Mia stepped out onto the street, planning to head into the property opposite, but something stopped her. Someone was heading down the street toward her, a figure in the distance. She frowned. Something was wrong with the person. They walked with a limp, dragging one foot. Long hair at first made her think it was a woman, but the build was too big, as well as the obvious other difference which became apparent as soon as he was close enough. Her eyes widened in surprise. Was the person naked?
With a jolt, she suddenly recognized who it was. “Chogan?”
She broke into a run, heading down the street toward him.
Upon reaching him, she fell in to walk at his side. Chogan barely seemed to acknowledge her presence. His shoulders were hunched, his head hung so his long hair fell over his chest. He was breathing heavily. The blood of old wounds encrusted his body. She placed her hand on his bare back, the heat of his skin burning her palm, and he flinched at the contact.
“Oh, my God, Chogan. What happened? Are you okay?”
He didn’t speak, but shook his head.
She quickly pulled off the jacket she was wearing and dropped it around his shoulders, though possibly that wasn’t the area he’d most have wanted covered. She couldn’t worry about his modesty right now—he didn’t exactly seem bothered. She needed to get him to his uncle.
It was a strange sight, the petite woman guiding the far larger, naked man down the street. She could feel people staring at them, muttering to each other from their porches. A couple of people ran down from their homes, trying to offer help, but until she knew what was going on, she didn’t want anyone else involved. She waved them away, giving a shake of her head to indicate she didn’t need their help.
“I’ll take you to your uncle,” she told him.
He shook his head. “Not yet. I need to go to my house first. At least get some clothes before I see him.”
“Won’t your uncle have some clothes you can borrow?”
“Yes, but ...” he seemed to struggle with his words. “Please, Mia. I need to get myself together first. I have something I need to tell him. Something important.”
Concern made her catch her breath as they continued to walk down the street. “What is it? What’s happened? Do you know if Autumn is all right?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen her since Calvin Thorne took her away at the cabin.”
“You haven’t seen Peter either, then?”
“Peter? Isn’t he here with you? I thought you were together.”
“He went to try to find Autumn. I’ve not heard from him since.”
Chogan nodded toward a small, whitewashed home. A couple of motorbikes broken down into pieces sat in the front yard. They walked together, Mia still feeling like she was somehow holding Chogan up. Perhaps he was drawing from her mental strength rather than physical. But she was desperate to know what had gone down at the cabin. If something terrible had happened, Peter or Autumn might have been involved. Her stomach twisted itself into knots in her anxiety.
“So what’s happened?” She felt like she was on the verge of begging now.
“Please. I can’t have this conversation like this.”
The tone of his voice made her stomach sink, but she pressed her lips together to prevent any more questions leaping from her mouth. She wanted to grab him and shake him until he’d told her everything, but she’d learned in her job that people would talk when they were ready to.
Chogan reached up to a ledge above the door and fished down a spare key, then used it to open the front door. Without bothering to invite her in, Chogan went into the house. He didn’t shut the door in her face, so she stepped through and stood awkwardly in the hall.
“Just wait here one minute,” he told her.
Chogan disappeared down the hall into what she assumed was a bedroom. She waited, anxiously. The house was surprisingly tidy, considering the junk in the front yard. The place was simply decorated, but she noticed it was missing any personal artifacts. Only one family photograph hung on the wall, one that depicted a much younger Chogan, with Blake one side of him, and Tala the other. The three of them grinned at whoever was taking the picture, all looking carefree and happy in a way she’d never seen—not that she’d spent much time with them.
Chogan reappeared wearing light blue jeans, threaded at the thigh, and a close fitting black t-shirt. His long hair had been pulled back into a ponytail at the nape of his neck. He’d washed the blood from his face, but the sad, haunted expression in his dark eyes hadn’t changed. That expression frightened her more than the blood ever could.
“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.”
She wanted to ask him again what had happened. What events had caused him to manage to escape from the cabin, and bring no one else with him? What had happened to the others?
But now she was scared to hear the answer.
With her heart pounding, she followed Chogan from the house. He didn’t bother to lock the door behind him, letting it slam shut. They walked the couple of blocks to his uncle’s house in silence, though a couple of people shouted to him, waving to welcome him home. He barely even responded, just a slight lift of his chin to acknowledge he’d heard. The cloud of despair lingered around him, pulling Mia into its cold embrace. She didn’t even know what was wrong yet, but already her heart felt heavier, her stomach in knots.
Mia wasn’t even sure if Lakota was in. He’d been working on the same thing she had, trying to spread the word about the government crackdown on all shifters and those associated with shifters. But when Chogan pushed the front door open, the old Native American stepped out of the kitchen to see who was entering. His eyes widened at the sight of his nephew.
“Chogan!” He hurried forward to embrace his nephew.
“Uncle.” But Chogan displayed no joy in seeing his family member.
“Where are the others? Blake? Tala?”
“Come,” Chogan said, guiding his uncle into the living room. “You need to sit down.”
