on where the sounds came from as he prepared for a fight. 

In a flash, the tunnels lit up with sparse light from old lanterns hanging along the sides of the tunnel and up on the ceiling. He blinked a few times as his eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. Though he could somewhat see in the dark, the wooden beams supporting the tunnel walls were clearer in his vision, with shadows from the dim lanterns dancing along the beams. Not too far ahead of the two men, the metal railway tracks split off into two tunnels. Daniel was not certain which of the two had the noise from earlier. He opened his mouth to whisper to Emilio, not wanting either of them to echo through the tunnels and further let their potential murderer (or murderers) know their exact location. But the shadow of a figure moved just slightly at the entry to the tunnel on the left. He turned towards Emilio and motioned towards it, though the shadow was now gone. 

—

A compelling argument, but also exactly what Daniel would say if he’d somehow figured out where Emilio lived and left a note on his door to lure him into the mines. There were plenty of ways he could have figured it out, of course; he could have asked one of their mutual friends, especially one of the other hunters in town. (Did Daniel know Eve? Jade? Henri? Probably all three. Hunters tended to run in the same circles, after all.) He could have also seen the entry for Axis on the internet. It didn’t have Emilio’s name on it, but Daniel knew he was a P.I., and there weren’t that many of those in town. (Less whose reviews spelled out a ‘personality’ that matched Emilio’s.) Emilio narrowed his eyes at Daniel, letting the expression show how little he believed him. 

“I don’t know. Maybe you want to stab me. Maybe you’re jealous and angry because I keep winning bets and you keep losing them. Maybe you don’t like that my hair is very good and yours is not. There is a list with many reasons.” Most of them made up on the spot, but Emilio wasn’t sure what else to think. Either Daniel had lured him down here for something or another — offering an opponent who was familiar enough to be of some comfort — or someone else had lured both of them here for reasons unclear. The first option was certainly preferable. 

Unfortunately, the second option was beginning to look more and more likely. The sound of something banging off in the distance — muffled, thanks to Emilio’s shitty hearing, but unmistakable all the same — was a sure sign that the pair of them weren’t alone in this mine tunnel. Either a third person had been lured here alongside them or the person responsible for bringing them here was making their presence known. Emilio was inclined to believe the latter, if only because he didn’t want to imagine who else might have gotten a note on their door.

In any case, the confirmation of another presence evaporated the petty argument he’d been prepared to launch into with Daniel… at least for the time being. He still rolled his eyes as Daniel put a finger to his lips, raising his brows and tilting his head in a way he hoped communicate a response of no shit. He followed behind the ranger, anyway, knife still gripped in his hand. He kept half an eye ahead of them and half an eye on their backs, making sure no one could sneak up from behind. It was almost funny, how easily he and Daniel fell into teamwork despite the argument that had not yet dried up entirely. 

Dim light flooded the tunnel, and Emilio grimaced. Disorienting, his mind noted. Was this the plan, then? Draw them further into the tunnel, disorient them, then attack? Nothing came towards them right away, though it didn’t comfort Emilio so much as it did the opposite. Was someone waiting to attack, then? Preparing something they could not be ready for? He saw a shadow dance into one of the tunnels just a moment before Daniel motioned towards it and nodded. Guess we’re going left. 

Carefully, he nudged Daniel in that direction to indicate the words without saying them. As the two stepped into the tunnel, the lanterns on the wall flickered to life, bathing it in the same dull glow they’d just stepped away from. The shadow moved up ahead, just out of reach of the lanterns’ light. He couldn’t tell what it was, but he could tell it was there. He could tell it was roughly the size of a person, and maybe the shape of one. He didn’t know much more than that. Tapping Daniel, Emilio spoke in a low tone, careful to keep his voice from echoing. “Sense anything?”

—

Daniel huffed and shook his head at Emilio. “No, no, no,” he said as he held up his hand in protest. “I ain’t always losing bets. Don’t even try that shit with me.” He was about to argue that his hair was very good, actually, unlike Emilio’s, but that was a stupid point. Emilio’s hair did look good, and now that Daniel’s was growing out again and the curls reappearing on the top of his head, he knew his hair would look good again. Soon. No reason to argue this at all, actually. Not when they were both in an abandoned mining tunnel due to mysterious notes. Daniel knew that he didn’t give Emilio a note to lure him down here to kill him, because he didn’t really have a good reason to kill Emilio. But maybe Emilio had a good reason to kill him? Maybe this was all some weird confusing ruse to stab him. 

As they crept through the tunnel towards the sound, Daniel thought about potential insults to throw at Emilio once they figured this all out. He needed some good ammunition to really sink those insults into Emilio. Really make his blood boil over a petty argument that was only for their own stupid fun (at least, he thought it was fun, even if there was the potential that Emilio wanted to stab him. Maybe he shouldn’t have turned his back towards him because what if … no, he would be fast enough to stop Emilio. Maybe not as fast as he was a few months ago, but still fast enough, he decided). 

The further into the tunnel they went, the more he realized that maybe this was a bad idea. But he couldn’t help but want to know who or what else was here? Why did someone possibly leave notes for him and Emilio to come to this place? (There was still a small chance it was Emilio all along.) He continued on their path to the tunnel on the left. Emilio’s nudge at least let him know that the slayer was going to join him—unless he was actually nudging him along to kill him. No, nope, still didn’t make sense. He doubted Emilio would kill him over a stupid mime picture. Probably. 

Daniel caught sight of the figure’s shadow again, but also more of their figure as they dodged behind the curve of the tunnel. He caught a glimpse of something striped on their arm as they ducked out of his line of vision. Something humanoid, he guessed, though he was not sure what it could be. His eyes stayed on the tunnel where the figure disappeared. “No,” he whispered back, wishing that he could say it was a shifter or a beast. “You?” 

—

“You lose every bet!” Emilio argued, even though it wasn’t true. Daniel had technically won the bet with the avalance, even if Emilio continued to refuse to admit his own defeat. (Daniel would have been impaled without Emilio’s makeshift flamethrowers, which meant the victory was actually Emilio’s and not Daniel’s, which meant Daniel lost. It was simple stuff.) No argument from Daniel on the status of Emilio’s hair, which only served to prove Emilio right, actually. Of course Daniel couldn’t pretend Emilio’s hair wasn’t better than his, because it clearly was. 

Of course, none of this was strictly important. Or, at the very least, none of this was as important as the mine tunnel stretching forward ahead of them, dim lights quietly illuminating each uneasy step they took. As much as he’d love to blame Daniel for all of this, Emilio was more and more convinced that neither of them knew what they were walking into here. It only served to make him more nervous. If they’d both been lured into this tunnel, there must have been a reason. The only common ground items Emilio could think of was that they were hunters (or former hunters, though that wasn’t something particularly well known) and that they both had a connection to Talia. The hunter path was the more obvious one — people tried to take out hunters all the time, it wasn’t so far fetched to think someone might invent a more elaborate way to do so — but the Talia connection made him more nervous. If this was connected to her somehow, Emilio needed to warn her. 

The thoughts swirled in his mind, a whirlwind of paranoia and unease. He was glad Daniel had so easily descended into silence as they moved forward, half because he, too, wanted to keep up the element of surprise as much as they could and half because he wasn’t sure he could keep up with the petty bickering when his mind was this on edge. 

If he had a heart in his chest, it might have been pounding. With every scurry in the shadows, his paranoia grew. He caught a flash of something — stripes? — but it was gone before he could process it. Daniel didn’t sense anything, which meant this wasn’t a shifter. But… the question turned on Emilio, and it felt heavy. It sat on his chest, tightening like a vice as he debated how to answer. If he said no and it ended up being something undead, wouldn’t that out him? If he said yes and it wasn’t, wouldn’t the effect be the same? “Hard to say,” he settled on, straddling the line between the two. “Lots of celestial roes in these mines, so it’s always a little bit of a… constant down here. This that we’re after wouldn’t be that, though. Don’t think the M.O. matches anything undead, either.” It was a cop out, he knew. It was the only thing he could go with. “You know we’re walking into a trap, right?”

—

Daniel glanced at Emilio from the corner of his eye, uncertain about the answer given to him. He was expecting more of a yes or no answer, but maybe they were not close enough to the being for Emilio to sense it. He doubted this was anything like the Diana situation, where she could no longer sense fae from a mistake she made on a hunt. That would be way too much of a weird coincidence. His answer mostly made sense, so Daniel shoved away any questions as to why it wasn’t a simple yes or no. “Right,” he said quietly. “Might be fae then.” He tried to run through his mental list of the few fae things he knew, but he wouldn’t know until they got closer.

He gave a quick nod, and this time fully turned his head to look at Emilio. “Absolutely we are,” he replied as a stupid smirk etched its way onto his face. He knew as soon as he crumpled the note left on his truck that this was only going to lead to some sort of trap. “But we can handle it.” Daniel and Emilio already hunted together multiple times. He knew the other man was covered in weapons and cans of hairspray, just as he already knew how the other handled himself in a fight. He saw how the slayer handled a stake and pushed it through spawns’ hearts that first night they met, winning that first bet of theirs. Emilio may have moved slower than Daniel (though Daniel knew he had slowed down since his own recent injuries), but he moved quick enough to not end up with his own head chopped off when Daniel swung his axe and killed the wight.

