Lost

JT jerked awake in a strange room and an incredibly (and uncomfortably) soft bed. His mouth was dry and his left arm cramped underneath him, waking painfully with needles as he sat up slowly in the bed. Rubbing his face, he ran his fingers through his black hair when a soft sigh caught his attention, making him twist around and look at the other occupant in the bed.

"Why are you still here?" the female voice asked.

Turning his back to the woman, some woman - he had no idea who she was, only that he had met her at The Howl the night before - he bent over and collected his clothes off the floor.

Within a few minutes, he was dressed; blue jeans, long sleeve button up with the sleeves folded up to his elbows, and a lightweight jacket clenched in his left hand. Looking at the female's naked back, JT walked up to the bed and then turned to the night stand, grabbing the two condom wrappers and the used contents out of the waste basket. Backing out of the room, he threw his jacket over his shoulder and walked to the kitchen. Under her sink he found Clorox wipes. Grabbing a couple, he walked to her bedroom and used the wipes on the doorknob to her room. Without a word to her, he walked back through her small apartment and ran the wipes along the door frame and knob of her front door. With his garbage still in hand, he exited quietly.

Walking down the street, JT did not recognize the neighborhood and had to refer to his phone, finally turning it back on after slipping the SIM card into it. The map showed him that he was not far from downtown. Within thirty seconds, his phone began to ring. Answering it, he balled up the garbage he had taken from the girl's apartment and crossed the street toward an open fire warming some homeless people.

"Yeah, Lewis," JT said into the phone.

"Dude, why do you always turn off your phone?"

"Because I'm off and don't want you tracking me."

"I don't do that." Lewis paused. "Well I only do that to Red. Need a ride?"

JT tossed the used condoms, the wrappers, the Clorox wipe, and the rest of the garbage from his pockets into the open flame. "No, I can cab it back to the Den."

"And this is why you should not turn off your phone. You're up today at DI. LT switched your schedule."

JT stopped walking and sighed.

"I told you, don't turn off your phone and he would have asked you first," Lewis replied chuckling.

Checking his watch, JT turned back to where he had come from. DI was clear on the east side of town.

"Want that ride now?" Lewis asked.

JT mumbled another negative, still opting to take a cab to DI. Hanging up on Lewis, his irritation got the better of him as he the thought of LT switching his schedule. It annoyed him for some reason, but JT wasn't available so it was his own fault.

This was his weekend. Playing the drums at the Howl with Red, ending up in some random girl's bed, and discarding any evidence he was even with her. It was a habit he picked up years ago as a younger man, not that 29 was old, but his life in the military had aged him. It was just easier to erase his existence than have to accept it. Besides, he had infected the girl with the virus by just kissing her deeply, but he convinced himself that the odds were that she already had it anyway. Being a werewolf had skewed his outlook on life more than he realized; he thought the Air Force had done a reasonably fucked up job on that front, but apparently not.

Nachton was slowly waking up on a day usually reserved for church mice and blue haired old ladies. The streets weren't empty, but it was quiet as he made it into Downtown and hailed a cab. He'd have to go to DI unshaven, unclean, and smelling of some random female. Rolling his eyes, he got into the back of a cab and considered his new life.

It was gray and dismal in Nachton. Welcome to another fucked up day, he thought to himself.