My Resolution

Chapter 20

I kept driving toward Omaha, my phone started buzzing in my purse. I kept one hand on the steering wheel and retrieved it from my purse. My phone had finally found service and notifications were catching up. Glancing back and forth between the road and phone, I opened my maps app.   

“Okay, so we are in Nebraska?” Astral asked.   

“Yeah, that’s what I figured when I saw the sign for Omaha,” I explained, “We are just a few hours from home.”   

“Val?   

“I know. They could be watching the apartment. Matt definitely knows what my car looks like,” I sighed heavily, “we can’t keep this truck though either. Aside from it being one of their vehicles, it's super f*****g noticeable. It's jacked up and lime f*****g green. Gahhh!” I yelled hitting the steering wheel with the side of my fist.   

“Val,” Astral boomed, “Calm down. We just need a plan.”   

Hot tears pooled in my eyes. “Sorry, I'm so pissed about all of this. I feel like I’m going to break under this stress. I was bashed in the head and kidnapped. Then I woke up to find out I know two of the f*****g kidnappers! One is the guy that just treated me to an amazing birthday. And the other, well, the other is my,” I couldn’t even say it, so I screamed out in frustration, “I don’t even know who I can trust anymore. He knows the f*****g fae and always has! If he is involved, then anyone could be!”   

“I know,” she assured me, “this would be too much for anyone. It's okay to be mad, but you have to keep your senses.”   

I breathed deeply, into my nose and out my mouth, drawing on the breathing exercises I had been learning in my yoga class. I was shaking from outrage and frustration. I was stunned and thinking about it made my blood boil.    

“Keep breathing. One thing at a time. Now, let's think, what do we know?”   

“Okay, so we know we have to ditch the truck. No question.”   

“Absolutely. What else?”   

“If I can get into my apartment, I need to. So, I can get the orb, mostly, but if I can’t...”   

“It is what it is, at least you have it memorized,” Astral finished the statement.   

“Right,” I nodded, “My car is not even an option. Anyone who knows me knows what it looks like.”   

“Sure. Anything else you can think of?”   

“I have around $13,000 in my savings,” I thought absentmindedly, “That should help.” It wasn’t a ton of money, but I was glad I had the habit of saving. I never used the entire monthly stipend Mrs. Boone sent me, and I had never used all my monthly allowance growing up.   

“Well, I don’t think we should take the truck back to the city at all,” Astral said simply, “We should drive it to some random place and just park it.”   

“How do we get home?”   

“I can get us there almost as fast as this truck, especially since I’m not limited to the highways.”   

“I can’t shift the first time by myself,” I insisted anxiously.   

“Why not? Assisted shifts are relatively new. It’s comforting to have a guide, but it isn’t really necessary.”   

“Wait, seriously?”    

“Yeah,” she chuckled, “Packs have become overly ritualistic over the last few hundred years. Not everything requires an audience, some things are just natural.”   

“It’s going to hurt though,” I weakly argued.   

“It's going to hurt anyway,” she pointed out.   

She was right, but I was still anxious about the whole idea. “Well, first things first,” I said, pulling the truck off onto a side road. I drove for a few minutes before turning onto a random road and stopping. I opened the GPS app on my phone, “where should we leave the truck?”   

“Somewhere they will find it, but not on the way to the apartment.”   

“Wait, why do we want them to find it?” I asked confused. I figured we would want it gone.  

“Because we can use it to put them off for a while,” she explained.  

“Oh, okay, but they can still track my scent.”  

“It’s a decoy, not magic. We will have to figure out the scent issue, but this at least gives us something.”  

“Fair enough, okay, how about Sioux City?” I suggested, “It’s north of Omaha.”   

“It’s not bad, but we can do better. How about North Platte? If you go around south, you don’t have to go back through Columbus”   

“That’s like two hundred miles in the opposite direction,” I said stunned at the idea.   

“Exactly. We send them one way while we run the other.”  

I agreed with her point and nodded, selecting a route toward North Platte, Nebraska on the GPS, and turning the truck around. The drive took right at three hours from where we had pulled over, and I was anxious the entire drive. Every single vehicle I saw made me paranoid. My heart would race, and my breathing would become uneven. I didn’t know what to look for, and I only knew two of the faces.   

Goddess, I couldn’t believe the moon goddess fated that d**k head to me. I may not want a mate, but she could have just not given me one. Was this my goddess-given punishment for not wanting pups?  