If he and someone else had to be lured down into the mines by some unknown being, he was glad that it was with Emilio. 

“Come on.” Daniel moved forward through the dimly lit tunnel. The tunnel and wooden beams creaked with age. He carefully stepped under the beams, giving them a quick glance over as he hoped that they wouldn’t collapse. A collapsed mine concerned him more than whatever being lured them down here. Easier to kill whatever wanted to kill them than to escape the earth falling down onto them. 

They turned the corner, and Daniel paused as he assessed the tunnel ahead of them. Still nothing. Whatever this was knew how to stay out of their sight, and it moved with an eerie silence through the tunnel. The sounds from earlier were to draw the two men deeper into the trap, yet now it slipped like a ghost through the shadows and crevices of the tunnel. He furrowed his brows together as he stepped forward to move deeper into the tunnel. He knew how incredibly stupid this was and how easy it would be to turn back around, but he was too deep now. He needed to find out what it was. 

One step forward. Another step, but something pressed into his ankle and down Daniel fell, his arms held out to catch him as he fell into the dirt of the tunnel. He bit back a curse as he heard his fall echo through the tunnel. He glanced back behind him to spot what he tripped over, but nothing was there except for the dirt and railway. He furrowed his brows as he could have sworn that he felt something against his ankle right before he tripped. He stood back up and dusted his hands off on his jeans as he looked around. He hadn’t really done anything like this since his accident, so maybe he was just rusty. He looked towards Emilio and held up his hand. “Don’t even fucking start with me,” he warned, feeling … well, feeling very embarrassed about tripping over nothing. 

—

Daniel didn’t question his response to what should have been a simple yes or no question, and Emilio figured that must have meant it was a convincing enough lie to pass. Really, though, he figured he hadn’t needed anything too intense to fool Daniel. He’d given the ranger no reason to think he was anything but a slayer, after all. Daniel had seen him fight, had seen the way he moved. There was a certain style that was hard for anyone but a hunter to capture, and Emilio boasted it with ease. Why would Daniel think anything beyond the assumption Emilio had not corrected him on? Guilt gnawed at him. He did his best to ignore it. “Or something that doesn’t fit in any of them,” he added. “Shit in this town doesn’t always play by the rules.” Sometimes, things were neatly fae, beast, or undead. Other times, Wicked’s Rest twisted reality into something unlike anything you’d find outside of the town’s limits. Emilio had learned to roll with the town’s punches well enough, but only most of the time. There were days he still came up a little short.

Cases like this gave him more struggle now than they might have a year ago. A year ago, he might have been able to return Daniel’s grin at the thought of knowingly walking into a trap. There was something fun about getting the upper hand on someone who thought they had the upper hand on you, wasn’t there? And yet, all Emilio could think about was the alley outside the Wormhole, and the trap he’d stumbled into there. All he could remember was the knife sinking into his chest and piercing his heart. 

Daniel’s confidence eased his mind just a little. In that alley, after all, he’d been alone. There had been no one watching his back, no one making sure he wouldn’t fall to the fate someone else had planned for him. He might have thought, up until a few seconds ago, that Daniel might have been the one to lure him into this mine, but he was still pretty sure he trusted the guy. They’d teamed up before without incident, even hung out after the fact to share a few drinks at the bar. He thought Daniel would have his back; he knew he would have Daniel’s. And so, he nodded in agreement with the assessment that they could take whatever this mine might throw at them. “As long as we both know,” he retorted with a sharp exhale through his nose, trying to ease his addled mind. 

He let Daniel take the lead as they made their way down the tunnel, busying himself with keeping his eyes on their backs to make sure nothing was sneaking in behind them to box them in. So far, they seemed all good on that front. Emilio was just about to comment as much when Daniel suddenly tripped in front of him, falling onto the ground. Immediately, Emilio was on edge. His knife raised, his eyes wide, he scanned the tunnel to see what had caused Daniel to fall. Except… there was nothing. No tripwire, no rope, not even a rock in his path. Had he tripped over his own fucking feet? In the middle of a hunt? 

“Don’t start with you?” He hissed lowly, voice quiet despite the fact that Daniel’s fall had ruined whatever element of surprise they had going for them. “You have been walking for… what, thirty-something years? And you’re still bad at it?” He threw up his hands, walking around Daniel. “We might as well keep going. They know where we are now, thanks to your —” 

The ground beneath his feet felt wrong. There was a decline, an inconsistency, like when you were walking down a set of stairs and missed one. Emilio stumbled, and then fell, somehow falling down despite there being no sort of visible decline present. And yet, when he landed — in a graceless heap, on his back, limbs bruised and aching — the ceiling seemed… farther up than it should have. “What the fuck,” he grumbled, struggling to his feet. He took a step forward, running into… something. Experimentally, he lifted his foot and dropped it. It made contact with some invisible step. He lifted his other foot, set it beside the first. Definitely a step. “What the fuck?” It seemed to bear repeating.

—

Daniel glared at Emilio, even though he knew how fair it was for the slayer to be upset with him. He really just ruined everything they had going for them by walking through the tunnel. Whatever lured them down there knew they were there, but they could have still possibly surprised them. But now his loud stumble onto the ground left an echo through the tunnel that anything down knew they were here. 

Emilio walked past him, and Daniel grumbled, “Go fuck yourself.” He looked back at where he tripped over his own two feet as he tried to figure out what he tripped over. He didn’t believe for one second it was his own feet. He could sneak up on shifters and beasts in complete silence without any tripping or stumbling. He didn’t trip! He knew he felt something against his ankle right before he fell forward. He stroked his mustache as he pondered what made him fall, but the sound of Emilio falling grabbed his attention as he whipped his head around thinking that something attacked Emilio. Instead he found the slayer collapsed onto the ground with nothing around him. “You learn how to fucking walk, asshole,” Daniel said, throwing the insult right back at him. 

Daniel raised a brow as Emilio stepped into something. “Come on, man. What is your problem?” Was he just acting stupid? Maybe even making fun of Daniel tripping by pretending to trip himself? … That actually did not make any sense because why would Emilio purposefully fall when they both knew there was danger nearby. He watched as Emilio put one foot up in the air, just leaving it there, and Daniel rolled his eyes. “What are you fucking doing?” he grumbled as he walked forward and around Emilio. 

Just a few steps past Emilio’s stupid dangling foot, Daniel felt something push against his ankle. He lost his balance, but caught himself, bending his knees and grabbing them before he fell all the way forward. Something hard still pressed against his ankle, but as he looked down, he didn’t see anything. He crouched down low and pressed his hand against the air around his ankle only to feel … rope. It felt like rope, but that didn’t make any sense. 

He heard Emilio curse again, so he looked back to see Emilio standing in the air. “Are you fucking floating, Milio?” he asked, as if that made any sense. But how else could he explain how the man was standing on a step in the air. But also, how else could he explain the invisible rope that he held in his hand. He wrapped both hands around the rope and pulled on it. He felt it move a little, but it seemed to be attached to something. “It’s a rope. I tripped over a fucking rope.” Daniel wanted to make it known that he could walk. Keeping his hands on the rope, he walked alongside it and followed it a few steps down the tunnel. 

Right as he turned his head towards Emilio, he heard something flying through the air towards him. He ducked his head, feeling the wind of something brush right above his head, but nothing was there. Daniel opened his mouth to warn Emilio, but then shut it right back because how could he explain what he just heard? Then again, the slayer was floating in the air. “I think there’s invisible knives,” he whispered, just loud enough for Emilio to hear him. The note did say come get free knives and come get knifed. 

—

There was nothing worse than making fun of someone for falling over nothing only to fall over nothing yourself immediately after. Emilio thought he probably would have preferred being stabbed to the embarrassment of lying on the floor of the mine with Daniel still clambering to his feet smugly nearby. (He couldn’t actually see the ranger’s face at the moment, so the ‘smug’ descriptor was more of an educated guess.) Except… Emilio hadn’t fallen over nothing. There had been something on the ground, was something there now, too. He was so certain of it, even if there was visibly nothing in sight. 

“I know how to walk,” he insisted. “It’s fucked up to say I don’t know how to walk, actually. I have a bad leg. So.” Of course, his bad leg was not what had hindered him in this particular walking adventure (though it was none too happy with the fall), but Emilio had learned that pointing to that excuse could sometimes leave people awkwardly stammering in a way that made him feel like he’d won something, even if the prize was just making someone feel a little bad. 

He ignored Daniel as he investigated the step he could not see, responding only with a quick middle finger. Was it so dark in here that he’d missed a step? More than one step, even? But… no, that didn’t seem right. Daniel, who appeared to have no problem in the dark, hadn’t said anything to indicate that he thought there was a step here. Moreover, he’d fallen too, so there must have been something. Normally, Emilio might suspect a creature of some sort, but whatever his foot was resting on certainly wasn’t alive. 