“What is it, Chogan?” His voice was anxious, his eyes filled with nervous intensity. “Has something happened to them? Tell me?”
“Sit down, Uncle. Please.”
Lakota dropped into what Mia had come to think of as ‘his chair,’ a beat-up, threadbare, combat green La-Z-Boy. Chogan sat down on the couch opposite, his elbows on his knees, his fingers resting lightly on his forehead as if sheltering his eyes from the sun, when in fact it was more likely he was hiding.
He lifted his head, his eyes settling on his uncle’s face. Mia lurked in the background, anxiously nibbling on her nails, and trying to will herself not to pace.
“I’m so sorry, Uncle, I don’t know how to tell you this—”
“Just tell me!”
“Blake didn’t make it.”
Lakota frowned. “He didn’t make it? What are you telling me, Chogan?”
“He died, Uncle. I’m so sorry. He was protecting Tala, and he was shot. I tried to carry him, but I ran out of strength. I left him, there, in the forest.” He shook his head. “I’m so sorry.”
Lakota’s eyes filled with tears. “No, not Blake. He’s strong. He’s always been strong.”
“He was. Right to the end.”
A tear spilled down the old man’s creased face. He didn’t bother to wipe it away. “What of Tala? Please, give me better news of my daughter.”
“She tried to turn herself into a shifter. It went wrong.”
“I know this already.”
Chogan turned to Mia.
She nodded. “We told him what happened.”
“Please, where is she? Is she at least safe?”
“I don’t know. I had to leave her near the cabin. She was caught in a mid-shift and was fighting us. The man who was supposed to be taking care of her left her in the middle of a clearing while we were being attacked. Blake threw himself over her so she wouldn’t be hurt, and took the bullets himself.”
Lakota took a moment, staring down at the floor, perhaps picturing
these events in his mind.
“So she wasn’t hurt when you left her,” he said, the hope he was clinging to evident in his voice.
“No, except for the shift.”
“So she might still be there, where you left her?”
“No, I heard the soldiers find her.”
“Did you hear any shots? Any signs that they were harming her?” His voice choked. “I can’t believe you didn’t go back for her. She was closer than a cousin to you. She was more like a sister!”
Chogan’s eyes welled with tears at his uncle’s accusations. “Don’t you think I’ve gone over my choices time and time in my head? Wondering if I made the right decision. But Tala was the way she was because she kidnapped Autumn, beat her, and injected herself with Autumn’s blood. She made her choices, Uncle! She did what she did to herself. But Blake was innocent. All he ever did was try to protect others—Autumn and Tala. He deserved a chance. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to do more. I wanted to, but if I hadn’t shifted to wolf when I did, I wouldn’t be here telling you all of this now.”
Mia watched on in despair. Was Blake really dead? She just couldn’t imagine it; the larger than life man who always seemed to take up so much space when he entered the room. Her heart broke for Autumn. She would be crushed when she heard the news. Blake was the first man Mia had ever seen Autumn connect with. The first man she imagined she could love.
The sorrow in the room was heartbreaking, but something else worried her. She felt like she was looking at two broken men, men who previously she would only have equated with authority and strength. And with Blake gone, and Peter God-knows where, she only had these men left to help. A war was going on, and the people needed someone to lead them.
Though urgency pressed upon her, she knew she needed to give the two men time. She couldn’t give them much, but at least a little privacy in their grief was needed.
Mia slipped away and went to the kitchen, busying herself by brewing coffee and scrabbling through cupboards and the refrigerator to make up some sandwiches. It seemed like such a trivial thing to do considering the circumstances, but it was in her nature to feed the soul. She dragged out the preparation, wanting to give them as much time as she could without going crazy. She added cream and sugar to a small tray with the coffee mugs, found a packet of chips and scattered them onto plates beside the ham sandwiches which she’d cut into small triangles.
“What the fuck are you doing?” she muttered to herself.
She was putting off knowing what she needed to be done.
Feeling like an idiot, she carried the tray into the room and placed it down on the coffee table between the two men. Neither spoke, the pain they suffered too great for niceties.
“You need your strength,” she said, speaking to them both.
No reaction.
She was horribly nervous, though she struggled to understand why. They were just men, and she was a woman who had been in far harder situations than this. She’d needed to make bereaved and worried families focus before in order to get information from them, she didn’t know why this was any different. She guessed it was because she worried they would tell her to shut up and get the hell out. What would she do then?
Mia crouched to bring herself level with the two men. She cleared her throat.
“I know you’re both hurting, and I can’t even imagine your pain, but you need to try to put your pain to one side for the moment. There will be time for grief, it will always be waiting for you, but you need to think about all of the people who are in danger—your people.”
She looked at them both. They’d lifted their heads, looking at her with a mixture of confusion and shock. But at least they were looking. They were listening.
