Autumn Rising (7 page)

“How do they know who is a shifter?”

“People have been protesting. It’s all over the news. Most people are doing the sensible thing and staying out of the way, but others, young, headstrong ones like Danny over there, aren’t so smart.”

Chogan frowned. “So how did they pick you up?”

“I own a bookshop on the outskirts of the city. I was out back, making a phone call, talking about what was happening. Someone must have come into the shop and overheard me and reported me. Next thing I knew, those guys were busting down the door and had me in cuffs.”

“Jesus.”

His stomach twisted in guilt. He had done this to these people. His dream had been to see shifters mainstream, but all he’d done was cause trouble for those trying to live a normal life. He’d been so focused in his goals, he’d not considered anyone else.

No,
he chastised himself.
This is just the start.
There were bound to be difficulties at first. No revolution was won without a few battles being fought. This was all this was, just one battle in a war.

She stared at him curiously. “You’re the one who started all of this, aren’t you?”

“I guess I was.”

“I sure a
s hell hope you know what you are doing.”

Part of him wanted to say, ‘so do
I,’ but he went for something more convincing. “We’ll get our lives back again,” he told her. “Only this time we won’t need to live in secret anymore.”

Chapter Nine

UNABLE TO BRING herself to climb back up on the slab of metal in order to lie down, Autumn had curled up in the corner of the room, using her arm as a pillow. She didn’t think there would be any chance of her falling asleep, but yet, as her mind drifted, she found herself tumbling into a welcome oblivion.

But
oblivion didn’t come. Her dreams were filled with the intense knowledge she was being chased, and no matter how hard she ran, she found herself in the same place. Everywhere she turned she saw the faces of those she cared about—Mia, Blake, Chogan, her father—and she begged them for help, pleaded with them until tears streamed down her face. But they just stood, watching, until the creature that had been chasing her, part man, part beast, stepped from the shadows and plunged a knife into her ribs over and over again.

She woke with a lurch, her heart pounding, a scream barely held behind her lips.
Her arm, which she’d been lying on, was completely dead. Slowly, the lightest of pins and needles tingled in her fingertips, though she knew they would get worse as the feeling returned. Her nose ached from where she’d been hit. Or had she fallen? She could barely remember now. Her ribs were sore from lying on her side, pressed against the hard floor. She could murder for a couple of pain-killers right now. Every part seemed to hurt.

Autumn pulled herself to sitting and rubbed at her numb arm. She needed to get out of this room. Alone, with only her thoughts hour after hour would drive her crazy. The only time she ever spent without her mind being focused on one task or another was when she went out running, and even then her brain was occupied by her concentration on her breath or pace.

Movement at the door caught her attention. She scrambled to her feet just as two men in white coats entered, Calvin Thorne hot on their heels.

“What do you want?”

“Get on the table please, Doctor Anderson,” said one of the men in white coats, a middle-aged man with a paunch and broken capillaries splattered across his bulbous nose and cheeks.

“First tell me why
.”

“We need another sample.
Now do as you’re told.”

She scowled, but forced herself to walk to the dreaded slab. She hated that thing. It was as if they’d purposefully chosen it to make her feel like she was worth no more than a piece of meat. Perhaps that was exactly what they had done.

She sat up on the edge, her feet swinging down.

“Lie down please.”

“You don’t need me to lie down to take blood. I assume you’re perfectly capable of taking it while I’m sitting here.”

The other doctor
, who barely looked to be out of medical school, turned toward Calvin for confirmation.

“It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll behave.”

Thorne nodded his consent.

Autumn held out her arm
, wrist up, for one of the doctors to take. He opened up a small case containing needles and glass vials. From the case he removed a black tourniquet. She sat placidly as he wrapped the stretchy material around her bicep.

Thorne was watching. She cocked her eyebrows at him and he scowled back.

The inside of her arm was already pockmarked where both this facility and Tala had taken blood before. She stayed still, gritting her teeth as the small scratch of the needle pierced her skin and entered her vein. Quickly, the vial attached to the end of the needle began to fill with blood so thick and dark it appeared to be black.