Daniel stumbled again as Emilio stood on the invisible step, and Emilio turned back to look at him. He was bent over something on the ground, leaning down as if to pick something up. When he straightened, there was nothing in his hands, but they were still closed as if holding something between them. Emilio tilted his head, squinting to see if perhaps he was holding something translucent, but… there didn’t seem to be anything there at all. He was holding air. Was it a trick? Some way of fooling Emilio into thinking he had something when he didn’t? It would be a strange play, even for Daniel. Emilio couldn’t puzzle out a solid explanation for the motivation behind it.

“No, I’m not floating. There’s something here. I’m standing on it. But I don’t…” see anything. Neither did Daniel, for that matter, if he’d thought Emilio was floating. Daniel pulled on whatever he was holding, and Emilio stepped off the step and moved — carefully — towards him. “I don’t see a rope,” he said needlessly, but he reached for it, anyway. He certainly felt something under his hand, just like he’d certainly felt something under his foot when he’d stepped up onto it. 

He was still studying the rope when Daniel moved forward, evidently following it a little further into the tunnel. It was luck that had him duck in a way that made him oblivious to something flying just over his head, his shitty hearing not allowing him to hear anything until Daniel called back to him. “Invisible knives?” He repeated with a scoff. “You’re full of shit.” Except… there were invisible staircases. And invisible ropes. So, fuck it. “Okay, there’s invisible knives. Whatever. How the fuck are we supposed to —”

Movement in the corner of his vision saw him turning his head quickly, catching sight of a shape at the opposite end of the tunnel. This time, it didn’t move out of his line of sight. Instead, it… waved at him. With a white-gloved hand to match its white-painted face to match half of the stripes on its black and white shirt. “What the fuck?” Emilio demanded. The mime opened its mouth in an ‘o’ shape, hands on its cheeks as if in silent scream. It pointed animatedly behind him. Emilio glared back, taking a step forward. “Daniel, it’s a fucking mime.” 

—

Daniel narrowed his eyes as he watched Emilio seemingly standing in the air. Emilio claimed he was standing on a step. Daniel wanted to call him a liar and an idiot, but he was holding an invisible rope in his hands. He watched as Emilio stepped off the invisible step and walked over to hold the invisible rope, which helped prove to himself that he wasn’t losing his mind. 

“Invisible knives,” Daniel hissed. The whole situation with Emilio was driving him fucking nuts. And Emilio had the audacity to question him about invisible knives after just standing on invisible steps and when they both held an invisible rope in their hand? At this point, Daniel would almost believe an invisible man was coming for them next. Not even a ghost, just an actual man who was invisible. 

He looked back down at his hands which looked like they held nothing, even as he felt the rope’s strands against his skin. Emilio cursed, and Daniel glanced up to see a man in a striped shirt with white gloves and white face paint. He furrowed his brows as he looked at the strange man—shocked that he was visible to both hunters. Emilio said mime and Daniel whipped his head over towards the slayer. “Of course you’d instantly recognize it as a mime,” he scoffed. “You wanna be one so fucking badly.” He let go of the rope, which landed silently on the ground. “Now’s your opportunity. Go tell him how much you love his face paint.” 

From the corner of his eye, Daniel saw the mime wagging his finger. He turned towards it and rolled his eyes. “Go fuck yourself.” The mime placed its hand against its chest and opened its mouth wide in shock. He looked back to Emilio. “Have fun playing with your friend. I’m outta here.” Before he could back out of the mine, the mime held up its arm and looked like it threw something towards Daniel. He heard the whoosh in the air and ducked. The invisible knife cut across the top of his hat and landed without any clattering on the ground behind Daniel. He took off his hat and looked at the cut through it. “Fuck you!” The mime silently laughed, with one hand clutching its belly and the other pointing at Daniel. He narrowed his eyes, not really wanting to kill some random guy, but if this mime was going to keep throwing invisible knives at him in a mine, then he might have to reconsider. 

—

Daniel, in Emilio’s utterly unbiased opinion, was a little smug about this whole thing. He didn’t have to sound so certain that there were invisible knives, like Emilio was stupid to question it. He was the one who was still questioning the invisible steps, even though Emilio had been standing on them. 

But, of course, they couldn’t really focus on Daniel’s smugness or the way Emilio was definitely right. This situation — though stupid — was dangerous. They were clearly dealing with some kind of targeted attack here. Someone had lured them down into the mines on clumsy false pretenses, and it didn’t matter that the knives being thrown at them were invisible. It only mattered that there were knives being thrown, and that they needed to find out who and why. 

The who, at least, came quickly enough. The mime at the other end of the mine tunnel was clearly the culprit, even if Emilio could not puzzle out their motivation. He was ready to try when Daniel, the bastard, interrupted his train of thought with silly accusations. “How the fuck are you going to say it is strange for me to know this is a mime?” He demanded, throwing his hands up in the air. “It is someone in black and white stripes, with a stupid hat and white face makeup. This is a mime. People know what mimes look like. You know what mimes look like. You were a mime.” In a picture photoshopped by a strange kid on the internet, but the point stood all the same. “I think maybe you want to be a mime. You’re the one picking up invisible ropes and wandering around in the mines. Shit, I bet you did leave that note at my door. I bet you brought me here to try to convince me to be a mime with you, because you want to do it so fucking bad.”

As Daniel shouted at the mime, Emilio raised his middle finger in their direction, the motion in unintentional tandem with Daniel’s shouted words. “You’re seriously going to leave me down here with this thing?” He demanded, gesturing towards the mime in the mine. Daniel was saved from answering by another invisible knife flung in their direction, this one evidently slicing through his hat. “Ugly fucking hat,” Emilio commented. “Mime did you a goddamn favor.” He figured it was a good idea to keep the knife-slinging mime in his field of vision, so he kept a wary eye on them. After a moment, the mime began shifting their hands around. They spun one hand in a circle over their head in a motion that had Emilio narrowing his eyes. It looked like… someone slinging a lasso? Two and two added together slowly in his head, four going off like a lightbulb just as the mime slung their hand in his direction. He felt the rope encircle him, then the mime yanked to tighten it. Fumbling for purchase, Emilio grabbed the closest thing to him on instinct. Unfortunately for them both, the closest thing to him happened to be Daniel. 

—

“I ain’t a mime! I ain’t never been no mime!” Daniel rolled his eyes. It was not his fault that he didn’t go around thinking about mimes all the time, unlike Emilio. He just thought the person in the mine was some weird clown or freak really into face paint. He scoffed at Emilio. “You’re the one stepping up onto invisible steps. And I seem to recall finding you already wandering around these mines. You was probably wandering with the mime! You left the note on my car to convince me to come over here. I just know it.” He didn’t really believe that Emilio left him the note, but he also couldn’t be completely certain. Maybe the slayer wanted to fight him with a mime in the mine. 

But he didn’t have much time to worry about that as he took off his hat and looked at the line from where the knife sliced at his hat. The tattered hat had been in rough shape for years now. The brim was torn open, with the fiber strands curled and dangling. Fibers poked out from other tears in the hat. At least he washed out the sweat and dirt stains. Emilio was right, it was an ugly old baseball cap, but Daniel refused to buy a new one. “It’s just a fucking hat. Functional,” he said as he put it back on. 

Daniel was ready to leave this situation when he saw the mime moving its arms around like it was doing something again. Something stupid, he was sure, so he turned his back to begin leaving when he realized what was being thrown towards them. Emilio began falling, and before Daniel could jump out of the way, the slayer grabbed him. “Fuck,” he grunted as he held his ground. He grabbed onto Emilio and felt the lasso wrapped around the slayer’s body. He tried to hold up Emilio, but the mime yanked on the invisible lasso, bringing both men down onto the ground. Daniel grunted as he hit the ground again.

The two landed in an awkward position, with Emilio sort of landing on Daniel. “Get off me,” he mumbled, feeling the metal railway digging into his side. He saw the mime in the corner of his eye. The mime held its hand over its mouth as it laughed silently, and then it yanked on the lasso. The mime had enough strength to drag Emilio towards it, and Daniel, entangled with and smooshed under Emilio, was dragged with him. The metal rail and wooden sleepers scraped against his back as they were pulled closer to the mime. The pulling stopped, and Daniel groaned as he looked up at the face of the mime smiling down at him. The mime waved its, wiggling its fingers in greeting at the two hunters it lassoed. 

—

“This is something a mime would say,” Emilio insisted, though he knew it wasn’t true. A mime would not say that, mostly because a mime would say nothing at all. This, Emilio thought, was probably solid proof that neither he nor Daniel was a mime, given the fact that they hadn’t stopped verbally arguing since the moment they’d caught sight of one another in the mine. “I am not with the mime. I’ve never seen that fucking mime before in my life. First time I ever saw him was in this mine, after I saw you. So maybe you’re with the mime. Maybe that fucking mine mime is your best friend.” He stumbled a little over the phrasing, his tongue not a huge fan of the similarities between the word mime and the word mine, but he refused to let the stumble affect him. He had an argument to win.

