Sacrificed Soul

Chapter Three

Vicky was bouncing up and down in the passenger seat of the jeep, and it wasn't a little movement, either. With every shove, she lifted her butt about a foot in the air, her head nearly passing through the top where they had removed the canvas and shoved it into the back. After Vicky had stopped laughing about the paint job, that is. Now, she was shouting along with the music that was blaring from blown speakers, her smile infectious and energy endearing.

Leanne, however, had white knuckles with her grip on the steering wheel. The power steering was already jacked, and it was difficult to keep the vehicle going straight with how it was rocking even on the well used fire road that led to the plains. The worn suspension groaned with every tilt, a constant squeak that reminded her of the gray squirrels that liked to cry out from their perches on fallen trees. She prayed to the pregnant moon so very far away that they would both make it through the night in one piece.

The road narrowed for the third time, this time around a bend with a cliff dropping vertically on the side where she couldn't see any possible oncoming traffic, and after a hair rising moment where she let the jeep crawl around the corner, they arrived. There were a few cars left from the run earlier in the day, likely from shifter clans that had decided to wear their fur all the way to the pack house. She parked near a crusty old blue Astro van that she recognized as the McFurly's, setting the emergency break and unbuckling her seatbelt with shaking hands.

Still jumping, Vicky had started repeating the words, "I'm so excited!" over and over until Leanne escaped the confines of the car.

Her stomach hurt. She felt like she had to pee, too. Her arms curled around her body as she held herself. Her mother had once said that fear and excitement could be easily confused, that they had the same emotional and physical responses. Leanne wasn't so sure. She wanted to run back home. She knew she could manage it, and her sneakers were in good shape. A lot of wolves didn't bother with conditioning their two-legged bodies, their toned physiques a natural occurrence after finding their wolf, but endurance was another animal entirely. Running the trails that littered the mountains had made sure she stayed vigilant.

"I know what you're thinking, so stop it," Vicky huffed as she crossed the back of the Jurassic-Halloween-horror-park jeep, an aerosol can of bug repellent she must have grabbed from the passenger door in her hand, "We're already here."

"I know," she said as Vicky got to work spraying down their exposed skin, "It's just been a while since I've been out here. You know how it is."

"Yeah. But it'll be fine, I promise. I won't leave your side for a single minute. My wolf is tired, anyway, so I won't shift either."

Leanne doubted that, but she really did want to see her friend's other body, so she followed the dominant female beyond the thick trees that protected the plains from view. She tightened her arms over her chest, grossed out by the way her legs slid against each other with the moisture of the bug spray, and overall just regretting allowing herself to be bullied into going. Staring at Vicky's back, she stuck her tongue out.

The shadows of the forest were stretched and construed, dancing with the flames of the bonfire in the empty field. It was a testament to how large the wood pile must have been, and Leanne couldn't help but wonder if there was a plan should they catch the forest on fire. Again, very doubtful, but her thoughts were ripped away from proper fire containment when Vicky stopped to grab a hold of her hand and drag her out of the protection of the woods. She hadn't realized that her feet had quit moving.

The amount of people that were standing around with light conversation was not what Leanne had expected. She'd thought maybe ten or fifteen people, all of them from her graduating class, and instead it looked like a few of the new seniors and some of those that had graduated as many as five years before them. It was a small town, and she recognized just about everyone in attendance. The first to notice the pair walking up was Ana Richards, who had graduated the year before. Her short pixie was bleached and colored such a bright orange that it was nearly camouflaged by the fire. She skipped over to them with waving hands and pulled them closer to the fire.