Chapter 74

Calling A Friend

(Amoni Jacobs)

It had been a long week. Heck it had been a long year. Everything that possibly could go wrong had. Basketball and trips outside of the county were cancelled for the immediate future while the CDC spoke about shutting down the entire eastern seaboard while they try to quarantine the odd substance that was released in the mall and the Hasty concern.

Added to that was the fact that her father and her cousin both had perished.

Now, she could not get ahold of the replacement alpha, Alishia, who calling her a ‘B’ would be derogatory towards female dogs. No, it was not her week? Month? Year?

Grrind.

Worse, she was now in this car that had been driven by her cousin, someone who apparently had no clue how to allow an engine to shift between gears.

She meant to take it to Misha to get her to check it out, but at first she held out as she was angry at the new girl as seemingly everything that went wrong, all began when she arrived.

Everything from her losing her spot, to her mojo, then her family.

While it was obvious that she lost her spot due to talent, and that Misha clearly had nothing to do with her father or her cousin, it still managed to make her feel better blaming the girl.

Truth be told, Amoni herself had also skipped class, or at least she would have had it not been for her vehicle. The only problem was that now, when she finally felt like taking a moment to ask Misha for help, this was of course the first day that Misha called out sick.

A day that Amoni should have taken in solace herself.

Of course, she could have taken her father’s car, but that had been where they found his body. Where she had found his body.

Then thinking back on it, Amoni couldn’t help but feel sort of guilty at that. His face look so confused.

Worse, their last conversation with each other had been an argument, one where she spent the night at Two-Tone's.

Had he been depressed? How much carbon monoxide does it take to kill a fully powered werewolf? Surely more than one would expect. Meaning, he almost had to have killed himself.

Did he do it on purpose? Was he sorry that he argued with me? These thoughts and more went through Amoni’s mind.

At first Amoni felt angry that Misha had even called out, today of all days when she needed her the most. She hadn’t called out when her own grandmother passed away, but now she called out?

Then as if realizing how selfish her own thoughts were, Amoni chastised herself, for she realized that this year had also been tough for Misha, as she lost her grandmother. It was also her first time being allowed to enter school, and despite thinking she would be completely awkward, she was surprisingly easy to get along with.

These thoughts were made worse by the fact that Amoni had been indirectly involved in the death of her grandmother, thanks to her former packmate and cousin. The very person who went about randomly trying to slaughter random civilians as some form of pack initiation.

Putter.

Once again, Amoni’s thoughts were drawn to the way her loaner vehicle was puttering. Which of course led her back to the last time she had this car serviced. Shortly after Jerome’s death. Things had been bad, but that was when Misha had come through the most.

To help raise funds, Misha and her grandfather held a local fundraiser to get every vehicle EMP compliant. During that time she had just done a cursory job of fixing her vehicle and getting it to run.

“I can fix it, but I’ll need an hour to get everything cleaned out.” Misha had stated at the time.

Unfortunately, that was when they were twenty cars in line, and Amoni didn’t want to press her teammate too much at the time. So instead she waited.

“Nah, it’s fine,” Amoni had replied.

Sputter, putt-put-poof.

There was an explosion, or what felt like a mini explosion for Amoni. Worse, almost immediately after the explosion, the power started to fade from her vehicle and only by instincts did she have enough forethought to begin pulling the clearly dying and sputtering vehicle over to the side of the road.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Looking around, Amoni only saw cornfields and deserted lanes everywhere.

For a moment the idea of one of those cheesy horror films flashed in her mind, as she realized this is exactly the start to one of those bad stories.

AWOO!

Off far off in the distance, Amoni swore she heard the howl of a wolf crying out.

The sound sent a chill down her spine as it was the call of an Alpha daring to challenge anyone who came on its territory.

Fortunately for Amoni, she was a few miles away and likely not the cause of that Alpha’s bestial roar, but still this was not the territory.

Mentally in her mind she went through the different pack members and could not think of one that owned a farm this far out.

In fact, this far out, she knew she was close to one of the local parks, though to be fair state parks were all around Jackson, part of the allure for her family. Plenty of wilderness to roam around in, though there had been questions about pack loyalty of late.

Particularly with the pack Shaman, her father dead, and the next Alpha slaughtered, there was just Alishia, but she shouldn’t be out here.

Or maybe she would be, but that wasn’t the sound of Alishia in her combat form, that was the sound of a fully aged werewolf.

Freaking out, Amoni pulled up her phone and all but expected to find that there was no reception.

Which was why she was surprisingly shocked to see one lone bar letting her know she could make a call.

Exhaling.

With that small glimmer of hope, Amoni opened up her phone and began scrolling through her contacts. In her contacts she had her friends and teammates all listed by her own personal nickname for them.

Rocket

Stabrina

Trouble

Two-Tone

Looking at the list of names, her mind went out to see where each member was. Rocket and Sabrina had both moved out of town years ago, though she still kept their contact info.

Two-Tone made the most sense, as that was where she had been heading to. Or was going to head to after a quick nature walk, but not after hearing the clear challenge of an aged Alpha.

As the niece of the current pack alpha and daughter of the shaman, she was never to show fear or reverence towards another alpha, lest it make her father appear weaker. Better for her to run and hide, than to submit.

Or so her teachings had gone.

This was why, Amoni chose this moment to try to flee.

For a moment, she wondered who she had as Trouble, but then realized it was Misha the very person who could have helped her fix her vehicle if she but asked.

