Josh
The car slowed to a halt near an open park downtown.
So much for this thing being inside. At least it doesn’t look like it’s going to rain today.
Josh had tried to convince Chad to change the location and move it somewhere indoors, where it could be secured and not visible to the public as a whole. There had been no give in him however, and in the end Josh had been forced to relent.
The muscles in his thick neck flexed, turning his head to look over at Hannah as he pulled on the handle and prepared to exit the truck.
She was staring out the window at the buildings on her side of the road. He frowned, but didn’t say anything.
Ever since her outburst at breakfast the day before, she had been distant. First she had disappeared into her room for hours, locked in there with her brother. When she had emerged, she had remained aloof and uncommunicative about what had happened.
After several failed attempts to understand—all of which resulted in her trying to shrug it off—a barrier had arisen between them, and he didn’t like it.
His eyes scanned the park as he walked around the car to open her door. They were in a rectangular spot near downtown, mostly grass, with tall trees scattered around to provide shade. He had parked the truck on one of the long sides, behind the band shell where Chad had a team of people setting up things for him to speak. There were already people beginning to congregate toward the open area on the far side. Groups here and there streamed past.
Nothing immediately presented itself as a threat, so he opened the door and Hannah emerged. She looked phenomenal, wearing a red off-the-shoulder shirt, exposing copious amounts of skin that threatened to have him look at her instead of everyone around them. The black dress pants and matte-black shoes ensured that the shirt was the focus, while also being comfortable enough for her to move around in.
“Thank you,” she said stiffly as he closed the door behind her.
“Just doing my job, ma’am,” he said, a little more sarcastically than intended.
Hannah looked hurt for a moment, then she set her mouth and started walking, following the black pathway that cut through the grass and led around the band shell.
Josh grimaced, angry at himself, but there was nothing more he could do now. The comment had been made, and he would have to deal with the consequences. Hopefully, when whatever it was that was bothering Hannah was settled, they could sit down and he could apologize.
He fell in behind her as they cleared the edge of the band shell, eyes roving the crowd that was beginning to grow. There was a large concrete pad in front of the stage, which had been roped off, though that wasn’t stopping anyone from ducking under or hopping over the flimsy barrier. To his eyes, it was just an accident waiting to happen. The stage on the band shell was covered in a swooping, rolling white roof that looked like a wave.
He gazed over the crowd of mostly jubilant younger people, cheering and holding up signs, among other things. Here and there, a flag waved in the air.
Josh’s eyes narrowed as they walked closer, the details on the flags becoming clearer to him. He recognized them from somewhere, but it was just tickling at the edge of his mind.
“Something wrong?” Hannah asked as his steps slowed. She came to a halt, twisting slightly to glance back at him.
“Uh,” he said as his eyes took in the flags waving here and there. Then it came to him.
Oh we’re in deep shit now.
“What?” Hannah asked, slowing to allow him to move alongside.
“Those red flags,” he said, “look suspiciously like Shift First flags.”
Her eyebrows rose slightly. “That would be because they are,” she replied, as if he should have known that.
“Shift First. As in, big time controversial shifter group? That Shift First?” he asked cautiously.
“Uh, yeah?” Hannah said with a shake of her head. “What? I thought you knew.”
Josh spun around, looking at the nearby buildings, eyes searching windows and shopfronts. “No, I did not,” he said tightly. “You said equal rights. I thought you meant like, civil rights, that kind of thing.”
Hannah fully turned to face him as he continued to scan the nearby area. “My brother works for Shift First. He’s one of their public speakers.”
“Not good,” he muttered. “Not good at all.”
“What? Why?” she asked, looking confused.
He stared at her in disbelief. “Remember when I told you about the fucking war being waged here in King City? Against my kind?”
Something flickered in her eyes as he said that, but right then Josh didn’t have time to worry about reminding her of the incident the morning before.
“We need to go. Now,” he urged, taking her upper arm and pulling her back toward the car.
Hannah shook her head, resisting his pull with surprising strength. “What? We just got here.”
“Listen to me,” he hissed, still looking around them and not at her, as the noise started to grow from the crowd in front of the band shell. “We need to go before this gets ugly.”
Chad took the stage. Behind him, a black covering came down, revealing a huge Shift First banner to the delight of the assembled supporters.
“You can go,” Hannah said. “I’m going to stay to support my brother.”
Josh looked at her, trying to push home his point. “Do you really think that this city would allow this war to go on if there wasn’t a deep-seated, anti-shifter sentiment to it? These people are all in danger, not just you and your brother,” he explained. “There will be a protest movement. I guarantee it.”
Hannah rolled her eyes and pulled him after her. “That’s ridiculous. It’s going to be fine. We’ve done this a thousand times before.”
He allowed himself to be pulled along behind her. She took him to the side of the stage, and then up a set of stairs. A pair of men in black shirts with white-stitched lettering that read Security moved aside to let them pass. Josh noted several other sets of guards on the stage and walking around the crowd.
Much to his relief Hannah stopped at the edge of the stage, not taking them right out onto it. Chad was working the crowd now, building their excitement as he worked toward the point of his speech.
“This is going to get violent and ugly, Hannah. Please, believe me,” he pleaded. “I’ve been here for months now. There is next to no sympathy for shifters in this city. Those that are sympathetic are scared to support us. This is a mistake.”
She looked over at him with pursed lips. “The crowd is smaller than I would have expected,” she admitted slowly, but she stopped at that, refusing to give in any further.
Taking a deep breath, Josh tried to settle himself, realizing she wasn’t going to leave. He couldn’t exactly pick her up and haul her away either. Not without drawing more attention than he wished.
Chad was a gifted speaker, he realized, as he whipped the crowd into an impassioned frenzy with what appeared to be little work on his end.
“He’s good.” Josh kept his voice low so that only Hannah could hear it. “Really good.”
She smiled proudly, and for just an instant, the glacial barrier between them melted away.
His eyes flicked over, meeting hers. For that second, he saw beyond her guarded walls and into her core. Hannah blinked and turned away, but in that momentary lapse, Josh had glimpsed something dark within her. She was hiding a secret, and it was tearing her up from the inside.
Teeth clenched as he forced himself to not ask her, to not reach out and put his hand on her smooth shoulder and tell her she could trust him. It was the truth, but now was not the time for that. He would be better off waiting and hoping that she would come to him eventually. In the meantime, he had a job to do. That would guarantee him time around her, which he hoped to use to thaw out their relations some more. To get it back to how it had been yesterday morning.
“What’s that?” Hannah asked, cocking her head to one side.
He listened intently, using his augmented hearing to his advantage. “I don’t—” Then he heard it. A dull vibration, as if the ground were shaking.
“Earthquake?” Hannah asked.
A roar sounded from behind him, chilling Josh to the core. “No,” he said softly. “Much, much worse. The three of us need to get out of here now!”
“Again with that?” she asked, exasperated.
“Yes,” he urged, spinning around to watch as a group of people clad in red and black clothing appeared from the street side of the band shell, masks tied around their faces. “This is going to get ugly, and quickly.”
For once, Hannah didn’t argue.