The Coming Storm (3 page)

Orlando let out an impressive litany of swear words. “You want to get the information Mom and Dad were sent after.”

“Guess I should implement that escape plan then for when this goes sideways,” Milwaukee mumbled.

“Thanks for the confidence,” I snapped.

He narrowed his eyes at me. “You’re talking about going up against the US
government
, Chicago. This information got Mom and Dad
killed
. Disappearing might be the least of our problems.”

“No, I’m not going for the full enchilada,” I assured them, most of their shoulders relaxing as Boston grabbed everyone another beer who needed it. I waited a few beats before I told them the real plan. “I want to get the list of who the NSA has wiretaps on.” The room got so quiet I could have heard a spider taking a shit in the light fixture. Instead the fridge kicked on and it was a miracle we didn’t all flinch or yelp at it.

“I’m sorry,
what
?” Seattle whispered as if saying it any louder made it real.

“Just give me two seconds.” I jumped up, set my beer on the counter, and darted off. The second I hit my father’s study, I grabbed everything I needed. I skidded to a halt as I got back to the kitchen though.

“Look, let’s just hear him out,” Boston hissed quietly. “Chicago has mad skills and we all know that. Yes, this sounds insane, but if it gets the PP off our asses, and even better, keeps him safe, isn’t that worth the risk?”

“And answers about Mom and Dad,” Seattle added quietly. “Fine, we discuss it, but, Milwaukee, we’re also talking about that backup plan.”

“That’s smart,” I agreed as I walked in, knowing full well they could smell me. We were part dog after all, and being brothers, we were keenly in tune to when our scents were near. “If I had known Milwaukee was working on that, I would have suggested the same.”

“Glad you’re not upset at the suggestion.” Seattle’s tone had an evenness to it that told me he was intentionally trying to keep the shock out of it.

“No,” I snickered, shaking my head. “I’m about to propose we break into the Federal Building where there’s an undisclosed NSA office and steal information that could get us shot for treason which might help get the PP out from under whatever’s going on and give them leverage to get us out of the shit we’re in. That or get us into more shit with them. So yeah, a backup plan and escape option is smart
especially
since investigating this got Mom and Dad killed.”

“Right,” Boston said before clearing his throat after a few moments of everyone being quiet. “Show us what you got and let’s come up with a plan.” He rubbed his hands up and down his jeans but still nodded for me to go ahead as if trying to convince himself it was the right thing to do.

“Just like that? You’re agreeing to doing this now?” I blinked rapidly at him as my stomach fluttered. That was quite the one-eighty from just listening to me. Was he serious?

“I was in the moment you said you were working on a plan, baby brother,” he answered gently as he reached out and ran his hand over my short hair the same shade of strawberry blond as his. “You’re
not
going to that Alpha, and if this gets us something to give to the PP to make that happen
and
provides us answers about Mom and Dad, yeah I’m in to the nines.”

“Me too,” Milwaukee agreed. “If we need to disappear after, then so be it.”

“I hate my job anyways,” Phoenix joked as he slapped my back before getting another beer. He didn’t though and we all knew that. Of all of us Phoenix might have loved his job the most.

“And the weather in Northern California sucks big time,” Orlando added as he tucked his tan arms under the table discreetly. “We’re malamute shifters. We should be somewhere colder. I hear Russia’s nice.”

“And a non-extradition country,” I drawled. I wasn’t fooled on that one.

“North Pole then.” Seattle shrugged. “I hear penguin can be tasty with some barbeque sauce.”

I glanced around at my brothers, all of them giving me encouraging looks of support, feeling their determination as strongly as my own. “Okay then. Here’s what I’ve come up with…”

I just hoped it didn’t get us all killed.

2

It turned out Milwaukee had been up to a little more than just checking into the accounts Mom and Dad had been transferring money into. He’d also gotten them relocated into our names after showing the right people proof of our parents’ deaths… Or should I say our
new
names because he also had new IDs, birth certificates, and the works for us under false identities.

When the shit with the Alpha and the PP forcing us to join his pack started, he had taken steps. Which left me with one question.

“Why not take what Milwaukee’s got and just run now?”

“No, not unless we
have
to,” Seattle answered quietly, shaking his head as he leaned over my map of the Federal Building. “If we run now, we will always be on the lam, and we can live a thousand years. That’s a long fucking time to run from someone with as long of a reach as the PP. Besides, we all want answers as well.”

“So let’s go over the plan again,” Boston suggested, closing the topic of taking Milwaukee’s out right off the bat.

And just like that the six of us were committed to several federal offenses if we got caught. Two computer nerds, a classic car restorer, an EMT, a martial arts instructor, and a fucking special needs first grade teacher were going to steal something from the NSA.

We were out of our goddamn
minds
. But the next night, we went in.

I remembered thinking that again as I looked at all the skyscrapers around downtown as we approached the Federal Building. They served such purpose as they stood tall and proud, fitting in the grid pattern of the streets like good occupants and additions to LA. But yet, they tried to stand out and be unique. That was all fine and I appreciated it… It was the Federal Building that scared me, and I’d admitted that a few hours before we’d left home.

“Just think of it as a computer tower you’re going to learn the secrets of,”
Boston suggested with a lopsided grin. It had worked at the time and I’d relaxed. And as I thought through his suggestion as we approached the building, I could almost see it. The computer instead of the building, the sleek lines holding the circuits and chips I needed to crack into.

I could do this.

We made it past the guards without a problem after Milwaukee cut into their security feeds and looped them. I had rigged something to bypass the need to have a keycard to get to the right floor and that worked as well. Part of me wanted to do fucking cartwheels when we stepped off the elevator on the floor of NSA’s office that didn’t exist according to anyone.

