Wrong Way Out

[Greggory Lennox]

"Yes," he said tersely. It was somebody he knew. Gregg knew quite a few hunters. He was part of a guild and the guild had subgroups within. There were a lot of hunters that preferred to do their work alone but the guild was a way of imparting knowledge to others, a way of connecting experts to certain species or giving warnings or asking for aid in a certain job. So Gregg knew a number of hunters, it was true.

It helped them in a lot of ways. Now he was an insider of sorts. But the hunter, Ken, was a strong one. One of those legacy types, that were handed down information and weapons from a long line of hunters. Gregg had no idea if Ken was onto him or not but the fact that he'd spotted Gregg...

Running would do them no good, so Gregg kept his arm firmly linked around Aldon and whispered into his ear, "Relax."

Warily, he waited while Ken made his way toward them. It was hard to get a read on his expression as Ken had never been an expressive type. Gregg knew all about that.

"Hey," Ken said. Gregg nodded. The way Ken looked at Aldon was a little unnerving but it could have been the mere sight of Gregg being physically close to another person.

"Just got here," Ken continued. "Are you guys headed out to Hazleton, too? I hear there's a lot going on there right now."

Gregg was silent a moment, mulling over his choices. Ken might have seen them get off the bus. If he had, then he would know he was lying if he said he was heading that way. Better safe than sorry.

"No," Gregg said. "New job upstate."

This time Ken nodded. "Well, good luck with that. You're talking about that nest of vampires, right? I hear they're headed by some really ancient one. Most of us are just leaving it alone. Aren't you a brave one?"

Ken was looking at Aldon again and it was making Gregg even more nervous.

"I've got help," Gregg said simply, hoping to cut the conversation off at the pass.

[Kenneth Branagh]

"Help?"

Ken's eyes raked over Gregg's partner again, taking in the nervous, overly wide smile on his face and the way that he clutched at Gregg like a lifeline. Help, was it?

Having been in the area for a while, Ken knew most of the other hunters by reputation if not by sight. Gregg's group was a small one, but a hard-working one. Gregg himself didn't stand out much beyond the tattoos, but Ken knew him to be dependable and stoic. Kept his head down, did his job--what more could one ask of a hunter?

He nodded and held out a hand to the 'help' and while his expression didn't change, his gaze became more curious and less appraising. It was jarring to see Gregg, of all people, being touchy-feely with someone but... it also reminded him of his own past. When there were no eyes on him, he might have indulged in the same type of behavior. Back home, that was hazardous to his health; here it seemed natural. At least, for non-hunters it was.

"I'm Ken."

"O-oh. I'm A-aldon!"

The man thrust a hand out and shook Ken's enthusiastically. Or so it seemed. But Ken could feel the nervous tension and his gaze flicked to Gregg. "New to the team? How's Jem and the others?"

[Greggory Lennox]

He wished he could take his hands off Aldon but it was far too late for that. Ken already spotted the two of them as they were and pulling away from him now would only make him look guilty. At least Ken didn't seem to be on the hunt for them. If anything, he seemed distracted. He probably had work of his own to get done. Ken had always seemed pretty serious about his work in the same way Gregg was so he could appreciate somebody with the same style of work ethic.

Not bothering to amend his choice of words--Ken could make whatever judgments he wanted but Gregg wasn't going to feed into them--Gregg only let out a nod and then glanced over at Aldon. Poor Aldon, he didn't seem to know what to do with himself even after Gregg told him to relax.

"He's new," Gregg said, not choosing to elaborate much on that, either. It was best to stick to truths, in case Ken knew more than he was letting on. Better than being caught in some tangled web of lies to try and remember and keep straight.

"And Jem's good. They've been working on finding a witch that's been hunting hunters. Are you here to help with that?"

[Kenneth Branagh]

"I was thinking of it, yes," Ken nodded, eyes still on Gregg's nervous partner. Why was he so nervous? It was very suspicious and had Ken not been on a schedule, he might have investigated further. As it was, he trusted that Gregg had the newbie under control. Gregg was mostly a no-nonsense type, much like Ken himself, so he knew that the job would be done right--with or without a nervous newbie tailing him.

"We're meeting at a diner in Hazleton to discuss what he's been working on." Ken looked down at his watch and then his brows lifted. "I should go. My bus will be here soon."

He held out a hand to Gregg and a rare smile broke out. "Good luck out there, Gregg."

[Greggory Lennox]

"Ah, between you guys, I'm sure you'll catch him." And take him out. What they did with the witch now wasn't Gregg's concern anymore. What he needed to do was put more distance between himself and Hazleton's hunters. Maybe they would be too preoccupied with the witch thing to bother sending anyone after them. Whatever the case, Gregg knew he had at least some time between when Ken left them and he met with Jem. Jem might say something but it didn't sound like Jem was aware--or he didn't care yet. If he was aware, surely he would have told Ken something.

"Yeah, they're pretty prompt around here, too."

He hesitated only a brief half second before reaching out and shaking Ken's hand. "You too."

Although that good luck was only for catching the witch; not for coming after himself and Aldon.

