Psycher Chronicles

Chapter 48

Putting the Pieces Together

(Amoni Jacobs)

Exhale.

If Amoni had to describe her current state right now, it would be frustrated. No, that wouldn’t be the word, obsolete? Maybe. Completely replaced? Definitely, though that still didn’t fully express how she felt right now.

For months, no for years, as far back as Amoni could remember, she always excelled at two things, school and basketball. Everything else was just supplementary to those two things. She gave up boys to study and to become a better future shaman, just as her father instructed. She also was great at basketball, the ultimate team sport for someone as talented as her.

Yet today, Coach Green took her to the side and all but sucker punched her, with her decision.

“Hey, I just wanted you to know that tomorrow Misha will start, and you will come off the bench.”

The words came like the long awaited but unexpected conclusion to a historical fiction. One where you know going into it what to expect, but are somehow still surprised by the inevitable outcome that happens.

Amoni knew this was coming, the writing was written on the wall, she wasn’t the best player on the team, not even the best at her chosen position. In fact, the only person skill wise who she felt better than was K-Bar and Michelle, but both had her in terms of height and understanding the position they were playing.

Yet it still stung when she heard that two non-pack members were going to get the start over her, a pack leader.

Though admittedly, her inner wolf had been quiet ever since the day she threw hands with Misha. Even before she threw hands, she knew she was losing the drive, her spark that made her that much better than everyone else.

It was that spark that she used to continue to fuel her desire to be better, to be more.

At first, she thought that the new girl was lucky, gifted skills and abilities that placed her far above everyone else. Yet that was clearly not the case.

After seeing her home, and the basketball courts that her grandfather had built for her, she felt jealous. But then she realized that, despite never playing against anyone, she still practiced and pushed herself, even when no one was watching she pushed herself. Something that Amoni could now see that she did, but not to the same constant level of intensity that Misha did.

In comparison, with her god given skill and the innate power of the wolf, it should have been nothing for her to maintain her dominance over not one but two different civilians on the team. Civilians, people that had never been blessed by the great mother to be chosen as her protectors, that is who she lost her position to.

Yet, after seeing both of them in action Amoni couldn’t argue the logic. She was tall, but not taller than Michelle or K-Bar. She was fast, but never worked to improve herself. Instead, all she found was that recently her speed and strength had been failing her the more she fell behind those who had overtaken her.

Worst of all, she wanted to hate this person, this leech that dared to interpose herself on her territory. Yet, despite everything, she couldn’t bring herself to hate the new girl.

Instead, all she could do was realize that if she wanted to stay on the team she needed to work twice as hard to just catch up.

“Okay,” was all Amoni could reply, that was all her pride and tightening chest would allow.

What else was there to say.

For too long she had it easy, she had things handed to her. Things that she accepted without sacrifice or strife, and now she was paying for that perceived decadence.

More words were said, but they were all meaningless and repetitive words meant to express the things that Amoni already understood. Each time her coach was done talking, all she could reply with was “okay.”

Finally, the whole event was over, and Amoni was left on her own.

By now everyone had already left. Practice was over, and if she was to get a ride it would have been with the new girl as her cousin wrecked both vehicles.

Just thinking about her cousin and how his life had been cut short only caused more ire to well up inside Amoni.

Yet even her cousin was getting passed by others, whether he realized it or not. Rodger was already being picked by Alishia to take his place by her side. Also, Alishia was clearly going to take over the spot of pack Alpha. At least that was her clear goal until she too ran into the immovable mountain that was Misha.

Thinking of their altercation, where Alishia clearly lost everything, her spark her wolf, just as Amoni had, Amoni couldn’t help but laugh.

Having lived through it herself, she knew what to expect. She knew what Alishia was going through, especially with the fact that she left school early yesterday and has not dared to show her face since. Amoni at least had the excuse that she was expelled from the team for the next few days, Alishia didn’t even have that.

Thinking back on it, Amoni was glad that things hadn’t gone as bad for her as they had for Alishia. Then she realized something was wrong with this thought process. These were still the thoughts of complacency that got her here in the first place. Being satisfied with not being last, not having the worst course of events happen to her was not what she wanted.

That’s when she thought about Misha, how she had gone through so much. Being the outsider who forced her way into the team that clearly didn’t want her, where her only friend was Michelle, originally. Then losing her grandmother to a car accident. Then how her mother practically abandoned her to be with her grandfather, yet she never complained about anything.

Like a machine, she pushed on, even using these events as motivation to push herself just that much harder.

Amoni cold see that drive and determination with just how much faster Misha was getting, seeming to use the motivation of everything that was going wrong with her life as fuel to strive beyond everything.

With these thoughts, something finally snapped in Amoni’s mind.

At that moment, she made a mental note to herself, that she would never be passed so easily again. That she would never just accept that she had the worst, or others had worse conditions than her. Instead, she too would use every moment as an incentive to push that much harder, to strive that much further. This was her only way to make it back to the top.

Yes, she knew that eventually she would meet someone who was bigger, stronger, faster, or smarter than her, but she would never let others overtake her due to a lack of trying on her part.

Tingle.

The moment she made this pact with herself was the moment something clicked alive in her mind. Suddenly the wolf that had been beaten and silenced for so long, came alive and howled with pent up rage and fury.

Her wolf was not angry at those who push themselves past her, but rather she was mad at herself for allowing others to pass her by.

Filled with a new sense of determination, Amoni decided that from today onward she would push herself constantly, never accepting her position as a given.

As Amoni began her long walk home, a primal sense of joy filled her. Normally she would hate the long ten mile walk home, but this time, she felt alive as her newly awakened and recharged wolf sprung to life within her mind, filling her with energy that she had not felt since her first awakening.

Clop, clop.

