Their group took I-294 to skirt around the outskirts of the city. They’d seen no signs of the military so far, but Chicago was a big city, and just because they hadn’t come across them yet, didn’t mean they weren’t around.
Mia hoped they would be able to achieve Autumn’s plans. While they’d been out in the sticks, the number of shifters and supporters in the convoy seemed massive. Now they’d divided up, their numbers felt pitiful compared to the size of the city. She understood Autumn believed the citizens would unite with them once they saw the shifters fighting on their side, but if things went the other way, they would be completely outnumbered.
It was too late to question Autumn’s plans now.
Peter glanced across at her as he drove. She wasn’t even sure whose vehicle they were in now; they seemed to have switched between cars every time they’d stopped.
“You okay?” he asked.
She nodded. “Nervous, that’s all.”
He smiled. “Me, too. We’ll be all right.”
Ahead, a number of cars were at a standstill, blocking the road. A couple had skewed at angles, several of the vehicle doors wide open. There didn’t appear to be any signs of people or the military, but that didn’t mean they were alone.
Peter started to slow the car, those following behind slowing with him. He was able to maneuver around a gap in the outside lane, but was forced to crawl past, Mia rubber-necking out of the window. A large symbol had been spray-painted onto the side of one of the cars—a zigzag line and the initials T&C.
“What does that mean?” Mia wondered out loud.
“What?”
“The graffiti. It looks like someone has claimed the accident as their own.”
“Nah,” said Peter. “It’s probably just kids messing around.”
She sat back in the seat, and they left the accident behind. Within a few minutes, they turned onto I-290 to head deeper into the city. Autumn had told them to find a suburb with signs of military activity. She took a deep breath. The idea they were actively seeking armed men and women, and challenging them, was enough to frighten her down to her core.
On the side of a tall apartment building was another of the zigzag tags. “Look,” she said, pointing out of the window. “There’s that sign again.”
“It’s only graffiti, Mia.”
“I know, but I haven’t seen it in the city before. Have you? You don’t live far from here.”
He shook his head. “No, I haven’t. But things have changed.”
A helicopter thrummed somewhere above the city. They craned their necks to peer out of the windshield, trying to catch sight of it.
“Is it military?” she asked.
“No, I think it’s a news chopper.”
Numerous cars were parked alongside the street. “Why haven’t more people made a run for it?” she wondered. “You’d think they would have gotten out of the city.”
“I’m not sure. Maybe they figure they’ll be safe inside their homes, or that this crisis simply won’t affect them. I guess others are worried that if they run, they’ll come back to find their houses taken over by monsters, or something.”
Mia rolled her eyes. “Yeah, cause shifters don’t have their own homes.”
Over the hum of the car engine came a couple of loud, sharp pops.
Mia stiffened. “Was that what I think?”
Peter pulled over the car, the others followed. “Yeah, gunfire. I think we found our spot.” He stared at her. “Are you sure I can’t convince you to stay here?”
“No way.”
He gave a deep sigh, but didn’t argue further. Together, they swung open their car doors and climbed out.
They gathered together on the sidewalk, the group of shifters Autumn had allocated to their team, and the couple of humans. More shots sounded and someone screamed.
“Stay behind the shifters,” Peter told Mia. “Whatever else happens, I’ll be protecting you first.”
His words caused a warmth to swell in her stomach and settle in her heart.
All around her, the shifters began to yank off clothing, dumping their shirts and jeans into the vehicles they’d just vacated. Bones began to break, and Mia took a couple of steps back, instinctively wanting to put distance between herself and the growling, howling, roaring shifters. She remembered the first time she’d witnessed Peter shift, how they’d been in the confined space of a janitor’s closet, how disbelieving and terrified she’d been. Though she knew differently now, she wasn’t surprised that the general public’s first instinct was to be frightened.
With his shift complete, Peter in mountain lion form padded up to her and nudged his sleek golden head against her arm. Unable to help herself, she smiled and placed her hand on top of his head, running her fingers through the soft, sleek fur. He regarded her with his amber eyes lined in coal black, and a low purr rattled in his chest with every intake of breath.
She lowered her face—not far, as he was so tall—and placed her lips close to the top of his head, near his ear. “I’ll stay safe. I promise. But so do you, too.”
A yell came. They’d been spotted. Pale, frightened faces peeped out of windows at them, slamming down blinds as soon as they looked their way. The pounding of feet running on the sidewalk headed toward them. Soldiers rounded the corner, guns already lifted.
Mia’s heart leaped in her chest and fluttered like bird’s wing against her rib cage. She reminded herself why she was here—for the people. She was the one who would convince the people the shifters were on their side.
She ducked down behind a parked car, hating she was hiding but remembering her promise to Peter. In the face of armed men and shifters, she was defenseless.
Oh, God, Peter. Please be safe.
Shots went off. She peeped out. One of the wolves had taken out a soldier and held the man’s throat between its powerful jaws. A couple of soldiers had someone, who appeared to be a civilian, held by each arm. Peter went for them, sneaking up from behind, and then jumping the man on the right. The other soldier swung his gun around, shooting off a couple of shots. Mia screamed, but Peter ducked away, unharmed. The man they’d been holding broke free and ran toward Mia. She stood up for only a moment, to wave him down and drag him in to hide behind the car.
