Raising Innocence (2 page)

I cursed my way out to the main living area, my words stilling on my tongue as I took in the scene. Giselle sat in the corner of the window seat, staring out into the evening sky. Alex was curled up beside her, pointing at things.

Though they were at opposite ends of the spectrum in terms of supernatural abilities, the werewolf and my mentor had bonded over the last month. Maybe it was because in a weird way, they were the same, learning how to live in a body with a mind that was no longer their own. He was forever a child trapped inside his mismatched body, and she was only at times lucid.

While they sat and stared out the window, I sat on the floor, crossed my legs and went to work on a routine, one that drained the shit out of me to practice. But it was necessary, especially with Alex.

With some effort, I’d learned over the last year to hold my Immunity back, just on my hands. Just enough to keep my Immunity from affecting Alex’s collar and thus exposing him to the world as a werewolf. I did it without thinking for the most part, and the practicing was something I did now more when I was bored and had nothing better to do.

I played with it, peeling my Immunity up and over my wrists, sweating, but doing it. Because Giselle has said it was good for me to stretch myself and my talents, even if that meant trying things that seemed silly at times.

After an hour, I finally let my Immunity go back, flow over my hands. A slight tingle, and it was done.

Standing, I stretched, back popping one vertebrae after the other. “Giselle, are you hungry?”

Alex flipped himself over backwards, scrabbling across the hardwood floor, the silver tips of his fur catching the light. He slid to a stop at my feet and rolled huge amber eyes up to mine.

“Hungry, yes!”

Giselle chuckled to herself. “Socks, have you got your blue socks yet? You’ll need them soon.”

Helping her to her feet, I guided her into the kitchen. “No blue socks yet. But when I find them, I’ll let you know.”

“That’s good. Blue socks. You need them for sure.”

I settled her into a chair and heated up some leftovers. Nothing fancy, but at least it was home cooked. Alex dug in, alternating between using his claws and the fork, finally giving up and just using his mouth.

My mentor didn’t eat; just sat there and stared. What was I going to do with her when I got my next salvage? There was no way I could take her with me when hunting for a kid. Even now, I had to lock her bedroom door at night; she’d wandered off three times in the last month. With the weather sitting well below freezing, it was a bad time to develop a thing for midnight walks in her nightshirt.

“Giselle, you need to eat.” I held up fork with some food on it and pressed it against her mouth. She turned her head away like a naughty child. But I couldn’t be angry; it wasn’t her fault. The fault lay with the abilities she had to see what no one else could. The more she’d used her abilities, the more she was drained of her sanity; apparently it didn’t happen to all of the supernaturals like her. But a lot of them, for sure, had the same trade off. Not a very good exchange rate. Being a Tracker and an Immune, I didn’t have drawbacks like that. Thank the gods.

I tried again to get her to eat, holding the fork up. She pushed it away. “Someone comes.”

The sharp rap of knuckles on the front door sent a shiver of adrenaline through me. There were very few people I could call friends, and fewer still who’d show up unannounced.

My head and heart tripped over one another. O’Shea, it had to be O’Shea. Running full tilt to the door, I flung it open, breath catching in my throat.

Not O’Shea. But it was an FBI agent.

Agent Valley stood on my front porch looking up at me. Brown eyes flecked with green were definitely his best feature. He sported an overbite and an offset nose that looked as though it had been broken more than once. Jowly and a good four inches shorter than my 5’6, he wouldn’t seem the type to be in charge. Yet, here he was, department head for the Arcane Arts division of the FBI. His perfectly pressed black suit and the file folder under his arm made him look like a travelling salesman.

Still, he was O’Shea’s boss and my wannabe boss.

I didn’t say anything, just stared down at him.

Finally, he cleared his throat. “May I come in? I have some information you might be interested in.”

“About what?” I held the door, ready to slam it. Agent Valley wasn’t a bad guy, just not exactly as good as I’d have liked. He’d tried to guilt me into coming to work for his division, and that was a real piss-off in my books.

“Some cases we are looking at. And I would like to speak to you about O’Shea.”

