Mischief in a Fur Coat
Read Mischief in a Fur Coat Online
Authors: Sloane Meyers
Mischief in a Fur Coat
The Fur Coat Society, Book 3
By Sloane Meyers
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Similarities to actual people or events are entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2016 by Sloane Meyers. All rights reserved.
Hope Pearsons shivered slightly as the cool, early autumn air tickled her bare arms. The sun was bright, but it didn’t do much to warm the air in northern Michigan. Hope pushed back a stray strand of blonde hair and flopped backward across the grass, looking up at the bright blue sky. She imagined for a moment that she was back in Chicago, looking at the sky above the rooftop deck of her old condo.
Moments later, the sound of a power drill brought Hope back to the present. She turned her head sideways and glanced across the meadow at the messy construction site where her brother and several of their friends were hard at work on an addition to the tiny one bedroom cabin where ten grown adults had been living for the last several weeks. Hope could hardly wait until the addition was completed and she had a little bit more space. She loved this crew, but she was going a little stir crazy having to sleep in a small room full of loud snorers every night. Luckily, the huge addition only needed a few more days of work and it would be finished. A week at the most.
“Taking a break again, huh?” a gruff voice behind her asked. Hope started, and then scowled. Standing above her resting spot, breaking into her reverie even more than the power drills, was Drew Brooks.
Hope owed a lot to Drew. He had willingly offered up his one room cabin as a refuge to the shifters when all hell broke loose back in Chicago, and a shifter witch hunt had gone into full swing. This sanctuary out in the middle of nowhere had saved Hope’s life, as well as the lives of the other shifters who were diligently working on the cabin across the meadow. Hope had to admit that it was impressive for a full human like Drew to so willingly turn his quiet existence upside down for a ragtag group of shifters. But Hope had a hard time feeling anything but irritation toward Drew. The man was positively insufferable. He seemed to take particular pleasure in annoying Hope, and took advantage of any opportunity to poke fun at her. Even his breathtakingly gorgeous face wasn’t enough to save him.
“I don’t see you over there working, either,” Hope said, deepening her scowl. She could have pointed out that she had been working for hours already this morning, but she didn’t care to justify Drew’s criticism with an explanation.
“I had to go to town and order supplies,” Drew said, plopping down in the grass next to Hope. “If I didn’t then we’d all starve.”
Hope glared at Drew. Was he really going to sit down here and ruin the one moment of peace and alone time she’d had all day? Drew must have realized that he was annoying her by staying, and he let out an impish laugh. The corners of his eyes crinkled ever so slightly as he laughed, and his blue eyes danced underneath his dark eyelashes, which matched perfectly the dark stubble on his broad chin. The man was admittedly drop-dead gorgeous. Too bad he was also an asshole.
“Really, Drew?” Hope said, sitting up on her elbow. “You can’t complain about going in to town when every single person hiding out here has volunteered to go for you. Don’t expect me to feel sorry for you when you’re the one who refuses to let anyone else take over the job.”
Drew’s face turned serious for a moment and he gave Hope a dark look. “You know you can’t go into town. We can’t risk anyone knowing there are strangers out here. Especially strangers who would scan positively for shifter DNA.”
“Oh, come on, Drew. You’re overreacting. We’re out in the middle of the boonies. No one out here has eye scanners.”
“Not worth the chance,” Drew said, his voice taking on a sharp tone as he jumped to his feet and brushed a few stray leaves from his relaxed blue jeans and red flannel shirt. “Things have gotten bad out there. Real bad.”
“I wouldn’t know, since you refuse to allow us any access to the news ourselves,” Hope called after Drew as he stormed off. Drew didn’t turn around, but he raised his middle finger high in the air in response as he walked away.
Hope flopped back onto the grass with a huff. She knew Drew had reasons to be concerned. The world was in a state of chaos right now. Or so she’d been told. Everything she knew about current news came straight from Drew. But she had to admit that he had no real reason to lie. And everything he’d told the crew fit in well with what Hope already knew about the situation beyond the security of their tiny Michigan hideout.
Hope squeezed her eyes shut and tried to shut out the nightmares that were flooding back over her, but it was no use. There was no forgetting everything she had been through. Just over a month ago, Hope had been living happily as a freelance graphic artist in an airy loft on Chicago’s north side. She’d spent most of her free time with her twin brother, Calum, and their childhood friend, Mia. The three of them had moved to Chicago from their hometown in Glacier Point, Alaska, as soon as they’d turned eighteen. Following a small migration of shifters into the big city, Hope had relished the opportunity to blend into the crowds of Chicago. The anonymity of life in a big city had allowed her to act “normal” for the first time in her life.
