Raising Innocence: A Rylee Adamson Novel(68)

“When I was sitting in the tree. I started pinning the bugs up so they wouldn’t crawl on me.”
Laughing, we walked into the police station. The looks we got from the officers ranged from outright disgust—I suppose a child hacking off zombie limbs would do that—to fear, to curiosity, right down to anger.
Of course, the anger was coming from one Dr. Daniels limping toward us. “There she is! She attacked me and sent me to the hospital with a sword wound! I have the hospital paperwork to prove it. I am taking the child away from her right—”
Dr. Daniels was picked up and slammed against the far wall. Pamela glowered at her. “I’m staying with Rylee.”
Then, of course, everything sort of hit the fan. Officers rushed to help the doctor; officers rushed us. Pamela did an admirable job pinning up people. Like flies on sticky tape they hung anywhere from three feet to seven feet up the wall. Some she hung upside down, sideways and diagonal.
Agent Valley came out of the main office, spluttering with rage. But it was the twinkle in his eyes and the quirk to his lips that told me I’d once again been played. I figured it out in the heartbeat before Pamela picked him up and pinned him to the ceiling.
He wanted me to do this, wanted me to break the rules. That way it wasn’t on the FBI’s shoulders if it went wrong.
The greasy little manipulator!
Well, we’d just see how smart everyone thought he was.
“Agent Valley, thank you for clearing the path for us. As always, it’s a pleasure doing business with the FBI. But next time, my fees will be double.”
His whole body spasmed against the ceiling and when he opened his mouth, Pamela gagged him.
“How did you know?” I asked as we sauntered through the building to the stairwell leading up to the roof.#p#分页标题#e#
“I thought he was going to say something mean to you again. And I didn’t want him to.”
Her words were an eerie echo of Alex. The two of them both wanted to protect me, and all I wanted was to make sure they were safe. A dark premonition trickled along my senses, making my gut twist. There would come a day when their loyalty would get them killed. Before that happened, I would have to send them on their way.
We ran up the stairs, but I was lost in my thoughts. I knew why Jack was alone. There was so much danger involved with being a Tracker. And for some stupid reason we inspired loyalty in those we were supposed to be protecting.
Bursting out the top door onto the roof, I heard shouting below.
“The spell must have worn off.” Pamela frowned. “I’m sorry, I thought it would last longer.”
“Don’t worry about it.” I looked around for something to jam the door with. Eve could be tricky to wake up and if her head jammed under her wing was any indication, she was deep in sleep. Which meant I needed a little more time. The roof was littered with garbage pipe, leftovers from some renovation or another. I grabbed the closest piece that was about four feet long and jammed it under the door handle, burying the end in the loose gravel of the roof.
“Eve,” I shouted from where I was. “I need you to wake up. We’ve got problems!”
The Harpy grumbled in her sleep and lifted her head. “Rylee?”
“Yeah, we’ve got—”
The door thumped from the other side, the weight of a few officers behind it.
“You awake enough to take me and Pamela for a fly about?”
Eve ruffled her wings. She’d only gotten a few hours sleep and I knew I was asking a lot of her. Now I was glad she’d come, though I had been less than grateful when she’d first landed.
With a beak-clacking yawn, she nodded. “Yes, I can take you two.”
I pushed Pamela ahead of me and we ran to Eve’s side. We skidded to a stop and I was in the middle of boosting Pamela up when the door banged open. Agent Valley was at the front of the pack.
“ADAMSON!”
I gave him a wave, and then blew him a kiss. “You got it, boss. I’m on the case, just like you said!”
Leaping up behind Pamela, I wrapped my arms around her and buried my hands in Eve’s feathers. The Harpy launched straight up, her powerful wings sweeping out around us in a gust of wind and dust. When I looked down, the rooftop crawled with people. Denning had finally shown up, though he’d been MIA since before the zombie attack. By the looks of things as we banked to the south, Denning and Valley were arguing. At least, Valley took a swing at Denning just before we lost them from sight.
“Just head south, Eve. And stay high enough that we can’t be seen from the ground.”
“Not a problem,” she said.
Pamela shivered and I tightened my arms around her. Though in some ways she reminded me of Berget, in others she was completely opposite. Her coloring, of course, her age was close to what Berget would be now, and her loyalty. But Berget had never had a feisty bone in her; in that, Pamela was so different. I had to believe that whoever had taken Berget had treated her well, because I doubted she would have survived otherwise. Pamela, on the other hand, would survive with or without me. She was, in some ways, more like me than I’d thought at first.