Danger in a Fur Coat (The Fur Coat Society Book 4) Read online

  As silently as she had entered, she left the building and went back out onto the city street just in time to hear another bloodcurdling scream. She shivered in terror, and ran several blocks until she found something that looked like an apartment building. She slipped in and sniffed deeply, trying to smell whether anyone else was on the premises. Her bear nose could tell that nothing in the building smelled alive. All she could smell was the dank, pungent odor of mold and dust mixing together. This place was abandoned. Juno went up a few flights of stairs for good measure. Somehow, it seemed safer to be a few stories up than right at street level. She picked an apartment door at random and went inside. Since this building had no backup generator like the lab, and no electricity, the security system was completely ineffective.

  Juno swept her flashlight across the room. This place, like so many others she had seen tonight, was a mess. Blankets, dishes, clothes, and various household items were strewn across the floor in complete disarray. She went to the kitchen and found the refrigerator door wide open. The fridge was completely cleaned out. She checked the pantry, and there was nothing there except a case of some weird looking health drink labeled “Green Future Combo Extraordinaire.” Juno frowned as she pulled out one of the bottles and opened it. She wrinkled her nose at the smell, but decided to try it anyway. She immediately revolted at the taste and spit it out. She’d have to be a little more desperate before drinking that shit. Apparently the looters agreed, since it was the one thing they’d left behind.

  Picking up her backpack, Juno moved toward the bedroom. Thankfully, there were still a lot of blankets here. Although being inside offered some relief from the blistering wind and cold of the Chicago winter, the fact that there was no electricity and no heat meant it was still uncomfortably chilly in this apartment. Juno gathered up several blankets and snuggled under them, then closed her eyes to get some rest.

  Just as she was finally drifting off, another scream and more gunshots rang through the air. Juno reached into her bag and pulled out the one weapon she had allowed herself to bring—a sharp, deadly knife. She slipped the knife under an extra pillow next to her and then squeezed her eyes shut as tightly as possible. She willed herself to sleep, trying to drown out the noise from the city’s rogue citizens, and the worried pounding of her own anxious heart.

  Chapter Three

  Juno woke with a start, blinking her eyes in confusion at the bright sunlight streaming in through the window. For a moment, she forgot where she was. She looked around in confusion at the strange bedroom she was in, and then it all came back like a flood. She was in Chicago. She had escaped with the helicopter, and she was on a mission to save the world.

  The morning had brought an eerie stillness once again. There were no gunshots, and no screams like there had been the night before. Everything was quiet and still. If it hadn’t been for the fact that she could look out the window and see all of the city buildings around her, she almost would’ve thought she was still back in Michigan in the middle of the wilderness.

  But, no. She was here in Chicago, in the middle of the freezing cold winter, and she had to find a way to get into Hook Labs and come up with a cure for the bear flu that was ravaging the world. Juno slowly stood up and stretched, then took a closer look out the window. She couldn’t see anyone. Everything was still, and the city itself was in ruins. Most of the city’s buildings were still standing, but many of them were burned at the top. Almost all of them had windows or walls smashed in on the bottom floors. Juno went to the kitchen of the apartment and looked around, even though she had already checked for food the night before.

  Of course, she again, found that there was no food. Even the light of day couldn’t change that. With a sigh, she pulled a meal replacement bar out of her backpack and slowly munched on it. She was beginning to wonder if this had been a stupid idea. She’d had such grand visions of swooping in here herself on a helicopter, breaking into the lab, coming up with a cure, and then swooping back to Michigan almost before the rest of her clan even realized that she was gone. But in the harsh light of day, she was starting to think that she had been just a wee bit foolish.

  She had no idea how she was going to break into the lab. Not only that, but everyone back in Michigan was going to be furious with her, even if she did find a cure. You don’t just leave your clan members without warning. She had done it for their good, though. Juno took a deep breath and let it out slowly as she opened her water bottle and took a long sip. Grant and Jack didn’t need to put themselves in danger. They had lifemates to think about. And, even though the city was quiet and still at the moment, Juno wasn’t kidding herself. She knew that Chicago was a dangerous place. Maybe it was a ghost town for the most part, but there were still people left behind. If what she’d heard last night was any indication, those people weren’t exactly getting along well.

  Juno shivered as she remembered the bloodcurdling screams that had traveled across the darkness. She closed her water bottle and shoved it back into her backpack, then slung the bag over her shoulder and headed for the door. She needed to get to the lab and get this whole situation taken care of as quickly as she could. As she stepped out into the sunshine, she looked left and right to make sure that no one else was around. Then she stepped quickly onto the street, her boots crunching loudly in the snow as she walked as closely to the wall as possible to avoid detection by anyone who might be watching. She breathed in deeply, trying to smell whether there were any other life forms around. But even her bear senses couldn’t detect much amidst the smell of death and dying. Whoever was left here was likely suffering from the bear flu or had already lost everyone they love to it. Whatever the case, the city was full of death. Juno kept walking, quickening her pace for the last block of her journey. She couldn’t shake the feeling that someone was following her, but every time she turned around she saw no one. Everything was quiet except for the sound of her own feet and her own loud breathing.