“Val,” Astral interjected, “that's not how any of that works. The moon goddess mates us strategically. We don’t always understand her motives, but she always has a reason.”   

“Well, I think she owes me an explanation for why she would mate me to my own kidnapper,” I said sarcastically, “Look, I know she has her reasons, but am I not allowed to vent my frustrations?”  

“Of course, you are,” she laughed, “but, a mate is never a punishment. Although, they can be lessons.”  

“Lessons?” I furrowed my brow, “Lessons for what?”  

“It depends. She doesn’t do it a lot. Maybe for a lesson in greed or being power-hungry. It's usually related to someone needing to be taken down a peg or two for some reason or another.”  

“I’ve never heard of that,” I said skeptically.  

“Well, wolves have a different relationship with the moon goddess than our human counterparts.”  

“I knew that,” I chuckled.  

We carried on our conversation for the duration of the drive. She afforded a great deal of wisdom to me as we sped down the highway. Wolves were allowed to remember their previous lives, but humans were not. This was beneficial to both humans and wolves, their guidance helped create a better world for themselves and their human counterparts if we paid attention.  

As we approached North Platte on I-80, I noticed two big truck stops light up. The one called Flying J looked busier, so I pulled into the parking lot and pulled around the back of the lot where semis and travel trailers were parked. I took a spot in the very back, hoping it wouldn’t get noticed sitting there a couple of days, at least.    

I sat in the truck cab for several minutes, pretending to be on my phone, so I could look around to see if anyone was paying any attention to me. My eyesight was enhanced, now that I had Astral, it was dark, and the backside of the travel plaza was not as well-lit at the front, but I could see as if it were broad daylight outside. Two big men were sauntering around the building and a woman watching two small children playing near the door to a Winnebago.   

“I don’t see anyone else.”   

“Me neither,” said Astral.   

I dropped my phone into my purse and zipped it closed before stepping out of the truck. It was at that moment when I remembered I was still wearing my red dress and no shoes.   

“This is not good,” I told Astral.   

“What's wrong?”   

“I am wearing a red party dress and I’m barefoot,” I explained, “I stick out like a sore thumb. People will notice me.”   

“You’re shifting anyway,” she said, confused.   

“Right, but I have to have something to change into if we need to stop. Something that won’t make me memorable. Wait, maybe there's...” I had just thought of Donovan, he always had a random jacket or something in his car.   

I opened the truck door and started feeling under the seats, but there was nothing. I found the lever to pull the back of the seat forward. There was a toolbox, car jack, a couple of random baseballs, and a pair of rubber flip-flops. They were sure to be too big, but I could make that work. No jacket though.   

“What about the silver box in the back?” Astrid suggested.   

“Good call.” There was a smaller key on the keyring that unlocked the toolbox in the bed of the truck. Sitting right on top was a soft plaid flannel button-down. I slipped it on and pulled it around me. It hung down midthigh, covering all my cleavage and most of my dress.   

Now that I was comfortably covered, I adjusted my hair so that it was hanging around my face and headed into the building. Trying to be inconspicuous, I walked over to the expansive souvenir section. I found a long-sleeved t-shirt that read “Cornhuskers” across the front and a pair of black leggings. I couldn’t find any kind of bra, so I got a tank top with a built-in bra. There was a surprising selection of shoes, but I grabbed a pair of green rubber flip-flops because they were lightweight. I found a belt bag for hiking that looked big enough to hold everything.   

“You think you can wear this,” I silently asked Astral.   

“It can hang from my neck without any problems,” she surmised.   

“Good deal,” I replied before grabbing a couple of chocolate and peanut butter protein bars, a package of beef jerky, and a bottle of water.   

I was waiting in line at the counter when I noticed the hot foods bar. The last thing I ate was dinner before the show, and I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until right then. I finished paying for my stuff, then approached the food bar and ordered some fried chicken, macaroni and cheese, green beans, a bowl of potato soup, and a biscuit. While my order was being prepared, I changed in the bathroom and washed my face in the sink. Unfortunately, there was no way my dress could make the trip back since I would be shifted for most of the trip. I stuffed it and my empty purse into one of the large trash cans and piled a bunch of wet paper towels on top, hoping that would make it less noticeable.   

