Tuck turned on his heel and left again.
Thankfully, he didn’t ask any questions.
They needed a meeting but not just the normal leaders. Tuck needed to be there. The leader of the incarcerated paranormals needed to be there. All the other leaders were needed.
And she had to work fast.
She flew to the Blackmans. She was getting used to flying fast, though fast flight also meant bigger appetite. She needed to eat at each stop. She talked with Phoebe, who sent members of her covens to retrieve the other leaders, calling up doors and disappearing.
She then used the amulet Merry had given her and told her to meet at the mayor’s office, which wasn’t going to be big enough. They needed to go somewhere bigger.
The high school gymnasium.
She called every person she could think of. Chuck, Danny, Suzanne, Michelle—who wasn’t taking her calls. So, she reached out to Harrison Walker instead.
And while she flew and talked and gathered, Paige thought about her opinion. What did she think about all this?
Her first concern when they’d started this was to find a peaceful solution, and she had one. It met the needs she’d set for herself. Protect this town and save as many paranormals as she could.
But this cost was too high, and the world was watching. If she folded now? The other paranormals didn’t stand a chance.
She didn’t want to accept the agreement. She wanted to find the bus the kids were on, take them, and tell the president what she could do with her “peace” agreement.
They all gathered at the high school, and with an hour to spare, she had everyone she could think of there and represented.
She got up and spoke into the microphone. It looked like a mobile karaoke machine. It sounded like it too. “We have a peace offer from the president.”
She then went into the details of it, spelling out what the president called peace.
“This isn’t peace,” one woman said with a growl.
Paige agreed. They needed to vent their frustration, to talk things out. But they also needed to know what was at stake here. She held up her hands for silence. “The people we freed from the prison are missing their kids. The president is offering to return them if we accept her offer. They’re on a bus headed here right now. They’re almost here.”
Chuck stood, shaking his head, his blue eyes filled with disappointment. “You want us to accept these terms?”
Paige knew what she thought of this, but saying it out loud? She had to be honest with them. “No.”
The crowd shifted, and the tension almost visibly released.
“But we need a plan to get those kids back to their parents and to safety. We need to figure out a way to release the rest of our people. Where are they going to go? Because we can’t take any more refugees here. There will be traps at the prisons now. They will be expecting us, and we have to be ready.”
Kendall rose to her feet, towering over those around her. “We are warriors.”
“Some of us are warriors but not all of us.” Paige looked around at the different types of paranormals and felt for the first time why she was the one standing before them. She was a shifter and a witch and talked to the same elements they all spoke to. She listened and she acted, weighing their concerns. She wasn’t always right. She didn’t profess to be. She wasn’t any one of the other alphas. She was all of them.
And that knowledge made her feel more in control. “We need to remember that even our non-warriors have strengths.”
Paige read the room, and they seemed… relieved.
Relieved that she was about to declare war on the United States of America.
Tuck stood up. “The president is on her way. She’s being escorted now.”
“Do not threaten her life,” Paige told them. It would be too easy to take the president out right here and now.
“Why not?” someone shouted.
“Assassinate her now while she’s weak,” someone else yelled.
“That’s a bell we can’t un-ring,” Paige roared, using her alpha will to back her words. “Do we have someone to take the president’s place?”
“You.”
“No.” Absolutely not. “First of all, that’s not how the government works. There is a chain of command here, and I’m nowhere on it. Nowhere. Secondly, I’m not fit to lead a nation. Thirdly, decide who is going to lead us. It won’t be me. I’ll run the protection side of things. I’ll help with the war, but the leader? That needs to be someone who actually knows what they’re fucking doing.” Someone who didn’t need to search for an online class on how the government worked.
The gym buzzed with this new update as Tuck disappeared.
“And besides that,” Paige continued, “we’re not making a martyr out of her. Do not make a martyr out of that woman. Do you hear me?”
Kendall smirked.
A few people squirmed, but most everyone else opted to simply hold back.
Tuck came back with a team of men in black and the president of the United States.
They were about to do something they couldn’t take back, and for the first time since the day she’d stood outside the courthouse fighting for her daughter, Paige felt like pissing herself.
The president came up to Paige and smiled at the gathered paranormals. “The children are just outside of town.”
“Excellent.” Paige kind of wanted to see how the president would react. She wanted to know what was at play here. What kind of woman was the president and just how far was she willing to go?
But was Paige willing to bet the lives of children? There was no guarantee the kids would be safe. “I need to know if you intend on returning our children.”
Disappointment settled like a fine sheen of dust on the president’s face. “You do know that, in refusing my offer, you’d be declaring war.”
“We’re declaring our rights. Rights we were born with, Madame President. We’re declaring we don’t deserve to be treated like criminals. What’s wrong with that?”
