Push

Chapter 1 Jake The music was so loud in the bar Jake wasn’t sure what song was even playing. He was nursing his second beer in three hours with absolutely no good leads. The night would be a bust. Usually the filth of the town frequented the bar and he could get a couple good tips to go on. Tonight, the bar was full of college kids and young professionals starting the weekend off early. Not that they didn’t do drugs, but they usually didn’t deal any. That’s who he was after. The low-end dealers that could lead his agency to the big guys. He took another drink. It felt like ages ago when he was as carefree as the people around him. Being able to go out to a bar and knock back beers until he couldn’t feel his face. Took him twice the amount of a normal man, and his bear hated it when he use to do that s**t. If he were being honest, he had hated it too. Life had been so easy then, though. That was before he’d seen his buddy get his leg blown off, or a Hum-V full of his soldiers blast straight off the ground from a land mine. Jake shook off the bad memories. Sometimes they’d come on so strong he felt like falling to his knees as they played out in his mind. Tonight, he was able to shake them. They wouldn’t stay gone for long, and he knew he needed to get it out of his mind at the bar. Nobody here wanted to deal with a bear shifter haunted by his past. Jake wished he had that same option. The rest of the beer went down like water. He paid the bartender and gave him a wave before making his way through the crowd. Once he made it outside, he breathed in the fresh crisp air. Fall was beautiful in West Virginia. Unlike the rest of his crew, he had grown up in the city. They were all country boys, not all of them from West Virginia, but from places just like it. He hailed from New Orleans where the air never smelled cleaned. It was always tinged with someone’s bodily functions that they had been unable to control. It was disgusting. A scent caught his nose then. He walked to the side of the bar and took another deep breath. A groan from down the alley caught his attention. He remained in the shadows while he tried to assess who or what lingered down there. The scent caught him again. It smelled liked the beach, and female. Jake took a deeper breath as the scent swarmed around him, arousing his usually groggy bear. He was drawn to the scent, but as he started to step forward, another figure came into the alley from the other street. He stilled himself. This scent was male, and he felt his bear rumble in hostility. Jake shook it off and focused on his stillness and silence. The male wasn’t a shifter so the chances of him realizing he wasn’t alone were slim. The figure stopped when he came across the female’s body. She groaned again, but was obviously unconscious. Jake’s heart beat hard in his chest because he knew already what the man was considering. This was the world he knew. The filth and disgust was what he fought so hard to squelch. Only in time he had realized that when you cut off the head of the snake, two more would grow back. It didn’t stop him from trying to wear the white hat, but he learned to never believe the best in people. The best was gone; drugs, alcohol and an entire generation controlled by money and status alone had saw to that. He gave the guy to the count of thirty to confirm what he already knew. As soon as the guy looked both ways and then reached for his belt, Jake came out of the shadows. He hadn’t planned on shifting, but the closer he got to the woman, the more prominent his bear became. Jake gave over to the shift, shredding his clothes and shaking himself into his full bear height. The scent of fear hit him before he even laid a paw on the asshole; the smell of urine soon after. He let out a roar that he knew would cause chaos on the streets, but he didn’t care. The guy had made his decision, now Jake was there to see to the consequences. He lunged forward and the almost r****t jumped back screaming and waving his hands to try and protect himself. Jake positioned himself over the woman’s body and snarled again. “I’m, I’m sorry, man. I wasn’t going to do nothing, I swear. I swear! She looked like she needed help is all. Promise man.” Jake roared again. The guy blubbering all over the place was annoying him. He swiped his paw out barely catching his oversized shirt. The guy collapsed in a pool of sobs and piss in the alley, and Jake realized his job was done. There was no point taking it any further. He shifted again. “Give me your phone, asshole.” The kid fumbled around in his pockets and handed Jake his cell phone. Jake didn’t miss the pathetic excuse of a male wipe the tears off his face and the snot dripping down his nose. All he could do was shake his head in disgust. Jake dialed the local law enforcement. “Hey who’s on tonight?” he asked without greeting. “Tell him I’ve got a shithead here by The Alleyway for him to come pick up. Yeah, I caught him getting ready to sexually assault an unconscious female in the alley. I can’t hang though, but trust me, he’ll be waiting for you.” Jake hung up the phone and pocketed it. “Hey, man that’s mine.” “It’s mine now. I’ll return it to you in lock up. I’m taking sleeping beauty here and leaving. You are going to sit right there and wait for my buddies to come pick you up. If I find out that you left, I will hunt you down and there won’t be any need to call the law next time. Are we clear?” The kid nodded his head. Jake was becoming more and more aware of his nakedness as the brisk fall air started to sink into his human skin. He leaned down to the girl and checked her pulse. It was deathly slow and her breathing was labored. Jake immediately pulled up her sleeves and found what he had been praying he wouldn’t. There on her right arm were fresh track marks. He dropped her hand with a thud in disappointment. Everything else about the girl screamed that she shouldn’t be on her way to an overdose in an alley. She wore designer business clothes, her personal hygiene was superb, and she looked to be a healthy weight. Another thing Jake had learned was that drugs never discriminated, though. Maybe it had been her first time, it could have been her thousandth. For whatever reason though he felt the strong urge to protect her. Gently as he could, he picked her up and carried to her to his car. Lucky for him he parked just off the back street and nobody saw him carrying an unconscious woman while he was buck naked. Jake smiled to himself and realized how strange a feeling it was to want to laugh.