Psycher Chronicles

Chapter 32

Fast Times and Faster Prices

(Amoni Jacobs)

Amoni sat, knees tucked tightly to her chest as she was wedged between K-Bar, and J-Sweep, in the leather lined back seat of the new girl’s Mustang GT. Two-Tone, the largest of the team had managed to gain shotgun, and thus avoided being cramped in the back seat. Not that the car was particularly small, but rather so many of them crammed into one spot made it so their long legs all but collided with each other as they all tried to give as much space as possible to each other. The only problem was that each of them were huge, even the new girl was long and gangly.

“Thanks again for taking us.” Two-Tone said.

With that the new girl just nodded, though her actions seemed odd, almost as if they were forced in some way. There was something off about the gesture, there was a slight pause in her muscles, the time before she responded was also off. Not so far off that a normal person wouldn’t seem to notice, but slow for Misha.

For the briefest of moments Amoni wondered if Misha was some sort of immigrant, someone non-native to the states. That would make sense as to why she was so off about most things, seemingly separate. This would also explain her weird skills and fundamentals, as one of the moves she used during practice was clearly what was referred to as the Euro-step. While Americans had taken to using such a move, the way she uses the inside mis-direction step is seamless. Then even when you counter the feint, she is able to quickly adjust and fire within seconds. The only way to do that is to have practiced the moves and counters over and over to perfection.

With all the evidence that Amoni could identify, she was now almost certain that this girl before them was from Europe or somewhere. If she was, then her actions would make sense, she might have even been scouted, find a tall European with decent basketball acumen, groom her for an elite college program.

The idea seemed fantastical, but there were many odd stories that people heard, particularly when it came to recruiting basketball players from other countries. Even the idea of Misha being brought over a year early to help integrate properly didn’t seem like too much of a stretch for Amoni to consider.

With Misha being a foreigner so many minor things would make so much sense, the way she seemed almost clueless to the dangerous pack members that now surrounded her. Granted they were all happy to get a ride from the girl, but Misha seemed to be totally uncaring about the lurking threat of being surrounded by so many predators.

Even the most unobservant of normies, or those who were not pack members felt an instinctual fear of being around fellow pack members. Yet, this girl not so much.

In fact, this girl seemed to have no sense of preservation. Though not that she really needed to be preserved, as she met every challenge head on, which was as commendable as it was annoying. Annoying in that Amoni had met very few people who dared to challenge her, and of those that did, only this girl and Jerome had managed to actually stand up against her.

Finally, through her own thoughts, Amoni realized that entire conversations were going on around her. Conversations that meant almost nothing.

“Oh, look isn’t that the new football star, Rodger?” J-Sweep asked from Amoni’s right side.

Screech.

At that, the whole car came to a complete halt, as Amoni was able to see her car being driven by Jerome pull right next to their car. Well it wasn’t really her car, but rather the car she had gotten used to driving and maintaining as her own over these past few months.

“Hey, ladies.” Jerome howled out in his annoyingly arrogant tone. Right now, just hearing her cousin made Amoni’s blood boil, as he was driving her car. The whole reason why they all had to cram into the new girl’s vehicle after practice was due to him.

In fact, the more she thought about the time and circumstances.

“Damn Misha, do you have a thing for Rodger?” K-Bar asked from Amoni’s right side.

Flustered.

There was a quick tightening of muscles, that almost looked like anger if Amoni had to guess the cause. With that, Amoni cut in, completely losing her train of thought about the new girl from being from Europe, and instead focusing on this new chink in her armor.

“Oh, wait, look at that, she is.” Amoni said mockingly, adding to the comment.

Nothing.

This time there were no flashes of anger from being called out on her attraction to the newest pack member. Instead, all she saw was calm.

No, not true calm, but more of a forced calm that one would expect to see right before a storm. Honestly, Amoni didn’t know what to think about the new girl’s reaction.

Red Light.

Due to the sudden stopping, both cars ended up missing the green light and instead had to wait patiently at the red light.

“AWOOO!” Alishia cried out from Jerome’s car.

Hearing her, Amoni instantly recoiled in anger, as she hated that girl. She hated Alishia’s striking good looks, her indomitable spirit, and the fact that she was clearly going to try to be her own Alpha. Right now, it was assumed that Jerome and Alishia would be co-alphas of the newest pack members, but Jerome was too stupid to see how much Alishia plotted behind his back.