Ah, here we go. He didn’t know where O’Shea was, either. I could still Track him, but had only done so once. That one time was enough for me. He’d been close—in fact, I suspected he had something to do with the local werewolf pack’s sudden loss of interest in Alex—but O’Shea was not a happy boy, his mental state fluxuating from rage to sorrow to blood lust, and then back through them all again. If I were to make a guess, I’d say that O’Shea could shift back and forth; his emotions were far too complex for him to have ended up like Alex. At least that was good. But I respected his choice. O’Shea wanted to figure this new part of his life out on his own. I wouldn’t begrudge him that, though I missed him fiercely.

I waited another ten seconds before slowly opening the door and allowing the agent to step in. I didn’t share my personal space well at the best of times—and this night certainly wasn’t that.

Agent Valley made his way further into the room, selecting the same chair he’d sat in last time he’d shown up unannounced, his feet not quite touching the floor.

“Are you going to sit down, so we can speak?” He opened the folder and drew out sheets of paper clipped together.

I folded my arms over my chest, tucking my bandaged hands away from sight. “No, I’ll stand.”

“So be it. But I will warn you, this is going to be a long conversation.”

Snorting, one corner of my lips lifted. “I doubt that very much.”

He seemed unfazed by my rudeness. One by one he laid out the paper-clipped piles on the table in front of him. “These children were all stolen from hospitals, all within the last two years.”

I couldn’t stop my ears from perking up. Why hadn’t I heard about this? Something like this would have been all over the news. Bending, I scooped up the papers closest to me, thumbing through them. Six months old, in the hospital for not even twenty-four hours before going missing. Youngest of three. Sophia. That was almost a full two years ago; she must have been one of the first.

“There seems to be a strong correlation between the illnesses that the children came in to have treated and whether or not they get kidnapped,” Agent Valley said, leaning back in his chair. I crouched to the ground and flipped through another pile. Age, four years. Oldest of two. Benjamin. There was nothing about why he was in the hospital.

Age, two and a half. Only child. Jasmina.

Age, three weeks. One of two twins. Elana.

Age, five years. Middle of seven. Kent.

The list went on; there were over twenty children missing.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what the correlation is?”

I spread the papers out, unable to stop myself from caring, even knowing that Agent Valley was manipulating me. “I suppose you’ll tell me eventually. If not, it doesn’t really matter. I can find them.”

“So sure of yourself,” he said softly.

I lifted my eyes to his. “It’s one of the few things I’m sure of in my life.”

Alex came trotting in from the kitchen, Giselle clinging to his collar. Neither one said anything to Agent Valley. They just went back to sitting on the window seat, staring out into the night sky.

The agent watched them, shaking his head ever so slightly. “I don’t know how you can live with a werewolf.”

My eyes narrowed, anger surging. What would he think if he knew O’Shea was a werewolf now? “Easier than living with some asshole with an overbite.”

His face flushed from his head down to his collar, his lips tight, and a vein bobbing in the side of his face. For a brief second, I wondered if all FBI agents were required to have a vein in their face or neck that reacted when pissed off; like a mood thermometer.

Fuck, I really knew how to make people hate me. Was it just me or were all Trackers like that?

Maybe I should mellow out a little. At least, I could try. “What’s the connection between all these kids?” I brushed my finger along the edge of their names, wishing I had a picture of one of them so I could Track them right now.

“They’re terminal.”

My brain froze, and I slowly lifted my head. Agent Valley was sombre, his eyes full of grief.

“You mean like as in cancer?”

“Amongst other things.”

I quickly scanned the papers and picked up the first one, Sophia. I held it out to him. “How long did she have?”

The agent took the paper and glanced at the name, not even consulting with another sheet before he answered. “Three months. Even if whoever took her had all the medical supplies they needed, she’d be dead by now.”

Rocking on my heels, I looked at the papers with a new angle. “So you’re telling me that not one of these kids is living? That they’re all dead?”

“That’s what I’m telling you.”