“What the hell?” the man exclaimed.
“It’s okay. The shifters are helping.”
“Are you kidding? It looks like a war out there.”
“You’re free, aren’t you? What did they want with you anyway?”
“They’re going house to house, taking people’s temperatures. Rumor is that these creatures are hotter than regular people.”
Mia remembered the times she’d spent in bed with Peter, how much hotter his skin felt against her own. “That’s right. So are you a shifter then?”
He sniffed. “Nah, I just picked up a cold over the weekend. Damn kids must have given it to me. They’re always picking up some bug or another.” His face drained of color. “Oh God, the kids. Would they take them, too?”
“I have no idea.”
More shots came, followed by a yelp of pain. Mia jumped to her feet. One of the wolves had been shot. Another wolf took the shooter down, wrestling the gun from their grip with his teeth. She needed to get that gun.
“Wait here,” she hissed at the man.
She darted out from behind the car and ran forward. The soldiers had a van and a couple of other vehicles. Were they rounding people up and putting them in the back of the van? She noticed Peter, his paw on a man in camouflage gear’s chest, snapping at his face. He saw her, and his eyes narrowed and he snarled. She knew he was telling her to get back, but she needed to help.
The injured wolf lay pawing at the road, blood smearing the ground beneath. She snatched the gun from the asphalt and crouched beside the wolf, the gun held in one hand.
“You’ll be okay,” she told the wolf. “It’s only a leg wound. You’ll heal.”
The wolf whined in response.
&n
bsp; Another soldier came from around the corner. She pointed the weapon at him, and he reached for his own.
“Don’t even think about it,” she yelled. She nodded toward the truck. “What’s in there?”
The man’s eyes darted around the scene before him, and he dropped his weapon, clearly outnumbered. He raised his hands in surrender. “More of you freaks,” he yelled back.
She jerked her head again. “Open the doors.”
Peter walked to her side, then one of the other shifters, and another. She found herself flanked by the biggest, most beautiful animals she’d ever seen. Holding the gun, she felt strong, powerful.
The soldier went to the back doors, fumbled and jangled with a set of keys, and then managed to get the doors open. People cowered inside—young, old, men, and women. They’d been terrified by the gunfire, and the snarls and roars of animals, the screams of injured men. They lifted their hands at the sudden light, all crushed to the back of the vehicle.
“It’s okay,” Mia told them. “We’re here to set you free. We’re not your enemies.”
“How do we know that?” one of the men inside called out.
“We’re letting you go, aren’t we? Do you really think these soldiers are your friends?”
A mutter went up around the group, and one by one, they began to shuffle forward.
“We need to go street to street, house to house,” she told Peter and the others. “Call people out to walk with us, take back the city.”
“Not everyone will come,” the man who’d first spoken up from inside the vehicle said. “People are scared. They don’t want to be taken away from their families.”
“If there are enough of us, the military will have to give in. People won’t need to be frightened of their families being taken away. They can’t arrest an entire city.”
With the truck empty of its captives, the shifters dragged, shoved, and rounded the soldiers into the back. Autumn snatched the set of keys from the soldier who still held them, and slammed the doors shut behind them. She fumbled to find the right key, and then locked the truck.
Is this going on all over Chicago? Was this how the military thought they were dealing with a problem? This wasn’t dealing with a problem, this was creating one.
Filled with a sudden sense of urgency, she ran up to the nearest house and banged on the door. “Hey, if anyone is in there, come and join us! We won’t force you, or take away the people you love. Just walk with us. Make your voice heard.”
She didn’t get any sense of movement from inside, so she ran back down the path and skipped over the front lawns to get to the house next door. She repeated the motion, banging on the door and calling out their cause. A number of the people who’d been locked in the truck began to copy her, going from house to house. The shifters stayed where they were, prowling up and down the street, unable to give an understandable voice to their mission.
Gradually, people began to open their doors, cautiously stepping out onto the street.
“You’re going to stop the military?” one woman, who had a small girl at her side, asked her.
Mia nodded. “We’re going to try. But we can’t do it alone.”
They began to amass more people, the group swelling larger and larger as they moved in toward the center of the city. Mia hoped Autumn’s group, together with Chogan’s group and the others, were having as much success.
The little girl approached Peter. She glanced back at her mother with a wide smile beaming across her face. “Look, Mommy. A big kitty cat.”
The girl’s mom reached out and grabbed her, yanking her back. “No, Abby, darling. That’s not a cat.”
Mia smiled. “It’s okay. He kind of is.” She crouched to the little girl’s level. “He’s just a big old cat, really.”
“Can I pet him?”
Mia glanced over at Peter. She remembered how she’d run her own fingers through his fur only an hour ago, in wonder at the miracle creature that he was. “Well, he’s not a pet. You’ve got to think of them like people, just in a different form.”