She waited until the doctor had filled the vial and then carefully re
moved the needle from her vein. He placed a small square of cotton over the puncture wound and indicated for her to press down, as if she’d had no more than a vaccination. She wanted to smack him in his prim face. Instead, she jumped from the table and lashed out at the hand holding the small glass tube, knocking it to the floor. The vial rolled and she jumped forward. Her foot landed on top of the vial, crushing it to the ground with a spatter of blood and broken glass. She had to resist the urge to lift her arms into the air and let out a loud whoop. She’d never taken such satisfaction in breaking something before.

“That was a mistake,
Autumn,” Thorne warned.

She spun around to face him.
“No it wasn’t. It was exactly what I meant to do.”

The
younger doctor who had so far remained a spare part in the whole proceedings, abruptly turned on his heel and left the room.

“Clean that up,” Thorne told the
man who had dropped the blood.

The doctor still wore the gloves he’d put on to take the blood, so he stooped down and began to gather pieces of glass.
Thorne pulled paper towels from the holder beside the sink and threw them down to land beside the man cleaning the blood. He picked them up and started to mop at the floor.

Autumn
stood with her arms folded over her chest, taking pleasure that the man with letters after his name was now reduced to a janitor.

Vivian Winters came storming into the room, her eyes blazing.
The younger doctor scurried in behind her, and Autumn realized he’d run off to tell tales.

“What is this I hear about you not behaving, Doctor Anderson? You’re not doing anything to win your case, you know.”

Her arms dropped to place her hands on her hips. She ignored the rivulet of blood which traversed the inside her arm and ran down to her wrist. “I needed to make a point. Let me out of this room, and I will cooperate with you fully.”

“
I don’t think so.” She looked to Thorne. “Hold her down.”

Thor
ne and the other doctor approached. They would overpower her now, she knew it. She wasn’t going to get out of this room by fighting them.

“
It’s okay. You can take the blood. I’ll behave myself.”

“You had your chance.”

Thorne grabbed one arm, the other man the other. Together, they hauled her backward, hoisting her back up on the table. Thorne pushed on her shoulder to force her to lie flat on the cold metal slab.
God, how I hate this thing,
she thought as she stared back up at her reflection once again.

Vivian approached, but this time she wasn’t holding a needle, she was holding a razor blade. The
florescent light above her head caught on the sliver of metal and glinted off the sharp edge.

Alarm spik
ed through her. “What the hell are you doing?”

“
Taking your blood, Doctor. This is what happens if you don’t do things right the first time.”

She struggled now, but to no
avail. The men pinned her down, Thorne and the older doctor holding down her shoulders, and the younger doctor pinning down her feet.

“Hold out her arm,” Vivian instructed.

For once, even Thorne seemed uncomfortable, his eyes darting between Autumn and his boss. “What are you—”

“Just do as I say.
”

Thorne hesitated and then took hold of her arm, pulling it out straight, her wrist up.

She swiped the blade across the inside of Autumn’s wrist. Pain like red, hot metal had been placed against her skin shot up Autumn’s arm. She screamed in pain and tried to yank her hand away, but Thorne held firm. Vivian moved away to pick something up, and then returned to hold a small metal kidney tray beneath Autumn’s arm to catch the blood.

“Jesus Christ, Vivian,” exclaimed
Thorne. “She’ll bleed out!”

She scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous. Only teenage girls and bad movies think that cutting your wrist sideways works. If I’d wanted to kill her, I’d have cut her lengthwise.”

As before, Autumn felt her strength ebb away as her blood spilled from her body, trickling into the bowl. The hollow, metallic sound reminded her of water dribbling into a stainless steel sink from a broken faucet. The scent of blood filled the air, making Autumn’s stomach turn in a lurching flip flop.

“Okay, that’
s enough,” said Vivian, removing the dish. “Bandage up her wrist.”

