Saving Autumn

by Marissa Farrar

  Chogan pushed her farther behind him. “Says who?”

  “The United States Department of Defense. She is a threat to our nation and will be taken into custody until we feel she no longer poses a threat.”

  “You just shot innocent people. I’d say you’re more of the threat.”

  He motioned with the weapon. “And don't think I won’t shoot one more. Now get out of my way. Doctor Anderson, come over here.”

  She moved out from behind Chogan, but he stepped to the side to protect her once more. “Autumn, don't do this.”

  “They’ve got guns, Chogan. What choice do I have? I don't want any more people getting hurt because of me.”

  “You should listen to her,” the man said. “She seems to have more sense than you.”

  Rage spilled from within Chogan. “Who the hell are you to talk about sense? You’re the one who has gotten himself into a confined space with a shifter.” Chogan willed his wolf to him, but before he got the chance to start the shift, the man raised his weapon. Instead of shooting him—the space was too confined, perhaps, and he didn't want to blow his eardrums out—he lunged forward and cracked Chogan in the temple.

  Pain flared in his brain, a lightning bolt, right before the lights cut out.

  Chapter Twenty-four

  THE BOY SAT on a park bench, a street light illuminating the top of his head which was bent over a tablet computer, his too-long, dark hair falling into his eyes. He didn’t even look up as the big, black sedan pulled up at the curb alongside him, the headlight sweeping the sidewalk at his feet. Mia climbed out of the car and ran toward him, Peter and Blake not far behind her.

  “Toby! I thought we told you to stay at home.”

  He finally acknowledged their presence, tearing his eyes from his computer to lift his head. He didn’t even bother to argue his case, getting straight to the point. “A few hours ago, a whole heap of data started coming in. It was encrypted, but I managed to decipher it. I’m pretty sure I know what the figures are, but you take a look.” He thrust the tablet beneath Peter’s nose. Both Mia and Blake peered over his shoulder.

  Peter frowned. “They appear to be a whole series of coordinates.”

  “I agree,” said Blake. “I’ve seen similar on the front line when we were tracking an enemy’s location.”

  “And this has to do with Autumn?” asked Mia. “Does that mean the government took her?”

  Peter shook his head. “They might just be tracking the people who did.”

  Her eyes lit up. “So we can find her? If you can work out the coordinates, won’t they take us right to her?”

  Blake’s lips thinned. “Yes, but they might also take us straight to whoever is heading up Operation Pursuit now, and whoever took Autumn.”

  “I’m not going to abandon her because you’re frightened!”

  He glared at her. “I’m not frightened, I just understand how these people work. If they want Autumn, they’ll take her and they won’t go in unarmed. What I don’t understand is why they hadn’t already taken her by now. I’m guessing from the fact they’ve been tracking her that they know what she can do.”

  Toby delved into the backpack which sat at his feet and pulled out a small keyboard. He slotted his tablet into the top of the keyboard and settled the device on his lap. Concentrating on the small screen, his fingers ran over the keys at lightning pace, pulling up page after page.

  “I can copy and paste the coordinates into an app, which should produce a map of the route Autumn has taken.”

  “Or been taken,” growled Blake.

  Mia shot him a look. “We only need to know the last location. The place where she is now.”

  “But knowing what route they took might help us figure out who took her,” said Peter.

  She didn’t like him taking Blake’s side, though he’d been his friend a long time before they’d gotten together. She still couldn’t help feeling antagonistic toward Blake, holding him at least partially to blame for Autumn’s disappearance. Why hadn’t he and Autumn been together in the first place? If he’d been at her side, he would have been able to fight off whatever trouble had come her way.

  Toby’s fingers continued to click on the keys, highlighting numbers and pasting them into different tables. Within a couple of minutes, he unlocked the tablet from the keyboard and held the screen up for them all to see. The app showed a map of Chicago, a red line running through it. The line headed northwest, vanishing off the screen, so he had to swipe the map to make it smaller.

