Seeking Life

Chapter 3 : The long road ahead

I am awoken in the morning to the heavenly smell of bacon and eggs being cooked. I go to the kitchen floating around much like those cartoon characters when a pie is in the window. I see Nate and Tin preparing breakfast. “ Where did all this come from?” I asked them.

“ My friend wanted to make sure I was fed in the morning after a strenuous work out last night” Tin replied.

Nate responded by throwing an orange at her which she caught and laughed. “Nate Im not a baby, believe it or not I am a whole woman now, Back me up Amira”

“I agree Nate our little Tin Tin is a big girl now” I let out a small chuckle while she lets out a playful growl

“ So whats the plan today?” Tin asks.

“ Well we figured we would head out today and see if we can reach the area around the forest.” Nate Stated “ Its better we don’t stay in one place for too long”

I nod my head in agreement. We stick to our agreement that was made with Adam to have the house cleaned before packing our belongings in the Altima to head out and grab some supplies and the hit the road.  Once we arrived at the gas station Tinsley goes in to thank Adam for his hospitality. I begin to get out of the car suddenly Nathan is standing in front of me with his arm out stretched signaling for me to take his hand. I oblige and we walk into the store. We begin grabbing some snacks I go for  the chips and sweets. Not the best combo but hey I have a sweet tooth as for the chips they are quick and easy. There aren’t many healthy combinations that you will find you can take on the road and already be prepared. Tinsley joins our search for snacks. She settles on pork rinds, boiled p-nuts and a flavored water. By the time we reach the register we look like a bunch of stoners with heavy munchies.

“ So where are you all heading?” Adam Asks

“ A little bit of every where “ Tinsley responds “ you know see the world, answer the question if its as small as everyone claims it is”

“ So is there a chance our paths will cross again” Adam asks

“Maybe babe, I am a drifter I go where the wind takes me” Tinsley states

Nate interrupts them to say “ I need to fill up the car on pump 2 they will take care of the bill” He then walks out to the pump and begins to put gas in the car.

“ So is he a friend or competition” Adam asks

“ He’s neither” Tinsley says looking grossed out “ He’s my big brother”

Adam chuckles and finishes ringing up our items and the gas, we pay and head to the car. We’re heading north on a highway when Tinsley states “I want you two to know the sleeping in the bed alone and walking in holding hands did not go unnoticed.”

“ Damn Tin Tin didn’t you know that this was me and Amira’s run away and elope trip” Nathan says while looking at me in the rearview mirror. Tinsley slaps him in the arm “ No way butt face that’s my best friend and she is too good for you” She chuckles.

“That may be so but I am trying to make her bad for me” Nate says wiggling his eye brows.

“ Tin, you know he is joking right?” I ask seeing hurt flash across Nates face. I feel bad but I don’t want to give him false hope. What if I did by chance find my mate I wouldn’t want to cause him even more pain, and possibly loose my only friends  due to it. The mate bond is hard to resist, I know he said he would reject his I am just no so sure that I could do the same. It would be a slap in the face to the moon goddess and that is unwelcome karma in my book.

“ I know Amira, I know I joke around with you about you two being alone sometimes but I think it would make all of our relationships weird.” Tinsley says “ not that I wouldn’t love to have you as a sister, hell you practically are, but we’ve grown up together he might as well be your brother too.” Nate and I both cringe at that thought. Tinsley gasps “ Am I missing something? Why did you both cringe”?

“Its nothing Tin tin you’re reading to much into things” Nate quickly responds.

“I am not dumb Nate!” she yells out.

“ Tin lets just go on this trip whatever happens will happen” Nate says “ for all you know Amira might fall head over heels for me” Tinsley begins to say something but Nate shuts her up by slamming on the gas pedal pushing her back into her seat. We drive with the music on for at least 6 hours. When we stop at truck stop to refuel and use the bathroom. We have made it over half way to the area that is supposedly the enchanted forest. We decide to eat at the diner attached to the truck stop. Looking around at everyone in the diner, aside from the waitress Tinsley and I are the only women in here. We order our food and wait for it to be brought to us. “ Amira?” Tinsley begins “ Will you walk with me to the bathroom” I get up and follow her, as we walk by other patrons of the store we get glances and whispers. Unfortunately for these men we can hear everything that they say and believe me when I tell you they were rather vile comments. “ Amira, I have a feeling that we need to get out of here and soon”

“ Yeah I’m not really a fan of the atmosphere in here” I state.