“You’re dangerous.”
“As dangerous as you?” Paige turned to the president and squared off with her. “Will the children be safe? Will they be returned?”
The president narrowed her right eye, gnashing her teeth. “Yes.”
“Are you sure?” Because there was something in her expression, something that hinted the only reason the president was agreeing to return the kids was because she had something else up her sleeve.
The president ground her jaw. “Yes. They will be safe.”
Paige didn’t believe her.
Neither did a few of the others. “Where are they coming from?”
The president’s eyes went frigid. “They’re coming from Portland.”
Chuck and a few others got up and left.
“I want to formally let you know that your offer of ‘peace’ is respectfully declined.” A thick knot wrapped itself in Paige’s chest as she said those words out loud. “We will not be herded onto your reservations. We will not be chipped and treated like cattle for the slaughter. We were born free American citizens, and that’s how we’re going to be treated.”
“How do you think this is going to play out for you?” the president asked, turning to the gathered crowd. “I have armies. You have…” She sneered and gestured to the people. “Pets.”
Paige knew just how much fire power was at the president’s fingertips. She didn’t worry about nuclear attacks but others? Missiles? Would their wards withstand a direct missile attack?
She’d have to make a few adjustments, if she even could. “We will not live like that, Madame President. We are free people and we will be treated like it.”
The president took in a deep breath, straightening as she did so. Then she met Paige’s gaze. “I had more faith in you.”
“As I you.” The full force of those words hit Paige like a hammer in that moment. Her entire world rocked in those three words. She’d had complete faith that the president of the Un
ited States would look after them, would see their best interest, and would eventually find a real solution.
Not this. She’d thought it, had aced it, but she hadn’t believed it would go this far.
“You will wish you’d taken my offer,” the president said as she and her security detail left.
“You’ll wish you’d heeded mine.”
They were now at war.
30
They managed to retrieve the kids safe and sound, but Paige knew something else was going on there. Something else was afoot. She didn’t know what she’d read on the president’s face, but the woman had been smug when she’d said the kids would return.
Paige had sent Margo and Clem to see what they could find, but they’d come back with nothing. She didn’t want to stir up a bunch of trouble, not with the talks going on right then.
Paige knew something wasn’t right.
For four days, the president didn’t make another move on Troutdale. She didn’t make another move on the other paranormal communities either. Danny and Tru had managed to get their own network up and running. Tru was still building on the network that Paige didn’t understand. Danny’s network of dryads and information made sense. Tru’s network of jargon and “nets” didn’t.
They had information. That was what mattered. They had information.
And information was good.
They had a reprieve, and while that felt like a good thing, it probably wasn’t.
The gathered paranormals—with more arriving every day—voted that she would lead them through this war.
A real vote. With delegates and the whole nine. She didn’t campaign, but she still won as the war effort commander and as their leader. Though, to be fair, there were only a couple of others who’d offered their names.
She needed experienced people around her, so she made Kendall her second-in-command.
She also built a cabinet of sorts after taking that online class on how the government worked. They were no longer ruled by some secret council. The Elders didn’t even have a member on board. None of them had been voted in.
She stood in the corner of the room, watching this new Cabinet bicker in the conference room of the Red Star Division. Suzanne had said she’d give up her office, but Paige had insisted that wouldn’t happen. The town still needed their mayor and her office. They’d become the beating heart for the town and that’s how it needed to stay.
Originally, she’d let everyone meet at the Whiskey home, but Leslie had started showing signs of wear. Their home was no longer the sanctuary it had once been.
So, Paige had taken it to the only other place she could think: Red Star.
But this wasn’t going to work either. Eventually, Dexx and his team—his entire freakin’ team. Where in the hell were they?—would be back and they’d need their space back. But for now?
For now, they were collecting votes for secession and dividing the U.S.
“We have Montana,” Rory said. He was a big, burly dryad from a grove that was apparently bigger and more powerful than Troutdale’s grove. “They’re ready to vote.”
Paige still didn’t understand what exactly was going on here. They were making a bid to secede from the Union, an act that Paige was fairly certain had failed a couple of times before. Texas had attempted it once before and it’d failed.
So far, they had Texas, California, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas, Colorado, and Nebraska. Then, there were the three odd ball ones: New Hampshire, Vermont, and Florida.
How was that supposed to work?
They had a lawyer, Nancy Niesgal. Paige remembered her name as “Nice Gal,” even though that wasn’t how it was pronounced. She had a lot of names and faces to remember and she had to somehow build relationships with all of them. This was… ridiculous.
Willow was helpful here as well. She’d been the one to come up with the pet names to help her remember.
“We file for the right to secede,” Nancy repeated as everyone else bickered, squabbled, and threw out wild ideas. “That will buy us time.”
