We ended up driving nine hours with a few quick stops along the way. By the time we pulled into the motel parking lot Roy was looking a bit worse for wear. We got two rooms, dropped our bags off then Sam and I went to check on Roy who was laying across his bed looking like he was trying to stretch out some kinks.

"We're heading out for some drinks, come on."

"I'm good."

"Actually you need to come," Sam said, "We're, or rather I will be researching a few things and figured we could start giving you an idea how this all works."

Roy's groaned and sat up, "If you're researching what's Dean doing?"

"Driver gets to drink and hit on chicks, shotgun gets to work."

Sam pointed at himself, "Guess who's always shotgun."

"It's a division of labor that's worked well for decades, no reason to change it now. C'mon."

Roy stood up, stuffed his room key in his pocket and followed us a few blocks down to the dive bar we'd spotted on the way in. "You guys seriously do this every day?"

"Not as much as we used to," Sam answered, "Once we found the Bunker and had a home base to work out of we aren't on the road as much, but yeah, before then, this was pretty much our life."

"But when you were kids, this was how you grew up?"

"Yup, motels, pool halls, dive bars and school," I replied. "Made for an interesting education." And for some really jacked up entertaining stories.

"And you still got into Stanford Sam?"

"Yes."

Roy just stared at Sam for a minute or two.

Still wish that had been a better day for him, one of the biggest regrets I have after all these years. Don't think I can ever make it up to him. I should have been happy for him.

"That's, well, pretty damn impressive."

"Thanks," Sam's tone made it pretty obvious he didn't want to dwell on it.

We walked into the bar. It felt good to be back around my people, except for one minor problem. Usually when we hit a bar there's a certain amount of eyes that I get, men sized us up judging possible fight opponents and women usually stared at us, well mostly me for a few minutes. Sam gets a few long looks, but I tend to get a helluva a lot more. This time half the eyes passed me by and locked right onto Roy and the bastard didn't even notice.

"Be right back guys," Roy said and headed to the restrooms. A sea of eyes followed Roy's every step until he disappeared into the back hall. Some of the women took a second look at me, like I was a consolation prize and of those about three or four gave me a quick smile then went back to their drinks or conversations. Am I that old?

"Don't I feel like the jilted ex seeing her guy's new trophy wife."

Sam had no damn sympathy either, just choked down a laugh, "Now you know how I feel. I'm liking Roy more and more."

"Shut up Sam."

We found a table where he could watch most of the bar using the mirror that ran along the back of the bar and keep an eye on the back door. Sam sat across from me to cover the front door, the bathrooms and the ramp down to the room with the pool table and dart boards. It felt almost claustrophobic in here after Oliver's place, I was going to have to re-adjust. The walls were decorated with various neon drink signs snd mirrors, a few crappy band photos and some dents. Warped dark wood floors came out a few feet from the bar then shifted to beat up, scratched black concrete. The ceiling was low which made the lights hang low enough that Sam had ducked a few as we walked in.

I caught a waitress's eye, she nodded and headed in our direction, her steps matching the beat of the music that poured from the jukebox. She had short, spiky black hair, silver rings several with large stones protruding from them covered her fingers. She wore low cut tight jeans, cowboy boots and a black zip up leather vest. Her eyes were no nonsense blue and she wasn't wearing much makeup. She wasn't my usual type but wasn't unattractive either.

"What'll it be sugars?"

"Double for me, bottle of Sam Adams for him. Thanks."

"Got it." She nodded and sidled off.

Sam set his laptop on the table, turned his phone's wifi hotspot on and started pulling up news sites. "May as well walk Roy through what to look for. I want to take a closer look at those autopsy reports and pictures too."

I spotted Roy coming back from the bathroom, "Speaking of. He's not nearly as observant as he should be." Although his eyes were shifting around the room it seemed that he wasn't focusing on the things that he should be. He kept looking at the bikers and the few guys at the bar but not really anywhere else. He's too used to looking for obvious threats, not subtle ones.

