Chapter 6 Wanderers
WANDERERS
Taylor
“Just so you know, you are not my type.”
Amil wrenched open the driver’s side door of the patrol car with so much force it made the whole vehicle rock.
They hadn’t even made it out of the police station before he had started huffing and tutting very blatantly in Taylor’s direction, and by the time they’d reached the car park he was practically puffed up like an aggravated cat.
Taylor had to keep five paces behind him just in case he swiped him across the face.
“Yeah, well, you aren’t my type either,” Taylor lied, sinking into the ancient beige passenger seat. “In fact, I think you’re extremely ugly.”
He was not fucking ugly.
The omega was gorgeous, and he smelled good, even when he flounced around with a sour expression. But if Taylor had learned anything over the years, it was that when life gives you lemons, rub them in people’s eyes and see how they like it.
Amil ran his hands around the steering wheel and drew in a long breath. “Good,” he said, nodding once. “Thank you for saying that.”
Taylor pressed his lips together, trying not to laugh. Fucking hell these people are weird.
“Sure. Anytime you need to be casually insulted, I’m your man.”
Amil’s head snapped round, his lips peeling back.
“I mean… I’m not your man. Actually, it’s a wonder anyone would ever—”
“Okay, thanks,” Amil said, turning the key in the ignition. “Glad we’re on the same page.”
Looking at him out of the corner of his eye, Taylor wondered if the guy had a degradation kink or something. Not his cup of tea, but it took all sorts to make the world go round.
Shit, where was Johnny? Johnny would know what to say or do. In fact, maybe he and Amil could just do a little lap of the town and call it a day.
“Riiight. So, what’re we doing?” Taylor said, slapping his knees.
Amil sighed. “The sergeant said I’ve got to give you a tour, then we’ll go up into the woods to check for wanderers.”
“Wanderers? As in wandering wolves?”
Amil nodded. “Due to the demographic of Dingly Heath, we get a lot of older wolves wandering off from their homes. They shift and get confused, especially if they’re ill.
It’s become a real issue recently because they keep going deeper into the woods.
Isla’s asked HQ for more assistance at night because we keep finding them cold and exhausted the next morning. ”
“Right,” Taylor replied, slouching back in the uncomfortable seat of the Vauxhall Astra.
Amil looked him up and down. “Seat belt,” he said, clicking his own into place.
A smirk tugged at the corner of Taylor’s mouth. “You’re very uppity, aren’t you? I can see why you pissed the wrong person off.”
Amil slammed the car into reverse so fast Taylor nearly ended up in the footwell.
Okay… sore subject.
He put his seat belt on, not because of Amil’s pouty little face, but because he was beginning to suspect he might actually be launched through the windscreen if he didn’t.
“Something you need to understand,” Amil said, turning out of the police station and onto the main stretch through the tiny town, “is that you need to mind your own business. Just come to work and do your job. I am not your friend, I have no interest in being your friend, and I swear to God, if you cause any problems for the sergeant, I will make your life a living hell.”
Taylor scoffed. “You seemed pretty interested earlier. Got the hots for sargie or something?”
Amil slammed on the brakes, making Taylor jolt forward with such force that the seat belt almost cheese-wired his throat.
“Fuck’s sake!” Taylor shouted, slapping the dashboard. “Are you actually a psychopath?”
“There’s a hedgehog,” Amil said quietly.
“What?” Taylor replied, giving the omega an incredulous look.
“There’s a hedgehog in the road. And if I wanted to kill you, I’d have undone your seat belt first.”
Taylor leant forward and looked out of the window. True enough, there was a tiny, spiky hedgehog crossing the road, right in front of a sign that read Hedgehogs Crossing.
“Oh,” he said, rubbing his neck.
Taylor slid out of the car and traipsed over to it.
“Come on, little guy,” he said, scooping it up and placing it in a bush on the side of the road.
It looked back at him, sniffed, then scampered off towards a little green hut that had rolled-up newspapers and hay sticking out of it.
It had a tiny sign that read Hedgehog Hotel tacked to the top and what looked like a bowl of cat food under a tea towel awning.
Taylor pressed his lips together. Cute. Fucking cute.
Amil gave him a wary look as he got back into the car.
“That your idea?” Taylor said, clicking his seat belt into place.
Amil shook his head. “Isla—I mean, the sergeant set them up. There’s a few around the town. She… she really likes wildlife.”
