I pulled up my hood. “My father is waiting in the parking lot,” I called out. “Thanks for the ride.”
As soon as I stepped off the bus, the doors slid closed and the engine hissed. I’d barely made it to the curb before the bus was rumbling forward and turning back onto the street. As the engine quieted with distance, I waited in the shadows of the bus station, sniffing the air.
It was almost impossible to believe that I still didn’t scent a single supernatural. A few homeless people slept in the hedges along the exterior wall of the bus station, but homeless people on the streets always soothed my fears. Yes, that sounded bad, but vampires cleared out the streets of vulnerable populations faster than an overzealous mayor ever could. Seeing people sleeping on the street was a sure-fire sign that a town wasn’t overrun with the undead.
The hair prickled on the back of my neck as I stepped onto the street outside of the bus station, and I could swear I felt the heat of someone’s gaze on my back. There was a quiet hiss, and I spun, scrabbling for my gun, but I stopped with my hand halfway in the zipper. Save for a few blinking streetlamps, the road was empty.
My heart thundered in my chest as I craned my neck to see into an alleyway between dark storefronts, only to hear a soft snap and see a pair of eyes shining from the bushes.
Squatting, I found a small feral cat hunched down, ready for a fight.
“We’re just freaking each other out, aren’t we?” I reached in my bag, rustling through the contents. “If you can believe it, I actually have a can of tuna.” It was the last bit of food I had in my bag, purchased at a gas station we stopped at yesterday, and the only reason I hadn’t eaten it yet was because the smell on the bus would draw too much attention to me. My stomach ached with hunger, but I was more capable of going and getting food than this guy, and I could see his ribs. So, I opened the can and left it in the bushes.
I pulled my sweatshirt hood down over my face and headed to the only lit store on the street.
Ten minutes later, I seriously regretted giving my last bit of food to a stray cat. If I hadn’t been desperate, I would have walked straight back out that door when I saw the prices in Cat’s 24-Hour Drugstore, but I was starting to feel weak and shaky, and those were two things a werewolf never should be.
I found myself at the checkout aisle, wincing at the ever-growing price on the register as a red-eyed clerk scanned my batteries, two boxes of hair dye, and a dried noodle package. When I held up sixty bucks, the store clerk adjusted the nose ring through the center of her nostrils and she asked, “You’re actually paying cash?”
“That’s all I have.”
She wiggled my noodle package in the air. “You know these are ten dollars apiece, right?”
“I’m starving, but my cash is starting to run low. You don’t know of anywhere that sells affordable food this late, do you?”
“At midnight in Grayhaven? No. Not for cash,” she said through a yawn as she took my money. She held my bag out to me. “Bye.”
“Anywhere you know of that’s safe to spend the night for under a hundred bucks?” I asked as I took the bag.
“Seriously, lady, this isn’t a visitor center. Explaining the town’s amenities to you isn’t part of my job.”
“Okay, well then, can I at least use your restroom?” I nodded to the key hanging behind the register.
“This isn’t a hotel either. I don’t want to have to deal with getting you out of the shitter at five AM.”
“I’m not homeless. I just have to—”
“Yes, you are,” she picked up a book from beside her register and walked away.
As soon as she turned her back, I leaned over the counter to snag the bathroom key, only to have a black paw come out of nowhere and swipe across my hand. I leaned, looking into the shadows under the register. Well, what I thought had been a shadow was in fact the world’s poofiest gray cat.
I reached once more, but the dark gray paw swiped again, jangling the keys so loud, I was afraid rude counter chick would hear.
“I’m just borrowing the keys for a few minutes,” I told the cat, feeling ridiculous, but when I reached again, the creature only hissed and glared at me.
The girl didn’t even glance up from her book when I returned with pink hair, a pair of tight jeans, V-neck shirt, and cowboy boots.
“Here you go,” I whispered to the cat. The little devil watched with menace clearly reflected in her glare as I hung the key behind the counter and left.
In a ten-minute walk around the streets of Grayhaven, I discovered dozens of two-story Victorians and not a single hotel. It didn’t take me long to find the only other open business in town. The bar took up the first story in a not-quite-refurbished large clocktower in the center of a small downtown area. There was no name on the peeling exterior walls, only an open door and a crowd inside. The group within the walls were an odd mix of everything from road weary bikers to women in flowing bohemian gowns with flower crowns on their heads. At one end of the bar, I even saw a man in a tweed jacket smoking a pipe.
A live band played an old Rockknot cover that I used to listen to back in high school, but the crowd before the band clearly had