Roy sat next to Sam and took a brief look at the laptop screen which had several pictures of corpses on it, "Well that's not disturbing."

"Autopsy photos."

"How did you get those?"

"Same way Felicity does," Sam replied with a quick grin.

"Ah, okay."

The waitress returned and set our drinks down, "Double, Sam Adams. What'll you have?" She asked Roy.

"I'll take a Tecate."

She took a closer look at Roy, "You got ID?"

"Sure." He pulled out his wallet and showed her his license.

"Got it," she said with a quick nod and walked off.

I pounded my double and looked at Roy, "That got your real name on it?"

"Yeah."

Amateur.

Sam didn't even look up from his laptop screen, "We'll fix that tomorrow."

Roy didn't get it, "Why? I mean we're just having a drink."

"Secret identity versus hunting," I said, "We're always on the job. That waitress could be a vampire, werewolf, demon minion who knows what else. She now knows your name. We only use our real names in emergency situations, like hospital visits. Probably still not a good idea but it's been getting a bit more complicated to get health insurance with fake ids."

"You guys have health insurance?"

"Didn't used to but we seem to be getting more mangled these days. At any rate, tomorrow we get you a fake id."

"Just don't let him pick your name," Sam warned. "Trust me, it will be hideous."

"Yeah, yeah. Anyway, Sam's researching the case. We think there are vamps involved."

Sam took over, "Right, look at these bite marks."

Roy looked and shrugged, "What am I looking at?"

"Five different people's necks." Sam pointed at the necks of the corpses in the photos, "Now it's hard to see on some of these photos but these bites right here. Those are more than likely vampire bites. All the other wounds were given after the vampires had fed. They left enough blood in the bodies so they didn't raise too much suspicion, bloodless corpses confuse authorities. All the scratches and gashes are distractions."

Roy sat there for a minute trying to put all the pieces together. The waitress showed back up with his beer, he took it from her with a brief smile and took a pull off the bottle without even pouring it into the mug she'd brought it. I was really going to have to teach him dive bar manners. He stood out like a sore thumb.

"Rough day huh?" She asked.

He tried to cover but was horrible at it, "Getting there."

"I'll take another double," Trying to distract her from Roy, not because I was jealous or anything, but because he sucked at acting. Really, I swear.

The waitress shot me a long look. "You too huh?"

"Nope, my day's going fine, just wanted another reason to see your smiling face."

She grinned and winked, "Smooth sweetheart, real smooth." Then she turned away and headed back to the bar.

Sam raised his eyes from the laptop, "Feel better? Less like a jilted ex?"

"Was that really necessary?"

"Just making sure you're able to handle the competition." Sam answered with a sidelong look at Roy.

"Hey!"

"Why do I feel like I missed half of this conversation?" Roy asked.

"It's not important. Focus on vampires, both of you."

"Sure thing," Sam replied and pulled up another screen, "The official story on the bodies is rogue mountain lion or animal attacks. These are photos of mountain lion attacks. Notice the differences?"

Roy pulled the laptop closer and switched back and forth between the tabs, "Yeah, I see it. So why isn't this raising flags to the park rangers who are supposedly investigating the mountain lions."

"Either they are in on it, scared or someone above them told them to go to their job and shut up."

"Dean's right," Sam said. "It's usually one of those three things."

Roy took another drink, "This is what you guys do then? Search news reports for things that are off and then try to find what's really killing people?"

"Yup."

"There can't be that many monsters out there though. I mean how often do you actually find a vampire or whatever."

"We've been doing this all our lives Roy," Sam stated, "I can rattle off the names of at least thirty or forty other hunters, and most of them know another twenty that I don't. If this was a once in a blue moon kind of thing do you think there would be that many of us? That we would never have settled down? Had a normal life? Think about it."

I picked up where Sam left off, "This year we've been busy with other things but on average we wipe out about twenty or so vamps a year, a few werewolves, a handful of vengeful spirits and other assorted crazy things. So yeah, there's a lot more out there than you would think."

