Yet, what she was about to say went against everything she longed for.
Peter drove, watching the road. She knew she was about to throw this on him, but she needed to get the subject into the open.
“I asked Autumn to make me a spirit shifter.”
His head snapped toward her. “Why would you do that?”
“I want to help Autumn’s war. I want to be like you.”
“No. No, you don’t.”
“But I do, though. What you are is amazing, and special, and beautiful. I’m just ordinary and boring. I want to be like that, too.”
“Mia, you are amazing, and special, and beautiful. Think of all the families and children you have helped, and you haven’t needed any kind of paranormal powers to do that. I love you. I want you to stay just the way you are.”
Her heart felt like it was going to burst, making her breathless. “You love me?”
Quickly, he glanced at her, his expression serious. “You know I do. I don’t need to say it for you to believe it.”
He was right. She’d known it within hours of them meeting. Still, she couldn’t pretend hearing him say the words didn’t make her the happiest woman alive.
She smiled at him. “I love you, too.”
He reached out and took hold of her hand, giving it a squeeze. She wanted to crawl across his lap, straddle him, and bury her face in his neck and never let go, but considering he was driving, she settled for edging closer to the driver’s side and resting her head on his shoulder. He kissed the top of her head. She held his big hand in her lap, mindlessly playing with his fingers, examining the clean, blunt ellipses of his nails and the spattering of dark hair across the backs of his fingers. She didn’t want to ruin the moment, but Peter had done a good job of switching the direction of the conversation.
“I was serious about wanting Autumn to change me,” she said, eventually.
“Mia, please …”
She lifted her head from his shoulder. “Imagine the freedom we could have together if we were both shifters. I want us to run through the forest. I want to experience that speed, and strength, and how powerful you must feel.”
“We might not have any freedom at all if this all goes wrong. There’s nothing to say Vivian Winters won’t get her way and we’ll all end up imprisoned like animals in a zoo in the next few days.”
“Well, then at least I’ll be imprisoned with you! I’d rather that happen than end up alone.”
“I don’t want to see you hurt!”
“But I’ll be stronger as a shifter. I’ll be less likely to get hurt.”
“You’re not understanding me, Mia. Just being a shifter means you’re going to be in pain. Every time you shift, you will experience the sort of agony I can’t even put into words. It’s like you would rather be dead than experience one more second. Try to imagine every bone in your body breaking, feeling the muscle ripping into pieces, your skin swelling and stretching so much it splits. Right when you think you will lose your mind, the shift is over. I can’t stand the thought of you going through that over and over again.”
“But you do,” she said, stubbornly, poking out her lower lip.
“I am what I am because a spirit chose me at birth. I didn’t choose this.”
“I don’t need your permission, Peter. I’m my own person.”
His face filled with sadness, his gray eyes clouding over with sorrow as he glanced at her. “Yes, you are. And you’re right. I can’t do anything to stop you, but I’m sure Autumn is against this, too, or she would have turned you already.”
“She told me to talk it over with you.”
“And I told you my opinion.”
Mia moved away from him, folding her arms across her body. She wanted to cry. “I’m starting to feel like the two of you are my parents!”
“You know we’re not. We’re just two people who love you.”
She was confused. She’d been so sure, but everyone was against her. Perhaps she wasn’t making the right choice, but she wanted to be a real part of this, too. Though no one would ever deliberately push her to one side, she couldn’t help feeling like an outsider. She had nothing to bring to the table, nothing to make her place in this battle worth anything.
“Don’t be upset with me, Mia,” Peter pleaded. “You asked my opinion and I told you. You can’t expect me to only say what you want to hear.”
She sighed. “I don’t. I guess I just thought you’d support me.”
“I’ll support you in every way, but please stay the person you are. The thought of you changing–of being something different than what you are now—breaks my heart.”
The last thing she ever wanted was to cause him pain. “Okay. For the moment, I’ll stay as I am, but if anything changes, if something goes wrong and more shifters are needed, promise you won’t fight me then.”
He nodded. “I promise.”
She guessed that would have to do for the moment, though deep down she still wanted to be the same as him. She wasn’t afraid of pain. In her life, she’d experienced more emotional pain than most, and she’d come out stronger. She was strong enough to handle this, too.
They still had a long drive ahead of them.
Mia dozed, while Peter drove, and then they switched places. Peter had at least learned not to oppose her on that front. Every so often, she’d glance back, still in awe about the number of people who had joined this mission. She hoped it would be enough to overpower both the people at this facility, and also the city after they’d found Blake and Tala, both alive. She prayed for Autumn’s sake that Chogan’s belief in his cousin still being alive was the truth, and wasn’t just his guilty conscience playing tricks. If both Blake and Tala were dead, they’d be doing this rescue mission for nothing.
She said this to Peter, but he shook his head. “It won’t be for nothing. This is the heart of the operation to round up shifters. If we can take this place out, the soldiers in the city will lose their master in command.”
“Won’t someone else take her place?”