  “There,” he said, stabbing his index finger at the screen, to a spot on the outskirts, where the interstate didn’t reach, and the forests, parks and reserves encroached. “That’s where you’ll find your missing scientist.”

  “It’s going to take a good couple of hours to get there,” said Peter.

  Mia frowned and leaned closer. “Well, what are we waiting for?”

  They all piled into Peter’s car, Mia with Toby in the back so Blake didn’t have to sit with his knees up around his ears. Toby sat, still fixated on his tablet, monitoring the government intranet traffic for any changes.

  As they drove through the city, the riots and protests against shifters started back up.

  “Were they waiting for night to fall before starting to fight again?” Mia asked in disbelief.

  “Possibly,” said Blake. “Though I may have riled things back up again by my on-air challenge to Chogan.”

  Peter gave a tut of disgust. “These people will use any excuse.”

  They passed a small group of men standing over someone huddled on the ground. The men yelled and aimed kicks at the person’s torso as he used his arms to protect his face. A little farther down the street, a young couple stood in front of an independent electronics store. A metal chair sat at the couple’s feet—a strange item to be wheeling around, but then Mia saw the reason why. The man bent and lifted the chair, swinging it and letting go so it flew into the big shop window. The glass exploded in a shower and the couple ran toward the gap, stepping through and into the store. Alarms sounded everywhere, like howler monkeys in a jungle.

  Mia stared as they passed. “Shouldn’t we do something?” she said in alarm.

  “Like what?” said Blake, twisting in his seat to face her. “We’d only get ourselves killed, and we can’t handle the whole city.”

  “Where are the police? Surely they should be handling all of this.”

  “They can’t cope,” said Peter. “We saw the clash between the protestors and the police yesterday and they were overwhelmed. I guess they’re hoping things will just lose momentum.”

  “So they're letting us go to the dogs?” She realized what she'd said and her face colored. “I mean, they've given up?”

  “I expect martial law will come into effect soon,” said Blake. “They might even bring in a curfew, not that this lot will pay any attention to it.”

  “I think there’s more to it,” said Peter, concentrating on the road. “If the government knows what’s going on, and I’m sure they do, they could be using this as a distraction.”

  Silence fell as they mulled over the possibilities.

  They continued to drive through the city, leaving the tall skyscrapers of downtown behind, moving through the suburbs until the houses grew smaller and sparser, giving way to fields dotted by the occasional farm or big mansion. Eventually, those, too, vanished. Mia willed away the time, peering at Toby’s computer, trying to read his face for any signs of change. The boy started off giving her sympathetic glances and small shakes of his head, but soon her attention must have become irritating for he began to roll his eyes, huffing out sighs of annoyance and holding his tablet closer to his chest.

  “We’re almost there,” he said, sitting forward in anticipation.

  Peter pulled up on the side of a narrow dirt track. “Looks like this is as far as we can go by car,” he said. Ahead, the road vanished into a thicket of tree trunks. He twisted around and looked between Mia and Toby in the
back seat. “You should both wait here.”

  “No way!” declared Toby.

  Mia felt the same way. “I find people for a living. I’m not going to hide out in the car while you two save the day.”

  “This isn't a game,” said Blake. “These people are dangerous, whoever they are.”

  “You should have thought of that before you abandoned Autumn to go off and do your own thing,” she snapped.

  “And I'm a shifter, just like you,” said Toby, his eyes narrowed. He flipped a lock of dark hair out of his face. “And what if they move with Autumn again? You won't even know.”

  Tension simmered between them all.

  Blake sighed. “Let them come.”

  “Okay, fine,” said Peter, his shoulders relaxing.

  Mia bit down on her response to tell the men that it wasn’t their place to let her come, she was coming regardless. Starting a fight with them wasn’t going to help Autumn.

