Max made his way, navigating through the surrounding pack's territories. It wasn't difficult, as long as you knew where they were. If you didn't know, it could cause you some real trouble. It was easy to end up in a pack's territory in the city and not even realize it.

Most pack's had a territory barrier created by the pack's elites marking at the border. That was hard to do in the city. Not only because pissing in public was illegal, but also because all the other scents would cause the pack's border to become difficult to differentiate from all of them. Pack's still marked their territory, but not as often and with fewer members doing it than usual.

Each territory had a no man's land in between their own pack and the neighboring packs. This caused less issues between packs and allowed any unaffiliated wolves the ability to move without issue around city. For the most part. There were places that were obviously in the pack's territory that Max would probably never be able to go to. It didn't really matter though. Those businesses and offices were from the human society, he had no reason to go to them, other than curiosity. Max wasn't that curious. He didn't need to go into the territories. Though, sometimes, the no man's land was little more than a couple streets wide and others, it was literally only a street in between. This could cause wolves that didn't know where the borders were to accidentally step into pack territory.

He walked, navigating through the people still loitering on the streets late this evening. He headed in the general direction of Jackson's territory, but had no intention of just strolling in. He moved forward until coming to a small diner that was a couple blocks from Jackson's territory.

He climbed into a booth and ordered water and a plain burger right away. He sat going over his plan one more time.

He knew that Jackson was suspicious, knew that he hated other going into his territory. Jackson would be on alert, waiting for Mathew to send people into the pack, he probably already suspected that they would hire someone like Max to come in and deal with the man.

Max's goal, though Mathew's boys had told him to bring the guy either dead or alive and that they preferred to have him alive, was to kill Joe immediately. He would then have to bring confirmation of the kill. Probably, a finger should do, though his head would be better. Then, he wouldn't have to worry about them doing tests and then lying about it not really being him and demanding their money back.

Max brought with him a knife, but taking the head would still require time and energy to get. Killing any members of Jackson's pack was a bad idea, so he'd have to quickly kill Joe, and then get out. Taking the head would probably take too long, he might have to settle for the finger and hope that Mathew kept his word and accepted the finger without issue. It didn't really prove that Joe was dead, not really. It just proved that Max made contact with Joe. He either needed Joe's head, or his whole person.

These were the times that Max realized how badly he needed a car.

He thanked the waitress as she brought his burger to him.

Maybe he should ask Amanda for her van. Max felt a headache coming on at the thought of that conversation. A mild sense of irritation came over him as he remembered the scent of alcohol on her skin. He took a deep breath and pushed any thoughts of her from his mind.

Finally, Max left the diner and began heading closer to Jackson's territory. The sky was dark, though the lights of the city still kept most of the surroundings illuminated. He stayed back a bit from Jackson's territory line. He watched from the shadows, patrolling around the territory barrier.

Jackson was one of the few that made sure to mark regularly. It wasn't just to show his territory line, it was a warning. Don't come here.

Max watched for any members of Jackson's pack that were patrolling. It didn't take long for him to spot a Frontlinesmen walking by. It wasn't common for there to be a sort of border patrol for a pack, but Jackson frequently utilized this method. He was too paranoid to leave his borders completely unprotected. It wasn't something that helped much, maybe deterring the occasional whelp that didn't know any better, but anyone that wanted to infiltrate on purpose would know to look out for the patrols.

Max hung back. He had no intention of entering yet. He still had a few days and wanted to make sure that when he did enter, he was doing so in the safest manner possible. That meant knowing the patterns of their patrols and knowing how many Frontlinesmen and Captains were between himself and his target.

Max stayed on Jackson's border all night. He watched as a few patrols passed, it seemed there were a number of individuals that were in charge of patrolling and that some would even come from further in the territory to check out the border every once in a while. Max figured that anyone that was a Captain and below probably had the job of staying vigilant and watching for any threats or outsiders in the pack's territory. He'd have to make sure to stay away from the pack members once he made it into the territory. From looking up the pack's territory layout online, Max knew that there were seven blocks between the border and his targets location. Max didn't know where in the building they were keeping Joe, but he knew he could probably easily track him. He'd have to contact Mathew's pack and find out if they had anything personal of Joe's that he could use to track his scent.

Max left just before the Sun began to rise. He still had some preparations to make.