Part of her wanted to tell them not to bother, just to let her bleed out so she
could be done with this whole God-damned thing. Was this how she was going to spend the rest of her life, as some kind of living container for the one thing everyone seemed to want? But then anger, low and deep, began to bubble in her stomach, and her whole body tensed as she tried to hold it inside. She wasn’t a quitter. She never had been and she didn’t intend on starting now. How dare Vivian Winters, and Thorne, and Tala, bring her to such a level that she was seriously considering giving up? And how dare she allow herself to be weak enough to give in? This wasn’t her, and she wouldn’t let anyone else turn her into that person either.

Despite this decision, she forced herself to remain silent and compliant as
the older doctor tightly bandaged her wrist. Within a few minutes, it would be spotted with blood, but at least the flow had slowed.

“I trust you’re going to behave yourself now?” said Vivian. “Don’t push me, or you’ll see what I’m really capable of.”

Autumn didn’t answer, but she met the other woman’s blue eyes with an ice cold glare.

She wasn’t the only one who hadn’t yet shown what she was capable of.

Chapter Ten

THE DRIVE TO
the reservation where Blake and Chogan had grown up took over eight hours. In this time, the sky faded from dark to light; a new day was dawning. Peter drove with one hand on the steering wheel, the other holding Mia’s. He’d noticed her eyes starting to drop shut after the first hour, though she flicked them back open again and sat up straighter to try to keep herself present with him.

“It’s okay,” he told her. “Sleep if you need to. I won’t mind.”

“It’s not fair if I sleep the whole way, and you don’t get any rest at all. We should at least take turns at the wheel.”

“I don’t need as much sleep as you. I’ll be fine.”

“Is that a shifter thing again, like the fast healing?” she said, stifling a yawn with the back of her hand.

“Yeah, that’s right. It’s a shifter thing. Now get some sleep. If you sleep, the
n you’ll be rested enough to take the wheel for a while if I decide I need a break too.”

This seemed to
win her around to his way of thinking. She leaned to one side of her seat and fiddled around until she found the right button to adjust her seat back, and then reclined it. She gave him a smile, lifted the hands that were connected and kissed the back of his hand, before closing her eyes. Within a few minutes, she was asleep.

Peter watched the highway
go by, lost in thought. He didn’t know what Blake’s father’s reaction was going to be when he was told about what had happened to his son, daughter, and nephew. Would Lakota Wolfcollar even know about what Chogan had initiated? Peter hated his own naivety, but he wasn’t sure if they even had television or newspapers on the reservation. And even if they did, Chicago was a good distance away. Would news in Chicago reach this far out?

The scenery changed,
the tower blocks of the city quickly giving way to small homesteads, until they, too, vanished, to be replaced by tall pine forests which stretched out either side of the highway. They passed through small towns and industrial estates, the route becoming built up, before fading away to vegetation once again.

Even though he didn’t intend on letting Mia take the wheel, and he didn’t want to disturb her, he found
his eyes growing gritty after a couple of hours. It had been a long night, and while he needed less rest than a regular human, he still needed coffee just like everyone else.

He spotted a roadside cafe and turned off
the highway. A couple of other vehicles filled the spaces of the parking lot as he pulled in. Family sedans, an SUV, even an eighteen wheeler truck was parked right at the back.

The change in motion roused Mia. She sat up, rubbing at her eyes with the back of her hand like a child. The act made something in his chest tighten and he resisted the urge to grab hold of her and not let go.

“Where are we?” she asked, looking around.

“
We’re on Interstate ninety-four now,” he said. “Just west of Tomah. I’m in need of some serious coffee and a bathroom break.”

She grinned. “Yeah, me too. On both accounts.

Knowing time was tight, they took their respective pit stops and got their coffees, together with some pastries that looked like they could clog arteries in seconds, to go. As they walked back to the car, Mia snatched the keys from his hand and ran the last few feet, reaching the driver’s side before him. She spun around, blocking the door.

“Hey!”

“I’m driving,” she said.

