Caught in Forbidden

by Keira Blackwood

  I grabbed the sweet-smelling bag from the passenger seat and headed in.

  “I smell doughnuts.” Finn’s voice greeted me before I spotted him.

  “Yep, mixed bag,” I rounded the corner to the open space where four small planes were lined up.

  Finn was standing beside his Cessna, exactly where I knew he’d be, wrench in hand.

  I moved that way and tossed him the bag before heading over to the cabinet where we kept our tools.

  The bag crinkled behind me.

  “Chocolate. Nice.” Finn’s words came out a little garbled, telling me he’d already popped one in his mouth. “Sorry again about last night.”

  “Work happens,” I shrugged and turned to him. “You have plans with Sophie tonight?” I only asked because I knew he would. I had my own shit to deal with.

  “She just wrapped up a video series she’s doing with Anna, and I promised to watch them with her.” He gestured to the bag.

  I nodded, and he tossed it to me.

  “After that, I’m thinking hot springs.”

  Mental note to stay away from the hot springs behind the hangar. The two of them had made the place their own personal sex pit.

  “I thought you had to work today,” he said.

  Shit. “Schedule change,” I said, avoiding answering.

  “You going to change out brand new fuses or something?” He gave me a wide grin.

  He was right, I didn’t actually have anything to do at the hangar right now if I wasn’t flying. “I actually was hoping to run into you. I was wondering—”

  His phone dinged. Mine did, too.

  “Just a sec.” He pulled it out. “It’s Declan.”

  Double shit. My shoulders tightened and a bead of sweat formed on my palms. Was this about Cordelia? Did he know I’d found her?

  I pulled out my phone and stared at the image.

  “Group text.” Finn flashed me the same picture that filled my screen.

  Strawberry-blond hair kissed by sunlight, rosy cheeks, thick lashes around the deepest blue eyes I’d ever seen. Sure enough, it was Cordelia.

  My stomach dropped and my mouth grew dry.

  “Redemption says this chick is a malicious witch. Wanted dead or alive. Whatever she did, must be bad,” Finn said. “And apparently they think she’s coming this way.”

  I stared at her image. She looked happy, a gorgeous smile on her face, the kind that stole hearts, the one that owned mine.

  “It’s always something in this town lately. Demon dogs, greaser vampires, giant bug monsters. What’s next, am I right?” Finn shook his head. “Anyway, you were saying something. What was it?”

  “Uh—” What the hell was I supposed to say? That chick is my mate, and I’ve cuffed her naked to my bed? Yeah, no. “Never mind. I’ve got to—”

  I’ve got to get the hell out of here.

  Chapter 5

  Cordelia

  I only felt a tiny bit guilty about breaking Matt’s bedpost.

  Actually, no, I didn’t feel guilty at all.

  Whatever moment we’d been close to having, when I had been in the towel and he was handing me his clothes—well, that had blown away in the wind. The splintered edge of his wooden bed frame was nothing compared to the jagged feelings in my gut. I felt betrayed, which was a funny thing to feel about a guy I barely knew.

  But the asshole had been the closest thing I’d had to a friend. Then he’d cuffed me.

  I walked out of his bedroom, naked of everything except the handcuffs dangling from one wrist. The rumbling of a clothes dryer wasn’t far away, so I followed the noise to a little pantry off the side of his kitchen.

  The place was well-kept, so I’d give him points for housekeeping skills. Maybe he hired someone, though. If he had maids, I wondered if he handcuffed them to a piece of furniture in the basement. Sicko.

  This was just my brain, trying to convince me that I didn’t like the guy. I hadn’t been close to kissing him, no sir.

  In another life, we could’ve been good together.

  I yanked open the dryer door and found all of my clothes within. They were slightly damp, but beggars couldn’t be choosers, so I pulled them on. Luckily, the hoodie’s sleeve would hide my shiny new jewelry.

  I went back to the bedroom and found my shoes. One had fallen on top of the dresser, and the other was underneath the nightstand, which had toppled over on its side.