  They climbed from the car and ran through the forest, staying close together. No one spoke, the sounds of the forest and their footsteps surrounding them. Overlaying the top of the crunch of dried leaves and heavy footfall, Mia’s heart pounded hard in her ears. She wondered at what point they would come across the people who’d taken Autumn. There was no denying she was scared, but she tried to draw courage from the men on either side of her, while wanting to appear strong for Toby. He might be a shifter, but he was still just a kid, and he’d been through more in the last week than most teenagers would their whole lives.

  Mia wondered if the shifters were using their spirit guides to see ahead, to try and figure out what was going on. When Peter lifted a hand to stop them, and they all fell still—even though she had neither seen nor heard anything other than the normal sounds of the forest, their feet pounding against the ground, and their breathing—she knew he had.

  What spirit guide does Toby have? she wondered, not for the first time. So far, he’d not mentioned his guide, and for some reason, it seemed rude to ask.

  “What is it?” she asked, “What’s happened?”

  Both Peter and Blake had identical expressions on their faces, their eyebrows drawn down, lips pressed. Her stomach churned and she took a deep, shuddery breath.

  Peter shook his head. “It’s not good.”

  Mia turned to Blake and her heart ran cold. Her emotions reflected in the big man’s face, a crumbling of the soul, a heart snapping like brittle bone. She’s dead, she thought. Oh, God. Autumn's dead. They were too late.

  But Peter must have read her thoughts and he quickly backtracked. “Oh, no. Autumn's not there.”

  “Thank goodness,” she breathed, though she wasn’t sure how happy she should be. After all, just because she wasn’t there didn't mean she was safe.

  Blake must have seen something else, his eyes suddenly widened. “Tala!” he yelled and broke into a run.

  Mia stared at Peter. “Tala? Who the hell is Tala?”

  Peter shook his head, his expression grim. “His sister.”

  “What?” She could barely believe what she was hearing, her mind clouded in confusion. “What the hell is his sister doing here?”

  “I don’t know, and that’s not all. People are hurt—possibly more than hurt.” He snatched up her hand and began to drag her along. Toby had already taken off, chasing after Blake. Their footsteps took them closer to where the trees parted, revealing an old lodge which the forest had grown around, as if trying to reclaim it for its own. Mia didn’t need to have supernatural hearing to decipher the cries of help emitting from the wide open door.

  Chapter Twenty-five

  BLAKE RAN, HIS arms and legs pumping, toward the open door of the abandoned lodge. Where initially his fears for Autumn had filled his mind, now his concern was for his sister. His wolf guide sent images of her kneeling on the floor, a hunched form, her forehead against the wood, arms over her head. The wolf prowled around her, its hackles raised, a low growl emitting from deep in its barrel chest. The animal poured emotions and images into Blake, and all of them shouted the same thing—wrong!

  Something had happened to Tala, and the wolf didn’t like it one bit. The scent of her was different, like catching the waft of meat that hadn’t quite gone off, but was just on the cusp of turning.

  And that wasn’t all. The bodies of shifters surrounded Tala, blood smeared the wooden floorboards. Blake realized he recognized a couple of them—Enyeto and Kasa! Damn it! What happened here?

  He raced through the open doorway and skidded to a halt. Carnage surrounded him. The muffled groans of the injured filled his ears, the scent of blood assaulting his sensitive nose. He dropped to his knees beside Tala.

  “Tala? What the hell happened?” The air stank of gunpowder, burned flesh where bullets had entered bodies. But Tala was different. Whatever was wrong with his sister, she was hurt in a way different from the others.

  He reached out a hand to touch her shoulder, but the moment his fingers made contact, he recoiled. Her shoulder bulged outward, growing huge beneath his hand before retracting again.

  The others arrived, blocking out the small amount of moonlight in the open door.

  The curve of her back lifted in an arch, her spine elongating and twisting, far bigger than should have been possible for a human. A bone cracked, skin splitting.

  Tala’s body shook, her shoulders heaving as if she emitted great sobs, though he heard nothing. The realization of what she might have done came to him and he forced himself to reach out again to her slowly shifting body. When he shifted, it happened in minutes. The change was agony, but at least it was over quickly. His sister’s shift appeared to be in slow motion and he couldn’t even imagine the sort of pain she was in.

