Chapter 82: Chapter 82

INT. - DR. PANTHER'S OFFICE - DAY

Dr. Ocean Panther paced her office, hands clenched before her as she fought to steady her nerves. All of her attempts to settle her anxiety failed, the technique of deep breathing exercises after meditation doing nothing to soften the edges of her rising panic.

They'd never failed her before. But this was no ordinary circumstance and, thanks to Mama Roan's recent conversation, never would be again.

Cici paused at last by the window of her high-rise office, hands shaking as she ran them through her shining, black hair. What she was about to do went against everything she'd been taught in the white man's world. Her years of education as a therapist came from logic, the rational. She'd abandoned her family's religious practices years ago, though she humored her grandmother and the other elders of the Periqwai tribe on her infrequent visits to the reservation. She'd chosen a world of steel and concrete, leaving tradition to her brother, Wind.