For several years, Hope had enjoyed this charmed existence. But that all changed with blistering suddenness one unassuming summer day. Hope had been slowly waking up in her condo, sipping a cup of coffee and scrolling through the news on her tablet when she’d received a frantic call from her brother. The mayor of Chicago had just announced a state of emergency, and had apparently developed eye scanners that could determine whether someone was a shifter or not.
What followed was a whirlwind escape. Grant, another shifter friend whom Hope had lost touch with years before, flew his hovercar out to the northern suburbs to rescue Calum, Hope, and Mia. In a scene straight out of an action movie, Hope had watched the city of Chicago burning in the distance as Grant flew his hovercar as fast as it would go toward a deserted, rugged beach in northern Michigan.
Now, Hope was here with eight other shifter refugees who had escaped Chicago. And Drew, the human. Drew, who had been raised by shifters, had gone off the grid years ago when technology had started to develop too much for his liking. He’d always been suspicious of fingerprint sensors, computers, self-driving vehicles, and hovercars. He’d lived in this little hideout in Michigan for the better part of a decade now, getting his electricity from solar panels and detesting computers in any form.
The closest town was ten miles away, and it was barely big enough to be called a town, from what Hope understood. It had a small general store and a bar to serve the handful of recluses who lived in the surrounding woods, and that was about it. There wasn’t much of a danger of anyone realizing Hope was a shifter, as far as she was concerned. But Drew was paranoid, and since he was the one who owned the cabin, everyone deferred to his instructions to not venture too far away from the cabin.
Hope glanced over at the expanding cabin and frowned sulkily. She was getting tired of being trapped in a small radius of wilderness. She was a bear. She needed to roam. Drew should understand that, if he really understood shifter life as well as he claimed.
Hope felt a small twinge of anger as she saw her brother, Calum, laughing at something Drew said and clapping him heartily on the back. Calum didn’t seem to mind being stuck here, but Hope felt like she was about to lose her mind. She stood up and abruptly turned her back on Calum and Drew, then stormed off into the woods.
The dark green shade of the forest usually had a calming effect on Hope, but not today. Today, the darkness only added to her dark mood. She shivered and pulled down the sleeves on her hoodie, marveling that she could feel so cold when her blood was boiling with anger.
Hope glanced over her shoulder as the sound of the power drills and laughter began to fade. And then, she made a split-second decision. She wasn’t going to wait around here for life to happen to her anymore. She wasn’t going to meekly cross her fingers and hope that everything was somehow working out okay for all of the shifters out there who didn’t have a cabin to conveniently escape to.
Not anymore. Hope Pearsons was done sitting around wondering. And she was done playing by Drew’s stupid, paranoid rules.
With a heart beating rapidly from excitement, Hope took off running in the direction of town. She was going to check out that bar, and get some firsthand news.
Screw Drew.
A little over an hour later, Hope slowed her pace as her sensitive nose picked up the smell of people, food, and alcohol. She huffed in and out, trying to catch her breath as she pushed back sweaty strands of hair and made her way toward what appeared to be a break in the forest. Moments later, a row of three small, rustic wooden buildings came into view. A large clearing stretched in front of the buildings, and a sign reading “Caution, Watch for Hovercraft” indicated that the space was used for hovercar parking. There was only one hovercar around right now, an older model that looked like its windshield was in dire need of repair.
Hope timidly walked toward the first building, which had “United States Post Office” carved above the door in fancy letters. The building looked deserted, and a sign on the door read in hurried, scrawled handwriting: “Closed until further notice.”
The second building had a simple sign reading “General Store,” and was apparently closed for the day despite a sign announcing business hours until 5 p.m. The last building was, as Hope had suspected, the bar. Old-fashioned saloon doors led to a large porch, which then led to a front door. Hope paused in front of the door, her heart pounding. It was borderline ridiculous that she was nervous about going into a bar in the middle of nowhere, but she knew that Drew would tear her to shreds if he knew she was here right now. Not to mention, all of her shifter buddies would be angry at her for going against Drew’s wishes. Even Grant, the supposed alpha of their crew, seemed to worship the very ground Drew walked on. So he’d let them use his cabin. Big whoop. It was probably some much-needed excitement in his otherwise boring life.
Jutting her chin out in angry defiance, Hope pushed the front door open and stepped into the dimly lit room, causing the old-fashioned bell above the door to jingle loudly. Familiar aromas of beer and fried food hit her nose, and she took in a deep breath, feeling nostalgic for all the times in Chicago when she had lazed away her weekends by day drinking.
An old but rugged man behind the bar raised a sleepy eyebrow when Hope entered the room.
“Afternoon,” he said. His tone of voice almost sounded like a question.