  All set to go. I had nothing else with me. Nothing was keeping me here, so I left through the front door.

  Once on the porch, I looked up and down the street. Neat little houses, all in a row. A woman knelt in the front yard of one, planting bulbs, it looked like. Otherwise, no one was around. I waited until the woman’s attention was firmly on the ground in front of her, then dashed down the street in the other direction.

  I’d chosen the best way to go, because a half-mile or so into my walk I discovered that this direction led to downtown Forbidden. Main Street wasn’t crowded, exactly, but there were enough people that I could try to blend in.

  “Excuse me,” I said, walking up to a man pushing a stroller. “Do you know Victoria?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry.”

  I went up to a couple walking hand in hand and was about to ask them the same question when I saw a black Jeep pull onto Main. Even though it was probably the same Jeep I’d seen before, I quickly dodged into a florist and watched the road from behind a fall wreath decorating the front window.

  “Can I help you, miss?” a man called.

  “Um, just looking,” I said.

  The Jeep traveled down the street slowly, going well below the speed limit. The driver turned his head, and I saw his profile clearly.

  Axel.

  My heart thumped in my chest. I could not allow myself to be caught by them. They blamed me for everything, and at this point I guessed they’d be more after revenge than a solution to the problem.

  All I’d be good for was a scapegoat, anyway, because I had no freaking clue what was causing the Redemption shifters to age unnaturally.

  I’d never find Victoria with these guys patrolling the town. I was at a disadvantage, and that wasn’t changing any time soon.

  “Excuse me, if you’re going to be in here, you need to buy something,” the man at the counter said.

  “Sorry,” I said. I didn’t really mean it, and he probably knew that. But I should still skedaddle.

  Axel’s Jeep was out of sight, so I left the shop. A sign for the bus station caught my eye.

  I could get out of town. Wait for the Redemption shifters to give up on finding me. Maybe I could get a part-time job or something, enough to rent a shitty apartment and bide my time until it was safe to return to Forbidden and find Victoria.

  Bus ticket first. I had no money, but I bet I knew where I could find some.

  Rushing back to Matt’s place, I didn’t allow myself to think about what I was doing. Matt had picked me up off the side of the road, let me sleep in his bed, given me breakfast and let me take a shower. I’d paid him back by trashing his bedroom, wrecking his bed, and now I was going to steal from him.

  I’d pay him back, though. I wasn’t stealing—I was borrowing. Among shards of broken glass, stray bills were scattered all over the bedroom floor. They must have been hidden in one of the drawers I’d rattled in my fear tornado. Tamping down my guilt as best as I could manage, I gathered the cash and shoved it into my pocket. I’d been in such a hurry to flee before that I hadn’t noticed. I’d get out of town, get a job, then return and find Victoria and pay Matt back every penny I’d taken. Plus interest.

  The bus station wasn’t crowded. I walked in carefully, looking all around to make sure Axel wasn’t lying in wait. His Jeep hadn’t been parked anywhere nearby, but he could be walking the streets even now.

  After convincing myself that nobody from Redemption was around, I marched up to the counter and purchased a ticket for Lexington. Big city, plenty of opportunity to blend in. As I spoke to the
woman at the counter, an elderly man made a phone call.

  The woman slowly typed my request into her computer, each stroke of the keys taking what felt like a hundred years. I turned around to check out the double doors leading into the station, worried that Axel might burst in at any moment.

  “Sorry, I’m kind of in a rush,” I said to the woman.

  “I’m working as fast as I can,” she said, then slowly, ever so slowly, struck another button on the keyboard.

  The man to my left ended his phone call, and his gaze clashed with mine. Something was off about him. His hair was white, his face wrinkled. Yet he wore a faded band t-shirt, a pair of artfully distressed jeans, and a pair of Converse.

  An old man...dressed like a young man.

  I looked harder.