But Peter padded over. The girl’s mother clutched her daughter tightly.
Mia laughed. “It’s okay. He’s the last person who would hurt a child.”
The woman’s grip relaxed slightly, and Peter lowered his head and padded a couple more steps closer. He stood almost twice the height of the child, but he butted his head lightly against the little girl’s shoulder, the rumble of a purr emanating from deep in his chest.
Mia laughed again. “I guess that means he doesn’t mind if you stroke him.”
The mother’s eyes darted anxiously between the massive mountain lion before them, Mia, and her daughter, but she didn’t stop her daughter this time when she reached out. Mia repressed a smile as she understood why. The mother was as desperate as her child to touch the soft, warm fur of the magnificent animal. The girl placed a hand on top of Peter’s head, and he nudged her gently, just as a house cat would. The girl giggled—a wonderful sound—and she scratched him behind the ear.
“See, Mommy,” the girl said, “we don’t need to be afraid.”
“No, you don’t.” Mia turned to look at the crowd of people who had gathered to watch the spectacle. She raised her voice. “Shifters may look like animals, but they have the minds of people with the spirit of the creature to guide them. They want to live side by side with us, peacefully, just as they’ve done for hundreds of years.”
She left them with the image of the small child and the huge cat, the girl’s laughter and the big cat’s purr. She walked back to where they’d left their vehicle, and where some of the other non-shifters waited. She caught Angie staring at her.
“What?”
The woman frowned. “Oh, it’s nothing.”
She remembered Angie’s ability, the thing that got her locked up in the first place. “Have you seen something?”
“It’s not clear, but you have a … cloud around you. It’s not death exactly, but it’s something.”
Mia lowered her voice. “For God’s sake, don’t say anything to Peter. He’ll whisk me out of here quicker than you can blink.”
“But what if there’s a problem?”
“If the vision gets worse, let me know. But otherwise keep your mouth shut. These people need me. I don’t want to be hidden away like some fragile little girl.”
She quickly turned away from Angie, her heart beating hard, trying not to think about what Angie’s words meant.
Mia had a job to do, and nothing would distract her.
Chapter Twenty-two
CHOGAN DID HIS best to focus on the job at hand, and not worry about Autumn. He and his team had traveled to Chicago’s South Side, leaving Autumn on the other side of the city, though he hoped they would be moving closer together as every minute passed. Despite knowing how far away she was, every time he heard the pop of gunfire, he worried the bullet had been meant for her.
Ahead, black smoke poured into the air. Several cars were piled together, blackened carcasses. The fire must have only recently burned itself out, as the vehicles still smoldered, though no flames were visible. Chogan frowned. Who had set the fire? Were there still people and shifters in the city rising up against the military? Perhaps they weren’t the only ones? He noticed a scrawl of graffiti up the walls of the building beside the burning cars. A couple of letters were across the slashed tag—a T and a C.
Chogan’s eyes narrowed at the graffiti. Should the letters mean something to him?
They passed the wreckage and headed into one of the suburbs. Autumn had instructed them to go by foot when they’d made it into the populated areas. They wouldn’t be able to connect with people simply by driving past their houses.
He rolled down his window and circled his arm in the air—a signal to those following him that this was the place. His team was made up almost equally of women to men, including Tala, and her friend, Nadie. Autumn had assigned him the young woman who didn’t speak, an empath Autumn had said, though h
e struggled to see what use she would be in a fighting situation. He didn’t like feeling responsible for so many women.
They parked in a quiet area and climbed out.
“What now?” asked Tala.
“We keep moving, heading downtown, and hopefully picking people up along the way.”
“I don’t see why we can’t just drive.”
“Autumn didn’t want us to. We’re supposed to be connecting with people.”
Tala gave a shrug as if to say, ‘whatever.’
The group got moving at a slow jog, crossing the streets, keeping their eyes and ears open for any sign of trouble. Within ten minutes, they heard gunfire, and the yaps and snarls of big animals.
All of Chogan’s senses went on high alert. He focused in on his wolf and sent the animal ahead to find out what was going on. On a wide street lined by Chicago bungalows and crisp-leafed trees, a fight was going on. It took him a moment to figure out who was fighting who. Military were present, as were several huge animals, who could only have been shifters, and a number of civilians as well.
Should they join in?
Something made him hold back, lifting a hand to tell his team to wait. His heart made him want to shift and dive right in with the other shifters, but he needed to use his head now. Suddenly, he recognized one of the wolves—the scar across the gray muzzle. It was one of the shifters who had harassed Madison and Billy at the car.
Also, the atmosphere with the other shifters felt similar to how it had with Madison and Billy. Even though this time the wolf with the scar faced a number of armed men and women, Chogan still sensed an air of playfulness about the situation. How they pranced forward, toward one of the soldiers they had, Chogan assumed, already unarmed, snapping at him and dancing away, while another shifter darted in from the other side. Near one of the houses, a couple of big cats had a group of civilians pinned against the wall of the house. They cowered away, their hands over their faces, the men and women clutching at one another.
Autumn's War (The Spirit Shifters Book 4) Page 16
