Chapter 13
Harper’s unexpected carrier got her to the palace very quickly and dropped her down at the front door. The force of the fall woke her up. The first thing she saw as her eyes blinked open was the fossa’s face. The animal stared at her for a moment, then took a few steps away to walk back and forth across the front stoop of the palace.
Something cold and wet slid down the back of Harper’s neck. She brushed the spot on her neck and found some drool had gathered and was shocked at how thick and viscous it was. She tried to shake it from her fingers, but it clung to her.
The fossa wandered off, its long nails scratching up the marble of the front step of the presidential palace. Harper turned to the door and banged on it, but no one opened it.
“Hey!” She banged again. “I’m out here with a wild shifter! Let me in!” She pounded on the door a bit more, but again, no luck. Behind her, a dark-skinned boy – no, a girl; no, definitely a young boy – walked up to her with a cocky expression. This guy had to be the shifter; his skin smelled like fresh air and soil and smoke. Only shifters had that scent.
“You!” She shoved him hard and he allowed himself to be pushed back. His full lips smiled at her, and his dark, liquid eyes twinkled a little at the sudden show of force. The glee in his face just stoked Harper’s anger even more.
“What were you thinking? I was on my way here. You didn’t need to knock me out and carry me here. What is wrong with you?”
The boy laughed. “You have no idea what’s happening here. You think you’re just a typical rebel? You think you can just go home and everything will go back to normal?”
He leaned forward and got very close to her face, still smiling. “Everything is different now, sweet little Harper. And I intend to get every piece of reward that I can from your return. I’m not about to let that little flier get even more out of his romance with the president. He has to take a backseat this time.”
Harper started a bit at the sound of Grey’s name. “Wait, you know Grey?”
“Of course.”
“And you know me?”
The boy just smiled enigmatically and declined to answer. Instead, he sat on the stoop and patted the space next to him. “Come. Have a seat.”
“I’ll stand.”
The boy shrugged and brought a knee to his chest to make himself a bit more comfortable. “So,” he said, “I hear you’re looking for a boyfriend. A secret boyfriend.” He laughed through closed lips, and Harper closed her eyes in complete embarrassment. She let out a long breath, remembering the almost kiss she’d received from Grey and how wonderful it had felt.
“This guy took that from me,” she thought to herself. “I can never forget that.” She glared at the fossa and refused to respond. He smiled up at her as if he were at a fun show of some kind and watching the main character sing and dance.
“Your father was right, you know,” he continued, “about your virginity. It is sacred, and you should treasure it.” Again, Harper didn’t make a sound. “In my country,” the boy continued, “a woman without her purity can never be married. She’s better off being a whore or living alone. Most of them become witches.”
The word ‘witch’ made Harper roll her eyes. She knew such people only existed in her childhood stories. No one practiced any form of magic anymore.
“Don’t believe me?” He stood and faced her. “My mother is a witch. And a powerful one. She enchanted my father, so that he would marry her and then conjured me up.”
Unable to stand it anymore, Harper turned away from him, spitting out the words, “You’re an idiot!”
He laughed at her back as she walked towards the road. “Oh! She does talk. I like your spirit, Harper. I really do.”
She clenched her teeth together and walked away from the infuriating boy, rounded a corner, and then stopped.
Her father’s cavalcade of limousines and motorcycles was coming up the road. She stopped mid-step to see them and began waving. “Hey!” She waved again. “There’s a horrible shifter up here! I want him arrested.”
No one could hear her over the roar of the motorcycles, but the LEOs in front gave her a wave. The group seemed to pick up speed just a little, but not more than a few miles per hour as they weren’t allowed to separate. She stood and waited for them and, to her dismay, was joined by the shifter.
“Be careful what version of the story you tell today, Princess Harper,” he said, glaring. “Keep in mind that I know the truth. And if I tell everyone what really happened, your secret boyfriend and all your little shifter friends will be killed.”
Harper’s head snapped around to look at him, and she felt her eyes grow wider at the sight of the boy beside her. She suddenly knew this person – it was Larissa, the one who had helped her leg heal, who had sat on the dance floor at the party, whom everyone allowed to disappear whenever she liked. Somehow, she had changed to a boy, but Harper couldn’t tell how.
“Larissa. It’s you.”
The male Larissa didn’t respond, just put a hand on Harper’s shoulder and stood with her as the president and his group of supporters pulled up to where they were standing.