“Afternoon,” Hope said, suddenly realizing that she probably should have at least thought about an explanation for who she was and what she was doing out here in backwoods Michigan before she came barging in like she owned the place. Drew was really going to kill her if she let it slip that she was staying with him. She briefly considered turning around and walking right back out the front door, but ultimately decided that doing that would probably raise more suspicions than just making up some stupid story. Besides, she really did want a beer now. And maybe some news on the outside world from someone other than Drew—although she wasn’t sure how much this sleepy bartender was going to have to offer in the way of news. Still it would be nice to talk to someone other than her refugee buddies. Taking a deep breath, Hope made her way to the bar top and slid onto one of the stools.
“You guys still take cash cards around here?” Hope asked, reaching into the back pocket of her jeans, which were still damp with sweat from her run. Drew had given everyone in the group several cash cards, just in case of emergency. In a world overrun with technology, cash cards were the closest thing to anonymous payment you could get. The electronic chip cards, which had long been issued by the government in place of cash, were kind of like the old-school Visa gift cards. A lot of merchants had stopped accepting them, because payment by fingerprint verification was so much easier. But Hope had a feeling that this bar was the kind of place that almost preferred cash cards to fingerprint payments.
“Yup. As long as the government keeps issuing cash cards, we’ll keep taking them,” the old man said.
Hope nodded, pleased, and glanced at the beers on tap. “I’ll try one of the Sterling IPAs,” she said.
The bartender nodded once, then grabbed a mug that was almost as big as a pitcher and began filling it. “You’re not from around here,” he said as the amber liquid started filling the glass. He raised a questioning eyebrow in Hope’s direction.
“Nope, sure not,” Hope said, raising her eyebrow right back. “I’m visiting a friend.”
“Which friend?” the bartender asked as he set the frothy glass in front of Hope. His stern gaze made Hope feel like he could see right through her, but she did her best to look unfazed.
“A friend,” she said, then took a long sip from her beer. Damn, it tasted good. It had been far too long since she’d had a draft beer. The bartender squinted his eyes at her for a long, awkward moment, and then shrugged.
“Alright, alright. I know people around here like their privacy,” he said. “Let me know if I can get you anything else. We’ve got burgers, hot dogs, and fries, too. And bags of chips.”
“Actually, I do have a question,” Hope said, trying to sound casual. “Have you heard any news today? I’ve been, uh, hiking all morning and was wondering if there are any, uh, new developments with the whole situation.”
The bartender snorted. “Oh, come on. You should know that the news is pretty much a repeat of the same thing over and over at this point. More riots. More shifters detected. More calls on the President to send more soldiers to more places. More people burning things for no real reason.”
Hope bit her lip. “Yeah. I guess you’re right,” she said, then took another long sip from her beer. This bartender was turning out to be quite a disappointment. The only thing he seemed to want to talk about was why Hope was out here in northern Michigan. Hope held back a sigh. At least the beer was good.
But just as she had given up on learning anything useful from the man, he shrugged and glanced over at a screen above the bar. “TV, on,” he ordered. The screen responded to his voice and flashed to life. It was already on a news channel, and Hope’s eyes widened involuntarily as images of burning buildings filled the screen.
“Protests over the President’s response to the shifter threat continue to intensify,” the news anchor said as the camera continued to pan over what looked to Hope like New York City. It was hard to tell, since half of what the camera was capturing was going up in flames.
“Shifter scanners have now become mandatory for boarding public transportation and entering government buildings,” the news anchor continued. “And Congress passed an emergency measure yesterday afternoon authorizing police officers to scan passengers during any routine hovercar stop. Still, many are saying this is not enough, and that the President should require each individual to be scanned to verify they are, indeed, not a shifter.”
Hope took another long sip of her beer. Her stomach twisted into a painful knot as she saw images of police officers wrestling with a man in front of a post office, trying to force him to allow an eye scan. Another shot showed several people lined up in front of a county courthouse, dutifully allowing a security guard to scan their eyes.
The camera then cut to a reporter interviewing a woman about Hope’s age, who was angrily shaking her head as the reporter asked her what she thought of the President’s new policy to require scans in order to enter government buildings.
“Look, I get it. Individual freedoms and right to privacy and all that blah blah blah. But this is a freaking war. Our entire nation is in danger. Until the President mans up and realizes that, in this case, we need to take drastic measures, these dangerous shifters are going to continue to live among us undetected. And who knows when they’ll turn on us.”
“Screen off,” the bartender said, and the screen above the bar went black just as quickly as it had come to life minutes before.
“Huh,” Hope said, not quite sure what the bartender would consider an appropriate reaction.
“See? Told you. More of the same. Nothing new. Everyone still arguing over what the President should do. Ever since a quarter of Chicago burned down and the Mayor was assassinated, they’ve been saying the same thing: the President needs to do something. But you know how government is. Even in the middle of a goddamn crisis they take their sweet time deciding what to do.”
Hope nearly choked on her sip of beer. “The mayor was assassinated?” she asked, her eyes wide. The bartender gave her a funny look, and Hope realized her mistake too late. This guy didn’t realize that Hope hadn’t had access to news on her own for the last several weeks.