“ Those men are absolutely disgusting” she says “ I don’t want trouble with these people”

“ Tin we could take them easily” I say “ although there are  a lot of smells coming from these people I am almost positive that they aren’t from lycan descent.

“ They don’t think they are all human” she responds

Just then the bathroom door swings open and 4 men who look a lot stronger than we are come in blocking our only exit. I mind link Nathan “ Help”. “ I’m coming” he responds.

“Well howdy ladies” The one in a red and black flannel says. He is around 6 ft tall and looks  like he might as well pull the trailer instead of drive the truck.  His hair is under a cap that looks like it hasn’t been removed in weeks. If I was told I had to guess his age I would say anywhere between 35 to 40.

“Excuse me but can you not read this is a ladies room” Tinsley snaps

“ I can read sweet heart  and I can take orders” He replies smugly.

“What orders?” I ask sounding angry.

“ An Alpha wolf has put a BOLO, for 2 young girls and a man matching you and your entourages description” He smirked “ He is offering a pretty hefty reward for anyone who can return this little party to him”

“ Well we aren’t them, now if you excuse us” I said while trying to pass by them, but they would not budge.

I heard a growl before the man that was speaking with us hit the ground and started screaming in pain. Tinsley and I took that as our sign and shifted into our wolves. Tinsley is a large gray wolf if you didn’t know any better you would think she was a male. I guess she gets that from her dad he was almost as big as an Alpha wolf. We took the opportunity to bite the other guys in the leg making them scream in pain.

“Let’s go!!” Nate screams through our mind link, While he shifts back into his human form. Tinsley and I do not waste any time shifting and just haul ass to the car jumping in through one of the windows while Nate Starts the car and then stomps on the gas pedal. While in the car Tinsley and I revert to our former bodies and I dig around in my backpack grabbing some clothes for all of us. I slip on some leggings and a shirt.

“OMGoddess that was close” Tinsely lets out while releasing a sigh.

“What kind of reward do you think your father is offer Amira?” Nate looks over at me his worry plastered all over his face.

“I don’t know” I respond, “ but I think its best that we don’t take any more stops”

“Agreed, plus they may have seen what we drove off in.” Tinsley tells us

“ We aren’t much farther off from the area where we can get on the ferry” Nate begins “Maybe once we  get about 30 miles closer we ditch the car somewhere in the opposite direction and head through the woods.”

Tinsley and I both agree. “ Look” I say while pointing at the map “ we can ditch the car in this area and head through the woods, Looks like we will have to run for a while but we can reach the ferry by tonight.”

We pull up on the outskirts of a town  and decide this is the best place to ditch the car. We walk into town, it’s the biggest town we have passed through. There are shops everywhere and it looks filled with people.

“ I wonder if there are any packs around here” Tinsley says casually

“ Might be, Im honestly surprised we haven’t came across one yet” Nathan replies

“ Do you think if there were any that we would know about the supposed reward your father is offering” Tinsley looks at me

“ I can only hope not” I respond

There is no telling what my dad has offered people to bring me back. I fear for the punishment that we would face, mostly me because I made his agreement with the other pack break. I keep running all possibilities through my head as to what my dad will do. Would he make me go through with marrying Dalton of the Shadow pack? Would he make me leave my best friends? What would Nathan do in response?

“Earth to Amira” Nathan says while waving his hand in front of my face

“ Yea, just drowning in my thoughts” I respond

“Do yall smell that?” Tinsley chimes in I wasn’t paying much attention as we were walking but we were now standing in front of a forest line.

“ I don’t smell anything” I say while sniffing the air.

“Seriously? Maybe I am tripping” Tinsley says while giving a small unsure smile

As we start to take a step into the forest. Tinsley looks tense and keeps looking around us like any minute now something is going to happen.

