The True One

Chapter 34

Alek

With one palm pressed onto the iron train trestle, I closed my eyes and let the lulling roar of ocean waves merge with the rumble of a train passing hundreds of feet above me. The vibration flowed from the beam into my hand, spreading up my arm and over my shoulders until my whole body pulsated. It was a noisy sort of peacefulness, which suited me just fine. A quieter, stiller calm would have given way quickly to anxiety and thoughts of self-loathing.

Soon, though, those thoughts pushed through the harmonious noise. A hundred trains and a tidal wave couldn't have stopped them.

It was only a matter of time until we found Norvin's hidden message. That message would eventually lead us to wherever Norvin wanted his well-orchestrated final act to play out. Making us work so hard for information that could have been freely given was Norvin's way of maintaining control over the narrative. I hated him for it, while also hating the part of myself that admired his cunning. He was no one to trifle with—that was something I wasn't entirely sure Verity realized. To underestimate him was to do so at one's peril.

Verity's head popped up from behind a clump of tall grass. "Are you going to help us find the message or are you just going to stand there communing with Amtrak?"

The train by then had completed crossing the long stretch of track suspended by this impressive trestlework. It connected two towering bluffs overlooking a sandy beach and an old fishing dock that stretched out into the Pacific Ocean. "I already searched over there," I said, motioning over my left shoulder.

She frowned. "Don't stop now. It must be here."

"It is." I pulled my hand off the trestle and walked towards the next one. "We'll find it."

As if on cue, Flora whistled to us from where she'd been searching, not far from the park's camp store. She waved an arm and then pointed towards the ground at the base of a beam.

Verity and I jogged over to her just as she lifted what looked to be a soda bottle from the nineteen eighties. With the glass clouded over, it was hard to say if it contained anything, but finding this forty-year-old artifact right where Norvin said to look was not coincidental. I recognized that very bottle from our storeroom of assorted props and antiques used to sell customers on the authenticity of our business.

"This must be it," I said as Flora pulled at the cork that had been wedged into the bottle's neck. Sure enough, after turning it upside down and giving it a shake, out came a sheet of parchment paper, rolled up and tied with a leather cord.

"What does it say?" Verity asked.

With trembling fingers, Flora untied the cord and gently unrolled the parchment. Her brow furrowed. "I think... these are coordinates, right?"

She showed us two lines of handwritten numbers.

I punched the numbers into a coordinate finder app on my phone. "It's thirty-eight miles away, near Lompoc. This must be where Norvin and Val are located."

"Maybe, but..." Verity bit her lip. "The last clue said there would be a message in a bottle from a long lost loved one. What do coordinates have to do with that? It's hardly a message at all, much less anything with sentimental significance."

"It gets to the point, which is a relief, honestly, considering the sorts of games Norvin has been playing with us," I said. "Other than that, does it have to have significance? That whole bit about not saying no to a long-lost love was just his way of making the clue seem more enticing and poetic."

"I guess that's possible," she said, not sounding convinced.

"Hold on." Flora turned the paper over. "There's something else written here. Take a look."

"The moon doesn't care if a dog barks at it," Verity read.

"That's an old proverb. Does it mean anything in particular to either of you?" I asked.

Flora shook her head. "Only that he's trying to mess with us and he's a terrible person for doing all this."

I waited for Verity to answer as well, but she turned away instead. "Flora's right. Let's just go to where the coordinates say to go and get this over with."

The drive lasted only forty minutes, but the tension within the car made each one of them creep by. I didn't force a conversation, and neither did my passengers. Flora kept her arms folded tightly around herself as she stared out the window. Verity too, seemed to have entered a state of acute ennui, her eyes brimming with tears, which she wiped at from time to time. Otherwise, she didn't move or make a sound. Even a sigh of discontent would have been welcome, but it never came.

I tried to focus solely on the road, but even so, my mind wandered through the dark notions that had been plaguing me ever since my conversation with Norvin the day I left Verity's tour.

Verity was still a danger.

She wasn't the first of her kind.

Another, just like her, had been triggered, and a killing spree had commenced.

I couldn't trust the same thing wouldn't happen to Verity.

All these words had played themselves in my mind a thousand times over, as had every conversation I'd had with Verity. She had the most amazing, extraordinary, and challenging thing happening to her, and yet, she seemed to handle it with ease. Her wolf always acted as though she was in perfect control—an asset, not a nuisance or a menace.

My thoughts, carefully guarded behind a thick wall, then gravitated towards the events in Vegas, how she'd shown her power to the world in an impulsive act without considering the potentially dire consequences. I'd spent the past two weeks wondering if I could trust her. Then, when I'd finally seen her again, alone in her apartment, vulnerable but fierce, it was almost impossible not to feel completely at her mercy.

All it would take is one taste of her for my resolve to fall away.

I turned off the main drag onto a narrower road. Salty brine permeated the car through my open window. The vegetation clung low to the land this close to the coast, and the small rolling hills did little to obscure our bleak surroundings as daylight quickly faded. It seemed like an odd place for Norvin to hide out. I started to wonder whether we'd made it to the final clue or if we'd be forced to continue the hunt well into the night.

"Just a few more minutes until we arrive," I said after glancing at my GPS.

This had to be it, I thought to myself, brushing off my doubt. It felt like we were approaching the last leg of our journey. My heart raced as I faced the end of Norvin's treasure hunt. I knew what I had to do, yet that certainty didn't make my heart any lighter.

Betrayal would never be easy for me, no matter how much it might be justified.

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Author's Note: I don't mean to raise any alarm bells, but... does the word betrayal used in this context raise any alarm bells? EEEK! What is Alek about to do? Who is he thinking he must betray?

A lot is about to go down over the next several chapters as we make our way into Norvin's final act, aka this stories final climax. Buckle up, my friends!