The Rising by Kelley Armstrong Read Free Book Online

American passport,” I said. “I’m pretty sure these are hard to fake. So let’s see who you really are.”
    I opened it. My gaze headed for the name, but the photo snagged it instead. I stared at the picture for a moment. Then I looked down at the guy on the ground. At his bare arm. Corey said he’d seemed tanned in the vision. He wasn’t. He was Native.
    I lifted the passport to get a better look at the photo. His eyes were hazel and his hair was light brown, but he still looked Native. As I stared at the picture, I could swear I recognized the face. I didn’t, though. Not his name, either.
    â€œAshton Gray,” I said.
    He didn’t respond. I looked at the birth date. It was a couple of months before mine. What was a sixteen-year-old kid doing climbing trees in Stanley Park with fake credit cards and an American passport?
    He seemed like a street kid. The soles of his running shoes were almost worn through, his jeans were frayed, and his black T-shirt had been washed so often it was a dirty gray. But his nails were trimmed and his hair was poorly cut but clean.
    I looked around. “Where are the others?”
    â€œWhat others?” His first actual response. He didn’t try to look at me, though.
    â€œSomeone contacted us and set up this meeting through an email address, which we only gave to one person. That person wasn’t you.”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    Daniel backed off the guy, staying poised to pounce if he bolted. “Get up.”
    â€œWell, since you’re asking so nicely . . .”
    The guy—Ashton—rolled over and pulled himself to a sitting position. He moved slowly, getting to his feet as if taking his time meant he really wasn’t doing as he’d been told. His hair reached his collar at the sides as well as in back, and hung in his face. Only after he was standing did he bother to push it back. He fixed Daniel with a hard stare. Challenging. Pissed off that he’d been taken down so easily.
    â€œBetter?” he said.
    Daniel looked at him. Stared, actually. He looked at me. Looked back at the guy. Then he swore under his breath.
    I stared at Ashton Gray, too, and again I had this vague sense of I know you . Something about his face. Something familiar.
    â€œMaya?” Daniel said.
    Ashton flinched when Daniel said my name.
    â€œHmm?” I said.
    â€œRafe has a birthmark like yours, right? Where is it?”
    â€œOn his . . .” I trailed off. Daniel thought this guy was a skin-walker? Why? Because he was looking for us and happened to be Native? No, Daniel didn’t jump to conclusions like that.
    â€œOn the back of his shoulder,” I said. “A paw print like the one on my hip.”
    â€œTurn around,” Daniel said to Ashton.
    The kid’s lip curled in a sneer and he seemed ready to snarl at us all, but when Daniel snapped, “Turn around” again, he obeyed. He was only a couple of inches taller than my five-five, which made him shorter than both of the other guys. Smaller, too—slight and wiry.
    He yanked up his shirt to his shoulders.
    The paw-print birthmark was there.
    â€œWhat’s the birth date on his passport, Maya?”
    â€œBirth date? Um . . .” I double-checked. “August fifth.”
    â€œFake, then. It’s more like October, isn’t it?” Daniel said, walking around to meet Ashton’s gaze. “Early October. I don’t know the exact date, because Maya’s isn’t exactly right, either, but the doctors had a pretty good idea how old she was when she was found, and they wouldn’t have been two months off.”
    I tried to follow what he was saying. How would that have anything to do with . . . ?
    I stared at Ashton Gray. No. It couldn’t be.
    â€œIs your real birthday in early October?” Daniel asked.
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œAnd you just