The next fuel stop came an hour later, just shy of sunrise. One of those rest areas with a vending machine shack, overgrown grass, and absolutely no good reason to exist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gabriel was halfway through another cup of terrible coffee, and Thane was standing outside the van stretching, tail flicking in the early morning breeze. Maya was pacing near the back, earbuds still in, but now visibly relaxed\u2014though she kept glancing at the tree line like she was expecting that creeper to reappear for round two.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And then came Mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
No one heard him walk up. No one ever did.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He just appeared<\/em>, clutching a half-eaten bag of pretzels, with that same eternally bored expression like someone had dragged him out of bed and he still hadn\u2019t forgiven them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He eyed Thane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then Gabriel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then Maya.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then back to Thane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c\u2026So. Hero complex kicked in tonight, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane tilted his head. \u201cDid what needed to be done.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark crunched a pretzel. Loudly. Stared at him. \u201cYou know she\u2019s going to give you hell for that for the next three cities, right?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maya didn\u2019t even look up. \u201cDamn right I am.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabriel, from the other side of the van, casually leaned over the hood. \u201cOh, it\u2019s fine. He\u2019s got backup. I already gave him the guilt trip and threatened to bite him.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark raised one graying eyebrow. \u201cDid you now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Thane sighed. \u201cHe was tired.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Gabriel raised his cup. \u201cCaffeine-deprived. Very fragile.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Mark popped another pretzel in his mouth, chewing slowly. Thoughtful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201c\u2026You two are exhausting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n He turned to walk back toward the van but paused just long enough to deadpan over his shoulder:<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNext time someone needs to be scared off, let me do it. I don\u2019t need to growl. I just exist.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The next fuel stop came an hour later, just shy of sunrise. One of those rest areas with a vending machine shack, overgrown grass, and absolutely no good reason to exist. Gabriel was halfway through another cup of terrible coffee, and Thane was standing outside the van stretching, tail flicking in the early morning breeze. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-385","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-tour-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=385"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3231,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/385\/revisions\/3231"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/threewerewolves.com\/tourblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}