He eyed Daniel as the ranger took off his hat, trying to make it look critical instead of concerned. He didn’t actually want the guy to catch a knife in the head, invisible or otherwise, so he was glad to see that the hat was the only casualty. “Functional?” He repeated, raising his brows. “What function does this hat serve, other than being very ugly? Blocking the sun from your eyes? In a mine, underground? Holding back your hair, which you have shaved off?” 

Of course, he had little time to sling out further insults about Daniel’s hat. He was busy being lassoed by an invisible rope and dragged to the ground, bringing Daniel along with him. He landed on top of the ranger with an oomph, the unnecessary air knocked from his dead lungs. It was jarring, disorienting; it took a moment for Emilio’s head to catch up with the rest of him. When it did, the first thing he heard was Daniel.

“I’m trying,” he grunted, shifting and jerking his body in an attempt to remove himself from the ranger. But the rope had gotten tangled in his limbs, and he couldn’t see it to untangle it. Then, it went taut as the mime yanked it, pulling Emilio — and Daniel with him — backwards. Panic seized the fury’s throat. What would the mime do when it had the two of them close enough to touch? “Knife,” he said, driving his knee into Daniel’s leg unintentionally. “Get a knife, we gotta — We should cut the rope. Come on, man, tell him to stop.”

—

Daniel grunted as Emilio’s knee hit his leg. The last thing he needed was getting stuck underneath the slayer. He moved around as he tried to get one of his arms unstuck. One arm freed, he grabbed one of his knives. “Oh, fuck! Why didn’t I think of that?” he asked sarcastically. He looked back up at the mime as he felt around for the rope wrapped around Emilio. “Oh, hey, mime. Can you fucking stop doing this?” While he spoke, his hand brushed against the invisible rope, and he pulled on it as he sliced through it. The rope loosened in his hand, and the mime tapped its finger against its chin as it considered Daniel’s request. It silent-laughed and shook its head no. “Wow! I’m so shocked that didn’t fucking work.” He shoved Emilio off him. 

The mime shifted its stance as it seemingly prepared for a fight. Daniel couldn’t see anything in its hands, but that clearly meant nothing with all the invisible knives and ropes. He tried to jump up to his feet, but stumbled at the soreness in his body (fuck, he hated how he was still sore from his injuries. He needed to hit the gym more). The mime pretended to laugh and mimicked Daniel’s stumbling, with an over exaggerated performance as it nearly toppled over to the ground. “Fuck you.” The mime pretended to gasp and held its hand over its mouth. 

Daniel lunged at the mime, but it dodged him before he could knock it onto the ground. It wagged its finger at him and then threw something onto the ground. Daniel’s eyes widened—“Bomb!” And he jumped away from where he thought the bomb may have landed. He landed onto the ground and covered his ears. The earth didn’t shake from an explosion, and he looked back to see a cloud of smoke … a fucking smoke bomb? As he stood up, the mime mimicked him as it covered its ears. “Stop copying me!” Daniel grumbled. 

—

His body was used to taking a beating. Bruised ribs were no new feeling to Emilio, and even the still-healing ones Emilio was fairly certain Daiyu had broken when she’d shown up at his apartment just to beat the shit out of him were a familiar enough feeling that the pain associated with them faded into the background like television static. But his body still didn’t work quite right after the many years of abuse he’d put into it, and it was still easier said than done to untangle himself from Daniel’s limbs, especially with the added complication of the rope he couldn’t see. “He’d probably listen to you more than me,” the fury insisted, stilling enough for Daniel to slice through the rope without slicing through him in the process.

The mime was not interested in listening to Daniel, though. Emilio grunted as Daniel shoved him off, working on untangling the invisible rope from around him as the ranger got to his feet. Daniel and the mime seemed to be mirroring one another, though Emilio was paying little attention. He was more interested in detangling himself, picking away the invisible rope and tossing it to the side. 

By the time Emilio got his feet underneath him, Daniel was already jumping away from some invisible bomb. Emilio flinched back instinctively, but rather than an explosion, the bomb let loose a cloud of black and white smoke. Emilio’s brow furrowed, eyes darting between the ranger and the mime. The mime seemed distracted in its goal of mocking Daniel; Emilio figured that made this the perfect time to strike.

He rushed forward, ignoring the pain in his bad leg and the twinge in his ribs. Lowering his shoulder, he moved to tackle the mime to the ground… only for it to sidestep at the last minute. Emilio rushed past it, slamming into something a few feet behind where the mime stood. Emilio whirled back around to see the mime standing in the same spot it had been before, giggling silently. It made a motion as if slamming a door shut and twisting a deadbolt, then wriggled its fingers in a wave. Emilio clenched his jaw, lowering his shoulder and running at the mime again in hopes of catching it off guard. But before he could hit the mime, he hit something else instead. A… wall? He rushed forward again, only to meet the same resistance. Lifting up a hand with the palm facing out, he pressed it into the air in front of him to find something tangible and solid beneath his palms. He brought back his hand, clenching it into a fist and driving it forward; it bounced back. “What the fuck?” 

—

Daniel was about to go after the mime, but Emilio beat him to it … sort of. Emilio missed attacking the mime—it was way too good at dodging them—and instead looked … trapped. Or something? Daniel wasn’t sure what that was about. It looked like Emilio was running into something, and it didn’t take long for the slayer to curse. 

The mime slunk away towards the mine entrance, and Daniel turned to go after the stupid fucking mime. He wanted to shove his knife into that stupid smiling, fake laughing mime and maybe see if it would make any sort of noise when his knife plunged into it. 

But he turned his attention towards Emilio who looked stuck inside something invisible. He looked up in exasperation, shook his head, and rolled his eyes. “Fine.” Daniel guessed the mime would return soon enough, and if not, he would track it down. He rushed over to Emilio but slowed down before getting too close just in case he—whack!—ran into an invisible wall. Daniel rubbed his forehead after hitting his head. He placed his hands against what felt like glass. He walked around, keeping his hand against the invisible object until he reached a sharp corner and turned with the box. “Man, are you in a fucking glass box?” he asked as he reached what felt like a door. He moved his hand around until he felt a door knob. His hand wrapped around it and he turned and pulled and pushed on the door, but nothing budged. 

Daniel glanced around at the ground, half expecting to find a visible key to get this fucking door unlocked. Nothing stood out to him as a key. But of course he knew the stupid key would be invisible. Why would a mime have a visible key for its invisible glass box? “Is there a key in there?” he asked Emilio. At this point he was about to try breaking the glass with a rock or something, though he figured that might be a terrible idea—just imagine all of the invisible broken glass everywhere. 

—

The mime took off towards the entrance of the mine, and Emilio slammed his hand against the wall of a box he couldn’t see. For a moment, it looked as though Daniel was going to chase after the mime and, without really understanding why, Emilio felt a sense of panic creeping up through his chest. It would make sense for Daniel to chase the mime; he could come back after, or Emilio could find his own way out of his predicament. But Emilio was struck with a crushing discomfort at the idea of being left alone in this mine, in this box. 

He didn’t let it show on his face; he also didn’t let the relief show when Daniel decided to stay instead. He stood close to where he thought the barrier was, though evidently not close enough to keep Daniel from smacking his head on it. He winced as the sound vibrated through the box, reverberating off walls he couldn’t see. “I don’t fucking know,” he said, smacking a hand against the wall. “Just get me out.” The fact that he couldn’t see the barriers around him kept the walls from closing in on him the way tight spaces sometimes did, but he still didn’t love the feeling of being trapped like this. 

Daniel found the door and tugged on it, and Emilio rolled his eyes. “He fucking locked it, man,” he griped, palm flat against a door he couldn’t see. It was strange; not like glass, where it was transparent but something was undeniably there, but like something else entirely. Something unseen, but solid. His forehead dropped against it with a groan. “How would I know if there was a key in here?” He moved around a little, shuffling his feet in hopes of kicking something but finding nothing there. “I’m gonna… I’m gonna try to pick the lock.” He moved back over to the door, feeling around until he found the knob and pulling his lockpick set from his pocket. 

—

“Yeah, I can tell he fucking locked it.” Daniel slammed his hand against the invisible door. The situation grated on him, and he rolled his eyes as Emilio confirmed what he already knew—how would he know if there was a key. The fucking key was probably invisible. And the mime probably had it hidden in one of its pockets. 

Daniel kicked around on his side of the box as he searched for a key too. He eyed a large rock as a possible way of smashing through the glass but was quick to get rid of that idea—the last thing they needed was a bunch of invisible broken glass everywhere or for Emilio to cut himself on the invisible glass as he climbed out of the box. At least Emilio had the bright idea of picking the lock. Much better idea. “Yeah, if you can find the lock,” he sniped, unable to not be a little moody in the moment. He was fairly certain Emilio was smart enough to find and pick the lock. 