The one-time Amoni tried to warn her stupid cousin about the betrayal, he just laughed at her and called her jealous. That was why she had been mostly silent about the entire thing since, realizing that her words were falling on deaf ears, she chose to follow the wisdom of her father and not speak again, until he was willing to listen.

Unfortunately, it had been months since they last spoke on any meaningful level. It seemed that Jerome was adamant that he only listened to Alishia, who he figured was aiming for the role of pack shaman. This was a fact that had been passed onto her in strictest confidence by other members of the pack earlier this week. In fact, she had only managed to confirm the allegations when she happened to overhear a conversation between Jerome and his father, the current pack chief.

There he confessed that he doubted Amoni’s commitment to the pack and felt that Alishia would be a better Shaman.

“The choice of who you choose as your shaman will ultimately be up to you. Just realize that until you surpass me, making firm decisions now on who you will choose and for which position is a waste. You should spend this time gaining strength, and prestige.” Mr. Jacobs said.

That seemed to be enough for the day.

The next of course is when something happened to Amoni’s van. Something about an initiation gone wrong, which Amoni was still being left in the dark about, as her parents and her uncle were apparently handling the matter.

“We should totally race them.” Two-Tone said, her words pulling Amoni out from her musings.

“What?” Was all Amoni managed, but then before Amoni could formulate a challenge to the statement, J-Sweep was already rolling down the window and shouting at Jerome.

“Let’s race sucker!” J-Sweep shouted.

“You’re on!” Jerome cried out, his bravado all but forcing him to accept the challenge.

Vroom.

At that Jerome let his engine rev just a bit, as Amoni looked, she saw the same toothy grin in his smile.

“That’s my car.” Amoni said, only to have her words drowned out by the other girls and passengers in Jerome’s vehicle as well.

The only person not shouting was Misha, who just revved her engine even harder clearly challenging the vehicle.

Logistically there should be no real challenge here, as the GT clearly was faster and more powerful than Amoni’s old but maintained Accord.

The only thing that Jerome had was superior reflexes. Reflexes that could be used to get the head start, accelerate forward and ultimately try to run Misha off the road in some perversive form of dominance.

“No, don’t.” Amoni tried, but before her words could be settled, the red haze of the traffic light ended, revealing a bright green color.

VRRROOMMM!

And before Amoni could react, she felt her entire body get thrown backwards into the leather bucket seat, as the vehicle she was in accelerated forward at a speed she could not have predicted.

No squealing of tires, slips in traction, just perfect grip and acceleration.

From the corner of her eye, she saw her own dark gray car slowly fade behind, a sign that Jerome had either missed the start, his tires didn’t grip well enough, or the Accord was not able to accelerate at the same speed and pace that Misha was able to get out of her GT.

The effect was obvious, as they met the straightaway out of town and had already hit the posted speed limit and the increased buffer within seconds.

Hrr-vrrr.

The Accord, Amoni’s beautiful Accord, well it wasn’t really hers, as the van had been hers but she still loved and cared for that Accord like it was her own, revved to life and began gaining on them, but they were just too slow.

Movement right.

A car quickly peeled off the side road, and was about to swoop in to stop Misha, but she quickly swerved around the merging vehicle before disaster could strike.

Only after they passed the vehicle did the unused rack of blue lights on the top register in Amoni’s mind.

“Oh shit!” Two-Tone and J-Sweep both cried out in unison, their minds having registered the threat almost immediately. Still, Misha did not stop her acceleration.

There was a moment when time seemed to slow down.

Amoni saw the moment the flashing blue lights of the cop car that they had passed blazed to life. For a moment Amoni felt her heart skip a beat, as she knew she would be part of a traffic stop.

Then there was something, a flash of bright yellow from the front. Looking forward, Amoni caught the barest traces of blinding yellow light coming from the rearview mirror. Her mind was trying to process the cause for the light, when suddenly she heard the screeching of brakes from behind her, then the unmistakable sound of one vehicle crashing into another.

VERRRR!

Boom-crash!

Prrr.

Silence.

After that, Misha just drove on, slowly lowering her speed until she was going the posted speed limit.

Everyone was quiet, as everyone, Amoni included, all turned back to see the aftermath of what happened.