“Neither of you know what happened to Tala. Whatever she did, and believe me, I’m never going to be her biggest fan after what she did to Autumn,” she bit her tongue, realizing the last thing these men would want to hear was bad things about a daughter and cousin who might be lost. “But she might be out there, still alive. The soldiers who have been rounding up shifters might have taken her. Chogan, you said you didn’t hear any shots.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“So she might still be alive, and so might God-knows how many other shifters the government has taken. We can’t let Blake’s death stop what’s been started. We need to gather everyone. Make a stand. The government needs to know that shifters won’t be pushed around.”
Chapter Twenty-two
CHOGAN NEVER THOUGHT he had a sense of responsibility until now. The despair that had settled over him like a thick cloak upon leaving Blake in the forest still resided, but he knew what Mia said was right. He had started this thing. People had died because he’d gone on television and shifted in front of millions of viewers. He’d made the decision to change all of their lives. He couldn’t hide from it now, though he no longer trusted his ability to make decisions. He would do what he could to help, but he couldn’t lead them anymore.
He turned to Mia. “What should we do?”
“We need to mobilize everyone. We need to go to Chicago and show the government just how many people they’re dealing with.” She paused and then asked, “How many people live on the reservation?”
Chogan looked to his uncle for the answer.
“A little over five thousand, I think,” the older man replied. “But many of those are women and children. Or they’re old, like me.”
“Okay,” Mia continued. “Let’s assume all of the young men will come, and some of the women as well, as long as they don’t have young children to look after. There’s no reason they can’t make a stand the same as the men. So what sort of number would that amount to? A thousand people? Maybe even two thousand?”
Lakota nodded, before reaching out to the tray Mia had brought in and picking up a sandwich. “Sounds about right,” he said, and took a bite of the bread and ham.
“How are the government and the army going to imprison two thousand people? And I bet we’ll pick up more people along the way.” Chogan could tell she was warming to her theme, the pace of her voice increasing. He struggled to share her enthusiasm. He didn’t want to expose more of his people to danger.
“People might die,” Chogan warned. “People probably will die. If we encourage them to come with us, then we will be responsible for their deaths. You seem like a nice girl, Mia. Do you think you can live with that on your head?” He knew he was talking about himself as much as her. He was struggling with the enormity of it all, the feeling this had all gotten beyond his control. Perhaps that was exactly what needed to happen. He needed to stop trying to control things.
His words didn’t seem to dissuade her.
“Wasn’t it you who said we were at war? When there is a war, there will always be casualties. And what other choices do we have? Just sit back and let the government pick shifters off one by one, stash them away in the hope of making society the same as it once was, like shifters are dirty little secrets that need to be kept hidden. If we don’t fight back, they’ll have won. And now they have Autumn, they’ll be able to do whatever the hell they want with your kind.”
Lakota reached out and touched the young woman’s hand. She looked at him, her dark eyes wide.
“Miss. Mia, I have to ask you, why are you fighting this battle that isn’t your own?”
She blinked back tears. “Because I’m in love with Peter Haverly, and he’s one of you. In my eyes, that makes me as involved with shifters as anybody else.”
Lakota smiled. “Love is as good a reason as any.”
She returned the smile.
The sound of a car engine approaching came from outside. It was quickly joined by the higher pitched roar of a motorbike. The volume increased as another car engine joined the throng, followed by another bike, and then another. The noise became a dull roar that seemed to continue to grow louder, drowning out the sound of their voices. Chogan’s gaze flicked between Lakota and Mia. The expressions he saw in their eyes, confu
sion and worry, that feeling of ‘what now?’ he knew would be reflected in his own eyes. He wondered what to do. He had lost contact with his wolf for the moment, or he would have used the animal to see what was happening outside. But the emotional rollercoaster he’d been on, together with the prolonged shift to get back here, running the wolf’s body to the point of exhaustion, meant the wolf guide had needed a little separation. He was exhausted himself, emotionally drained, and didn’t even have the energy to tap into his spirit guide to find out what was happening outside.
Mia got to her feet. “I’ll go see what’s going on.”
Lakota put out his hand again to stop her. “No, this is my home. I’ll go.”
She didn’t argue, but she stood by Lakota’s side as he got to his feet, and then followed him to the door. The noise from outside hadn’t subsided, if anything it had gotten louder. Chogan mentally gave himself a shake. He needed to pull himself together. He couldn’t let an old man and a woman go to face possible danger, while he hid behind them.
Chogan forced himself to his feet, though his whole body ached, and his chest felt empty—a space where his heart used to be.
Mia and his uncle already stood in the open doorway, but they weren’t running for cover. The roar of the engines was even louder with the door open. He came to a stop behind them, looking out over their shoulders at the scene in the street. Beyond Lakota’s small, neat yard stood person, after person, after person. Some stood beside their motorbikes. Others had pulled up their vehicles, and now stood beside their open doors, arms resting on the roofs. These weren’t their enemies. These were men and women from the reservation, so many faces he recognized, and some he didn’t. They stretched right down the street, both ways, as far as he could see, curving around the bends.
“We’re here to help!” one of the men shouted out.
A roar of agreement rose up behind him.
Autumn Rising Page 18
