Jase found herself in a surreal moment, so surreal she initially questioned whether she was still lost in a dream. However, reality quickly asserted itself, prompting her to suppress a bemused smile.
"I wanna feel them," she blurted out as Taeun Aldhiyaab emerged from the woods, clad only in a simple piece of fabric around his waist, bearing a gleaming, oversized chest on his shoulder.
"Good morning, Mister Aldhiyaab," she managed, her voice trembling slightly as he passed by without a word, ascending the stairs to his room while her gaze lingered on his retreating figure.
…
After a brisk shower, Taeun Aldhiyaab donned a fresh ensemble: blue jeans, a crisp white undershirt, and a vibrant Hawaiian shirt. Lamentably, his heavy boots were absent, replaced begrudgingly by slippers as he packed his belongings and hoisted the chest one last time.
Back at the Front Desk, Jase's senses snapped to attention. Her eyes widened in disbelief as Taeun Aldhiyaab reappeared, sporting his new attire after stowing everything in his black Ford Mustang.
"No!" she blurted out as he extended the room key. "I mean, the clothes... you were so effortlessly cool before," she sighed, her shoulders slumping in disappointment.
"It's just clothes," he replied flatly, placing the key on the counter.
"Well, it's you boomers who invented the saying 'clothes make the man', I think…" Jase retorted.
"Actually," he began to argue, ready to correct her about the origins of the saying, but he held his tongue. In that moment, he felt a pang of familiarity, as if he were conversing with his own daughter. Swiftly, he pushed aside these emotions. "Never mind. I need you to open the Manager's Office."
"That's... what? I can't do that! Don'd kill me!" Jase exclaimed, startled by the sudden demand.
"It's the door to the left, right?" Taeun Aldhiyaab assumed, noting that the only other room was already open, occupied by a large copier. Without awaiting confirmation, he strode toward the closed office door, prepared to use force if necessary.
"I said you can't!" Jase leaped from behind the counter, her voice trembling despite her efforts to conceal her fear, trailing three meters behind Taeun Aldhiyaab.
As Taeun Aldhiyaab turned to face her, he was taken aback by her unexpected gesture.
Jase brandished a silver coin, a garlic necklace hanging from her neck, and a small vial of clear water. "Begone, monster!" she cried out.
"What?" Taeun Aldhiyaab was left speechless, utterly bewildered by her actions.
"I should've known old men can't be this hot unless they're monsters! Although, Don was everything but hot…" Jase muttered under her breath.
"Excuse me?" Taeun Aldhiyaab's eyebrows furrowed in confusion.
"No! I won't excuse you if you meant to cause a mess that'll get us in trouble! I don't care if you're like them. I hoped that your personality would be a little better than theirs. I've made a mistake in assuming. Please go. I don't want to die or use it," she pointed the silver coin and shook the water bottle menacingly.
"You don't need to-" Taeun Aldhiyaab attempted to interject, taking a step forward.
"DIE!" Jase shouted, hurling the silver coin at him.
The coin glanced off his chest and clattered to the floor with a light "clink", leaving an awkward silence in its wake.
Taeun Aldhiyaab retrieved the silver coin and held it out. "It seems expensive. How did you get it?"
"I-I…" Jase's bravado crumbled under the weight of the moment.
Taeun Aldhiyaab sighed and approached her, causing her to flinch backward until her back pressed against the wall. "Here," he said gently, taking her hand and placing the silver coin in her palm. "It's safe now. You don't have to be afraid of Don, ever," he assured her, releasing her hand before proceeding to the Manager's Office.
"Why?" Jase's voice trembled, her eyes wide with disbelief.
"Because," Taeun Aldhiyaab extended his right arm. "I killed him and three of his pack members." With a powerful blow, he sent the door crashing from its hinges, the wood splintering as it collided with the opposite wall of the office. "Only the female managed to escape."
"You killed Don?" Jase's voice was barely above a whisper.
"I did."
"And Thomas, Marshel, and Gedeon, too?"
"You know about them, too? What about the female?" Taeun Aldhiyaab inquired.
"Doris? Yeah... everybody in town knows. I think... it's a taboo subject," Jase admitted hesitantly, her guard slowly lowering.
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Taeun Aldhiyaab stepped into the Manager's Office, scanning the contents – a desk with three chairs, a computer, and several locked cabinets. He forced open the cabinets, sifting through their contents.
"The entire town is aware of your Werewolf infestation, and you just go about your day doing nothing about it?" he questioned incredulously.
"It's been like this forever," Jase defended. "If they catch you whispering about it, they make you disappear. For your information, I took a risk warning you last night. I didn't expect…"
"Something doesn't add up," Taeun Aldhiyaab muttered, unable to find anything significant among the documents. He moved to boot up the computer. "Are there more than five Werewolves?"
"I... don't think so. Doris is an only child, and as the legend goes, monsters appeared when her family moved to town eighty years ago. Since then, the Grendal name has run the town. Doris is the Mayor. Thomas was the Chief of Police. Gedeon was Doris's second. Marshel has some position in the town's bank, and Don... well, they don't tend to hunt the townsfolk, so their supply must come from somewhere else…" Jase's voice trailed off, tinged with a hint of shame.
Detecting the undertone in Jase's voice, Taeun Aldhiyaab abandoned the password-protected computer and began scouring the office for hidden compartments, a last resort for any useful discovery.
"How old are you?" he inquired.
"Eighteen."