He shook his head. “No, you’re not. I’m fine. Honestly.”

“I don’t care. You said after I’d slept I would be able to take over. So I slept, and now I’m driving.”

“No, I said that if I needed you
to, you would be fit enough to drive if you got some sleep. But I don’t need you to drive.”

“For God’s sake, Peter. I’m a grown woman, with a driver’s
license. I can drive, unless you don’t trust me with your car?” She arched her eyebrows, cocking her head to one side expectantly.

Damn woman.
She had him in a bind. “Of course I trust you.”

“Well unless you’re going to physically move me
out of the way, I’m getting in this side of the car, and driving the next stretch. You are going to sit in the passenger seat, eat your Danish, drink your coffee, and maybe even get some rest, if that’s not too insulting to your male ego.”

He stared at her for a moment, seriously wondering what she wo
uld do if he picked her up and placed her in the passenger seat—she was certainly petite enough for him to do just that. He didn’t imagine Mia would take it too well though.

Relenting, he headed
around to the passenger side. He balanced his coffee and pastry in one hand while he opened the door and slid into the leather seat. It felt strange to be sitting in this side of the car.

Mia smiled, smug
ly, and did the same, only getting into the driver’s side. With a few adjustments of the seat and rear view mirror, she clamped a pastry between her teeth, and quickly reversed the big car, shooting out of the parking lot and back onto the highway.

She drove fast, handling the big car with confidence, eating and drinking her coffee one handed.

“So do I need any more directions?” she asked, glancing over at him. “Or do I just stay on this road?”

“Stay on Interstate ninety-four. We’ve got a good few hours on this road yet, and I’ll take over again before we need to turn off.”

She nodded, not giving him an argument about him mentioning driving again, and focused back on the road.

Peter finished his br
eakfast and reclined his seat. Perhaps he’d allow himself to rest his eyes for a few moments …

PETER WOKE, SURPRISED
he’d slept.

Mia looked over at him. “Morning, sleepyhead.”

He yawned and rubbed a hand over his mussy hair. “How long have I been asleep?”

“A couple of hours.”

“Jesus. Seriously?”

She nodded.

“We must have covered some miles then?”

“Yeah, we have.
”

“Great.
Another couple of hours and we should be there. Are you going to let me drive now?”

She grinned at him.
“Sure. I’ve had my fun.”

Mia
pulled over and they switched seats.

As he dro
ve, he noticed she had fallen silent.

“You okay?” he asked, glancing over at her.

“I was just wondering about the others. I hope Autumn is all right, and everyone back at the cabin too. You don’t think they will have shot any more of the shifters, do you?”

He
had no way of knowing, and considering the soldiers hadn’t thought twice about shooting before, he suspected they would again, but he wanted to reassure her. “I think the only reason they shot people was because they were trying to take Autumn. As long as they don’t give them any reason to fire on them, they should all stay safe.”

She started to chew the corner of her thumb nail. “And this friend you have
...”

“Ex-colleague,” he corrected.

She shrugged as if to say the correction didn’t matter. “Do you think he’ll know where they’ve taken Autumn?”

“He might, or at least he’ll know which facilities for that department are in the local area.”

“Why don’t you know?”

“The Paranormal
Defense Unit isn’t even supposed to exist. It’s kept completely separate from all other departments. If you even mentioned the name, people would think you were joking. Everyone thinks it’s a rumor, not a division that actually exists.”

She cocked an eyebrow. “
Paranormal Defense Unit?”

He glanced over to her. “See? That’s the exact reaction they rely on everyone having. That’s why it’s been kept secret for so long.”

“But you know differently?”

“I guess I always had an insight into the paranormal that other government workers wouldn’t. I never had a reason to think that division wouldn’t exist.”

“So what’s the plan? Your friend—sorry, ex-colleague—tells you where Autumn might be, we get a group of people together, and we storm the place just like Blake and Chogan did to get the captive shifters out of the Chicago facility?”

He shook his head.
“It won’t be so easy.”