  She made it back to Hook Labs and quietly stepped inside, assessing the situation once again in the light of day. The front windows were indeed broken and vandalized, but the security systems that led to the lab itself were still intact. Soft, electronic beeps came from the eye scanners mounted near the entrance. Juno walked over to them, then set her backpack down against the wall. She looked up and down at every square inch of the door, trying to see if there were any weaknesses. Of course, there were not. Hook Labs would have taken care to make sure they had the strongest level of security possible. Eye scanners were state-of-the-art security systems. Before their invention, most companies had used fingerprint sensors, but eye scanners were even more accurate. You could fake a fingerprint, but you couldn’t fake the DNA in someone’s irises. Either the eye scanner recognized your DNA and let you in, or it didn’t and you stayed out. The technology was amazing. As a scientist Juno, should have been intrigued by it. But she hated eye scanners. How could she not? The arrival of eye scanners is what had caused the war on shifters in the first place. Someone had realized that you could make scanners that detected animal DNA. This meant that when a shifter was scanned with a shifter-detecting scanner, there was no hiding. There was no way to change the fabric of who you are. Shifters could no longer blend in, pretending to be human.

  Juno ran her fingers across the top of the scanner, then jumped as it started beeping.

  “Welcome to Hook Labs,” a computer voice said cheerily. “Please stand in scanner position to verify your identity.”

  Juno frowned, then decided to see what would happen if she let the computer scan her eyes. It seemed to be working fine, but you never know. Maybe it was broken, and would just let her in somehow without recognizing who she actually was. Juno stood still for a moment while the scanner ran a green beam of light up and down across her irises. Moments later, a loud, beeping alarm sounded.

  “Warning, warning,” the computer said. “You are not authorized to enter. Please step away.”

  Juno kicked the door, then jiggled the h
andle to make sure it was actually locked. This only irritated the computer even more.

  “Warning, warning. Aggressive intruder,” the computer said, followed by an even louder alarm.

  Juno jumped backwards, then looked around warily. But she quickly relaxed. There was no one around to hear the alarms. There were no security guards to come haul her away. The computers at Hook Labs might still be working fine, but there was no one actually alive here to check in on the alarms or warnings. Juno took another step backwards, then put her hand on her hip. She looked up and down the entrance, trying to figure out how she might manage to get in. The door was thick, and seemed to be made of steel or some other strong metal. You would need a large tool and a whole lot of brute strength to break through it. Juno could try to break and smash the camera itself, but it was unlikely that that would do anything to actually open the door. Hook Labs certainly had some sort of emergency system that put everything on lockdown if the scanner was destroyed. That was just basic security smarts.

  Juno sighed and rubbed the bottom of her chin. Her brow furrowed as she racked her brain, trying to come up with another solution. Suddenly, she found herself hitting the cold, hard floor. A sharp pain shot through her head, and before she had time to react or scream she heard a maniacal laugh.

  “Gotcha!” a deep voice said, followed by more laughter.

  Juno struggled to turn around, but the man was strong and had her pinned against the ground. A moment later, though, he turned her around himself, never letting her move very much but apparently wanting her to see his face. Juno shuddered at the sight. Several scars were etched across his pale skin, and even more fresh, angry red marks crisscrossed his forehead and cheeks. He was scruffy, as though he hadn’t shaved in days, and he smelled as though he hadn’t showered in weeks. Maybe months. His eyes were wild and angry, sending chills down Juno’s spine. Juno breathed in deeply, trying to smell whether the man was a shifter.

  Nope, he was definitely full human. But he wasn’t sick. He had managed to somehow escape the bear flu thus far—although he looked a little worse for the wear, that’s for sure. Juno wasn’t all that scared, even though the man was now holding a knife right above her chest. If she really wanted to, she could shift into bear form at a moment’s notice. The force of the shift would throw the man backwards several feet, and once Juno had shifted there was no way the man could take her on with just a knife. But Juno waited, struggling against the man’s arms and trying to figure out a way to resolve the situation without shifting. She really didn’t want to ruin her clothes, goddammit. Why didn’t she bring more changes of clothes with her? She furrowed her brow, trying to remember whether there had been any clothes in the apartment last night that looked like they would fit her. She couldn’t recall, but, then again, she hadn’t been looking that closely. She’d been more interested in finding out whether there was any food.

  “Hey!” the man’s voice shouted, bringing Juno back to the present moment. “Are you listening to me, bitch?”

  Juno bristled “Don’t call me a bitch,” she said, struggling even harder.

  The man laughed, holding one of her arms down with his knee and her other arm with his left arm. He used his free hand to wave his knife right in front of Juno’s face.

  “You listen to me, missy, and listen well if you want to live. I want to know where your food stash is.”

  “Food stash?” Juno asked. “I don’t have a food stash.” Which was sort of true and sort of not. She did have meal replacement bars, but that that wasn’t exactly a big stash of food. Besides, it’s not like she was about to tell this guy where any of her supplies were. If he had two brain cells to rub together he should’ve seen her backpack sitting several feet away and checked that.