"We should get going, too." He nodded at Ken and then pulled Aldon along with him. Turning his back on Ken was one of the hardest things he'd done in a while. His senses felt heightened as he waited for a knife in the back or a gun to the head--but nothing happened. He didn't dare look back, walking confidently away in a direction that he hoped Ken wasn't noting. Maybe it'd be best to go to a different rental place. They could double back after the bus left and go to the one on the opposite side of the street.

Gently, he rubbed Aldon's shoulder. "I don't think he knows yet."

[Aldon Huang]

Aldon wanted to scream.

Like, the whole time that Gregg CALMLY had a conversation with a dangerous hunter, Aldon was hard-pressed not to yell murder at the top of his lungs. Why? Because the man who shook Gregg's hand and gave him a clap on the shoulder and also nodded at Aldon was a murderer!

And-and he was talking to them like he was out for a Sunday stroll! Talking business, thinking that Aldon was a hunter, which was deeply insulting on all levels. Every possible cell in Aldon was offended by the insinuation but he bore it because he didn't want to die. And he didn't want Gregg to die.

So he smiled tensely at Ken, tightened his hold on Gregg, and jerkily moved away. The only response he gave was to breathe in hard through his nose. "G--" Aldon was finally at a loss for words. He looked over his shoulder and saw that head of white-blond hair bobbing amongst the crowd.

"G--Gregg... He thought I was a h-hunter!"

[Greggory Lennox]

Aldon's mood was palpable the entire time Gregg talked to Ken and he was aware that he wasn't doing well. That was part of the reason he tried to cut it so short with Ken. The other part was because he personally needed to get them as far away as possible before Ken learned anything. Serious as he was about his work, Ken might end up on their tails first before anybody else, eschewing the work in Hazleton in favor of the job nobody else was currently on. (Hopefully.) Gregg knew about that work ethic. Once, he respected it because it was the same as his.

He didn't want to tell that to Aldon, though. After all the things he already reluctantly confessed to him, he thought Aldon's view on him would plummet until he no longer could stand to look at him. And he'd already thought that would happen when he told him he was a hunter and that he didn't do it out of a need or for family. He simply did it because he could. That had to have hurt Aldon to hear.

That Gregg might as well be another creature, though. In truth, he was. That was human Gregg. This was werewolf Gregg. And he started out with the intention to throw the other werewolves under the bus and then dying himself. Yet here he was, throwing away everything he used to hold dear in exchange for something else he had come to hold dear.

"That's because you're with me. I don't normally associate with anybody outside the hunter circles." He winced inwardly. "I didn't, when Ken knew me last. Don't worry about him, all right? He's goal oriented so he won't be a problem for us."

At least, not until he learned that they were werewolves, but if he left that vampire den alone, maybe he wasn't going to come for them.

[Aldon Huang]

Goal-oriented seemed like a very Gregg-like thing to be, and Aldon got the feeling that this Ken character was about the same. There was determination in his eyes and an air about him. Stubborn, dogged, probably every bit of a stick-in-the-mud that Gregg was.

Or, used to be, before Aldon came along and forced him out of his shell. There was something to be said for determination after all, and not only the usual kind.

He put a hand to his chest. Heart still ramming against his ribcage, and the sense of danger still very real. "We should've..." Aldon trailed off. No, he didn't want to finish that sentence. They should have attacked Ken? No—Aldon wasn't a killer. He didn't even live up to that feral name and truthfully, he didn't want to hurt Ken, no matter how many innocent lives Ken could have taken.

"Let's go get a car and get out of here," he said instead, forcing his eyes away from the bus that Ken had boarded and towards one of the rental places across the way.

[Greggory Lennox]

Gregg waited for Aldon to finish his sentence but apparently it wasn't something he wanted to share. Aldon hadn't yet mastered the ability to keep things fully to himself, so Gregg decided not to pursue whatever it was Aldon wanted to say but decided against. He just lightly rubbed Aldon's back as if that would help solve his panic from meeting another hunter face to face. An actual hunter, really, since by the time Aldon met Gregg, he sort of had been pushed out of that position.

"You don't want the RV anymore?" Gregg asked, somewhat disappointed. He was sort of looking forward to the RV adventure that Aldon described on the way to Portland. Glancing back to see that Ken's bus was pulling away, Gregg decided it was fine for them to go ahead and get a place. Ken would be on that bus for at least forty minutes heading out to Hazleton so they at least had that. And if he realized and came back, that was another forty minutes. Unless Ken found out earlier...

Gregg upped their pace.

"Let's get out of here."

[Aldon Huang]

"I do..." But honestly Aldon wanted to get out of here more. They could rent an RV anywhere. Rental places weren't hard to find even in the city. If that hunter came back again, Aldon didn't know if he could keep his cool! (And he hadn't kept his cool at all the first time!)

"Yeah. Let's go." No sense in hanging around here, waiting to be killed! Aldon heard a bus rumbling out of the station but he couldn't be sure which one it was. Was it the one taking Ken away from them? Or another one? It didn't matter now; he didn't want to attract undue attention by constantly looking over his shoulder, so he kept his eyes up front and kept on moving.

Once they were a safe enough distance away, then they could ditch the rental car, get an RV and resume their adventures. But somehow, Aldon thought of adventuring with a tinge of real fear--now that he had come face-to-face with a real hunter, and the very real possibility of being chased by one.