Harlow hated others paying for him. It made him feel like he owed them somehow. He didn’t like owing people. Whatever, Foxx probably had more money than anyone could possibly need.
Harlow sighed, ignoring all of Foxx’s words, and said, “Get packed and let's be off. We will need to stop by a store before we go. To grab some food and other things.”
Standing up, he walked away.
“Harlow!” Foxx huffed after him, but he didn’t bother turning around.
Harlow was able to put off Foxx’s questions until they got to his Jeep, where he really couldn’t avoid the vampire anymore.
Foxx settled a blood cooler into the back seat, along with a way too colorful, medium size suitcase, duffle bag, and laptop bag. The suitcase had black and white stripes with a blue rose pattern on one side, and on the other it was baby blue with white polka dots. The laptop bag had horizontal rainbow stripes with vertical rainbow handles. And the duffle bag was the true horror out of the three bags. Split bright pink and teal on one side, bright red and yellow on the other, and pink and blue on the edges. There were large stitched-on hearts and flowers that were in the same colors as the rest of the bag.
He was eyeing the monstrosity as the vampire slid into the passenger seat and blurted, “So, as I asked before, what kind of case do you think we are driving into?”
Harlow started his car and pulled out of his spot. “We won’t know until we get there. But it could be anything. It could be a simple elimination job, with a list and all that ready, which would require no research besides finding them. Though there could easily be a broad reach elimination in place, with no names listed, that requires us to narrow down who is involved and take them out. Which I’m sure the powers that be are already fighting over legally somewhere. There are occasions where something weird is going on, but they don’t know what. In that case, we end up with very little information, and have to go into a situation that will need to be fully investigated to figure out what is going on, and make on-the-spot decisions about what needs to be done. Then again, this could be a simple capture case. There really is a wide variety.”
* * *
Foxx nodded.He knew most of this. The handbook warned that hunters may need to utilize a variety of skills, depending on the cases they were given.
“I don’t understand why they don’t give us the information before we head out. Is there a point in waiting until we are actually there?”
Harlow snorted. “That is them speak for, ‘we are still organizing shit, so have fun cooling your jets and wasting your time until we are ready to give it to you’.”
“Ah…sounds inefficient,” Foxx said before he had a thought. “Or maybe not…I suppose they want us to be there by the time they are ready to hand things over to us.”
“I think they just like being a pain in the ass,” Harlow said with a scoff as he pulled them into the lot of a supermarket namedFrankies.
They got out and headed in. Foxx grabbed a trolley on entering. He couldn’t help but eye Harlow in confusion as the human added six cases of water, some under the basket and the rest inside it. He just barely bit back his questions this time.
Foxx followed Harlow’s quick pace through the store, snagging a few things to snack on during their ten-hour drive. He ended up grabbing some Cheez-Its, some gummies, a small bag of bread, a jar of peanut butter, and some juice boxes, along with some plates and travel silverware. Harlow had put in a few snacks of his own; granola bars, protein bars, and some other nasty healthy drink stuff… Oh and also a jar of grape jelly, which he added after eyeing Foxx’s peanut butter for a moment.
Twenty minutes later and they were back up at the front of the store, heading to the checkout. As they stepped into line, Foxx smiled at the sight of boxes of mini chocolate chip muffins. He snagged a box with a happy hum.
“I don’t think you added a single healthy thing into the cart,” Harlow said with a rumble.
Foxx sniffed. “Peanut butter is healthy. It’s just creamed nuts.”
Harlow snorted. “Jif Peanut Butter is full of sugar.”
“Well, I also grabbed gummies. It literally says a hundred percent real fruit on the box.”
The human scoffed, but Foxx ignored him to stack all their things onto the conveyor belt. Well, besides Harlow’s water cases.
On reaching the cashier, Harlow said, “Pack of Marlboro Southern Cut,” as he pulled out his ID and tossed it on the counter.
“What happened to being healthy, huh, human? Those things can kill you, you know?”
Harlow chuckled. “No worries, I’m sure some vampire will tear me apart before they have a chance to shrivel my lungs.”
The cashier choked, his eyes widening at the words, as he slowly set the pack of cigarettes on the counter. His gaze flicked over to Foxx and then back to Harlow, as if Foxx was the one about to tear Harlow apart.
Foxx glared at Harlow before letting out a fake laugh. “He’s joking.” He sent the nervous cashier a smile.
As Harlow downed his third bottle of water, Foxx’s curiosity hit the max, and he blurted out, “Are you alright? You seem to be drinking quite a lot. Is that something humans do? I don’t recall ever seeing someone drink so much. Or ever doing so when I was human. And it seems to be an ongoing thing. You drinking a lot of liquid, that is. I will admit, I don’t stay around humans too much. Not that I don’t have, or haven’t had, human friends bef—”
“Hold up.” Harlow sighed. “Before you continue on this tangent, let me respond. It’s not normal. I have something called polydipsia, but a rare form of it, and they don’t really know what is going on. I have no idea why my body soaks up as much water as it does, or how my kidneys can process so much without all sorts of issues. All they know is that I am constantly dehydrated, and constantly thirsty, to the point where it becomes physically painful if I go too long without drinking.”
Unending thirst… Foxx frowned. He felt like he had heard about such a thing before, but the memory was not coming to him. “That would explain all the water drinking.” He just barely held back his giggle as his mind went into the gutter. “Won’t drinking so much mean quite a few stops to the loo? Then again, we did have to stop a few times last trip. Not saying I mind stopping. One can’t ignore our bodies. When you have to go, you have to go. So, how do you deal with having to go when you are on a hunt? That would be some awful timing.”