Then pausing for a moment, she hesitated and tried to call Two-Tone but her finger clearly slipped.

Long pause.

There was the ever long pause that only seems to happen far out in the boonies. Ones where you can almost feel the waves of energy reaching out and trying to connect to the local towers. The entire thing felt both comforting and oddly disquieting at the same time.

For Amoni and most wolves of this generation, the comfort of a phone came from the fact that it was almost a given that it was needed to blend in with society. As such the residual bursts of energy and technology were both accepted and appreciated. Simultaneously though, there was an odd undercurrent that the wolf part of her hated. She wasn’t alone as it seemed that all wolves thought technology was inherently bad, but a now noted necessary evil that had to be accepted.

Brrinng.

Finally, after a long time the phone finally began ringing. Almost instantly, Amoni felt relief wash through her as she realized that this meant she would be safe.

For there was no one who knew more about cars than Misha. Though unlike boys or other gear heads that Amoni had met, Misha never flaunted her mechanical superiority. In fact, had Amoni not seen her in action herself, she would have thought that the grandfather was the one who was a true mechanic. But he seemed to defer to Misha at all times.

Click-click.

The sound of the phone connecting and then what had to be an echo of that connection were heard. Again, these were subtle signs that Amoni noticed due to her keen hearing, but ones that let her know just how far out of the way she was.

“Hello?” The somewhat confused voice of Misha answered.

For a moment, Amoni wanted to chastise her for sounding confused, but then realized that up until this point she had never called Misha directly.

“Hi, its me,” Amoni began, then realizing how bad that sounded, she continued. “Amoni…”

“I know, are you okay?” Misha asked, her voice sounding slightly confused on the other end.

For a moment Amoni wanted to be strong, but then realized that maybe Misha could help her get out of here.

“No,” Amoni cried out, her emotions almost getting the better of her. It had been a long day. Her father died, her car died, and now she was out here in the middle of a murdering corn patch with what had to be a rogue wolf trying to claim dominance. It was all too much and Amoni didn’t know what to do.

Sob.

In the end, rather than saying everything that had been on her mind, but instead she just let out a sad whimper.

“I take it you are having car troubles?” Misha asked in her oddly cold calm and methodical voice. Something that Amoni normally hated, especially the way she never got fired up, even on game days, but now, in this moment, Amoni felt somehow reassured by this reaction.

“Yes,” Amoni again cried out, but this time she was able to keep herself from sounding like a complete wreck. Instead, she just sounded like a partial wreck.

“Okay, I need you to do two things for me.” Misha replied, her voice calm and steady like the earth.

“Okay,” Amoni responded.

“First, take in a deep breath, you are going to be fine,” Misha replied.

At that, Amoni took in a partial breath, as her chest was too tight to take in a full breath, but that seemed to do the trick as now at least Amoni felt like she could talk without bursting into tears after every word.

“Okay,” Amoni stated, letting her know that the first task had been completed.

“Next, I need you to put the phone on speaker and place it on your dashboard. I am going to walk you through a quick diagnostic of your vehicle.” Misha explained.

Once again, Amoni did as requested, placing the glowing light of the phone up on the dashboard.

From a wolf trying to hide her location, this was the worst thing possible, as that light would be visible for miles around, given how dark everything was out here. That said, Amoni felt it was worth it to get out of here quickly, while not having to wait for a tow truck to come and get her.

“Okay,” Amoni said, once that task was also completed.

“Now, I need you to place your feet on the gas and brake petal at the same time and try to start your engine.”

“Both?” Amoni asked, as this sounded stupid and something that she had been warned numerous times not to do.

“Yes,” Misha answered confidently. Hearing her confidence, Amoni figured what was the worst that could happen? She was already out here in the middle of nowhere. Half expecting a chainsaw wielding werewolf to come out and strike her down.

Plop-plop.

“Okay, now before you turn the key, gently take your foot off the accelerator.”

“Okay?”

Plop.

With that the sound of the accelerator pushing back out could be heard in the overly quiet vehicle.

“Now try to turn on your motor,” Misha stated through the phone.

“Okay?” Amoni replied, not expecting anything to happen. Which was why she was suddenly startled when the dashboard lit up, and her car began to rev to live almost instantly.

Vrooom.

Suddenly the car was purring proudly.

“Oh thank you, that worked, I guess I’ll let you go now?” Amoni said, not wanting to waste too much more of Misha’s time.

“No, you should probably keep this call going and take the vehicle straight to our shop,” Misha stated.

“Any shop?”

“No ours, don’t worry, I’ll work on it for free, but you definitely have a lot of work still that needs to be done.”

“But it sounds fine now?” Amoni protested.

Sputter-puff-pop.

Then almost as if on cue, the car had a slight hiccup and sounded almost exactly like it did before she had this trouble.

“Okay, never mind, I’ll be right there.” Amoni said, then pausing for a moment, she stated truthfully “thank you.”

“Not a problem, now come on before Gramps won’t let me work on it tonight.” Misha stated.

And like that, Amoni looked out at the night sky and saw that it was in fact getting dark.

“All right,” Amoni said, pulling her vehicle that seemed to flow like water over the backroads.

As she left, she failed to see the two glowing red-yellow eyes of the predator who was tracking her departure. The only sign that Amoni felt something was off was by the slight shiver she felt, and the way she could swear she saw fireflies in the sky, despite it being far past the time for fireflies.