  Fuck, it was Ian. I knew him as a twenty-something punk, but now he looked seventy or so.

  With his shifter senses, he’d probably heard exactly where I was headed—Lexington—and he’d just called and told someone else.

  I couldn’t go to Lexington now, not unless I wanted a group of shifters waiting for me when I hopped off the bus. I turned for the nearest exit, feeling bad that I’d just wasted Matt’s money that I’d stolen.

  No, not stolen. Borrowed. I’d borrowed it without permission.

  Two people were approaching the door from the other side. My instincts told me to turn around, so I did. The old guy—Ian—had his eyes locked on me.

  I flipped him off and ran toward the restrooms. If I was lucky, there would be an exit down that hall.

  I wasn’t lucky. I didn’t think I’d been lucky in about ten years. Whirling around, I went back the way I’d come. Ian was on his feet, standing in the middle of the hall.

  “Move it,” I snarled.

  A woman with two children watched, her eyes wide. “You show that old man some respect,” she said in a disapproving tone.

  I bit back the curse words on my tongue.

  The two guys came into the bus station. I knew them by sight, but not by name, as members of the Redemption Pack.

  The tingling began in my fingertips and traveled up my hands. No, I couldn’t do this here—this was a public place. People would notice.

  Papers lifted from the clerk’s desk. Notices on a bulletin board across the room fluttered violently before ripping free of their staples. The shifters moved forward, closing in on me.

  I shoved past Ian and sprinted across the station, dodging through the rows of empty seats.

  “Get her!” one of the younger shifters shouted, but there was no one here willing to get involved.

  The main doors were in sight. Putting on speed, I ran. The wind behind me continued to swirl, but it was outside of me, no longer a part of my fear.

  I shoved open the doors and burst through, into the dull autumn daylight. Rapid footfalls sounded behind me; the Redemption shifters were in pursuit.

  You can’t outrun a shifter.

  My arms flailed, tingling all the while, and two giant trash cans lifted from the paved steps leading into the station and lodged themselves in front of the doors. They wouldn’t stop anyone for long, but it was something.

  A farmer’s market was going on down the street. I ran for it and took refuge in the sparse crowd.

  I had to get the hell out of this town.

  Chapter 6

  Matt

  I could have taken another day off of work. I could have taken a month and had sick days to spare. But there wasn’t any need, because when I returned home from the hangar, Cordelia was gone. She’d left a tornado in her wake, broken my bedpost, and stolen all the cash I had stashed in my sock drawer. I was living a fucking country song.

  I wasn’t sure which was worse, the fact that she stole from me, or the fact that she was gone. She was gone.

  Being pissed quickly settled into heartache, which was made even shittier by the fact that I didn’t know this woman. How could I feel loss if she was never mine?

  Over the course of the day, I’d spent longer than I’d like to admit searching for her.

  I asked the neighbors, looked around downtown, and even searched the woods along the outskirts. With as wrecked as her clothes had been, she’d spent far too long outside. She was thinner than the portrait on my phone. She needed the cash more than I did.

  I wished I’d found her.

  Work in the morning the next day was dull. Maybe it would have felt that way even if it hadn’t been, because my heart wasn’t in it. Sitting on the side of the road in my patrol car waiting for something to happen wasn’t exactly engaging work, but no matter what I was doing, my job was always fulfilling. I helped keep the town safe. It was my calling.

  But I couldn’t keep her safe.

  Static came through the comm speaker.

  I looked to the seat beside me.

  “Got one for you, Schneider,” the dispatcher said. “Drunk and disorderly at the Watering Hole.”

  “Frederickson?” I asked.

  “Nope,” she said. “Yelling Man.”

  Yelling Man, whose real name was Mr. Benjamin Griff. The guy was a town staple. He preached tales of doom and gloom down by the cemetery to anyone who would listen. Then at night, he had a radio show. Strange guy, but gentle. My guess—his eccentricity was bothering out-of-towners, as opposed to actually being any real trouble.