  “Oh, Tala. What have you done?”

  She lifted her head slightly and turned her face toward him. “It worked,” she said, half laughing, half crying. “I never knew this much of the world existed.”

  He understood what she meant. Having a spirit guide opened up a person’s mind to a new level. She was seeing through the eyes of her spirit guide as well now, or at least had been able to before she’d started to shift.

  Her body bucked and she let out a scream like a rabbit caught in a trap. Her right arm shot out, fingers stretched. The bones began to snap and twist, joints forming where there had been none before. The fingers stretched, becoming longer, some merging. Black spikes appeared from her toes and began to grow, creating claws. Her legs grew thinner, twig-like.

  But then it all started to retract again. Returning back to human form.

  “It’s fighting inside my head,” she cried.

  “What’s happening to her?” asked Mia in alarm.

  “She’s forced the shift,” he said, looking up at the small, dark-haired woman who was Autumn’s best friend. “She’s used Autumn’s blood to make herself a shifter.”

  “Autumn!” said Mia, staring around to try to find her friend in the carnage. “Have you seen her?”

  “They took her,” Tala managed to say. “The men who did this—” She let out another shriek of pain as the shift restarted.

  Peter ran to one of the injured people, Mia following suit. Toby just stood in the doorway, staring at the horror, his face drained of blood. Candles flickered around the outskirts of the main room, lighting the blood and the hurt, dead, and dying faces like some kind of ritualistic Satan worship.

  “She was in the cellar,” Tala said, letting out a whimper as something inside her snapped and reformed. “We put her—” But her scream cut off her words and her neck jerked, snapping to the side at an angle it should never have been at. She froze in horror. Her neck snapped back and then forward again in sharp, jerky movements she had no control over.

  “The cellar.” Blake looked up at Mia. “Where’s the cellar?

  A threadbare rug covered the middle of the floor. “There,” said Tala, gasping. “The entrance is under the rug.”

  Peter sat, his hands covering the bullet wound in the chest of a
big man with tattoos up his neck. He gave his head a slight shake to say he couldn’t move. Mia got up and ran to the rug, pulling it back. The material had covered a big metal slab. She bent and took hold of the metal ring in its center and yanked with both hands. The cover didn’t budge.

  “Blake, I need your help.”

  Even though Tala had said Autumn was already gone, it seemed important he knew where she’d been in the moments before. He left his sister and stood at Mia’s side, took hold of the ring and heaved with all his strength. His muscles strained, the veins on his neck popping. The metal slab shifted and finally pulled free, and he threw it back on its hinges.

  Someone was down there—a shape sprawled on the ground in the darkness. A couple of dying candles sputtered their last light. Despite Tala having already told him Autumn was gone, he couldn’t help hoping …

  Steps ran down into the cellar. He’d already gotten half way down before he realized there was no way the figure was Autumn. And not only that, he knew who it was.

  Chogan!

  Why had he not noticed the absence of his cousin before? He’d been too preoccupied with Autumn missing and the change Tala was going through. Fresh anger surged through him. What had Chogan been doing down here with Autumn? Why hadn’t he done more to protect her?

  Why hadn’t you done more yourself? A little voice whispered in his head. If you’d manned up and not let things get to you so easily, you would have been the one at her side, not Chogan.

  Blood spilled from the wound on his cousin’s forehead, though it had already begun to clot. Chogan groaned and lifted a hand to the gash. Blake stomped down the remaining steps toward him. He came to a halt at his cousin’s head.

  “Christ, that hurts,” Chogan groaned.

  “Tell me what you’ve done with Autumn or I’ll hurt you worse.”

  He groaned again and rolled to his side before getting to his knees. “I didn’t do anything with Autumn,” he said, lifting his head. “It was your goddamned sister, Tala, who took her.”