“ Tin is something wrong” I ask her.

“ No, Maybe, Im not sure” she sighs “ I just have a weird feeling I can’t describe it. Its not like I feel that we are in danger, but I feel like something is going to happen.”

We walked for nearly 15 miles when the sound of a large body of water could be heard and smelled.

“ This is it guys we just need to find one of the ferries that can ride us across and we will be able to search for the forest” I smiled.

Suddenly there was a sound of a branch snapping in half. We all almost caught whiplash turning our necks to try and pinpoint where the sound came from. There was nothing behind us or to our sides that we could see. There were no other scents lingering around any where either.

“Lets just hurry and get out of here” Nate said. Tinsley and I both nodded our head in agreement. Tinsley still looked uneasy, she was much quieter than her normal playful self. Even Nate seemed to be acting out of character. Normally we would have to full on run to keep up with him, but for now he was making sure to stay close to the both of us.

We made it close to the water before deciding to exit the forest. We check our surrounding to make sure that any of the threats we had escaped were no where in site. There was none to be seen or smelled so we proceeded to the docks where there were a lot of boats.

There were a lot more people than we had expected there, most looked like fisherman but there were a few families there, I assume getting ready to enjoy a day on the water. At the start of the pier there is a booth with an uninterested early man, no older than 20 working. I approach the booth and the teenager looks up at me and says “ What do you need” ?

I hold out the map “ I need a ferry that would be traveling in that direction.” ‘

“No one travels out there.” He states.

“ Do you know of any of these captains that we could talk to and maybe get them to drop us off near here?” I ask

“No.” He says bluntly.

“ Is there anyone else I could talk to?” I ask.

“Nope” he responds popping the p.

Tinsley slides up beside me on the counter.

“Hey there, I’m Sarina” She smiles at him.

“Hey, Sarina I am Mike” he looks more interested in talking to her than he did me.  Wow I think to myself.

“ So we really wanna visit this place are you sure there isn’t anyone we could talk to ?” she says while simultaneously squeezing her breasts together.

He definitely takes notice of this, so much interest he doesn’t even bother to look up at her eyes when he responds “ Maybe, you could talk to captain Jager, he doesn’t usually take passengers but he may for a price.” Tinsley lets out a flirty squeal.

“That would be amazing” She practically sings “where would this captain Jager be?”

Mike points off to the last loading dock on the pier and says “ he’s down there, I heard him cussing up a storm earlier so he might be in a bad mood, just don’t get scared if he yells at you, sometimes he’s a decent guy”

Nathan and I start to walk down to the end of the pier. Nathan reaches down to grab my hand and whispers “That guy must be blind or stupid.”

I look back to see Tinsley and Mike still flirting. Tinsley looks up at me the expression on her face saying HELP please. I chuckle a little. “ Hey Sarina, come on!” I yell while motioning for her to come. With that she turns to Mike I can only assume to say bye & jogs to us.

“Goddess thank you” She says while laughing, “ It felt like the next words out of his mouth were going to be will you marry me.”

“ Go for it sis” Nate says with a smile.

“No thank you, somewhere I have a mate just waiting on me to grace him with my presence.” She retorts “ Maybe I’ll have myself an Alpha.”

“Mother fucker, this is a s**t storm, how the f**k did this get here” Says some body yelling from a boat.

The ship was small  but looked like it could at least hold a crew of 20 at the most. It was painted white with a navy bottom half, but there were lots of chips in the paint revealing the metal portions and rust. The backside of the boat says SS Marie. It looks it really needs some repairs. There looked to be a huge hole in the upper portion of the railing surrounding the deck.

“ What are you looking at girl” a man says. The man looks around the age of 25 standing around 5’8” and slightly overweight. He has a blonde beard that comes to his chest, it looks like it could be longer if he took the time to brush it or even wash it. He is wearing a blue t-shirt and some jeans with a pair of brown boots. Looking at him I don’t think he is the captain but probably a deck hand.

