Chapter Fourteen
Clover ran after Autumn as she jogged over to Sapphire. “Get back here! Stop!” she cried, panicked.
“Where are they?” Autumn demanded of Sapphire. “I’m here. You don’t need them, you need me. Bring them back, or I won’t go with you.”
“Like you have a choice.”Sapphire’s face twisted into a sneer as the five men with her crowded around them, uncomfortably close. Several of them were bear shifters. Too many for Clover to fight.
“What the hell is going on here?” Clover was so angry she was shaking.
“It doesn’t matter if you kidnap me. If you don’t bring them back here and let Clover take them, I’m not telling you anything,” Autumn said. Her voice had a quaver in it.
“Oh, you’ll talk,” one of the Skullriders snarled, his eyes glowing amber.
“Come on, Autumn, just make it easy on everybody. Tell us where it is, and everybody gets to go home,” Sapphire said.
“Where what is?” Clover’s voice went low and deadly quiet.
“The crop of Somniatus.” Autumn’s face was a mask of misery.
“You were growing Somniatus?” Clover felt as if she’d collapse. This was a serious crime. Autumn could be stuck in juvie and then go straight to adult prison when she was eighteen.
“I didn’t mean to!” Autumn cried. “Mom and Dad called me up the day they went on the run and told me there was a bag of seeds hidden in their house that was worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, and I had to get it and bring it to them. I went and got the bag and threw all the stuff away in the woods. The wind scattered it everywhere. I thought I did the right thing. I called up Mom and Dad and told them what I’d done, and I thought they’d just leave us with you and never come back.”
“Yeah, what our little genius here didn’t realize is that Somniatus will latch on to anything and grow. All it needs is sunlight.” Sapphire looked amused. “By now, all of those seeds will be a fully ripened crop.”
“That’s why you were coming around trying to sweet-talk her,” Clover said with venom. “Trying to find out where the crop is. No wonder she didn’t want anything to do with you.”
“All she had to do was tell me where it was, and I’d have left you guys alone forever. But no, she has to be all noble.”
“You were trying to scam Jeffrey and find out where a drug crop is all at the same time?” Clover’s mind was reeling. Sapphire was dead to her now; their parents had warped her mind and crushed whatever chance she’d had of turning into a decent human being.
“What can I say? You’re not the only over-achiever in the family. I work all the angles, and something’s bound to come through for me.” Sapphire shrugged indifferently. Clover wanted to grab her and choke her. She was playing with people’s lives here, as casually as if she was moving monopoly pieces.
“And you gave your own brother and sisters to a gang of bikers so you could try to pressure Autumn into talking.”
“Oh, there’s no try. I’m pretty sure that I’ll succeed.” Sapphire glanced at one of the Skullriders. “Autumn comes with me. We’re headed to North Carolina. As soon as we verify exactly where the crop is, you can let the rest of them go,” she said to him.
“No! Let them go now! You don’t need them!” Autumn cried as Sapphire grabbed her by the hand and started dragging her towards the car.
It was hopeless, but Clover shifted anyway and lunged at Sapphire. Her fur burst through her skin and her fangs snapped, aiming for Sapphire’s throat. Autumn shifted too, into coyote form. She could easily have run off, but she stayed behind, biting and snapping at the Skullriders as they shifted into bear form and piled on top of Clover.
Clover was buried under a mountain of bears, pinned down and helpless. She heard Autumn’s yelps and howls, then she heard a door slam, then she felt a blow to the side of the head that sent an explosion of pain through her whole body.
And then there was nothing.
* * *
“She isn’t dead. She’s breathing. See?” She was lying on a cold floor. She could hear voices above her. How long had she been out?
“She’s moving. Clover? Please wake up. Clover?” It was Moonlight, and her voice was choked with sobs.
She felt around with her hands and opened her eyes. The room swam into focus. She was lying on her side on a cracked, peeling linoleum floor. She smelled sour rotting food and heard the buzzing of flies.
“I’m up,” she mumbled.
She heard Lennon’s voice in her ear. “Keep your voice down. There’s a guard outside our door. We’re in some mobile home out in the middle of nowhere.”
“How long have I been here?” she whispered hoarsely.
