I exhale and almost cry with relief and turn to pull my hands from Carmen, who no longer has reason to hold me back.
“Are you coming?” I ask her warily, legs shaking from adrenalin and weakening with relief as she nods. Gesturing back to a hold-all on the steps she must have thrown together before hyper-speeding down here. She retrieves it, and we head for the truck's passenger door, her climbing in first with me last, to sit on the double seat side by side.
“Glad you could make it.” Meadow smirks, knowing full well she almost gave me a heart attack minutes ago. No remorse whatsoever in her tone or her amused expression.
“Sometimes I don’t like you!” I point out, hand over my chest to calm my heart rate, glaring at her scornfully, and she laughs
“Ahhh, but Hermana, you love me more than life.”
“So, where are we going?” Carmen cuts in, impatient already, and I can feel the anxiety swarming from her in getting to go already. There’s a smog of impatience in her manner and a restlessness that seems unnatural. I can’t imagine what she feels today, but it’s coming across as subtle hostile tension.
“New Mexico, Chica. Sierra will call us when we are almost there to pinpoint where exactly. We have a rough town to aim for right now, but Sierra will keep using a locator spell to get us right to her when we arrive.” Meadow pulls out her cell and shakes it for Carmen to prove somehow that Sierra knows how to use such things before sliding it back into her pocket.
We packed our bags last night and stowed them in the truck, so we have nothing to wait around for. Sun is coming up, the homestead will start to wake soon, and we need to move before that happens. Least amount of hold-ups, and we can focus on what’s to come.
I told Sierra not to see us off, or I wouldn’t go. I’m worried about her being alone to cope as Luna in my absence. There is no support, not even the subpack here to help and advise her, and I know that seeing her looking so lost would have swayed me. I’m hoping it’s an uneventful two or three days for her, or however long we are gone, and that the fog around the perimeter keeps the pack in their homes and out of her hair. There’s nothing else for them to do until we know more and whether we can do something.
They have enough fresh supplies for the month, and we still have our animals, our dried stores, and the ability to produce some of our vegetables in the homestead greenhouses we set up months ago. We can stay put and safe without leaving the grounds for four weeks, provided nothing else happens. It’s the best thing for them all to do.
I’m startled back out of my thoughts by the truck starting up again, and I spot Tom getting out of the way, his accompanying two wolves who are going on perimeter patrol this morning showing up beside him. I can see the question in their eyes as they spot who is here. I hold my breath, pausing in alarm because I know that the mind-link gossip will start doing the rounds sooner than later.
Meadow is the military leader after Colton, I’m Luna, and here we are, abandoning them right after their Alpha fell to a spell. I know it looks bad, and they will panic, but they must trust I’m leaving to try fixing this.
“Good luck”! Tom pack links us, and I catch the side-eyed suspicious looks he gets from his mates, but they say nothing, watch us turn out of the gravel drive, and head towards the opening and into the fog. I can almost taste their fear and anticipation as they realize we don’t intend to stop where clean air meets emerald mist, but as soon as we cross the boundary, I lift my hands in readiness to push the fog away should I need to, and we lose all contact with those inside.
It cuts off Tom’s mind link and the rest of my pack like an invisible barrier. For the first time in 6 months, all those subtle feelings and vibrations I am so accustomed to - the emotions of my people that follow me every day. They all fall silent like I just stepped into a soundproofed chamber, and it’s intense. A feeling of being swept over by a veil of cold. A sense of loss, heightened worry, and sadness that I’m leaving them. All that’s left is the tension and silent apprehension of Meadow and Carmen, suddenly intensified as they no longer compete with all the others around me. I blink back out of the rear window on the back door as the fog surrounds us and envelopes us from seeing the homestead.
“Well, this was something I didn’t think of.” Meadow sharply cuts into my thoughts and pulls me back to face the front window, glancing at her furrowed scowl and newly aggravated mood.
“What?” I frown at her and look out when she nods ahead at the misty view feet before us, and I click right away at what she’s hinting. We can’t see a damn thing, not even the road. Despite the fog near the boundary seeming thinner and almost transparent in places, coupled with morning mist from the mountains, damp air, and dull light, it’s killing vision beyond four feet.