  “On my way,” I said into the walkie. With a flick of my wrist, the key turned in the ignition, and the engine purred.

  The Watering Hole was two blocks over, only a stone’s throw away, like everything in Forbidden. Cedar shingles created a shell for the building from the roof to the ground. Time had stained the wood dark as tar, but the distinct scent of the wood remained.

  I pulled into the small lot by the front door and parked next to Yelling Man’s shopping cart. At one time the cart had belonged to Eden Groceries. Now it carried a stack of signs decreeing the approach of the end of days.

  The little bell above the door jingled as I stepped inside.

  Lunch brought in a handful of people for burgers and a variety of fried food, but the place was only truly alive after dark. There was a couple sitting in the corner booth, two regulars at the bar, and a hell of a lot of noise coming from the kitchen.

  I headed around the bar with a nod to Jeff Saltzman, who was tending it.

  Jeff dried a glass and gestured with the tilt of his head. Yelling Man was standing nearby.

  “Through the cracks, the light floods in.” Yelling Man waved his arms. “But it’s a trick of the eye. It’s not light at all, but pure darkness.”

  “Hey, Mr. Griff.” I approached slowly.

  He twisted around. “I didn’t do nothing wrong.” He shook his head and his eyes widened. “I’m trying to help, like always. It’s worse, and no one’s listening.”

  “Let’s talk, you and me. Come on.” I opened the back door and smiled.

  He narrowed his eyes at me, but then did as I asked and headed outside.

  “Two burgers,” I said, “please. On the patio.”

  “You got it,” Jeff said. “Thanks for coming so fast.”

  “Just doing my job.” I headed out after Yelling Man.

  He was pacing on the back patio. I gestured to one of the little tables. “Let’s have a seat.”

  He pulled out a chair but didn’t sit down.

  “It’s bad, real bad, Officer Schneider. They aren’t listening.” He scrubbed his hands over his face.

  “I’m listening,” I said.

  He stilled as he looked at me. The tension in his shoulders melted, and he let out a sigh. “Darkness is pushing through the cracks. The barrier between worlds is too thin, and they’re pushing through.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  “Demons.”

  The two of us stood there in silence, a breeze blowing across the patio and causing a shiver to creep up my spine. All my life I’d assumed Yelling Man was as mad as he sounded. But a hell of a lot of crazy had been happening in Forbidden over the pa
st few months. What he was saying didn’t sound so mad anymore.

  The back door opened.

  “Burgers are ready.” Jeff looked between the two of us, and his smile faded. “I’m just going to put these…” He set the plates and glasses of water on the closest table and headed back in.

  I took a seat at one of the chairs. Yelling Man sat across from me and stared down at the plate.

  “Let’s eat,” I said, and picked up my burger.

  He did the same, and as silence returned between us, the chill left my skin replaced by the pleasant warmth of a full stomach.

  When we were both done, Yelling Man rose from his seat and started walking around the side of the building. I left cash on the table to cover our meals and followed after him.

  He took his cart and spared me one last glance as he started walking back toward the center of town. “Thanks for the food,” he said.

  “You’re welcome.”

  “I can see that you question,” he said.

  “Question what?”

  “Everything.” He started walking again. “Floral toilet spray is exactly what you need.”

  And just like that, the spell was broken. I couldn't believe I’d considered taking what he said to be true. He was crazy.

  Almost as crazy as this town. Almost as crazy as I’d been for listening to him.

  A bit later than I’d planned, I took my official lunch break. Since I’d already eaten, I decided to swing by the B&B early to work on the electric like I’d promised Daphne. There were a few cars I didn’t recognize, and to my surprise, no O’Malley trucks.

  Once the power was shut off, I pried open the electric box casing. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but it wasn’t this.

  Instead of rusted wires or degraded parts, there was something unnatural—a turquoise glow of light that seemed to come from nowhere. I prodded the tip of my screwdriver slowly toward the light. The light began to pulse. I had to touch it. I had to—