“Possibly, yes, but the confusion it will cause will be enough to weaken them, and we can drive them out of the city. With the soldiers gone, hopefully we can make the rest of the public understand we’re not the ones to be afraid of.”
She smiled. “I can understand that, so I don’t see why everyone else can’t as well.”
“Let’s hope you’re not an exception.”
Chapter Thirteen
AUTUMN RODE IN the truck with Chogan, the new woman and her boy sitting in the back. They skirted the outskirts of Minneapolis, and then left the city far behind.
The hours passed, but the atmosphere remained tense, awkward. Chogan had explained how they’d rescued the woman and boy from the rogue shifters who were tormenting them, but she couldn’t help feeling like she was missing something. She felt like she was the outsider, and not this new woman.
“We’re heading into danger,” she said to Chogan when she noticed the boy had finally fallen asleep, and the mother had closed her eyes, her cheek rested on her son’s head. “Don’t you think we should drop them off somewhere?”
“Where?” he challenged. “They have nowhere else to go.”
“They’re not our problem, Chogan. We need to focus on Blake and Tala, and putting an end to this whole thing.”
His dark eyes blazed at her. “So you think it’s wrong for me to abandon Blake, but it’s okay for me to abandon a helpless woman and child?”
“I never said you were wrong for leaving him. And anyway, Blake is your cousin. They are strangers.”
“Why should that matter? A life is a life.”
Autumn gritted her teeth. She thought she preferred Chogan when he was just looking out for himself. She wondered if Chogan would have been so keen on helping the woman, Madison, if she’d been five feet tall and two hundred pounds, instead of the raven haired beauty that she was.
Jealous, are you? A little voice spoke in her head. No, she wasn’t jealous
. That was ridiculous. Blake might still be alive, and he was where her heart lay. But perhaps she needed to be honest with herself. Just because she was in love with Blake, didn’t mean she didn’t enjoy and wasn’t flattered by the adoration she’d seen in Chogan’s eyes, in the way he touched her, the way he’d kissed her. Now, with this new woman along for the ride, something had changed.
Finally, Thorne and David signaled that they were leaving the freeway.
The facility wouldn’t be far now.
They would need to park a sensible distance from the facility—near enough that they could escape back to their vehicles if needed, but far enough away not to get noticed. The not getting noticed part would be the hardest. There were so many of them, at least a hundred vehicles—a mixture of cars, trucks, and motorbikes—and at least two people per mode of transport. Some shifters were also traveling by their spirit guide; massive hawks and owls flew overhead and large predators ran through the outskirts of the forest that ran parallel to the freeway.
Heading off the main road, they took the smaller roads toward the hidden location of the facility.
Autumn’s heartbeat grew harder and she exchanged a glance with Chogan. He gave her a reassuring smile, but they both knew this was dangerous. Yes, they might find Blake and Tala, but they could lose people as well.
She started to recognize the road as being the same one where Peter and David had picked her and Thorne up.
They parked, hiding the cars between trees as best they could, hoping the foliage would hide them from anyone scanning from above. Autumn still wasn’t sure how good Vivian Winters’ surveillance was. If she was using satellite rather than regular cameras, they might be spotted.
Autumn climbed from the car.
Chogan instructed the boy and woman. “Stay where you are. The keys are in the ignition if something happens. If this goes wrong, just get yourself and Billy out of here.”
Madison nodded.
Autumn gathered with Chogan, Peter and Mia, Lakota, Calvin Thorne, and David. Sahale and Nadie, together with a number of other shifters they’d turned, moved into hearing distance as well.
“We have two reasons for being here,” Autumn said, addressing them all. “Firstly, we want to find Blake and Tala Wolfcollar.” She used their last names so everyone knew she was talking about Lakota’s son and daughter. “Secondly, we want to stop the operation they are running here. The woman who runs things, Vivian Winters, is at the head of this all. Take her out, and the rest will fall apart. They are holding a number of people captive on the first floor. They’re in separate chambers with reinforced glass doors. Many of them have been there a long time, and I don’t know how they’re going to react to us letting them out, assuming we get that far.” She turned her attention to her best friend. “Mia, because of your experience dealing with people who have been in traumatic situations, I’d like for you to lead that part of the operation.”
Mia’s back straightened, pulling herself up to her full five foot two height. “No problem.”
“Chogan and Peter, you can go with her.” She looked to the two men who used to work at the facility. “Thorne and David, I want you to get me down to the lower levels to find Vivian.”
Chogan stepped forward. “Uh, no way are you going. You’re the most important person we have. If something happens to you, the rest of us are lost.”
Angrily, she turned to him. “No, you’re not! I’ve turned enough shifters to put an end to this. If something happens to me, you continue with the plan.”
“It’s not about how many people we’ve turned. It’s about what you’re giving to everyone who is left.”
“What am I giving them?” she said, baffled.
“Hope, you’re giving them hope.”
She hesitated. “You can’t expect me to hide out in the car,” she said, deliberately referring to Madison and her child.
“I don’t.”