“That’s why I’m here!” I point out and lift my hands to part the smog. Splitting it apart enough to clear our view for a couple of hundred feet gives us an almost uninterrupted path, pushing it out as we go. It’s eerie and deathly silent out here. It's a strange, surreal atmosphere, and with the sun peeking up to warm the green air, it’s an almost haunting atmosphere. It reminded me of a memory many moons ago when the mountain fogs stayed around the valley for three days, and no one could see a foot in front of them while the noises of daily life echoed spookily around.
“Where do you think they are?” Carmen quips in, and I squint my eyes to the side to look through the density and shrug. Knowing I can feel the presence of others out there, tingling my sixth sense at a distance, but not enough to decide if it’s them I can feel or the homestead behind.
“I don’t know. I can’t feel any of them for certain. There’s nothing but emptiness and shallow vibrations.”
I spoke too soon, and almost as the words leave my mouth, the truck shudders at the rear, like we were kicked by something hard and heavy, as something fast collides weirdly. It reverberates through the vehicle's metal and sends shivers up my spine, widening my eyes in alarm.
Meadow almost loses control of the wheel for a second as she tries to correct our wobble and floors it as fast as possible. I push myself out of my seat and dash into the truck's rear to peer out the window to see if I can see anything, but I also have to keep my hands splayed to the front to keep the fog parted so she can see where she is going. My heart is racing. Sweat is forming across my forehead as my stress levels skyrocket. It truly felt like something was thrown at us.
Carmen follows me with haste and peers out too, wiping the condensation, which starts to collect from our combined heavy breathing as we are rocked again with another strong shockwave. This time though, even though it causes the side of the truck to shudder, it doesn’t veer us from our path, and a strange mystical air ripple travels down around us in much the same way the rune border can move when hit with the enchanted pack.
“Look.” Carmen grabs my arm and shakes me, pointing to the far left out of the very corner of the window, and I spot the wolves running parallel inside the fog around us. They keep up speed to meet ours, and one takes a running leap at us again. Only this time, we see it. They bounce off the invisible wall, much like they do with the homestead boundary, and send another violent thwack of energy through our vehicle. Although we are hit, it’s like we have a forcefield, and we shake, but the barrier takes most of the impact so we can keep going.
The spell’s working, for without it, they would have taken this truck down in one run and undoubtedly be all over the top of us, ripping through the metal with their claws. They are barely denting the surface of the strange orb around us, and as long as Meadow keeps us on the road and going, they won’t be able to do a damned thing. Unless they figure out that throwing trees and boulders might take us down, they are so focused on chasing, intent on pursuing, that they don’t stop to find non-enchanted items as weapons. I wonder if the fog has pushed instinct and chased away logical thinking, as Colton would have thought of an alternative attack had he not been under a spell.
“Is that Colton?” Carmen squeaks, pulling my thoughts of him to reality as a dark black shadowy wolf, bigger than the rest and defined by his darkest fur and forbidding presence, runs at us and leaps the roof.
I cower instinctively, waiting for the impact of his sheer weight and brute strength, but it doesn’t come, and we see him rolling to the ground on the opposite side of the road as though he went right over the top of us. He obviously couldn’t get on the roof, swayed by the protection, but it didn’t stop him from chasing us, regardless.
“Yeah…. That’s him.” The words stick in my throat bitterly, and I have to look away as tears blind me, pain surging in my chest and crushing my heart at the angry, vengeful wolf coming at us again. Colton isn’t in there anymore. Only darkness and fury and a mind set on destruction control that powerful body, and I can’t bear to look at him and see someone so familiar, someone I love and worship, trying to destroy us. He’s determined to derail our vehicle.
“What do we do?” Meadow seems locked onto the window in front of her, veering around wolves trying to get in our way but being pushed aside by our invisible forcefield. Unable to tear her gaze away from the high-speed maneuvers. I check I’m keeping the fog open for her to navigate through and raise my shoulders in a shrug, overwhelmed at the numbers of them swarming at us from all angles. The mist is not getting any thinner, but we’re heading out onto the road to the main route. Still getting out, even if we’re being chased.
“Keep going… pray they give up. Try not to run anyone over in the process.” I state loudly, catching the determined look on Carmen’s face and then the stiffening posture of Meadow in the driver's seat. The air around us is thick with tension, subtle fear seeping out, and anxiety tainting the oxygen because we have no idea how to process what’s happening.