He heard movement from behind him, deeper into the mine, and he whirled around only to see the white painted face of that stupid mime smiling and waving at him. “Now how the fuck did you get back there?” (Could the mime turn invisible too?) The mime skipped back down into the mine, luring Daniel to follow it further into the depths of the earth. But he glanced back at Emilio and stayed exactly where he was. Maybe it was too stupid of an idea to go running after the mime, since it seemed adept at tricking the two seasoned hunters. And maybe Daniel didn’t want to get trapped in some other invisible mime trap and die in the stupidest way possible in a mine. Talia would be so pissed off at him for that. “You fucking done yet?” he asked Emilio, as he kept his focus on where the mime disappeared. 

—

“Then why are you pulling on the fucking knob?” Emilio challenged, frustration with the situation translating to frustration towards Daniel, since he was the only one here. The mime would probably return sooner instead of later, though Emilio was a little worried about what might happen when he did. You only walked away from a fight you were winning if you had some kind of plan that would fuck the other person involved up a lot more than you were already achieving. And the mime had lured them down into the mines to begin with. There must have been some kind of intention there, some kind of plan; Emilio didn’t particularly want to find out what it might have been.

Daniel was searching for the key on his side of the box, while Emilio felt around the knob for a keyhole on his. “I fucking know I need to find the fucking lock,” he snapped. “Shut up a minute, will you?” Finally, his finger pressed over a break in the knob — a hole. He slipped his lockpicks in, stopping a moment to look at the way they seemed to hang suspended in the air even as he could feel the lock around them. Luckily, he picked locks by feel instead of sight; he began working the pick, concentration written all over his face. The click of it finally giving way was — of course — silent. But the feeling was the same as any other lock. Emilio sighed in quiet relief.

He turned the knob, pushing the door open… and banging it against Daniel, just a little. It wasn’t his fault. The door was invisible. How was he supposed to know it’d smack against the ranger? “Yeah,” he confirmed, utterly unapologetic, “I’m done. What the fuck are you looking at, man?” Emilio had no idea that, in his concentration towards the lock, he’d missed the mime’s reappearance entirely.

—

Daniel grunted as the door hit his shoulder. At least it was his good shoulder, he thought, or else he’d have to consider taking a swing at Emilio. But he was done picking the invisible lock, so now they could once again deal with the stupid mime. “The mime is back,” he answered as he pointed further down the mine where the mime had disappeared. “I didn’t fucking hear or see it, but somehow it got down yonder.” 

For a moment, he considered just turning back around and heading out of the mine. They weren’t gaining anything by going after the mime. But something clattered further down the mine, and Daniel decided that the mime deserved whatever it had coming for it. “Come on,” he said to Emilio as he motioned forward with his head. Maybe it was a waste of their time, but whatever, he wanted to solve why the mime was coming after them. 

He softly stepped forward down the mine, even as he knew how incredibly stupid it was to go deeper into an abandoned mining tunnel after something that could use invisible tricks on them. He turned the corner and spotted the mime standing just a short distance ahead of him. Daniel narrowed his eyes at the mime, and it responded by mimicking his facial expression. The mime lifted up its hand and flipped off the two men before breaking out into hysterical laughter without sound. “I fucking hate this guy,” Daniel grumbled. 

The mime waved its arms as if ushering something towards it. Daniel looked over his shoulder to see if there was something behind him, but it was all the dim lighting from the mine lanterns. He took one step forward but paused as the earth trembled under his boots. He whipped his head around but saw and heard nothing. “Fucking what now!” he said in exasperation. (Maybe he should have turned around and left the mime to play in the mine by itself). The walls around them shook as the lanterns swung back and forth and as dust flew up from the ground. He heard nothing, but something rammed into his side and flung him forward. Daniel landed on his side, his bad side, and he groaned as he rolled over onto his back. He sat up and rubbed his left arm and shoulder. He wasn’t sure what ran into him, but whatever it was felt furry and fast. 

Daniel held his breath as the wooden beams, which held up the mining tunnel, shook and creaked as something ran through the tunnel. If there was one thing he knew, it was that he was not going to die in an abandoned collapsed mine. One beam snapped but the earth didn’t cave in on them just yet. “Milio, we gotta get the fuck outta here,” Daniel said as he jumped up to his feet. His gaze stayed on the broken beam, no longer focusing on the mime, as he waited for the mine to collapse onto them. His aching shoulder would be dealt with later (he could easily convince Talia to give him a massage). 

—

“Fucking great,” Emilio grumbled, irritation pooling in his chest. Of course the mime was back. In a way, he thought it might have been a good thing; they needed to figure out why this asshole had lured them down into the mines, needed to find a way to make sure it wouldn’t happen again. It was clear that this guy wanted something from them. Instinct — or maybe just paranoia — warned that he probably wanted to kill them, but Emilio wasn’t sure that fit. He could have easily hit them with the invisible knives he’d been throwing before; he could have taken Emilio out when he was locked inside that invisible box, or strangled Daniel with his invisible rope. The fact that he’d done none of that implied that the goal was something else, though Emilio had no idea what it could have been.

In any case, he was glad that Daniel wanted to go after the mime instead of abandoning the mission entirely. Emilio probably would have gone along with the ranger if he’d chosen to leave the mine, if only to ensure he didn’t trip over any more invisible ropes or fall into any invisible pits. Talia would probably kill him if Daniel broke his neck on Emilio’s watch. But if Daniel was going after the mime, Emilio was going with him.

He followed Daniel into the mine tunnel, keeping his eyes peeled. It wasn’t hard to spot the mime, whose stark white stripes stood out in the darkness even as the black ones blended a little easier. “I think we should kill him,” Emilio decided. “He’s not human. He can’t be human. Right? He’s gotta be some kind of… thing. Some kind of dangerous thing. He’s probably killing people down here.” And, more importantly, he was pissing Emilio off. “So I think we should catch him, and I think we should —”

He stopped as the mime moved, body tensing at the way it seemed to be waving something forward. Emilio couldn’t hear anything, couldn’t see anything, but the tunnel began to shake as if something big was headed their way. Daniel went flying as if thrown, and Emilio took a step towards him only to be knocked to the side by some invisible shape running by him quickly. He swore he felt fur brush against his arms as it ran by, coarse and rough. Emilio stumbled back with a curse, though his back slammed against another invisible creature as it ran by. They seemed to be utterly surrounded, though nothing was attacking them directly. Just… running. 

And doing a lot of damage in the process.

His eyes shot over to the damaged beam. While the stampede was silent, the creaking wood was not. With no other sounds in the mine, this one seemed to echo dangerously, like a warning Emilio knew they needed to heed. He looked back at Daniel, who had gotten his feet back underneath him. “No shit we need to get out of here!” He moved towards the ranger, dodging invisible animals as they ran by and grabbing his arm, dragging him forward. “Run!”

Emilio wasn’t a very fast runner. He knew he was probably screwed here, worried Daniel would doom himself in some stupidly noble refusal to leave Emilio behind. He pushed himself as hard as he could, even as his bad leg screamed in protest, pushing Daniel ahead of him. And then — and then he slammed into something, the force of it sending him tumbling forward. But rather than land on the cold floor of the mine, he landed in something. Something big, something wooden, something that… shot forward far faster than he was running. Emilio reached out, clumsily grabbing Daniel and dragging him into the cart as it went by.

—

Daniel started running forward and attempted to dodge the stampede of invisible animals, even as they shoved and bumped into him. He went on runs every morning, so he knew he was a strong, quick runner, but it was a little difficult of a task in a shaking mine with a silent stampede running around him. His eyes widened as he looked back over his shoulder to check on Emilio, knowing that the slayer’s bad leg wouldn’t get him out of the mine fast enough. He cursed under his breath as he saw the man had fallen but … but looked like he was floating in something. What the fuck was with this place and all the invisible shit? 

He knew that he needed to keep running out of this place, even as his hunting mindset told him to keep pushing ahead, to leave behind Emilio. He had always struggled with that—leaving others to fend for themselves or abandoning them for dead. But before he could turn around to help Emilio out of the mine, the slayer somehow rushed forward as if he was in something fast. Daniel gasped as Emilio grabbed him and yanked him into the invisible cart. 

He fell in head first, and his legs dangled outside of the cart as the invisible animals ran by him. He grunted as he pulled himself further into the cart. He mumbled a sorry as he pushed against Emilio so he could get his legs away from the animals. “What the fuck,” he grunted as he finally got himself sitting upright in the tiny invisible cart. 

Daniel glanced down at the bottom of the cart, and rather than seeing the wooden cart, he saw only the railway tracks flying by below them. It was almost dizzying knowing that his feet were pressed against something but it wasn’t there. He looked back up as the cart sped through the mine. Wind brushed against his face, and he held his hand down on his hat to keep it from blowing away. The cart bounced along the old tracks. It hit a large bump, and Daniel flew out of his seated position for a moment but gripped the side of the cart. The mine curved up ahead, and as the cart took the turn, he swore for a moment that the cart was going to tip onto its side. He pushed his body weight on the opposite side to keep it balanced as it sped towards the mine entrance. 