I stood up and backed away from the agent and his piles of papers. There were times I went after a child and they were already dead, or they were killed before I could find them. Just one downside of being a Tracker. But going after these kids, this many dead? Shit, I wasn’t sure I wanted to do that, to put myself through seeing that many parents grieving, to feel the depth of sorrow that only a child’s death brought on. Besides, it wasn’t like they didn’t know the fate of their children. They knew they were dead, long past. Harsh, but true. A shiver ran through me and I could almost see the group of parents clinging to one another, crying, begging for mercy on their babies. No, this was not something I wanted to do.

“I think I’ll pass. You know their fate. You don’t need me.”

Agent Valley leaned down and scooped the papers up one by one, slipping them back into his file folder. “I thought you might say that.”

Moving back, I crossed my arms again, feeling like a fucking heel. But, there were times that even I wasn’t strong enough. Weakness, hadn’t I
just
bitched at myself over being weak? But this was different. The body I could conquer, the mind . . . all I could see in my mind were the parents, their sorrow, and then perhaps their condemnation. In my mind, they looked like my own parents as I was accused of murdering Berget, my little sister. They’d believed the worst of me and that had etched itself in my soul.

Agent Valley stood, but paused mid-step. “Have you heard anything from O’Shea?”

“No, he hasn’t contacted me.” That, at least, was the truth.

“But you could Track him, couldn’t you?”

“I don’t Track adults.” Well, that was fudging it a little, but I owed Valley nothing.

He nodded. “I don’t suppose I can ask you another question?”

Agent Valley was about to drop something on me. What, I could only guess; most likely something he thought would push me into a corner. Right then, I should have just said no, escorted him out and locked the door. But no, I had to nod and say, “Yeah, sure.”

“We brought in a young hacker last week. He was the source of a major leak in our department, and was caught selling information on our confidential Arcane Arts division. Of course, we stopped him before it was able to get out to the world via the black market.”

My muscles tightened and my brain was screaming at Kyle. The little prick, after I paid him so fucking well? Now at least I knew where the print out I’d had disappeared to, the little bastard! I’d never even had a chance to go over the papers on the AA division before they’d gone missing while I was on a salvage. Kyle must have snuck out to my place, knowing that I’d be indisposed. But why wouldn’t he have just hacked in and re-printed the information?

The next time I saw him I would have to ask; then, I would kick his ass into next year for crossing me.

“Hmm. I don’t see what this has to do with me.” I stilled my nerves, forced myself to stand relaxed and at ease. Jail was not somewhere I wanted to end up; I’d been on the wrong end of the law once in my life. Once was enough, thank you very much.

“Well, I just thought you’d like to know.”

“That’s not a question,” I said, my voice even and calm.

“Isn’t it?”

We were in a stare off, him waiting for me to break. It would be a freaking happy day in hell when I didn’t win a staring competition. I shrugged. “You are one strange little man.”

He glanced away. Point for Rylee. I had to give him credit. He was pretty good at trying to get what he wanted without full on asking for it. But it wouldn’t work with me.

“Can you at least tell me if he’s alive?”

Back to O’Shea again.

“Now that’s a question.” I leaned one hip against the wall. “Yes. He’s alive.”

Agent Valley nodded. “Is he coming back?”

That was an even better question, one I’d like the answer to as well.

I took in a long slow breath, let it out as I formed words I hated to say. “I don’t know.”

The agent nodded and then headed for the front door; he made it all the way there before turning around, a smile on his lips. He was way too happy after I’d just turned him down. I felt the first niggling of fear along the back of my neck; he’d been holding back.

“It’s a shame you aren’t interested in the case.”

I nodded and gave him a tight-lipped smile, but said nothing else.

Tapping his folder against his leg, his eyes seemed to twinkle, his hand on the open door.

Shit, here it comes
.

“The team’s main source of help is in the hospital, too sick to move anymore.”

My eyebrows lifted, confusion flitting through me. “And this would be important to me why exactly?”

Agent Valley smiled and I felt the hook set in mouth as he said, “Because he’s a Tracker.”

I
couldn’t stop my jaw from dropping. Agent Valley said nothing, stepped out onto the porch, and shut the door firmly behind him.