I headed for the city. I roamed the streets with no real destination in my head. Gods, what was I even doing? I should have never come back to Silver Springs. It felt as if I just couldn’t do anything right. Trying to stop the mercenaries only gave them a new even more powerful weapon. Yuri and Scott lost their born pack trying to fix the mess I got myself into. Now I took the chance at a pack from many loners. I myself knew just how hard it was to survive without one. How lonely. Now I had a pack… But I had no idea how to properly take care of Scott and Yuri since I had no money and no territory. I wondered if they regretted following me…

I clenched my jaw and forced the thoughts away. I had no right to pity myself like this. I need to do at least one thing right. Kill the vampire that financed the mercenaries. But how the hell was I going to do that when I had absolutely no leads?

“Reid?” I spun around as I heard the voice. Hiro stood behind me looking as surprised as me. Which was stupid considering this town was quite small, so of course, we would run into each other eventually.

“Hey,” I said since nothing better came to mind. He wasn’t much more creative. He opened his mouth, then closed it and looked at the ground. It was probably a great opportunity to tease him a bit, but I wasn’t in the mood. Also, Sina’s voice played over in my head. He went through years of hating himself. Don’t make him go through it again. I couldn’t much believe it, but it was probably about time we laid that to rest…

I was about to tell him so when he suddenly spoke. “So… Do you like… Want to grab a drink?” he asked putting on that act of indifference. He used to do that a lot when we dated. Acting like he didn’t care when in fact his heart was beating wildly and there was a spark of nervousness in his eyes. “It’s not a date,” he emphasized. “But you could obviously use a drink…”

Yeah, I could. Probably shouldn’t have been surprised he could read my face easily. Would it be too awkward to get a drink together? Well shit, we were both adults now, surely we could get past the past? “Sure,” I said. He looked even more surprised by that. “You pick a place.”

In the end, he led me to Jack Daniel’s Restaurant. It was a nice more modern place, though it tried to look a bit rustic with some red bricks and old posters about Jack Daniel’s. We sat down at one of the wooden tables. There were quite a few people here.

“They have really good burgers here,” Hiro said as he picked up the menu. He gave me a few suggestions and I took one randomly. I didn’t really care. I also got myself whiskey. We didn’t talk as we waited for the food. I was busy thinking about what to do and about the loners while Hiro just looked very uncomfortable. I wondered what made him want to get a drink.

“How’s your back?” he asked, playing with the napkins on the table.

“It’s fine already,” I assured him.

“Oh, that’s good.” He bit his lower lip. Guess there was no way to jump from bitter exes to friends…

“S, your sister is going to become the Queen of the pack… What about you? Any big plans?” I asked and thanked the waitress as she brought us our drinks.

“Um… Well, Holly has been teaching me some little things about healing, but I don’t know if being a Healer is for me,” he said. For some reason, he cringed as if expecting me to laugh at his face or straight up punch him. I had no idea why.

“Being a Healer requires a lot of training… But if you want to do it, why not? You might at least try it if it interests you,” I said and smiled when he gave me a look.

“You really think I could make a good Healer?” he asked quietly.

I shrugged. “You’re smart so remembering herbs and stuff shouldn’t be a problem, but to be completely honest…” I sighed and gave him a serious look, “You will have to learn to keep your head cool, it’s very important for a Healer.”

“True enough.” He grimaced. “But you know the same goes for an alpha,” he pointed out.

“Right.” I scratched the back of my head with an embarrassed smile. He actually smiled back which was weirdly nice. The waitress brought our food. The burger wasn’t bad at all and the atmosphere was now much less awkward. The rest of our conversation was focused mostly on neutral subjects like food, music, or Holly and the position of a Healer. It was pleasant. And weirdly nostalgic… All those lazy and a bit awkward days when we were friends and secretly lovers. I wondered what my life would have looked like if we didn’t break it off if I didn’t get chased away… Would we still be lying to everyone around? Being able to be ourselves only in the shadows? If yes, then I was very glad we did break up. It might have been a painful road, but at least now I was myself and I was proud of it.

“So…” he started as we left the restaurant, “what are you going to do now?”

“Hunt down the responsible vampire of course,” I said with a sigh. Right after I figure out how the hell to find them. There had to be a way. A clue we overlooked…

“Well, good luck, Reid. I mean it.” He reached out and tentatively squeezed my shoulder. “And this time, please don’t get yourself kidnapped in some vampire mines, yeah?” He smiled and walked away. I opened my mouth to say some funny remark, but then I froze. The mines… That was it. The clue we overlooked. I turned and ran back to Scott’s house.