When was the last time they’d all just hung out?
Too long.
She came to the end of her tears and took a shower, recovering in the hot water when they’d been cut off. Shooting the shit to warm Cyn up hadn’t been a waste of time. Small talk wasn’t a waste of time.
It just felt like it when she sucked at it and had shit to do.
And she certainly had shit to do.
When she was done, she tested her shift. She felt mostly back to normal, so she shifted into an owl and flew to town, stopping to see Leslie. The shop was full and busy with patrons—more than was comfortable, actually—and Leslie looked pleasantly frazzled. Like this was the thing she enjoyed and her hair was a mess. That kind of “pleasantly frazzled.”
But when she looked up and saw Paige, her smile disappeared. “What happened?”
Paige shook her head and gave her sister a smile. “Nothing. I’m just stopping by to say hi.”
Leslie knew better than that and her expression said so, but she didn’t press the matter. “No twins.”
“They’re in the Library.”
Leslie frowned as she thought that one through, and then she nodded and tipped her head to the side. “I hadn’t thought of that. That’s probably a good way of… yeah.”
Paige gestured to the store. “What are we using for currency?”
“Barter.” Leslie shrugged. “When we don’t have money…”
“But how are you going to get supplies?”
She shrugged again. “I’m going to go back to just making stuff. And by ‘going back,’ what I mean is doing things I’ve never done before.”
Right? Alma might have known how to create soap from things she could make or provide herself, but Leslie was afflicted by Amazon. Why make or forage when you could get it with two-day free shipping?
“I have some wax coming in from the bee guy. There are eight of them here, by the way. And I’m getting some herbs from one of the plant people in town. There are a bunch of them. I’m getting blossoms from one of the orchards. I’m even getting rocks from one of the rock guys.”
Paige hadn’t realized any of those things were… things. “Sounds like this was the best thing—” She literally couldn’t come up with a better word? No. “—to happen to our little town.”
“Well, the special interests of people came out and became useful. That’s for sure. We’ve also got a couple of sewing people and knitters and we’ve got a few people who know how to make yarn. Spinners. They spin. And we’ve got someone who has sheep and some kind of ox thing that’s super hairy. And we’ve had a request to get llamas or alpacas. I don’t know what the difference between the two are, but there’s a request to get some. And we have a supplier.”
“Really.”
“I’m working with Phoebe on that one. Nice girl.” Leslie’s drawl was soft and gentle. She was really in her element and having fun.
“Right? I was a little skeptical at first.”
“I don’t think we’ll have much of an issue letting her in.”
“Or the brothers.” Technically, they were Leslie’s brothers too, but in a step-step kind of way. They were Paige’s father’s other kids. When people were worried about breeding, sometimes the family tree looked like a jungle. Oh, what would judgy people think of them?
Judgy things. That’s what.
“Riiiiight.” Leslie drew the word out. “Love you?”
“Love you back.” Paige gave her sister a hug.
Leslie held on a little longer.
Paige melted into her for a moment, accepting the nonverbal support they both knew she needed.
“You gonna be okay?” Leslie asked in Paige’s ear.
Paige nodded, swallowing the tears back. Where the hell was Dexx? And was he okay? Were the twins going to be fine without her? Was Bobby okay? Were these side-affects going to do him or Kammy any damage? “Always.”
They parted ways and it was time to get to work.
Paige wasn’t certain where they were supposed to meet up. She called Chuck, who just told her that they were waiting for her to tell them. So, she set up to meet at the Mayer’s office.
She didn’t even get used to leading a team of detectives. Now she was leading a town? Well, not really the town. More like town security? That was something totally different.
She knew the people at the meeting for the most part. They had a few additions, though. Danny Miller and another young man who was introduced as a dryad, Harrison Walker. He didn’t go by Harry.
Which… you know, was good information. He was really adament about it.
“It’s a prison,” Paige said to the group, recalling not for the first time that civilians had no real idea what being in prison was like. They watched movies and TV shows where the inmates just popped off the covers of their lights or busted into the plumbing of their toilets or sinks so they could make a witting escape. “It’s designed to keep people in, which also means it’s designed to keep people out. This won’t be easy and if you get locked in, we might not be able to get you back out.”
Their plan relied heavily on the Blackman witches.
Paige would go to the door controls and see if she could assist there, but she had no way of knowing the layout of this particular prison or detention facility or whatever they were calling it. She didn’t know how many “bays” of cells, or if each cell area had their own control room. So, it wasn’t like she could go to command center and just randomly open all the cell doors. Or maybe she could. She didn’t know. But she was pretty sure she couldn’t.
It was a prison, not a country club.
With the plan in place, it was time to gather the troops, which really just meant that everyone went and said their good-byes.