Light poured into the mine entryway, not too far ahead of them. A loud crash sounded off from behind them, and Daniel glanced over his shoulder to see part of the mine had collapsed. He hoped that the fucking stupid mime was trapped under all the rubble. He didn’t have too long to think about the mime’s possible death before the cart sprung them out into the bright daylight. He shut his eyes for a moment as the light hurt his eyes. 

He blinked his eyes open, squinting at the drastic change, when he spotted a large rock at the end of the tracks. “Oh fuck!” Daniel exclaimed as the invisible cart slammed into the rock and sent the two men flying forward. Daniel fell face down into the dirt. Something invisible brushed against his arm, so he moved his aching arms to cover his head from the invisible stampede. He waited a minute or so until he didn’t feel the earth rumbling beneath him. He lifted his head up and looked around for the—god, was he fucking stupid? he thought. Did he seriously expect to see the invisible stampede? He groaned as he pressed his hands into the dirt and pushed himself up. He rolled over to a seated position and rubbed his hand against his forehead. 

“Do you think that mime is fucking dead?” 

—

There was some relief as Daniel collapsed into the mine cart, even as his body pressed a little too tightly against Emilio’s in the small space. The last thing he wanted was for the two of them to get separated in this mine, especially when they had no idea where the mime was. If one of them got stuck in another box, or stabbed with an invisible knife, or tangled up in invisible rope, especially while the mine was in full collapse, things could get messy.

Of course, Emilio wasn’t sure the mine cart would prevent any messiness. Not when the ride was so… chaotic. This was faster than running — especially Emilio’s running — but there was little control over it. The cart clung to the tracks while Emilio and Daniel clung to the cart, shoving their bodies from side to side to keep it from flipping as it went around sharp curves. Eventually, the literal light at the end of the tunnel beckoned them, and Emilio felt a sharp surge of relief. (Or maybe that was just Daniel’s elbow poking into his ribs.)

The relief couldn’t last long, though. There was a rock at the end of the tracks, and Emilio spotted it just as Daniel yelled out a curse. The fury tried to brace himself, but there was only so much he could do. The cart hit the rock, and Emilio flew out, landing in a tangled heap next to Daniel with a quiet oof of air being forced from his lungs. He rolled over onto his back and, for a moment, just… laid there. He stared up at the sky, refreshingly visible, and watched a few clouds float by absently. Something brushed against his arm, and he pulled it to his chest quickly, though he felt nothing else. If he had to guess, the last of the stampede was exiting the mine now.

He felt Daniel sitting up beside him and, somewhat reluctantly, moved to do the same. He did a quick inventory of his body — no major injuries, but his bad leg was protesting both the running and the cramped position he’d forced it into in order to allow both himself and Daniel to fit into the cart — and rolled his shoulders absently, trying to work out the tension clinging to his muscles. He had a feeling it would take a little more than a stretch to get it to fully vacate, after an experience like that. 

Daniel spoke, and Emilio exhaled through his nose and turned to face him. “I’m not sure that mime can die,” he admitted, grimacing at the thought. “He probably built himself an invisible fucking exit and skipped off into mime world, or some shit.” Or ducked into an invisible box to avoid falling debris, or it was some kind of undead thing Emilio could no longer sense, or it was a shared delusion he and Daniel had made up together because every hunter he knew had at least a couple of screws loose. In any case, he doubted the mime was dead. That would have been too fucking easy.

Slowly — painfully — Emilio got to his feet and offered a hand out to Daniel. “You all right? Not bleeding or anything? Going to have to make fun of you if you got hurt from a fucking mine mime, man.”

—

Daniel didn’t want to seem like he was in pain from the whole … well, the whole everything that they just experienced. He rubbed the back of his neck and his bad shoulder, then rolled and stretched his neck to try to get rid of the increased pain. Fuck, he’d need a massage, a hot bath, some tiger balm, and whatever would make him not ache (well, ache more than his average aching pain). God, he just wanted to go home to Talia. 

He glanced back at the collapsed mine as Emilio answered him. He wanted that fucking mime dead. And he was almost determined enough to hunt down that fucker and—no, no, he should maybe not do that. For now. Maybe later. Daniel would have to think further about it. He sighed in defeat at the mime still being alive. “I ain’t gonna ask what you mean by mime world. Some of us ain’t knowledgeable about mime shit.” 

His gaze followed Emilio as the slayer stood up, clearly in plenty of pain of his own. Daniel nodded and took his hand and stood up. He grimaced in pain before shaking his head to pretend that nothing hurt. He stretched his arms up above his head. “As far as I know, I ain’t bleeding,” he answered. If he was, he’d deal with it later. “Ain’t gonna let a stupid fucking mime get me hurt.” He ignored that he was, in fact, hurt. “How about you? You okay?” He glanced down at Emilio’s legs and then turned his gaze to the rest of the area. He scanned the area, on alert in case the mime appeared around them for some more sick torture. “Glad we got outta there. Though I’m gonna kill that fucking mime if I ever see it again. Or if it leaves me another fucking message.” He paused. “I didn’t get a free knife though, and that pisses me off.” 

—

“You don’t have to ask because you already know,” Emilio retorted, rolling his eyes. If anyone was going to know about mime world, it was bound to be Daniel; he’d probably known from the start that he was meeting a mime down in the mines, even if he hadn’t known how things would go. Emilio might have let himself wonder if this was some kind of mime triple cross if he’d had the energy to think about anything further than the collapsed mine, the protests thrumming out of his bad leg, and the quiet rage at the memory of the invisible rope tangling itself around his torso. As it was, he figured he’d give Daniel a pass. If this had been some plan he’d hatched with his mime friend, it clearly hadn’t gone his way. That was punishment enough, really.

He pulled the ranger to his feet, making note of the way he stretched his muscles. There might have been some soreness there, but he didn’t seem to be lying about the ‘not bleeding’ thing, which was good. The less Emilio had to explain about all of this to Talia, the better. She and Daniel had only just worked things out; Emilio didn’t want to be responsible for any more tension between them.

“I’m fine,” he replied, shoving down the ever-present pain in his bad leg. It’d hurt a while longer, but it’d fade back to its usual level of throbbing soon enough. And when that happened, Emilio could forget about this entire ordeal. “Yeah. I’d say it was close, but…” he trailed off with a shrug. “Honestly, no fucking idea. Could have almost been trampled. Could have not. Fuck if I know, with everything being invisible.” He scowled at the idea of seeing the mime again and the possibility of getting another message, as well as the reminder that, despite all that, neither of them had gotten the promised ‘free good knife.’ “Guess we were supposed to pick up the invisible one he tossed at your head,” he replied dryly, rolling his eyes. “Fuck would we do with an invisible knife, anyway?” Lose it, probably. “I’m getting out of here. Bar nearby. Want to come?”

—

Daniel scoffed at the insinuation that he knew anything about mime world. He never thought about mimes before Emilio sent him that wrong message the other day—wait, was that over a month ago? Regardless, the slayer knew much more about mimes than he did. It explained how he knew how to pick the invisible lock. And he may have fallen into the invisible cart, but he knew exactly what he was doing. But Daniel guessed it really didn’t matter that much right then just how much Emilio knew about mime shit. Maybe Emilio and that particular mime weren’t friends, unlike how Emilio was friends with all the other mimes. 

As he rolled his neck and shoulder again, he realized he wasn’t exactly sure how he was going to explain all of this to Talia. How would he tell her that he received a stupid note about free knives and ended up in a mine with Emilio while getting their asses kicked by a mime? Maybe she wouldn’t ask too many questions. He didn’t want to ruin something that was going so well. And that would mean Emilio stabbing him if he fucked things up with Talia again, and after the whole ordeal with the mime, he wasn’t in the mood to be stabbed. 

A brief time of living in Deersprings led Daniel to explore the neighborhood a little bit, finding a few spots that he enjoyed for solitude, and though he no longer lived with Eve, he still sometimes drove out to the neighborhood to return to a few favorite quiet spots. When he lived in the neighborhood, he required the fresh air, and all the houses everywhere annoyed him. He was never meant to live in a neighborhood like this. Rural communities with houses far apart were far better for him. He preferred his space and privacy. 

He walked alongside a stream of water. His boots crunched through patches of snow that remained after snowstorms. The trees blocked the sunlight from reaching this part of the area, so he took his time to not slip and fall on icy patches. The last thing he needed was new injuries. He hummed to himself as he walked until he heard what sounded like voices chatting not too far away from him. He tilted his head as he turned to face the direction of the voices. His hand reached towards his knife, hidden under his clothing, and he stepped silently towards the voices. 

Daniel stepped out into a small clearing where he spotted multiple people standing around a food truck. He raised a brow as he tried to figure out why there was a food truck this far out in the woods—how did it even get here, especially with all the old snowfall covering the earth? An older couple took their food from the stand and walked back in the direction of the houses. Was this a typical spot for the food truck? People just come here for whatever they served? He straightened up as he walked towards the food truck to further investigate, though he kept his hand safely resting above his knife. Pit Pockets, read the sign on the side of the truck. After enough weird situations in this town, he couldn’t possibly act surprised by the sight of pita pockets being sold in the middle of the woods. 