"Then there's the witches and demons," Sam added.

"True."

"I, uh," Roy stammered.

"Like I said," I repeated. Roy's not dumb but not many people understand hunter life, "We're always on the job.". "Look, I'm not saying that what you guys do back in Starling is easier but what I am saying is that this is much more intense. You guys aren't up against things that see you as food, that can lift a car with one hand, choke you to death without even touching you or disappear and reappear faster than you can blink. We're always reading the room or area around us. I was watching you walk through the bar. What were you looking at as threats? What are these people's stories?"

"Threat wise? The group of bikers over there, the two guys in the corner by the exit that just look shady and that's really it. What do you mean stories?"

"This is why you miss what Oliver sees. Oliver had to survive in a world with 360 degree threats, so do we. All right, keep up. Under the far end of the bar there is a double barreled shotgun, and looks like a 45 on this end, you can barely see them in the mirror behind the bar. The blonde bartender has a knife tucked into her boot, I saw it when she came around to clean the table, the guy behind the bar has a shoulder holster. Moving left to right down the bar; the two dressed up chicks are here because they thought it would be exciting to slum it for a night and think they can find an easy lay here. The three guys next to them are regulars and debating screwing the girls but not drunk enough yet to ask. The chick sitting alone, just got dumped, the guy on the end is meeting someone probably to do something illegal. He has a gun in his waistband and is nervous as all hell. As far as the exit door, the bikers are mostly harmless and probably come here a few times a week. The shady guys you referred to are probably under cover cops watching the nervous guy at the end of the bar. They've barely touched their drinks and have kept him in their sights the whole time. Sam?"

Sam kept his eyes on his screen as he spoke, "Right, the young couple in the booth are about two seconds away from having sex in public as a thrill, the group of women in the corner booth are what we've dubbed Dive Bar Divas. They are regulars in dive bars, like playing pool, darts and the vibe of the place. They get hit on constantly by drunk guys and you're liable to get punched if you push your luck as Dean can attest to. From what I can see of the people playing pool there's two tables that are in some sort of league and having fun, the others are just killing time. I can't see the far back table down there though. There's two women that are in the bathroom right now, guessing they're best friends or dating and in their early twenties because they are mostly plastered and not getting more than two feet away from each other. Oh and the guy sitting in the shadowed table has been eyeing us ever since we sat down. He wasn't too thrilled when you got the waitress to smile so he's either a possessive boyfriend, jilted lover or a stalker. Can't tell yet."

Roy just stared at us, "You picked all that up in less than five minutes?"

"Yeah. I thought you were a street kid. You should be a lot more observant."

"It's not like I was in a gang or trying to become a professional thief. I tried to avoid most of the heavy crap that went down."

"Well you're neck deep in the heavy crap now so either commit and catch up or head back home, put up the mask and marry Thea."

"If I wasn't committed to this I wouldn't be here right now would I?" Roy challenged.

Sam finished off his beer, signaled to the waitress he needed another and closed the laptop, "Take a long hard look at where Dean and I are, where Oliver is and make damn sure that you're willing to end up like us in ten or fifteen years. What you and Thea have, is it worth losing that to do this? Keep that in mind over the next few weeks. Dig's lucky, not saying that you couldn't be too but the odds are against it."

"Not to throw your own words back at you Sam, but you're the one that told me that when things get rough it's the memories of the people you've saved that keep you going. Maybe instead of worrying if I'm making the right choices you teach me how to stay alive. If I get killed because I missed something I won't have a chance to end up like Dig will I? I'm going to go crash out. Give me about an hour to get ready before we leave tomorrow." He threw a few dollars on the table and left.

"That answers that question."

"Definitely," Sam agreed, "He puts a lot more thought into things then we did at his age."

"He's had the luxury of someone else doing all the hard work and sheltering him, we didn't."

Sam opened his laptop again, "Good point."