The LEOs, heads of security, assistants, and messengers swarmed Harper and her captor as they stood in the street. Her father’s limousine door opened, and he stepped out, looking absolutely awful. For the first time in her memory, his hair was standing straight up as if it hadn’t been washed in several nights. His skin looked ashy and tired, and his clothing was crooked and crumpled. Her father stood and took her in for a moment as everyone between the two of them stepped aside so that he could walk towards her.
Her father, the president, stood and regarded her for a long moment, then staggered forward. The effort it took for him to walk ripped her heart in half. She shot through the crowd and flew into his arms as everyone else broke into applause. She buried herself in his thin chest and burst into tears.
“Daddy! I’m so sorry,” she sobbed.
“You’re alive, my darling,” he muttered into her ear. “Now I can come back to life as well.” The two pulled back from one another and then touched noses just like they used to when she was a little girl. The motion was familiar and warm, but also stabbed Harper right through the heart. She wiped the tears from her eyes and looked behind her to see Larissa, now very female, being interviewed by several government reporters who hung on her every word. Harper took in a frustrated breath and then turned back to her dad.
“I really don’t want to talk to any reporters today, Dad.”
“Don’t worry, my darling,” he said, pulling her close to his side. He opened the limo door. “You don’t have to give any interviews until you’re ready. I can’t imagine what you must have endured, my sweet.” He gestured to the door, and Harper quickly slid inside the limo, and her father followed.
The door closed, and it took her a moment to realize that two other people were in the car with her. She gasped to see Grey and a poorly dressed shifter employee sitting and staring at her. She turned to look at her father who was very calmly combing his hair. Her eyes fell to the little tray of hair products and makeup attached to the limo door. There was the hair putty to make his strands stand up in all directions. Next to it was the ashy-colored makeup to put shadows under his eyes. There was the spray to make his clothing wet and wrinkly.
Harper fell back against the seat and felt the whole world fall in on her. The limo went dark with despair as it crawled up the remainder of the road towards the president’s garage. A huge crush of bodies walked alongside the car so that the outside world was completely obscured.
“Well, darling,” President Bachmann said as he checked his reflection in the mirror, “you have had quite a time these past few days. I hear you spent some time at the shifter commune.”
She looked at her knees as her stomach tied into a giant bow that kept getting caught against her ribs. Her lips pulled in past her teeth, and she bit them hard in hopes of feeling something else.
“Now, my informant let me know what was really going on. This whole kidnapping fiasco is one that we are telling the public. Shifter,” he said to Grey, “you will also keep up that little charade. Harper was tricked into going to a shifter gathering, then kidnapped in protest of her support of the shifter community. She’s the hero and the victim, nothing else.”
“Dad, I was tricked. I went because–”
“Stop right there.” He set his little comb into a small, expensive glass, and it made a sharp ping as he dropped it. He paused to take a breath before he continued. “Harper, one day, the state will be yours. Our security is built on the separation of humans and shifters. We can’t all be friends. We can’t cross borders. We can’t all hold hands and swing on the swings together. You’ll understand as you get older; when people feel safe, they need less leadership. Less leadership means ridiculous developments like elections and uneducated citizens thinking they can take on governance.”
Harper froze; she had heard of elections in her school lessons. Her teacher always told her that these elections had always led to horrible developments, and that they’d been done away with to keep the people safe. She’d believed it; she’d never considered it was just a way to make sure her father stayed important to the public. She glanced at Grey to see if his face could give away any of his thoughts. He was casually looking out the window; he didn’t even seem to be listening to the awful things her father was saying. Harper was on her own.
“You’re disgusting.”
“Don’t think,” her father said to her, “that just because you’re speaking quietly that I can’t hear you, my one and only. I understand that this all looks ugly,” he said, straightening his tie, “but I promise you, Harper, the alternative is far worse. If you think this is disgusting, you should see what’s happening across the ocean. All the citizens reading, debating in the streets, killing each other over issues that have no real bearing on their lives. It’s very sad. I don’t want any of that here.” He leaned closer to Harper and grabbed her arms. “And if that means keeping a section of my population down, then I say so be it.”
“Dad! You’re hurting me!”
“Good,” he replied, digging his fingernails into her arms. “Remember this pain. This is just a small taste of the pain in store for you if you do not heed my words, little girl.” He released her and sat back against his seat just as the car pulled into the small tunnel that led down to the palace garage. He turned to the older shifter.