All three of us gasp loudly, rocked in reaction by a sudden jolt as we’re thrown sideways violently inside the back of the truck. I barely catch myself as I go sprawling across the smooth floor, grasping for a hold, and Carmen grabs me by the waist and yanks me against her as she braces us to one of the beds. Meadow screeches at us to hold on to something with a frenzied croak.
“They jumped in front of me. I think I hit him! I did hit him, them… God knows how many, but…. I hit HIM!.” her voice breaks, tears evident as her pain saturates her emotions, her face crumbling as her brows hit her lashes, and she struggles back a sob. I crawl to the front seats as carefully as possible, trying not to let my forcefield down so the fog stays separated, and cling onto the back of the chair to squint at her. “It was Cesar…. it was my baby. I’m sure of it.” She mumbles on in distress, her voice wavering, and her grip is so tight on the wheel that her knuckles are white and solid.
“You know he’ll be fine. He’s in wolf form. Even under a spell, he should heal.” I try to soothe her, but the intensity of her heartbreak seeps into my soul, and I slide down beside her on the seats, overwhelmed with heaviness and the urge to break down and cry too.
“I hit my mate with a truck, Chica …. there’s no going to be fine when he finds out I did that. He will unbind me and send me packing for sure.” She stubbornly wipes a tear and gasps as another fleeting wolf form jumps in front of us again, causing her to swerve left, and I’m thrown against the door this time. I see the collision of the wolf hitting the side, but the forcefield makes it feel like we just grazed bushes, and he spirals off horrifyingly, like a spinning top. If I hadn’t seen the wolf being bounced away from a devastating impact, I would never have believed we had just hit an eight-hundred-pound animal in full fury mode.
“What the fuck are they doing?” Carmen spits out and comes to sit back upfront with us, clipping on our belts as a precaution because this is far from over. I’m already bruised from being thrown around and getting weary from holding my powers up and going onwards to keep the path clear.
“Trying to stop us and failing. They don’t seem bright enough to realize they can’t.” I point out.
“So, the spell made them stupid?” Carmen verbalizes my suspicion, and I shrug, deflated, and search the fog and the moving figures for the one wolf I want to see, yet don’t since he jumped over us back there. I don’t know how to feel knowing he’s there, despite not being able to sense him, but he’s intent on chasing us.
“I would say they’re more like on autopilot. One thought, one urge, and all other reason has disappeared.” It’s the only way I can describe how they are right now, and Meadow nods, wiping her soggy face and pulling herself back together with that fierce aura of command kicking in now her shock has dissipated.
“The spell has them looking for wolf blood, no matter what stands in their way. They don’t seem to think beyond that. It’s pure instinct and no sense of being able to calculate beyond it.”
“Are you sure that’s what they’re doing? Has anyone actually tried to see if they will do anything to us?” Carmen looks from her to me, severe doubt written all over her face, which only pushes me to doubt what’s happening here.
“Do you wanna get out and see, Chica? I will happily open the door and throw you out to test this theory. See how long you last in the fog.” Meadow snaps at her, and Carmen rolls her eyes, sitting back bitchily, and crosses her arms over her bust arrogantly. Anger and dislike pouring into her eyes, piercing like daggers in Med's direction. Strangely, despite being the last thing we need, it’s somehow comforting to see them behaving like they used to and normalizing things for a second.
“I think what they’re doing now is proof enough. If they wanted something else, I doubt they would be attacking.” I try for a gentler approach, but Meadow and Carmen sit in stubborn silence and stare ahead as we progress. The atmosphere turns frosty, and I sigh to shake off the battle between these two stubborn femmes. My arms are getting sorer by the second due to holding them up with intent, and my energy is waning, holding my powers straight and steady for so long to keep the fog clear. I wonder how much further before we are free from it and I can take a small breather. I’m not used to using my gifts for long periods, usually only in quick bursts.
“It’s getting thinner. I think I might be able to see without you doing that.” Meadow breaks into my thoughts, sensing my tiredness which is coming way quicker than it normally does, and I sigh with relief and drop my hands. Exhaling heavily and rubbing my shoulders to ease the pain. “Reserve it for when we need it. You’ve had a rough night and probably should rest.” She throws me a look that says ‘please,’ and I sit back to let the ache from my arms disperse.