I grabbed my food from the counter and left through the same door I had come in, but I walked down the side of the building and through the rows of trucks, watching for anyone as I went. I stopped in the shadows of a couple of semi-trucks and quickly ate my hot dinner, tying the debris up into the plastic bag it came in and tossing it into a dumpster behind the truck.    

“Alright, Astral, I’m ready,” I said nervously.   

“You are, I promise,” she assured me, “I think it’s dark enough back here that you can make it to those trees. They’re only about twenty yards. We will have good coverage for you to shift in the woods.”   

I nodded and looked around, once again, making sure I wasn’t seen. All the trucks were backed into the spaces, so for someone to see me, they would have to be standing behind their truck, and I didn’t see anyone. “Here we go,” I breathed, before taking off as fast as I could run, which, as it turns out, was much faster than I ever could before.   

“Woah! I was not expecting that,” I squealed.   

“Shush!” Astral chuckled, “You can’t have gotten this far to have someone come searching the woods.”   

“Sorry,” I said to her, “I got a little excited.”   

She laughed, “Okay, are you ready?”   

“I think so. Is it really going to hurt?” I asked hesitantly.   

“Yes, and I’m not sugar coating anything for you. It's going to hurt, and you cannot, under any circumstances, scream out.”   

I inhaled deeply and held it for a moment before releasing it, “Okay, just let me find my calm.” I sat on the ground and meditated for a few minutes, observing my breathing and finding my center. I felt my muscles relax and my heart rate slow, coming steady and rhythmic.    

Maintaining my breathing and focusing on the steady tattoo of my heart, I stood to my feet and removed my clothes, carefully rolling them up and fitting them into the belt bag along with the flip-flops. “Thrum-Thrum...” I put the power bars and beef jerky into the bag. “Thrum-Thrum,” I made sure my phone was turned off and it, along with my wallet, was in the bag before slinging it over my neck. “Thrum-Thrum...”   

“Ready,” I said stoically.   

“Alright, Valerie,” came Astral’s voice low and comforting, “maintain your breathing and relax. Imagine that you are stepping backward, leaving your body.”   

I tried to imagine stepping back, but I actually did it. “Damn it.”   

“Breathe and focus, Valerie,” she warned, “No one gets it the first time. You must stay focused.”   

I nodded, closing my eyes and centering myself once more.   

Astral continued, “Imagine pulling your mind away from your body. Pull yourself backward toward the recesses of your mind. Imagine you are giving up control of your body.”   

I focused, maintaining relaxing breaths. I imagined I was pulling my mind away from my own thoughts, and there was darkness encroaching on the vision of my mind's eye.   

“Keep pulling, Valerie. Imagine you are a passenger, rather than the driver.”   

I kept pulling backward, focusing on giving up control, muscle by muscle. The blackness was consuming me, then I felt someone shove past me. I kept breathing and pulling, suddenly there was a sharp burning pain across my back and shooting down my arms and legs. I fought the urge to cry out in pain. It was excruciating; I knew I had to hold on, it couldn't last forever. The pain spread across my face and down my abdomen. My eyes were streaming with hot tears, and I had stopped breathing. I was holding my breath, doing everything I could not to scream from the pain radiating from every single cell in my body. I felt the blackness wash over me. I was sure death was imminent. This couldn’t be right. Something had to be wrong, I just knew it. Then, darkness.   

Unable to take it any longer, I inhaled deeply, and my eyes popped open, the pain was gone. It was like it had never been there at all. I looked around, but I was no longer looking at the world through my eyes. It's like I was standing back in a dark room, watching a scene through a kind of window. I looked down, but there was nothing there. For all I knew, I was just a set of eyeballs floating in space.    

“Astral?” I asked, uncertain.   

“Yes, Val?” Her voice was all around me.   

“Did we make it?”   

Her laugh was soft and kind, “yes, you did very well too.”   

“Oh, thank the goddess,” I exclaimed happily.   

“Step closer. You won't be able to see much, but you can at least see our coloring.”   

I walked through the dark expanse toward the window. I looked down and could see a fluffy snow-white chest and legs.   

“Are you completely white?”   

“Almost, entirely. My rear right paw is jet black,” she explained.   

“Oh, that’s funny,” I smiled, “Steele is jet black and his rear right paw is bright white.”   

“Yeah,” she murmured, “when I was going through your memories, I noticed that. Interesting. Anyway, you ready to go?”   

“Absolutely,” I smiled.