“Now, Gus,” the president said, tucking his shirt in, “I trust you will leak the appropriate information to the press and those photos of the raid.”
The man nodded. “I’ll get them from Rita, sir.”
“Wonderful. Mr. Wiseman,” the President reached across to Grey’s seat and patted his knee. “Good to see you. My friend Gus here will inform you of your next move.” He squeezed Grey’s knee harder and leaned in close to his face. “And if you decide to do anything not approved by my office,” he continued, his knuckles growing whiter by the second, “you and your father will get to spend some quality time together in the facility under my palace.”
Grey looked at the hand grabbing him and up at the president’s wild, shining eyes as they shook in their sockets. His face went pale, and he tried to move away, but there was nowhere to go. He tried the limousine door, but it didn’t budge. “Sir, please…”
“I take care of my prisoners myself,” the president said as a horrible, twisted smile spread across his face. “Their rehabilitation is very important to me.”
Grey swallowed and gave the president a hurried, frightened nod. “I understand.”
“Grey!” Harper stared at him with an open mouth. “We could do something great. Don’t let him scare you.”
“I have to protect my father,” Grey replied. “He’s all I have.”
The president sat back and smiled, patted his daughter’s leg, and opened the door. “You two gentlemen may leave. You have a lot of work to do.” Gus and Grey slid out of the car. Grey stole a glance back at Harper, but then quickly moved to catch up with Gus. Harper fumed as he left. How had she ever thought she could love such a coward?
“You may be able to boss everyone else around,” she said, turning to face her father, “but you can’t do that to me. I don’t want to be a leader. I don’t want to be like you. You’re the worst person I know.”
“And I am your family,” he replied. “You’re young, darling. Young and rebellious, just like I was at your age. You think you’re the first Bachmann to reach out to the shifters? The first to run off with them for a time? I’m afraid none of this is new, my darling. The only Bachmann who never spent time with a shifter was your grandmother, who genuinely feared them. I know they’re not dangerous. I know they don’t bite. And I don’t care.”
“What?” Harper squared her shoulders at her father. “You had shifter friends?”
Her father smiled a little, remembering. “My mother had them executed.”
A huge, horrible gasp came from Harper, and she felt herself start to vomit. She grabbed the door handle to calm herself down. Her father said nothing to calm her down as he let her sit with the idea. She collected herself as well as she could and looked up at him.
“She was right to do it, my darling,” he told her. “A president cannot let his emotions get in the way of his decisions. I had to learn that. So, my friends had to go on to whatever world is next. And Harper,” he reached out for her hand, held it gently, “I will happily do the same.”
She shook her head, ready to vomit all over again. “Just kill me,” she sobbed. “I can’t live like this. I won’t. Don’t bother killing anyone else or imprisoning anyone else. Just let me die. I’m not strong enough.” Her shoulders shook as her father watched her.
He pulled her in and kissed the top of her head. “Don’t be silly, sweet girl. You’re the love of my life.” Harper melted into tears and hiccupped into her hands for several minutes as her father held her.
“Shh. Shh. We’ll be alright. We’re together again. That’s all that matters.”
“But I hate you,” she said, pushing the words between her cries, “so much.”
“That’s fine, darling. You’re a teenage girl, you can hate your father.” He chuckled a little more as she continued crying. “I certainly hated mine.”
Eventually, Harper’s father got her out of the car and back to her rooms where he left her on her bed. She quickly ran to the secret door in her closet, only to find it permanently sealed. Off to one side was a new piece of furniture that looked oddly familiar. She approached it and sank to her knees once she saw what it was – the backseat to the car she’d stolen converted into a small couch, a photo of her at the shifter party framed over it. Had Larissa taken that picture?
She looked at it a little closer. In the photo, she was smiling at Black Feather, and over her shoulder, Grey was looking at her with sadness and hope in his eyes. All around them, the party raged. Shifters danced and bottles were held in the air, but each of them was too wrapped up in their individual moments to see any of it.
She took the photo down and held it as she sat on the former car seat. She leaned down to smell it, and the scent of cheap leather transported her back to that first night when she had been free and ready for anything. She closed her eyes, wrapped the framed picture in her arms, and fell into a fitful sleep there on the former vehicle to what she had hoped would be her new life.