“Uh-huh,” Taylor said, trying not to smile. “And you like that.”
Amil bristled and began driving again. “Well, I’m not just going to run them all over, am I?”
The omega’s hostility was doing something funny to Taylor’s brain. Like he just wanted to keep poking and poking until Amil erupted into a flaming ball of rage. He should stop. He should definitely stop, because pushing people’s buttons like that had never earned him any friends.
“Yeah, well…” he said, turning his gaze out of the window. “I guess hedgehog genocide wouldn’t be a good look for the place.”
Amil’s tour of Dingly Heath was perfunctory at best, and he pointed out the areas of interest with all the enthusiasm of an elephant forced to jump through hoops.
They’d reached some sort of high street and had to drive extra slowly to avoid startling the locals as they drifted absentmindedly in and out of the road.
“Shop over there,” Amil said, jabbing a thumb towards a supermarket.
It had crates and old tractor equipment outside, modified into vegetable troughs and storage bins.
It looked like it was trying to be some sort of farmers’ market, but the adverts for compression socks and incontinence pads were ruining the look quite a bit.
“Pharmacist, in case you couldn’t tell.” Amil sighed, pointing to an old-fashioned shopfront that had massive glass jars filled with coloured liquid in the window. “We’ll be going there a lot.”
There was a long queue that went out of the door and ended at the bus stop some fifty metres down the road.
It made Taylor shiver, because he’d been forced to go on a school trip to a replica Victorian era village when he was a kid, and he may or may not have tried to drink the water from the display.
Needless to say, the shits he’d endured the following day had been traumatising.
“Doctor’s, dentist…” There was an old bronze sign in the dentist’s window that said ‘RESTORE YOUR FANGS. ENQUIRE INSIDE.’ And as if on cue, a couple of old alphas stepped out with ridiculously white teeth and massive, obviously fake fangs.
Taylor baulked, because they looked like those fake vampire teeth from party shops.
“Why’re you laughing? That could be you one day,” Amil said, turning out of the high street and down a quieter road.
“Man, I hope so. Me and JP would be the coolest codgers in town.”
“Bet you don’t feel so cool now. Hotshot firearms officer forced to take a job out in the sticks. Must be quite the ego killer.”
Taylor shrugged. “I could say the same about you, but you didn’t seem particularly interested in sharing why you’re here.”
“I’m not. And it’s none of your business.”
“Jesus Christ,” Taylor muttered, angling his head towards the window and pressing his forehead to the cool glass. “Kill me now.”
Amil scoffed, tugging the front of his stab vest. “Take your seat belt off, then.”
“You don’t have to be such a dick.”
“Yes, I do. It’s the only way meathead alphas like you will get the message.”
“Dude, I got the message the second I walked through the door. Cool your engine. Let’s just make it to the end of the shift. Alive. Then you can go home and cry into your fucking pillow.”
Amil grumbled, and when Taylor dared to glance at him from the corner of his eye he realised his jaw was working overtime, clenching and releasing.
“I… You’re right. I know… I’m not…” Amil began.
“Not the easiest to get along with?”
Amil nodded.
“Been there, done that, got five T-shirts, pal. So let’s just be cool? I don’t wanna be here, you don’t wanna be here. Let’s just, I don’t know.” He tried to think of what Johnny would say but all he could think of was “Chalk it up to a shitty situation.”
“Okay. But don’t be looking at me like you were when you first arrived, okay? I don’t like it.”
“Sure.”
The main town fell away, and soon they were back into the never-ending labyrinth of bungalows.
“It’s just up here,” Amil said, turning the car onto a dirt track. They were surrounded by trees, some of which had scraps of white material tied around the branches, which Taylor assumed was to help the older wolves find their way back to the path.
“There’s changing huts, and you’ll want to lock your equipment in the safe before you shift. Someone stole my handcuffs a couple of months ago and you don’t want that kind of paperwork, believe me.”
“And you say there’s no crime, huh?”
“Of course there’s crime, they just don’t like us recording it.”
Taylor sucked his teeth, parking that one for later. “So… we’re shifting?”
Amil frowned. “Obviously. How do you expect to find lost wolves in human form?”
“Yeah, I know. It’s just… been a few days.”
“Oh Jesus. You aren’t going to go all feral on me are you? We’re here to work, not chase rabbits and piss all over trees.”
Taylor clenched his teeth. “I know that, Amil.”