  “You have to have food,” the man said. “You’re not a skeleton like everyone else around here. You actually have some meat on your bones, so don’t lie and tell me you don’t have a stash. I thought I’d found every food hideout in the city, but apparently I was wrong. If you want to live, you’ll show me yours.”

  “I don’t have a stash, and I’m not showing you anything!” Juno said “Now get off of me!”

  The man laughed again and raised the knife high above his head. “Tell me now, or I bring this knife down right into your heart,” he said.

  Juno bit her bottom lip. Her heart had started pounding and she narrowed her eyes. Was this guy actually going to go through with his threat? She couldn’t tell, but she didn’t want to take her chances and find out the hard way. It was definitely time to shift. She took a deep breath, and was about to begin her transformation when a loud roar sounded off, followed by a huge scream and an intense wave of heat. Juno yelped in pain as she felt her left cheek burning, but her yelp was nothing compared to the awful scream that came from her attacker as he was hurled several feet into the air before landing across the room with a thud. Juno quickly jumped to her feet in confusion, ready to fight. That’s when she saw that the man who had been threatening to kill her moments before was now writhing in pain in a ball of flames on the ground. Juno spun around, looking everywhere for the source of the flames. But she saw nothing. Confused she ran for her backpack to grab her own knife—not that it would do much good against someone who had a flamethrower. But, still, she didn’t want to feel completely helpless. The awful smell of burning flesh filled her nostrils, and the man’s agonizing screams were too much to take. She covered her ears, horrified, but it didn’t drown out the sound.

  Moments later, a gunshot sounded off and the man fell silent. Juno looked over to realize that someone had shot him dead. She backed up against the wall, her eyes darting warily around the room. Guns? Flamethrowers? What was going on here? She searched wildly for the source of the attack, and that’s when she saw him—the tallest, most muscular man she had ever seen. And that was saying something, because bear shifters weren’t exactly tiny. He had skin that was tanned deeply, as though he had spent the last several weeks on a beach. His eyes were a piercing blue, and his hair was as dark as a raven’s. He wore a pair of sweatpants, but no shirt, which was odd considering the outside temperature was below freezing. Not that Juno was complaining about his lack of shirt. He had the most sculpted abdomen of any man she had ever seen. Her breath caught in her throat at the sight of him. He was perfection in male form. He had the body of a god, and for a moment she forgot to be scared. Then she saw the gun in his hand and realized that she was probably in a little bit of danger. She held her hands above her head and shook her head in a nonthreatening way.

  “Look, I don’t want trouble,” she said. “I don’t know who this man was but I’m not affiliated with him.”

  The man-god gave her a funny look and then glanced over at the dead man who was still burning.

  “Yeah, I figured you weren’t affiliated with him, since he was attacking you. Don’t worry. I’m not going to shoot you. I just wanted to put him out of his misery so I shot him. Better to die quickly from a gunshot then slowly burn to death. Even a scumbag like him deserves that much decency. Goddamn lowlifes prowling the city, looking for a spare piece of bread. I don’t know how some of them managed to avoid the flu with all the roaming they do. If I were human, I’d be hiding in as much isolation as I could.”

  Juno frowned, then breathed in deeply.

  “If you were human?” she asked, confused. As far she could tell, this guy was not a bear, wolf, panther, or any other kind of shifter. He smelled strange though. Not quite human, not quite shifter.

  “Who are you? What are you?” Juno asked.

  The man raised an eyebrow at her.

  “I’m Wyatt. Wyatt Robinson,” he said simply, then set his gun down on the deserted counter that used to serve as the front lobby of Hook Labs. He walked several feet away and dug around in what Juno assumed was some sort of backpack, although she couldn’t see behind the counter from here. He pulled out a long-sleeved shirt and slipped it on quickly.

  “Right. Okay. Hi, Wyatt. I’m Juno. Bu
t what are you? You’re not a bear like me, and you’re not any other kind of shifter as far as I can smell. But you do small strange.”

  Wyatt chuckled. “Yeah, I get that a lot from all the shifters in the city that I happen across.”

  Juno frowned. There are still shifters in Chicago?” she asked.

  “Yup,” Wyatt said. “Not everyone left. Some shifters were still in hiding when the flu epidemic broke out, and it quickly became apparent that shifters were immune to the flu. So we didn’t leave, and everyone else died off. Well, almost everyone. There’s still a human population here, but the majority of them are sick and dying. The ones that haven’t caught the flu yet are hiding out, and usually when they have to finally venture out for food or something like that they accidentally come across someone else and end up with the flu. There’s a lot of looting and violence and all that kind of stuff that you’d expect in a situation like this. Myself, I try to stay out of it as much as possible. Usually, the early morning hours are quiet. Everyone is still recovering from the foraging around the night before, so that’s when I like to go out and walk. I look for food and just stretch my legs. But this morning, apparently, isn’t a quiet morning. And you apparently haven’t been in Chicago very long since you don’t know about the shifters here.”