“Yes, you do. After what Vivian did to me, I’m owed the right to take her out.”
He cocked an eyebrow. “You’re going to kill her? And how are you planning on doing that, Autumn?”
“I don’t know. A knife, a gun? Whatever comes to hand.” She hadn’t given much thought to the actual process of taking the woman’s life. Could she really do it? Then she thought back to everything she’d been through, to watching Vivian inject the soldier with her blood, to Vivian ordering the slaughter of the young people in the city. Killing someone wasn’t supposed to be easy. If she thought she could do it without it making her nauseated, then she thought she should be worried.
“Also,” Chogan continued, “I want to be there when Blake and Tala are found. I want them to know I didn’t give up on them.”
She didn’t like Chogan challenging her in front of everyone, but he had a point. She wanted to be there when Blake was found, too. “Okay, we all stick together then. We find Blake and Tala, and release the other captives, then Mia and Peter can bring them back up here while the rest of us move to the lower levels.”
Everyone nodded their agreement.
They had both stealth and numbers on their side. When she’d been in the facility, she’d only ever seen a handful of people in one place at one time, and a number of those people were scientists who wouldn’t be armed. The biggest congregation of Vivian’s team was in the control center.
“Do we shift now or later?” Sahale asked her.
“Stay human for the moment. We don’t know what we’re going to come up against yet.” She turned to Thorne and David. “So how do we get back into this place?”
David turned and began to walk in the direction of the facility. Everyone hurried close behind. He talked as he walked. “There’s a back way in. There always is for these places. Even secret government facilities need to comply with fire regulations.” He moved at a quick pace, skirting around trees, staying away from the road. A small clearing revealed a man-made structure.
The entrance was a double metal door embedded in a brick surround—like a large access to a storm shelter. The only thing giving away the fact it was something more were the security cameras positioned either side of the doors, and the electronic pad embedded into the bricks.
Thorne put out a hand to stop everyone. “Hang on.” He took off his jacket and tore the material down the seam, splitting the item in two. He hurried over to the cameras, and threw one side of his jacket over one camera, and then repeated the process with the other.
With the cameras covered, Thorne pushed past David. “We might as well try the easy way first.” He tapped a number into the key pad and pressed his thumb to the pad. The light flashed red. He glanced back over his shoulder to where Autumn and the others stood, waiting. “I guess they were prepared for the possibility I would come back.”
David stepped up. “It’s not a problem. I can override it.” From his pocket he pulled a couple of small items. Autumn stepped closer to see what he was using, but they were hidden in his palm.
“What have you got there?” she asked.
He opened his palm to reveal a hair grip and a magnet.
“Seriously?”
He shrugged. “I know some codes, too. But these will come in handy.”
David’s body shadowed the keypad as he got to work. Autumn waited, anxiously chewing on the side of her thumbnail. How long would it be before someone noticed the cameras had been blacked out?
Within a minute, the light flashed green and something inside the door buzzed. He reached out and pushed the door. It swung open revealing a dimly lit stairwell.
“Good job,” said Chogan, pushing past him to enter first.
Thorne followed close behind. Autumn and Mia stayed together, Peter right behind them, together with Sahale, Nadie, Tocho, and several of the other shifters. David brought up the rear, pulling the set of doors closed behind them.
The staircase was windowless and narrow, leading downward into the earth. Autumn wondered where it would come out, remembering she’d not seen any sign of
a stairwell when she’d been kept on the first floor.
Bizarrely, the staircase opened out onto what appeared to be the back of a janitor’s closet. Autumn almost tripped over a broom, banging against a bucket. The metal clang reverberated, and she clutched at Chogan’s back to stop herself falling while he looked over his shoulder and glared at her.
“Sorry,” she whispered. Her cheeks heated with embarrassment.
He put out a hand to silence her.
A door was situated in the wall in front of them. They paused for a moment, listening hard for any movement outside. None came.
Cautiously, Chogan edged open the door.
A movement came from the right. A figure in army fatigues noticed the other group and pulled a firearm, but Chogan lunged, taking the man’s legs out from under him. The soldier slammed against the floor, his weapon falling from his grip and skittering across the flooring. Chogan sat up and wrapped an arm around the man’s neck and pulled tight. The soldier gave a strangled choke, battering at Chogan’s arm.
Thorne bent down and picked up the weapon. He seemed more complete, somehow, now he held a gun. Autumn was just pleased the soldier hadn’t had a chance to fire it. They couldn’t afford to have the gun go off and alert everyone else in the building to their presence, though she felt sure they’d be noticed soon enough. But for the moment, there didn’t appear to be anyone else around.
The rest of the group exited into the corridor.
Autumn glanced both ways. “David, Sahale, Nadie, you go that way. We’ll go this way.”
They were in a long corridor with rooms leading off. The room she’d been kept in was down one end, the elevator down the other. Doors with windows embedded in them for observation were at regular intervals along one wall.
Autumn's War (The Spirit Shifters Book 4) Page 8