“Yeah. Weeks ago. How long have you been hiking?” the bartender said, and then laughed. “Or, should I say, how strong is that beer you’re drinking?”
Hope laughed, glad for a chance to let her little slip-up slide. “Not strong enough, given all the craziness in the world right now. I’ll take another, if you don’t mind. Maybe a hot dog, too?”
“Sure thing,” the bartender said, and busied himself with filling Hope’s order.
Hope stared up at the black screen where images from the outside world had been playing moments before. She couldn’t believe that Drew didn’t tell them that Chicago’s Mayor had been assassinated. What else had he been keeping from them? What else, exactly, was going on out there beyond the boundaries of this secluded forest? And how far had the scanners reached? Was her family in Alaska safe? Drew hadn’t wanted them to contact anyone on the outside for fear of sending signals that would give away their location. But the dark rage growing in Hope’s very core grew stronger the longer she sat there. Who did Drew think he was, deciding what they should and shouldn’t know, or who they should and shouldn’t call?
The bartender came back at that moment, and set down a hot dog and basket of fries in front of Hope. She hadn’t even ordered fries, but she started mindlessly shoving them in her mouth as the bartender began whining about how poorly hunting season was going, since everyone was scared to go into the woods right now.
“People are so paranoid. They think there’s a shifter around every corner,” the old man said as he used a dishrag to wipe up a spill on the glossy bar top.
“What about you?” Hope asked. “What do you think?”
The bartender laughed. “Hell if I know,” he said. “They can’t be any scarier than any of the other wildlife I’ve encountered out here over the years.”
Before Hope could reply, the bell above the door jangled loudly as someone new entered the bar. Hope saw the bartender’s eyes light up with recognition, and then felt her own blood run cold as the bartender spoke.
“Hey, Drew, didn’t expect to see you here again today,” the bartender said.
Hope turned slowly around in her barstool to find Drew standing there looking slightly shocked. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she knew there was going to be a huge fallout from her getting caught in town, his expression might have almost been funny. She didn’t think she’d ever seen Drew shocked by anything before.
“I have to go,” Hope said, reaching into her back pocket to pull out another cash card. But before she could manage to fumble one out, Drew had crossed the room in two long strides and grabbed Hope’s wrist firmly with his hand.
“No. I’ll pay her tab,” he said, his fingers digging into her skin. Hope winced and resisted the urge to yelp.
The bartender looked back and forth between Hope and Drew in confusion.
“You two know each other?” he asked.
“No,” Drew said sharply. “I just don’t like to let a pretty woman pay for her own drinks in my presence.”
The bartender grinned and seemed to take this explanation at face value. He gave Drew a wink and then looked back at Hope.
“He’s a good man, this one. You should give him a chance.”
Hope shrugged. She would have loved to disagree with the bartender’s assessment of Drew, but since she supposedly didn’t know Drew she really couldn’t say much.
“I have a few things to discuss with this guy right here. Why don’t you wait outside, sweetheart,” Drew said in a sickeningly sweet voice.
Hope didn’t wait to be told twice. She hightailed it out of the bar, happy to have an excuse to leave that awkward situation behind. But when she got outside, she sure as hell didn’t wait around for Drew. She took off running into the forest. She could have run faster in bear form, but she didn’t want to shift and ruin all her clothes. She was pretty partial to this hoodie, and she hadn’t been able to bring much with her during the escape from Chicago. But she was still pretty fast in human form, and she had a head start on Drew. She could probably beat him back to the cabins. And he couldn’t blow up at her as much with other people around. Hope’s arms pumped by her side as her legs flew over the forest floor. She was making good time, and she glanced over her shoulders a few times just to be sure Drew wasn’t on her trail. After a few minutes of running with no sign of him, she began to breathe a little easier. He wasn’t going to catch her.
She settled into a quick but rhythmic pace, rehearsing all the things she was going to yell in Drew’s face when he did get back to the cabins and confront her. She wanted to know why he hadn’t told them about the Mayor, and what else he had been holding back. He’d promised he was giving them all the important news, but his definition of important was clearly different than hers. Who did he think he was, acting like some sort of parental figure who had complete authority over them? Grant was their alpha. If anyone had a right to be an authoritative asshole it was Grant. But, no, Grant was actually a levelheaded, kind leader. Drew was the one who needed to get his head on straight.
Then, suddenly, out of nowhere, Hope lost her footing. She felt herself flying momentarily through the air before landing with a thud on the brush-filled forest floor. What just happened? She hadn’t even felt herself tripping. Moments later, she rolled over and understanding washed over her as she found herself staring straight into the rage-filled eyes of Drew Brooks. She had no idea how he had caught up with her, but he had, and he had tripped her up to stop her from running.