“Back to Audrina though. She’s jealous that you came in and took her place as the favorite. Although, I think being the favorite was all in her head. From what I hear, most people didn’t like to work with her because of her superiority complex. She tears people down and makes them, instead of giving constructive criticism to work on and get better like you do.”
“I still think you’re crazy. There’s nothing to be jealous of. I’m just me, I just want to fight, nothing spectacular.”
“We’ll agree to disagree, I’m not arguing with you about this. It’s almost time, do you think we should grab anything? We’re going overnight, but didn’t get a whole lot of information.”
“I guess I might bring a sweatshirt to have a layer if they make us shift on the fly. I wish someone would teach me the whole ‘shift and keep your clothes’ thing.” I say as we take our things back to the kitchen.
We both run upstairs to grab an extra layer and then sit and wait in the foyer. Neither of us talk or discuss anything. I know we are both nervous and excited all at the same time, but once of the best things about Mina is she doesn’t need to fill the silence with noise or talking, we are both just here, together, and that’s all that is needed for comfort at this point.
At eight on the dot the door opens with Warrior Nickolas’ wide imposing frame filling the doorway, but not stepping in. His light hair and blue eyes normally leave him looking, not inviting, but not scary. But just like at the meeting his gaze is hard and judgemental. He was forced to collect us and he is openly not happy about it. He does not want us or me on this mission and my heart falls a little more. Those old feelings of not being wanted, not being good enough from my dad creeping back in. I have to mentally shake it off. I can’t go back to being that girl again, she was abused and neglected and everything that I have worked for is to make sure no one feels like that ever, including myself.
Do I confront him? Say anything? Or just live with this, pretend like it isn’t the elephant in the room and hope for the best? At least Mina is with me, we’ll just truck through this recon mission and I will keep my eye on the goal, to gain experience and knowledge about mission protocols. Nothing else matters, not him and his feelings, Audrina, Kaley, the guys, no one. I am here, living out my dream. That has to stay my focus.
He turns from the door without a word and walks off. We hurry behind him not wanting to be left behind. There’s a black SUV parked out front with dark tinted windows. We both move to the back and climb in. No one is in the passenger seat, but neither of us want to be alone with Nickolas in whatever neverending mood he seems to be stuck in.
He looks in the rearview mirror from the driver’s side, huffs a sound out of his nose and then shifts his eyes back to the front before he starts to drive away. The windows are so dark that it’s hard to see out in the last rays of light from the day. We are traveling away from the compound and the castle and everything I have been to since being in this pack. The butterflies in my stomach are back and my senses are on fire waiting to be used. I have to fight the smile that really wants to spread on my face. A real mission where I get to use real skills.
I sink back into the seat and just watch the forest fly by in blurred shadows and silhouettes thinking about all the training I have ever gone through, all the skill building games I did with the kids to hone isolated senses.
One game I miss is hide and seek. My wolf and I loved that game so we could refine our sense of smell. The kids would mill about in a section of forest near the training grounds, leaving their scents behind and one would hide when the rest came back to me and I had to figure out who was missing and then find them. We always had a great time. It taught them to start to use the forest around them to mask their scent and as they got better I had to improve my tracking skills to find them.