Before she even realized it, her feet were moving and pumping as her strides began to stretch out longer and faster, until finally she was running full speed.

The cool autumn wind began to blow into her hair, which was good as she was already feeling a deep burning within her as her wolf threatened to burn her alive from the inside out if she dared to do anything other than push herself to the limit.

Crackle.

A bolt of lightning called out, letting everyone know that soon an intense storm cloud would be over the area.

Yet, despite the call of the storm, Amoni could only smile brightly as she felt her mind connecting with the storm. If she but pushed her mind into the storm she could reach it, she could control it, but her mind had to be in the near Zen like state that only comes from running.

Realizing that in order for her to truly become one and commune with nature she needed to run, Amoni did just that.

Thunderclap-downpour.

The echo of lightning quickly caught up to her overtaking her, followed closely by heavy rain. Rain that while soaking her clothes did nothing to affect her. Nothing to affect her mood, as nothing could change her mindset, not now, not while she was here.

This was her breakthrough.

Now she began to feel the full power of nature. This was the moment she had waited her entire life to experience. Before this point, before today, she would have run straight to her father to tell him of her success, to tell him of how the storm made her feel. Yet, now that she finally felt the connection, she decided to keep her thoughts to herself.

This was not something that needed to be said. There was nothing to brag about, she just was, same as the weather around her. She could feel the storm calling to her, reaching out and slowly adapting to her emotional state.

When she first began her emotions were violent and chaotic, a whirling vortex of doubt. But now they had settled, she was calmer, more resolute in her conviction to push herself harder and further than she had ever gone before.

The closer she got to her house, the more the intense energy of the storm began to wane, until finally she found herself home, just as the storm finally ended.

Smiling, a nearly drenched Amoni found herself walking up the steps to her house. For a moment she thought about entering, but then decided better as she went around back, and found a clean spot of dirt well away from everyone and sat down and let her mind meld with the earth below her.

The moment she let her mind relax, was the moment she felt the world call out to her, welcoming her.

Welcome Shaman: Fire, Water, Air, and Earth elements unlocked.

Feeling the message more than anything, Amoni knew that she would not let this second chance pass her by to be the best version of herself she could be.

***

(Misha Tulley)

For weeks Misha had been lost, of the five who had been in the van when her grandmother was killed, only four remained active. Only four actively spoke about the actions taken that night amongst each other.

This was concerning for Misha, the lack of communications meant a lot of possible variables that she had a hard time calculating. With the complete silence and discipline it meant that either the person was a complete sociopath, someone who felt no remorse for their actions and thus felt no need to talk out the experience with others. Or it could mean that this person was the one with the least amount of an electronic footprint to track.

In either case, the truth was clear, that the fifth person would be tough to find and link to this whole murder.

Still, she was fairly certain that she broke the code.

She tried to place the fifth person from among her peers. What she didn’t originally take into account was the fact that there might have been an elder along to sanction the actions.

That was Misha’s fault and something that caused her weeks of downtime for this process. Now that she had broken her own preconceived biases the whole plot and treason seemed to make more sense. All that was left was find enough information for her to indict and she would move ahead with her punishment, just as she was for all the others.

***

(Alpha Abraham Jacobs)

Abe sat at his personal throne, his long muscular fingers pounding irritated against his mahogany desk that served as his pulpit from which he ruled over his empire.

His fingers danced and fluttered, creating a rhythmic noise that one could almost imagine being the makings of a piano masterpiece, had the instrument been slightly different. Yet, this was not a musical number that Abe was mimicking. In fact, if anyone had chosen that moment to see Abe’s face, rare and raw from having to wait impatiently, they would have seen the true depths of anger an Alpha can bear.

The reason for Abe’s ire was simple. Well actually not so simple, first there were financial problems, which are always painful and taxing on the soul. It appeared that money was being stolen from the pack’s account, but there were no traces as to who took the money, whether it was just transferred to alternate accounts, or if it had been in fact stolen.

Normally Abe would have set Bruce on this task, but something caused him to pause to hesitate with trusting his brother.

There had been a tension between the two, a rift ever since the death of Abe’s son.

At first Abe thought that his brother was giving him space to mourn, but now he had seen movements in the shadows. Now that he wasn’t so blinded by how important his son had been to him, he could see things.

Well that wasn’t entirely true. Truthfully he had always seen the shadows, but at the time he had trusted others to take care of the shadows. Now Abe was beginning to wonder if his trust in those who had always protected him against the shadows had been misplaced?

No, it hadn’t always been like this, there was a time when Abe knew beyond the shadow of a doubt that he could trust those who he placed to watch the shadows. Now however, things had changed. As he grew older, he grew less trusting, less accepting of turning a blind eye to corruption. Yet, he had let it all slide until now.

Tap, tap.

The sound of someone knocking on his chamber door echoed in the large office room. With that the incessant tapping of Abe’s fingers stopped, as he straightened up. Going from annoyed thinker to hyper focused predator in less than a second.

“Come in, brother.” Abe said, hoping that the words would illicit a slight reaction from the man who had always been and would still be his brother, even after death. Though Abe now wondered how his dear brother would meet death.

If the words had any impact on the soul of Bruce, Abe could not tell, as the man just calmly entered the room and made his way casually to stand in front of Abe.

Once there, standing right in front of him, Abe noticed as his brother locked gazes with him, neither looking away, nor blinking. A direct provocation if Abe had ever seen one.

There was a time when Abe would have loved this type of challenge, of finding someone who would openly challenge him. Yet, now he couldn’t help but wonder if he let this grow too far, as now he needed to take control of the situation, to at least level set expectations.

“It seems that we have quite a bit to talk about,” Abe began.

“Perhaps we do.” Bruce, the pack shaman stated.

And like that the tension that had been building in the room crystallized into a tangible mass that added weight to everything.