Paige didn’t.
Her people were either mired in the trenches of helping everyone or were goddess knew where because she didn’t.
Chuck found her standing at the balcony of the mayor’s office. It wasn’t much of a balcony and probably wasn’t designed for a person to stand on it. It was tiny, not even wide enough for a chair. She didn’t understand it and didn’t know why a door opened to it.
But she also didn’t have anything else to do and it was her one and only quiet moment for… well, since two days after the twins were born when she and Dexx had been quietly napping on the couch.
She wasn’t thinking, wasn’t worrying, wasn’t dreaming, or worrying, or anything else. She just let her mind… go.
Chuck stood silently beside her.
Which, of course, made her brain jump into high gear because maybe she was supposed to be thinking something at that moment. Like all the alternative plans for when things went wrong because things were going to go wrong. They were breaking into a prison.
Were they insane?
“You won’t always have the answers.”
She had a feeling he was trying to tell her things would be okay, that she wouldn’t completely fuck this up as a leader. That statement did absolutely nothing for her.
“Trust in your instincts and in your people. As an alpha, you are only as strong as your pack.”
Which was strange to hear because everyone seemed to have this opinion that alphas were only as strong as their dickish personality presented them to be. “Well, then, I’d say we’re pretty strong.” But strong enough?
She had to hope so. After all, they had … she forgot how many actual people, but there were people in the plural who liked bees, and plants, and rocks. And those were the odd ones. They also had amazingly discovered a way to bring power to a community that had been shut off from the electricity grid. They had people who could and would get the news out when it was being supressed. There were people able to take care of the kids while others fought and died. There were cooks and healers. Really smart people.
And some pretty powerful fighters. Yeah, they had those. And some incredibly powerful witches.
So, yeah, hopefu
lly, they were strong enough.
“This could be the tipping point.”
Of what? Paige didn’t know much about war. She’d never read Sun Tzu, never even really wanted to. She might have to, though. She didn’t want to be the weakest link in their line of defense, and ignorance was not a strength no matter what anyone chose to believe.
But she did know they were nowhere close to a tipping point. Things were just going to get worse from here on out.
What was her point? What was she looking for? When would she know they were getting close to a tipping point?
When she saw how far the President was willing to go.
Like with a child throwing a tantrum, Paige knew she had to push back. And when the toddler—the President of the frelling United States—pushed back, she’d have to push harder and harder and harder until she discovered where the President would stop. Where were her lines in the sand?
Only then would they have a definition to this war.
But more than that, she had to see how far her pack—all these paranormals who followed her—would go. What were their lines? How far would be too far for them?
Because that would define this war as well.
How far was Paige willing to go? Looking at Merry Eastwood and how Paige had been so upset and angry at her for freely walking the streets after murdering people for magick, and now Paige was okay with just working with her to the point she was actually growing a little respect for the woman? She had to question herself. She was changing. Her morals were bending. Too far?
They would find out soon enough. It wouldn’t just be Paige who would know. Everyone who followed her would as well, and that terrified her.
What was she thinking?
“All true leaders worry.”
Well, that one was helpful at least. “You don’t show it.”
“That does not mean that I don’t.”
Those quiet words settled Paige’s nerves a little. She wasn’t allowing herself to get overly anxious. They didn’t have that kind of luxury. “Do you ever get scared?”
He nodded quietly and clasped his hands behind his back.
People were gathering in the street below them. It was time.
“Do you remember when your family came to us?”
She remembered Chuck’s “welcome wagon” all too well. Dexx had been driving, she’d been napping for the first time in, well, a while, and he’d lost control of his shift, only to be overrun by shifters. “Yeah.”
“I was scared then.”
She and Dexx had been two terrible unknowns at the time, new to the world of shapeshifters. Dexx was this powerful saber toothed cat and no one knew what to make of Paige. “We were a danger you couldn’t know.”
“No.” Chuck turned to her, his blue eyes hopeful, his lips pinched and frank. “I was scared of the new world you two would open for us. I was scared of the change you would bring. Good or bad, the time of change is always the hardest, getting people to see the potential of how great or how bad a thing could become. Change is always met with fear and ferocity.”
She’d been so naïve then. She almost wished she could go back. At least then, she had people she could look up to, people she could bring her problems to when they because too big.
“We weather this. We will be okay.” He gripped her shoulders firmly, giving her an alpha push. “And we will weather this.”
This time, however, his alpha push wasn’t as her high alpha. It was simply the push of a fellow alpha. She swallowed. “But will we weather it well?”
“No matter what you do today or tomorrow, no matter how you fail or succeed, those who survive will find a way to do so as well as they can.”
“In jails?”
“If they must.”