He glanced over the menu as he debated if he should order something. He was not really hungry, not at all, but he was curious about the entire situation. Daniel shrugged his shoulders after a moment and turned around to head back. But his senses alerted him to a shifter somewhere nearby. He casually glanced around at the couple of people at the food truck. Only one person stuck out to him as the possible culprit, a young woman who just arrived from her own journey through the woods to end up at this food truck. 

—

It wasn’t that Jasper intended to be in the woods. She just kind of ended up there while exploring. And from what she was learning about Wicked’s Rest, every day brought on a new adventure. But this adventure had somehow led her to a random food truck in the middle of the woods. In fact, it had led several people to that same random food truck. And as she stood staring at the menu, Jasper could already feel her mouth watering at the savory smells of chicken, beef, and other random offered meats listed on the small sign in front of her. However, what she didn’t expect to get a random sniff of was what smelled like sweat. And while most people probably would’ve been grossed out by that, it had simply reminded her of wrestling.

Stepping forward, but staying back just enough to allow other people a chance to go in front of her, Jasper read through the options. It all sounded good. Petie’s Pit Pocket Special was what had seemed to catch her eye though. An assortment of meats, cheese, fresh veggies covered in our special La Sauce. She didn’t have a damn clue what La Sauce was, but if it was anything like the secret sauce from any chain restaurant she had ever visited, she knew she’d be fine.

“Have you been here before?” Jasper caught a glance of a man standing near her. “Was just curious what you thought was good. I’ve got my eyes on Petie’s Pit Pocket Special, but I think the La Sauce is what’s throwing me off.” Maybe he could help her decide, if he had been here before. He looked like a man who had a taste for adventure.

—

He hadn’t wanted to catch the attention of the other person, but now he was stuck in a conversation with someone he guessed to be a shapeshifter. He shook his head as he answered, “No, ain’t been here. Was just out for a walk.” Daniel held back a groan as she had more to say about the food truck. He could play a little nice for just a short while, and maybe he could go for a quick bite to eat. 

“La Sauce probably just like some sort of special sauce any other restaurant has,” he replied with a shrug of his shoulders. He wasn’t exactly concerned about whatever the sauce was here. “I’d probably just go for the beef pita pocket, but …” Daniel shoved his hands in his pockets as he realized that he didn’t have any cash on him right then. He’d just been out for a walk in the woods, not in search of a bite to eat. “Ain’t got no money on me.” 

—

“Funny. Was doing the same thing, and just stumbled upon this place. Kinda odd, but the feeling I get from this town is that weird is a general vibe.” Jasper remained back still trying to make up her mind. It shouldn’t have been that hard, but the scent had been so overpowering to her sensitive nose that the entire menu had sounded good, “Good point. Probably like McDonald’s Big Mac sauce, except hopefully without all the filler.” She hated Big Mac’s. In fact, she had grown tired of fast food for a while now. It was all she and her wrestling friends could find late night after shows would let out, and they were on their way to the next city, so seeing more independently owned places around Wicked’s Rest had made her happy.

“Hold that thought.” With the line cleared out, Jasper moved forward to the small window of the food truck, “Hey, I’ll have one Petie’s Pit Pocket Special, One Beef Pita Pocket, and two bottles of water. Oh and two of the Churro Pockets. Thanks.” Pulling a wallet out of her jeans, Jasper thumbed a card out and paid for the food. Card secured back in her wallet and pocket, she grabbed some plasticware and a couple of napkins along with the two bottles of water that were now sitting in the window, before moving back to the random stranger she had just met, “Food should be up in a minute. Where do you want to sit?”

—

Daniel couldn’t remember the last time he had been to a McDonald’s or had a Big Mac. He wasn’t all that interested in fast food restaurants. Even when he craved fast food, he got over that after actually cooking something for himself. He was ready to turn around and head out of this place, but the shifter ordered … food for the two of them. “No, you don’t have to …,” he trailed off and shrugged as she already swiped her card. He didn’t like the idea of a stranger (human or shifter) paying for his food, and now he thought he would probably wind up owing her something in the end. Great. 

It made sense that she would want to eat with him after buying his meal, and he guessed it would be rude to say no. The area didn’t have tables or anywhere to officially sit and eat. One guy stood while eating his pita pocket, and a couple other folks found places to sit. Daniel scanned the area and pointed out a fallen tree that looked decent enough. It didn’t seem rotted from the outside, and it looked like it could handle two people temporarily sitting on it. “There could work,” he suggested. 

He walked over and sat down, deciding this spot was okay enough. His plan was to eat and get out of here. “Thanks, by the way,” he said. “Don’t think I caught your name.” 

—

Jasper hadn’t really met that many people in town yet. There had been Amos (her boss), Constance (hopefully a friend), and fucking Nova (no comment). Plus all the barflies she came across on a regular basis at the Wormhole. But to have someone to talk to would be nice. At least, someone who seemed normal enough. But in all her travels, she knew that usually was too good to be true. Fuck, she missed her friends. She missed wrestling. She missed her previous life.

Catching sight of the log that he was motioning towards, Jasper smiled, “Think you’re right.” She was just about to head that way to set the bottles of water down, when she heard her name being called, “Jasper. Order’s up!” And without hesitating, she made a smooth turn on her heels going back to get the food, before joining the stranger she had decided to have lunch with.

“Yeah, no problem. Just pay it forward sometime, and ask them to do the same. I know it’s cheesy, but it makes the world feel a little lighter sometimes. Doing something nice for someone else.” She sat down next to him and put everything between them so it was accessible. “I’m Jasper. What about you?” She was looking forward to whatever this La Sauce was. It had smelled even better now that it was sitting in front of her. “So have you lived here long?”

—

Daniel almost rolled his eyes at the idea of paying forward kindness. What a load of bullshit. He spent enough of his life being kind by keeping humans safe from the supernatural world—safe from shifters like whatever sat next to him. “Sure, pay it forward,” he said with a nod of his head and a kind grin on his face. He could at least pretend like any of this meant anything to him. “I’ll keep it in mind whenever I’m out and find an opportunity to help someone out.” Like every fucking day, it felt like sometimes. The town gave him enough ways to get people out of difficult situations. 

“Daniel,” he answered, not seeing much of a point in lying about his name. It was common enough anyway. He shrugged his shoulders at her question. “Ain’t been here too long. But it’s a nice place,” he said. “Sometimes you stumble onto silly little things like a food truck out in the woods.” Silly being the key word in that sentence, rather than referring to it as weird or strange. The last thing he wanted was to get into the details of all the oddities about Wicked’s Rest. He glanced down at the pita pocket and took a bite of it. He wasn’t too certain about the taste of it. Something strange was in it. “Are you from here or also a transplant?” 

—

Something about the way he had replied had felt off to Jasper. Even the grin felt hollow judging by the look in his eyes. Jasper had met all kinds of people in her life. More than most did being in the spotlight, and she had learned to read people. Especially after the things her father had taught her about hunters and what they had done to her mother. But this man didn’t give her hunter vibes, probably because she had never been around one that she had known of. This guy just seemed strange. And instead of shrugging it off, she’d at least keep her guard up. Did he know who she was? She had been in the company of stalkers before, but this had felt different. “That’s all I ask, man.”

Taking the pita pocket and opening so the paper would catch anything that fell out, Jasper lifted it to her lips and took a huge bite. The flavors hit her all at once, and while the smell had certainly been nice, the taste of it made her want to gag a little, but instead of spitting it out, she choked it down, hoping it would grow on her, “It’s nice to meet you, Daniel.” His description of the food truck as ‘silly’ had been an interesting choice of words, but it’s not like she thought much of it. Instead, she forced down another bite, before taking a drink of water to wash it down, “Transplant. Used to live in another part of the country for my job, but I travelled a lot. I hope the churro pockets are better than whatever this is. How’s yours?” She looked at the pita before looking up at him.

—

“You too,” he replied. Daniel took a bite of the pita pocket but almost gagged at the taste of it. He looked around at the other few people who all seemed to be enjoying the food. What the fuck was their problem? He wrapped it up and placed the pita pocket next to him. “Tastes like fucking shit,” he answered. “Sorry. Thanks for … you know, buying it, but I cain’t eat whatever this is.” He wasn’t even that picky of an eater, but whatever was in this pita pocket was awful to him. He drank some of the water to try to get rid of the taste that lingered in his mouth. “But transplant, huh? What was you doing for work?” 

He looked around for a trashcan, but of course the middle of the woods and the random food truck didn’t have a trashcan. He sighed, knowing that he would have to carry the pita pocket with him. Daniel shrugged his shoulders and stood up from where he was seated. “I best be getting on my way though. I gotta get on home.” Home to another shifter, sure, but also home where he could fix himself something good to eat. “Thanks again, for the food, but you can have the second churro pocket.” 