Paige knew they weren’t going to be able to buy a lot of time and they weren’t wasting it. They’d set up locations for people to relocate to in the wilderness of Northern California, Montana, and Oregon. The president had offered camps or reservations. So far, the paranormals weren’t offering much more than that. But their refuge camps wouldn’t have killer chips.
Paige had also set up people to watch over supplies and others to help them build new homes, new power grids.
No fences, though. Anyone could come in and out as they wanted.
But each of these hubs would be protected with a ward tree and a Blackman and an Eastwood.
There weren’t enough Whiskeys to share, though.
They hadn’t invaded any other prisons yet. That would come next, but in this time of “peace,” Paige was preparing those flocking to them.
She knew that others were setting up refugee camps elsewhere. There was a growing one in New Mexico that was making the news, but so far, New Mexico hadn’t opted to join their bid to secede.
“How will this work?” Paige asked again. She’d heard the words. She just needed them repeated so they’d drive home and become reality.
“Legally,” Nancy said, “the Union is indestructible.”
This was the point Paige was having an issue with. “Which means the vote is a waste of time.”
“No. If we secede, then other states might as well.”
“Like?”
“The Confederate states. If the west pulls out and then the south follows, the north will be all that remains.”
“But they’ll still have the federal reserve, the power, and the military.”
“Legally, yes.”
There was no “legally” to it. Paige was sitting as a leader to a nation with no money, no military, no support. This was a nightmare. The president was going to win with that alone.
There were so many things she could do. She could withhold medicine and then all the people with chronic illnesses would die.
She could “allow” a supply shipment in and then poison the food.
She could bomb the shit out of one the refugee camps.
The president had all the power.
Though, Paige had been contacted by a couple of other countries that were interested in hearing her plans, mostly because they didn’t want their own paranormal societies to rise up.
Paige was glad that other nations were figuring this out, but she wished hers could. “So, if they still legally have all the power, what are we hoping to gain?”
Nancy held her hands open with a pinched expression. “When we withdraw our state support, the federal government is weakened. Right now, the U.S. is a superpower, but that’s with the resources and taxes from all the states.”
“And weakened, the U.S. will have more than one war front.”
“It’s possible.”
“So, you think a civil war will bring a world war.”
Nancy was somber for a moment. “That’s the threat we’re leveraging.”
Right. Politics. “Okay. You do what you have to, and I’m going to see what we can do to shore things up here.”
Nancy nodded and left.
Paige wasn’t going to be any more help here. They were talking about war plans, and that was great. But without other structures in place, they would lose. They needed planes, boats, and weapons. They needed medical supplies and food.
They needed infrastructures.
So, she located people, working with them, coming up with ideas—real ideas—and then implemented plans that would actually work.
Another two days spent.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was a start.
When she checked back with the war room, as she called it, they seemed to have a plan as well, and a rough Declaration of Independence.
Oh, how history repeated itself. This nation had been born from the bootheel of tyranny, and
it was being destroyed by it as well.
Apparently, the Oregon senator had put together a call for a vote.
In most cases, the states were divided. However, they were divided on the side of secession, though only barely.
She remembered Nancy’s words. They didn’t think they’d actually succeed in breaking from the Union, maybe even with a civil war. They just wanted to strong arm the president into giving them a few of their own terms.
And, apparently, she was supposed to hand deliver those terms when the official declarations were issued.
Paige reviewed the terms that were handed to her. Arrangements had been made for her to arrive at the White House, provide the terms, and then come back to await the president's response.
This was a ballsy move that could potentially be rather empty if they didn't have the infrastructure in place. She just hoped that the ball she had started rolling would actually make a difference.
She put on her most professional outfit, which happened to be a pair of jeans, her cleanest and nicest button-up shirt, and a blue business jacket. She just wasn't a politician and didn't believe she was ready for this. She took her own reporter and her own dryad. She wanted someone she could trust to speak the truth as it had been said instead of trying to interpret it and put their own spin on it.
The door that was open spilled onto the White House lawn. Technically speaking, they could have made the attempt to open the door into the Oval Office, but Paige didn't want to be that forceful, nor did she want to invite the president into overreacting. The White House lawn was quite close enough. She also wasn't going to allow herself to be collared this time.
Security personnel reacted immediately.
She had already been prepared for that. She called up her magick and relieved everyone she saw of their weapons. "We are not here to fight," she said in as loud a voice as she could. "But I will be seeing the president now."
She did not make an advance on the White House. She didn't want it to look like she was storming the castle or attacking them. They were offering their terms and nothing more.
Eventually, the president came out, with a whole new set of Secret Service who were still armed. "I trust my agents are able to keep their weapons this time?"
Whiskey Storm (Whiskey Witches Midnight Rising Book 1) Page 28