“ Im looking to talk to Captain Jager.” I respond irritated that he spoke so rudely.

“ Captain Jager is busy and cant be bothered by children” He spits back turning around to walk away.

“ I want to hire him to transport me and my friends” I yell desperately.

The man turns around and asks “Transport you to where?”.

“That is something I would prefer to ask the captain” I snap back.

“If you would be so kind to grant us an audience with your captain, we can discuss details.” Nathan states firmly.

“ He will meet with you, but not them.” He says while looking at Nathan.

“ Excuse me and why not us” Tinsley chimes in sounding irritated.

“It is a discussion among men.” He replies while grinning.

“We all need to speak with your captain regarding our travels, we are willing to pay” Nathan says clenching his ja & squeezing my hand tight.

“What is all this noise about” an older man with a red and white beard says stepping into our view. By the clothes and hat he wears it seems like he is the captain.

“We would like to talk to Captain Jager in regards to having him transport us” Nathan says while relaxing his grip on my hand. Thank goddess too my hand was going numb.

“Come aboard” he tells us “we can speak in my quarters.”

Nathan is the first to step on the gangplank to board the ship pulling me along behind him. Once on deck we follow behind the man we assume is the captain, but not before turning to the original man to give him a big f**k you smirk. He balls his hands into fists and shakes his head. Walking along the boat I take time to look over the ship I see that it looked worse on the outside than it does up here, there was still some visible damage but all together it looked like we at the very least would not sink. We follow the man to the back of the ship where there is a large cabin with a wooden door, the main opens the door and pushes it in holding it while motioning for us to enter. He walks to a desk sitting in front of a window. The office looks nicer than anything else I have seen on the boat. The interior is all wooden with a few book cases filled with little treasures and items that all look they come from unknown parts of the world. There is a telescope pointing out of the window along with a globe. The globe has a bunch of red X’s on pieces of land.

“ I am Captain Jager, and you all are?” he says holding out his hand to shake ours.

“Im Amira, this is Nathan and Tinsley” I respond each of us reaching out to shake his hand.

“Where is it that you all are trying to go?” He asks.

I handed him the map “ That area circled is where we want to go”.

Captain Jager c***s his eyebrow at us, “why are you heading here? Those are dangerous waters You’ve heard of the legends surrounding this place correct?”

“ Just that the forest is said to call to people” I respond quickly not wanting to give away to much information.

“I see so you haven’t heard of the mermaids that swim in the water and control the various beasts that can be used to sink the mightiest of ships.” He asks looking to read our expressions.

“No… I’ve never heard of that” I respond shakily.

“Have you been there?” Nate asks sounding calm.

“I have not been to this particular area, but I have sailed through those waters” he responds “ I have both seen and felt what can happen to some one in those waters.” He cringes as if he is remembering the past.

“ What happened” Tinsley asked.

“ I lost my whole crew and barely made it out alive myself” he responds “but that is a story for another time. The real question is what are you willing to pay me to take you on this  suicide mission?”

“ We don’t have much but around $2,000 dollars.” I said looking at the captain.

He laughs very loudly “ You expect me to risk my life, crew and boat for $2,000 dollars, that is rich” he continues laughing while wiping a tear from his eye.

“We are willing to work for it as well” Nate says

The captain looks at us mostly at me and Tinsley “ I tell you what,  you two women will cook for the crew until we arrive and clean.” He then looks to Nate “You will work in the engine room doing what ever the others tell you to do.”

“ That’s it? We can do that” I say smiling.

“ Oh and those pretty little necklaces and bracelet” He says eyeing us.

“What but we need these” I gasp.

“Oh I am sure you do but by your appearance I would say you’ve come a long way from home and can probably afford to loose them by now.” He says c*****g his eyebrow “ Trinkets like that fetch a good price in the underworld supermarket and it will be enough to take care of tickets.”

“Deal” Nate says , while taking off his bracelet and handing it to the captain. I look at Nate worriedly but I trust him so I remove the choker and hand it to the captain.

“Good we set sail in the morning, It is  too close to nightfall now, take this opportunity to gather some ingredients to cook.”