Then I remembered what we had left to do and getting back
out
undetected would be the hardest part. Once I got to the server room and plugged in to the one I needed, Seattle stayed with me to keep eyes on our surroundings while everyone else took up positions further down for early warning in case we’d need it.

I bypassed the necessary passwords within minutes, found the files in even less than that, and started downloading. It was while I watched the progress bar move along, praying that our luck held out, that something caught my eye.

“What the hell?” I whispered as a chill ran through me, and with the heat coming off the server towers that shouldn’t even have been possible. “This can’t be right.”

“What? Are we busted? Talk to me, Chicago?” Seattle hissed as he came over to me. I shook my head as I started typing away, trying to figure out the kind of security on the file I wanted to check out. “What are you doing? You said we just had to wait for it to download. Why are you trying to bypass something else?”

While Seattle wasn’t that into computers besides the basics and a few games here and there, even he knew when someone was done downloading a file all you had to do was pull out the thumb drive. Even if the thumb drive was a big one because we were taking several terra bytes of information.

“Seattle, one of the files copying was labeled
Paranormal Parliament Phone Taps
,” I told him, not even hiding the shrillness in my voice. “They don’t think we’re a cult. They know what we are. This is bigger than some fucking audits and phone taps when Mom got close. They’re listening to
all
of Parliament.”

“Holy mother fucking shit.” Seattle’s face went pale as the severity of what I was saying sank in. “Can you get what they know too? Do you have room on the USB?”

“I have room but it’s got a different encryption,” I bitched as I checked the coding. “It’s got top clearance access only.” I let out a soft whimper. “Seattle, it’s not just them. There’s files on all kinds of paranormals. I think they know about all of us. From what I can tell just from the logs of updates and their dividers this isn’t even coming from the United States. This one is from China.”

“Since when are we that good of friends with China to be sharing
any
kind of intelligence?” Seattle stared at the screen as if it was going to go
boo
any moment and glanced at me. “Can you take it and decrypt it later?”

“Give me a minute,” I muttered. It took me going through several more layers of code. “I can get it decrypted but they will know I was here.”

“Like run right up here with guns know we were here? I need a better idea of what that entails.”

I shrugged. “I can delay any alarm for about five minutes I’m pretty sure. I wasn’t planning on this, Seattle. I mean, I could get in and out clean but we can’t stay here all night. I brought tech for a certain security level and this is just—”

“Hey, breathe.” He grabbed my shoulders and made me face him. “Dude, you’re Chicago Niska, hacker extraordinaire. You’re stealing the stud brothers from
Supernatural’s
addresses so you can go over there and they’ll make a Chicago sandwich all night. That’s all. We’ll take the risk because we love you so much it’s time to make your biggest fantasy come true, bro. So do your thing and I’ll get us out.”

I took in a shaky breath and nodded. “Right, okay. Pretend there aren’t possibly millions of lives on the line on
top
of ours if I fuck this up.”

“That’s the idea,” Seattle chuckled as he smacked my shoulder before spinning me back to the terminal. Idiot.

My fingers flew faster over the keys than they ever had before to the point they started cramping up. I read code, rerouted what I could in limited time, and sent out a mother fucking prayer and promise to take this information and save as many as I could, because I
seriously
doubted it was intended to send us all fruit baskets. As I hit enter to download, I held my breath.

“Well no alarms went off, so that’s a good sign,” I mumbled as I adjusted my neck to try and relieve the mounting tension.

“Always a plus,” Seattle agreed with a snicker. “Okay, what can you pull up while it’s going to give us a glimpse of what’s going on?”

I scanned through what was already on the thumb drive and picked a communication between one of the top dogs in Homeland Security and the Department of Defense. Opening it, I read about three lines before Seattle started swearing as I felt my heart sink into my stomach.

They didn’t just know about us… The government was planning to wipe us out. And not merely
our
government but
all
of them.

“Humans can’t ever fucking play this nicely together.”

“Apparently we finally gave them an enemy to put their differences aside and fight together because we’re such a threat,” I muttered with a shiver as I kept reading. “Jesus, Seattle, they’ve got a list of military personnel they’d need to take out first because they’re paranormals. These are the ones in the most immediate danger.”

“When is this all taking place?”

I had to keep reminding myself to breathe normally so I could answer him instead of going with my instincts which was to hyperventilate… Or hold my breath maybe. “I don’t know.”

“What the
fuck
is taking you assholes so long?” Boston hissed from the doorway. Shit. We’d been so focused on finding more out that neither of us had been paying attention to our surroundings. Good thing it was just our brother!

“Almost done.” I quickly closed out of the file and checked the progress bar. “There was more info than we thought. It says less than two minutes.”

“Okay. Just hurry. We can’t stand out here all day.” Then Boston ducked back out in the hall.

“Don’t tell anyone about this, Chicago,” Seattle ordered me in his best big brother voice. I started to nod until he continued. “Not even the others. They’ll panic and that will make us sloppy. Wait until we get to safety. We’ll drop this off and run. Then we’ll let them know everything.”

“No, Seattle, we have to warn as many as we can after telling the PP,” I argued.

“No,
we
don’t.” He gave me hard eyes as I worried my lower lip. “We lost our parents, are here getting this information, and will risk a lot more to get it to the PP. After that, we’re done. That’s more than most would do, Chicago. I’m not risking my brothers because the idiots who were supposed to protect us and make sure we weren’t found out and something like this didn’t happen fucked up.”