Those That Were

Chapter 3

The Honda skidded to an immediate halt, and its driver rushed out in a flood of apologies. He recognized the voice, and he recognized the girl too. It was Amelia, the girl who'd rang him up yesterday. He noticed her pale-red eyes were covered by a pair of dark sunglasses.

"Are you okay?" she rushed over to the wolf and checked for any injuries. His anger fizzled out at seeing her. He didn't know too much about her, but judging from the tracks of watery mascara that ran railroad tracks down from beneath her sunglasses and over her cheeks, she'd likely had a rough day. Or night. Or both. Fuck, was she just leaving?

When she didn't find anything wrong with the wolf --him, Amelia seemed to take notice of the bag in his mouth. The bag and the fact that he wasn't hostile towards her.

With a small sniffle, she wiped the makeup from her eyes. "You're not hurt. Good." The words were soft. It was as if she didn't mean for him to hear them. Still, he did. Amelia spoke again, this time louder. "You're a werewolf. I know that. I'm very sorry... I wasn't paying as good of attention as I should have been paying. I don't wish you ill or anything like that. It's just... a bad day for me. And the early morning sun burns my eyes. That didn't help either." He nodded, not able to do much else given his form, and began to walk away.

She followed him.

"Is there anything I can do for you?" she asked. "I nearly hit you with my car. Let me help you. Here, are you going somewhere? I can take you, if you like."

She might've been a stranger, and perhaps he'd made wiser decisions than getting into a car with a vampire, but with the incident he was now really  running late. And common sense told him he could only almost die once a day. Right? Hell, the possibility of more than that had to be pretty damn slim. He dropped the grocery bag and nudged it forward with a paw.

She took it in her hands and untied it to reveal its contents. She found his apron first and read where the words Ruby Tuesday  were engraved in red on its black surface.

"Right," she said, and placed it back in the bag. She opened her door for him. "Climb in."

The car ride was quiet for a second as they both got settled and started towards the restaurant. And then it wasn't.

"It's funny," she talked to him in a way that sounded like she was talking more to herself. "I've lived here for a long time and seen Ruby Tuesday more times than I can count. But I've never actually went there."

Bryson's blue wolf eyes just stared at her from the back seat. She didn't look to see if he acknowledged her, but rather, kept on talking.

"Of course, that's not real funny, actually. I've never been to a McDonald's either," she said with a quiet sigh. "And everyone here seems to be frequent visitors of greasy places like that. I am a cashier --or was," the words told Bryson exactly what was wrong with the girl. "And you wouldn't believe the number of times I've been asked whether or not I eat real food. When I tell them no, it's like... I don't know, I'm some sort of alien. And sometimes the wrinkled, white ones look at me with more disgust than I can even explain and then proceed to tell me I should probably not kill people for food. Sometimes they yell and shout, even though I don't  kill." Amelia ranted openly. Bryson glanced for a minute into her rear-view mirror to find that small fangs protruded now from her upper lip. "And then sometimes I snap back and tell them to kiss my cold ass and then get fired from my job."

Bryson let out a huff in response. That was something he'd do.

Amelia took a deep breath, her fangs retracting back into her skull with a small pop.