“Why not?”

“Well, for one, we no longer have Blake and Chogan in place. Also, I have no idea if my ex-colleague will even talk to me, let alone give me undisclosed information.”

“Oh,” she said, the side
s of her mouth twisting down, clearly disappointed.

He hated saying or doing anything that might disappoint her. He gave her a smile.
“But it doesn’t hurt to ask, right?”

Her eyes flicked to him, dark, yet bright, all at the same time. “No, it doesn’t.”

They passed the next few hours listening to channels on the radio, switching between them when they lost reception or a song came on one or the other hated. One more comfort stop was made, picking up more supplies of coffee and snacks, and refueling.

Finally, they turned off the highway, taking smaller roads into the forest.

“Look, there.” Mia pointed to a sign, battered and sun bleached.

Big
Lake Reservation.

“Looks like we’re here,” he said.

He slowed the vehicle as small buildings began to appear alongside the road. The houses were run down, most of them mobile homes. An old Native American woman, with her graying hair worn in braids, sat behind a cart selling fruit and vegetables. Small children played outside the homes. Adults sat in swing chairs on the porch watching the children play. Mothers chatted together with babes in arms. They all stopped to stare at the big, black sedan as it rolled through the street.

Peter cringed. He’d never felt guilty about driving an expensive car before, but right now he was so aware of the gap between their societies. His car was probably worth as much as any of these homes, possibly more. The reservations struggled with very high unemployment rates. Homes were worth little because no one could actually own the land they stood upon. Addiction was a growing problem.

He crawled the streets, hoping to find someone who might look like they knew where Lakota Wolfcollar lived, though he had no idea what that person might look like. They passed several people, but the narrow-eyed suspicion he was met with made him unwilling to stop.

“Why don’t we ask over there?” Mia said, pointing to a corner shop, the first they’d seen. “If they have mail delivered here, they might know Blake’s father’s name.”

He nodded. “Good idea.”

Peter
pulled the car up alongside the curb. “You want to wait here, or come with me?”

She lifted her eyebrows at him again, as if to say, ‘you really need to ask me that question
.’ “I’m coming,” she said.

They got out of the car together and went into the store. Peter felt like he was a character in an old western, where they walk into a bar and everyone falls silent. He gave each of the
patrons of the store the most charming smile he could muster, and approached the man behind the counter.

“You folks from outta town?” the old man said.

“That obvious, huh?” Mia said, trying to joke, but it fell flat.

“We’re looking for someone,” Peter continued. “Lakota
Wolfcollar. You wouldn’t happen to know where he lives?”

“Everyone knows where Lakota lives. What do you want with him?”

“I’m friends with his son, Blake.”

The old man sniffed
in apparent disgust at the mention of Blake’s name. “That boy never did no good around here. You should take your flash car and get on out of here.”

Mia stepped forward, “Please. We really need to see Lakota
Wolfcollar. It’s not just about Blake. His daughter, Tala, and his nephew, Chogan, are also in trouble. Wouldn’t you want to know if most of your family needed your help?”

The man frowned. “Tala and Chogan are in trouble, you say?”

“That’s right.”

“Well look, you wait here and I’ll get someone to go and find Lakota. I’m not
going to tell you where he lives in case you aren’t who you say you are.” He frowned again. “Who did you say you were?”

Peter spoke, “We didn’t, but I’m Peter
Haverly. This is Mia Henderson. Lakota will want to see us.”

“We’ll let Lakota be the judge of that one.”

The door opened with a jingle of the bell above their heads, a waft of old garbage swept in with a brisk wind.

“
It’s okay, Wapasha. I’ll take it from here.”

Peter turned to find a tall,
Native American man standing in the doorway. Age had stooped his once broad shoulders. His hair hung just past his shoulders and was streaked with different hues of gray. Peter recognized the broad nose, and wide mouth, though deep lines ran in channels alongside his lips, down his cheeks, and across his forehead. There was no doubt in his mind this was Blake’s father.