As she looked back, she saw a white police cruiser pulled out halfway into the right turn lane. Behind them was the crumpled remains of a dark gray Accord that had smoke rising from the engine block. Further investigation showed that the police car was not much better, as the back driver’s side wheel well looked like it was now impeding the tire, making it so that even if the officer wanted to still chase after Misha, he wouldn’t be able to.

Just seeing the vehicle in such a state caused Amoni’s heart to rise up in her chest, as her baby was gone. Her car, the vehicle that she had been destroyed.

Within seconds, the cop, a young skinny guy who Amoni knew was pack, or at least pack adjacent in his beliefs stepped out of his vehicle and began heading towards the back to see the damage.

That was all the group managed to see, before they got to a turn and the scene of the accident got out of view.

The entire thing had been surreal.

Even now, as the spike of adrenaline that she had felt during the race and subsequent chase by the cops began to fade, Amoni could only feel slightly lost at the whole sequence.

Worse there had been something wrong about the encounter.

It took Amoni a second to realize, but even with the cop suddenly swerving into the lane like that, Jerome should have been able to react quickly enough and swerve around. Sure, he likely would have become the next target of the officer, having to make such a quick maneuver, but the fact that he didn’t move, well that seemed to mean something happened.

Then there was the glowing yellow light from the front of the vehicle. Only now did Amoni wonder if she saw the eyes of Misha glowing yellow, but if so what did that mean?

“Wow, we were so lucky.” K-Bar said.

“Lucky, they took out my car.” Amoni replied indignantly.

“Yeah, but look on the bright side?” Two-Tone said from the front.

“What bright side?” Amoni squawked, yes she hated it, but her voice did sometimes squawk when she got excited. It was small and something that only people who knew her knew what to look for, but it still bothered her, nonetheless.

“Now they too will have to ride the bus, just like us.” Two-Tone said.

There was a slight awkward pause as everyone took in those words. Then after a second, everyone began to laugh.

HAHAHA!

“Serves them right.” K-Bar replied, feeling the same indignantly that Amoni herself felt from the whole situation.

“Yeah, that makes what two cars in a week? The man should be forced to stop driving.” J-Sweep added.

Ears twitching.

With that Misha’s ears twitched, as she apparently liked something she heard in that last statement by J-Sweep, though for the life of her Amoni couldn’t understand what exactly.

Then before Amoni had too much time to think about the new girl’s odd reaction to J-Sweep’s comments, the new girl spoke.

“You know, I could give you all rides to and from school for the next few days,” Misha offered.

“Really?” Two-Tone asked.

“Yeah, I mean, we are teammates, after all.”

There was something off about the way Misha said teammates that caught Amoni’s enhanced senses and seemed to stick in there, but there was nothing about her words or actions that truly let Amoni understand why she would react so differently with that word alone.

Maybe she was from Russia and was used to saying comrade? Amoni mused to herself, but ultimately dismissed the idea, as the entire team seemed to be excited at the idea that Misha would drive them to and from practices for the next few weeks.

Only once they all got out at Amoni’s house, and Misha had driven away did the others all bombard Amoni with questions. Questions that unfortunately Amoni was unable to answer.

“So, can we make her a full member of the pack?” Two-Tone asked, clearly excited, as she had been one of the first to speak up for the new girl since seeing her.

“I have to agree. I was at first reserved about her as well, but seeing her these past few weeks. She seems cool.” J-Sweep replied.

With that, all eyes turned to Amoni, while her eyes instinctively turned to K-Bar, her biggest friend and confidant.

At that K-Bar winced slightly, realizing what she was about to say might hurt a little.

“Honestly, agree with these two. She is pretty cool, if you just give her a chance,” K-Bar replied.

Then like that, it was up to Amoni, to press the fact that the final member of their pack dominated team would be Misha.

This was no small ask, as the people recommended by the shaman should be resolute. Anyone wishing to be a shaman had to make sure that the people that were brought in were of the highest of quality and character, as being a pack member is for life, meaning that if a mistake was made it would be costly, both for the pack and for the unfortunate soul who was unworthy of the chance they were given.

Realizing all of this, and the fact that Alishia was already getting her hooks into new recruits like Rodger, made Amoni realize that if she wanted to be the pack’s shaman, she needed to act decisively. This threat to her pack’s position was likely the only reason why Amoni was willing to even contemplate adding the new girl in the first place.

“All right, I’ll think about it.”

“Yes!” The other girls cried out triumphantly, apparently all feeling that they were committed to this little conspiracy.