—

Jasper snorted at his reply. It was blunt, but she appreciated it, “Yeah…that’s about what mine tastes like. Shit.” She wrapped her own pita pocket up. Maybe she’d find a stray animal to feed it to, on the way home, but even then, she was leery of the idea, not wanting to subject some poor cat or dog to what she had just experienced. Okay, well maybe the cat, but surely not the dog. “Don’t apologize. What could you expect from some random food trailer in the woods?” She glanced back at the person who had served them the food wondering if this had been an American Idol situation, where the person had been convinced by family members and friends that they were the best in the world at what they did, and just so happened to go for it? Who was she to burst their dreams though? She was currently living in that situation, and it wasn’t fun.

“Huh? Work? Oh, uh, a pharmacy rep.” Rep for pain. Heh. Heh. Jasper hoped he would buy it. She’d just have to remember to keep that little lie straight in her mind if they ever crossed paths again, but with the way he was standing up ready to leave, she felt safe in her tiny, but snug excuse. “Thanks for the company. If we meet again, I’ll let you know if the churros were shit or not.” Fuck, she hoped not.

Standing up, she made sure she had everything, “Welp, have a good one. Hope whatever you’ve got for dinner is better than this.” Jasper laughed as she went to cross in front of him, but as she did so, she felt her foot slip from some ooze that had splashed up onto the bank at some point, and before she knew it, the woman felt herself sliding. Desperate not to go in, she reached out for whatever she could grab onto, dropping everything in her hands and latching onto Daniel, hoping he’d be the thing to save her.

—

Really, what did he expect from a random food truck in the woods? Maybe Daniel thought it’d be a bit better, based on everyone else’s responses, but whatever. At least the shifter—Jasper—didn’t seem all that annoyed by his lack of interest in finishing the food. But he raised his brow at her answer as a pharmacy rep, and if it wasn’t for the bad food and his urge to get out of there, he’d maybe ask a few more questions about that. He wasn’t really sure what a pharmacy rep was. But it mattered little to him right then. “Sure, just let me know.” If either of them even remembered. He let out an amused huff as she said bye. “Thanks, you too.” He already knew that whatever he was going to cook for him and Talia would be much better than this shit. 

As Jasper stepped out in front of him, he paused for a moment and took a brief step back. She slid on something, and he glanced down at what looked like ooze on the ground. Further down the little hillside was what looked like a pit of ooze. Daniel grimaced at the sight, ready to turn away, but Jasper grabbed onto him as she slipped. He grunted, a little taken aback by the sudden touch from a stranger, but his own boots slipped in ooze as he grabbed onto her waist to keep her from falling. 

Daniel slipped down onto the ground with Jasper in tow with him. He landed on his back, with her still holding onto them as they both fell down. The ooze seemed to have its own motive though, as if suddenly more ooze appeared around them. The two of them slid down the little hill, right into the pool of ooze awaiting them. He tried grabbing onto the grass for some kind of hold on their descent, but none of that mattered as his fingers slipped through ooze. He gasped as soon as his legs dipped into the pool of ooze. His feet hit something at the bottom—the ground, he fucking hoped, and he stopped sliding any further. “Fucking shit,” Daniel grumbled, as he, as politely as he could, pushed Jasper off him. “You okay?” 

—

It all happened in the blink of an eye. One minute they were both upright, and the next they were laying in a pit of ooze. Or better yet…the la sauce. So this was the secret ingredient to the ptt pockets, and now they were covered in it, “Well, I think I know where Pit Pockets gets their sauce from…” Jasper raised her arm as it dripped from her hand back into the pit they were both residing in, “I wonder if this shit stains clothes…” This was going to be a fun little adventure getting home. “But yeah, I’m good. Sorry, for taking you down with me. I panicked.”

With a sigh, Jasper looked up where a small crowd of people had formed, followed by the owner of Pit Pockets, “HEY! GET OUT OF MY LA SAUCE!”

“Do you think we want to fucking be in your la sauce?!” With a growl, Jasper moved forward and started trying to use her fingers to dig into the mud, but couldn’t grip anything, until she found a random large root sticking out of the muddy, ooze-covered bank, “You think this can hold our weight to get us out?” She looked back at Daniel hoping he had an idea. The smell and taste was already making her want to gag, and she knew this wouldn’t just be a one shower and you’re done sort of thing. It’d be like the equivalent of getting sprayed by a skunk ten times over. “If this asshole doesn’t help us out here, I might fucking puke in his la sauce.”

—

Daniel tried to not gag at the smell of the ooze and did his best to keep his composure. Usually he had to stay calm and normal when injured and ignore any pain, so at least he had practice at pretending that something didn’t bother him. “Probably stains, yeah,” he said as he lifted his leg up and watched the ooze drip down his pants leg. He gave Jasper a quick nod of his head as a you’re welcome as he really didn’t want to talk too much while he tried to get out of this stupid situation. 

The Pit Pockets owner yelled down at them, and Daniel sighed and rolled his eyes. But the shifter yelled back and growled, and he eyed her carefully, not wanting a situation where he was stuck in a pit with an angry, uncontrollable shifter. He still always carried his weapons on him—though he had gotten rid of all of his silver at the request of Talia—and he could put up a fight against whatever she was. If any of that happened. 

“Should work,” he answered with a quick nod of agreement as she pulled on the root. “Might be the only option.” He grimaced at the thought of her throwing up in the ooze, though he couldn’t blame her as even his own stomach churned as the oozy smell overwhelmed his nose. He spotted another root, and Daniel pulled on it, testing if it would hold or rip out of the earth. The root stayed in place and seemed sturdy enough. “I’ll climb this one.” He wrapped his hands around the root and began climbing up the slippery muddy sides. His boots dug into the earth, sliding down but he maintained his grip on the root as he pulled himself up further. The root barely reached the edge of the edge of the pit, and he reached his hand up to grab hold of the ground. He grunted as he pulled himself up and out of the pit of ooze, and he glanced back to Jasper. “You doing good?” In his mind, the faster the shifter got out of the ooze, the less likely she was to shift and hurt anyone. 

—

Jasper watched as Daniel spotted another root and gave it a good firm tug. Perfect. They each had a way out, which would hopefully make things go a lot smoother for both of them. Now, it was time to see if she was still in as good of shape as she had once been. She had continued to work out daily and stick with a balanced diet, but she couldn’t deny the fact that she had had one too many drinks since coming to Wicked’s Rest. So deciding it best for a little extra gripping power, Jasper dipped her hands down into the ooze as if stretching out before making the climb, and let her claws ease out, just enough that she could stick them into the root or ground if need be.

Letting out a soft sigh, she reached out and latched on and began to climb. With her heels dug firmly into the ground, she used all the upper body strength she had gained from many years of wrestling and tugged herself forward. And soon, she was inching her way up; the thousands of squats and leg presses she had done over the years being put to the test. And when she finally reached the top of the slippery, goop-covered hillside, she retracted her claws and managed to climb the rest of the way, before standing up straight as ooze rolled and dripped down her body, “I’m so good. I’ll be even better when I get this la sauce off of my body.” She shot the owner of Pit Pockets a look, before walking over to Daniel.

“Well, it was nice meeting you. Sorry, it had to be in this fashion. Hopefully next time there’s better food and no pits of ooze nearby.” Jasper shot out a muddy, ooze covered hand one last time as a peace offering to their insane situation. Anywhere else, and this would’ve been staged, but only in Wicked’s Rest could a wrestler fall in a pit of ooze. Maybe it was how mud wrestling had become a thing, but ooze wrestling wasn’t anything you could ever pay Jasper to do. The smell alone would haunt her for the rest of her life.

—

As he glanced down at Jasper still climbing her way out of the pit, Daniel couldn’t help but notice the change in her hands as she gripped the root. Claws extended from her fingertips as she climbed. He knew right then what she wasn’t. The length and familiarity of the claws pointed him in only one direction, with his many years of hunting primarily werewolves, and he grew worried about the idea of this shifter partially shifting and losing her control around this small crowd of people. He wondered if she’d felt stressed and upset in the pit, causing her to partially shift at the anxiety. Even as he stood in a casual stance, he waited in preparation in case he needed to stop this shifter—somehow stop her without killing her. But as she made her way out of the pit, her claws were gone and out of sight. 

Still, he couldn’t be so certain. He had promised to stop killing shifters, but his entire life was centered around hunting so he couldn’t simply wipe away that mindset with a wave of a hand and a loving promise. And he especially couldn’t shake off that feeling when everything he’d learned about Jasper right then was that she was willing to shift in front of a crowd of strangers. No, Daniel did not like that. He did not like the supernatural world becoming known to nonpowered humans. And Jasper seemed like a risk to exposing shapeshifters to humans.

Daniel barely noticed the smell of the ooze now, as all of his attention was tuned in with his hunter instincts. He knew he’d wash off and clean up as soon as he got home—sorry to Talia and Rory, but he guessed he’d be stuck in the singular bathroom for a while. He planned to change out of his oozy clothes and boots before getting into his truck, but the stench clung to his body. Multiple showers seemed like the only solution.