It wasn’t great information, but it was helpful, staring into his blue eyes as they leveled the world of worry into a large and mostly flat playing field. People were survivors. At the end of the day, she could fall on that. “Thank you.”
He nodded and released her, disappearing back into the mayor’s office.
Paige took in one more deep breath and held it for a moment, surveying the town. This was the first time they were actively fighting back. They’d accidentally done so earlier when trying to save the elves and then to save the paranormals who were being rounded up. But this time, they were attacking a prison.
This time, they would be declaring war.
She could almost see Troutdale in flames.
But that was a memory because just three weeks ago? Two weeks ago? How long had it been? She didn’t even remember. Days ago? No. It was longer than that. Anyway, only less than a month ago, the town had been in flames.
As a leader, she’d kinda failed to protect this town.
But the people of this town showed that they were capable of surviving.
Just like Chuck said.
They had people who did bees, and orchards, and plants, and rocks, and… food, and electricity, and…
Survival.
Right, then. Okay.
She went downstairs and into the street, locating her Blackman witch—Bonnie. Well, there were several, but Bonnie was the one who was leading the other Blackmans. “Let’s see what we can do.”
Bonnie didn’t wait for further instructions. She opened a door and Paige stepped through.
Just outside the walls of the prison.
There was nowhere to hide and it was full daylight. So, Paige threw up her hands and called on a small duststorm to hide them as that was really the only thing around; dust, pale dirt, and low shrubs. Great place for a prison.
The rest of the people came through and the door closed.
Paige had been able to pull up one picture of the place. Only one, from a high angle.
Three main cell blocks surrounded a central hub, but which ones contained paranormals?
Other questions repeated often. Were there dampening fields around the site to keep them from using their abilities? Or were the guards relying on the collars?
She had to hope they were relying on collars.
But she wasn’t risking all their lives on that hope. “Can you get us into that cell block?”
Bonnie nodded.
Paige knew that once inside, there wasn’t going to be a place to hide. They’d appear right in the middle of the room—if they were lucky—and would be immediately exposed.
But that would tell her whether she was able to use her magick or not.
Bonnie opened the door and she stepped through.
Into the “common room” of a large cell block. She powered up her witch hands.
And they answered. She stepped back through, and the door closed, everyone looking at her expectantly.
“I have magick.”
That was all they needed. Doors opened up all around her.
The fight was on.
28
Breaking into or out of prison wasn’t easy. It wasn’t like on the movies or TV. There weren't panels on the walls that could just be removed with a shiv. Light fixtures could not be broken into. Neither could the plumbing fixtures. They were designed with hundreds of years of experience taken into account. Doors wouldn't magically open. Alarms would easily be set off. One wrong move could be catastrophic.
Paige was the only one with law enforcement experience, though she did not have any prison or detention center experience. She had never been on prisoner escort duty. And she had only gone to prison the one time to see Merry. She could not even say if that was a normal prison facility as it had specifically been designed to the house supernatural people.
Their plan was to go to each cellblock, gain entrance into the command center for each block, disable the guards, and find a way to release the inmates. Once there, they would open a portal to the football field of the Troutdale high school and bring the inmates there.
The first part of that plan worked pretty well. Paige and her team managed to gain ent
rance into cellblock a, take control of the command area, and there were no alarms raised.
However, they quickly found their first obstacle within moments of having done so.
With the guards contained, Paige and her team went into the actual cellblock. There, several of the incarcerated supernatural people were already mingling, trying to figure out what was going on and what they needed to do in order to assist.
One of the women came up to Paige. "The colors are set to explode as soon as we leave the premises. We cannot go with these on."
Paige knew that it wouldn't be this easy. The DOD had to know that Paige and her people would make an attempt to free the wrongly incarcerated supernatural people. However, they would have no idea witch one she planned to hit.
She also knew that after this, there would be new measures put into place to make it harder. So, they had to make this count.
"My daughter was able to open the collars using her lightning ability."
"Great," someone said from further back in the cellblock. "Where is she?"
From his tone, Paige got the distinct impression that he was irritated with her for not bringing the solution to their problem. She could understand that, however… "I decided to keep my newborn baby out of prison and away from this battle." She wasn't going to allow people to get upset with her for protecting her children. This one was getting nipped in the bud immediately.
Another woman pushed her way to the front of the crowd, her gray uniform ripped in several places. She sported a black eye and several other bruises and abrasions. Her stay there had not been pleasant. "Lydia has lightning abilities."
That was great news. Paige really didn't want to open a door to the library and bring her daughter into the prison. "Where do we find her?"
She got a few different reports about a secret portion of the prison where the more powerful people had been taken. There were rumors that these people were being experimented on and tortured.
Whiskey Storm Page 24