"A kid, then," he remarked, turning to face her. "You shouldn't blame yourself," he said, though he felt like a liar, unable to shake his own sense of guilt. "You're right. They would have killed you if you hadn't obeyed."
Jase met his gaze, and after a moment, all the strength seemed to drain from her body, causing her to collapse to her knees. "Are they really dead?" Tears welled in her eyes.
Taeun Aldhiyaab furrowed his brow, releasing the picture frame he had turned over, and took on the responsibility of consoling the girl. With cautious steps, he approached her, mindful not to frighten her further, and knelt down beside her.
"I'm sorry. I should've killed Doris, too," he murmured softly.
"But Don... Marshel... especially Don... they were the worst!" Jase sobbed.
'Nura...' The longing to embrace his daughter one more time tugged at his heartstrings, yet all he could offer was solace to the girl before him, who surprisingly accepted his gesture without resistance.
"Thanks," Jase whispered after a while, withdrawing gently from the embrace, her cheeks streaked with two dry lines of tears.
Taeun Aldhiyaab's lips twitched into a small smile, a gesture he hadn't noticed until Jase returned it with a wide grin.
"What now?" she inquired.
"I have a sort of sixth sense for the presence of Werewolves. I follow it, and eventually, it leads me to them. Right now, it's telling me there is nothing in the direction I came from. Maybe if Doris returns... then I, too, will come back to finish her," he explained solemnly.
"So... you're leaving?" Jase's voice wavered with uncertainty.
"I'd like to search the residences and workplaces of the Werewolves, but I don't find anything here and speculate I won't find anything there, either. Moreover, I don't know to whom and where Doris ran to. It's best I won't be here before I'm prepared to fight another pack," Taeun Aldhiyaab explained.
"I see…" Jase pondered for a moment. "Alright, I'll leave a note for the other guests and get ready!" With sudden determination, she rose from her seat and hurried to the counter.
"What for?" Taeun Aldhiyaab raised a brow, feeling a sense of unease.
"To go with you, obviously," she stated matter-of-factly. After leaving a note on the counter, she swiftly donned her jacket and repacked her nightshift backpack.
"You can't come with me. It's dangerous…" Taeun Aldhiyaab cautioned.
"Relax. I understand you're also some sort of a monster. Not a Werewolf, though. The silver coin didn't do anything to you. Don used to get irritated without knowing why when I slipped it into my pockets around him," she grinned, but her expression quickly turned pale. "Oh, shit! Did I just use a politically incorrect term? If I did, it was insensitive and thoughtless of me. I apologize if I offended you. You're definitely not a monster, in a bad sense!"
Her unexpected, unnecessary distress caught Taeun Aldhiyaab off guard, and he couldn't be bothered to count the time as he simply broke into laughter. "What would I be in a good sense?" he quipped.
"Monstrously hot," she blurted out.
His laughter ceased briefly, only to erupt even louder. "Jase," he managed between laughs, realizing belatedly that her antics were actually soothing him. He waited for his emotions to settle before continuing in a more serious tone.
"I don't harbor ill intent, nothing against you, at least. But, I'm not the most stable person, and I can be extremely dangerous when Werewolves are in the vicinity. I won't allow myself to put innocent people at constant risk – it's another reason I'm on the road."
"I'm not afraid!" Jase declared defiantly. "I have no family remaining in town. My parents died when I was twelve. Don later 'adopted' me, only to make me his human hostess in this shitty motel. He did pay my salary and never threatened me, but he had his mood swings, and more than once I had to hide when he transformed too close to the motel. I know how to handle danger. If you doubt me, let me come with you, and I'll prove it! I'll find your weakness, and let's see if it does nothing but bump your chest when I throw it at you!"
'A lost soul…' Taeun Aldhiyaab lamented inwardly as the idea of refusing Jase's company became increasingly difficult to entertain. Some part of him craved companionship, weighed down by the accumulated loneliness of the past month – yet another negative aspect of his already miserable life, exacerbating his dwindling skills in human interaction. He had briefly considered alleviating it by getting a pet, perhaps a cat or a parrot, but hadn't committed to the idea.
"I'm not exactly making a living out of Werewolf hunting," he mentioned, resorting to discussing his economic situation, even though he still had nearly all of the fifty thousand from Diego.
"Fine by me! These days, you can earn decently from the internet!" Jase suggested proudly, offering a solution.
"How do you earn from the internet?" he probed, curious.
"I didn't say that I do, just that you can…" she trailed off awkwardly.
Taeun Aldhiyaab looked at her incredulously.
"Well, right now I'm working on my 'Nigerian Prince' pitch," Jase admitted.
"A scam?"
"Hey! I put an honest effort into it!"
"A dedicated scam, then?"
"Wanna talk about something else? How fast can this thing go? Can I drive it?" she deflected, pointing at the black Ford Mustang in the motel's parking lot, visible from her soon-to-be former work desk.
"A Werewolf hunter and an online scammer…" Taeun Aldhiyaab mused, savoring the unconventional pairing. Finally, he relented. "I'll give you a ride out of here, and let's see where it will go!"
"You got it, Partner!" Jase winked and dashed towards the black Ford Mustang.
Taeun Aldhiyaab lingered for a moment in the office. "Don't get into a stranger's car…" he muttered absentmindedly, the warning directed at himself. "Wait… it's my car!"
…
I stroll into Frank's Drink Till You Drop, my cherished haunt, and am greeted by an unusual silence enveloping the pub. Casting my eyes around the room, I skim through familiar faces until they land upon my table and, well, ain't this an interesting surprise!