Page 57 of Escalating Alpha

Except the local child protective services filed everything they could to stop it and block us. They said there was no precedence to take a child into protective custody for somethingminorand there was no threat against her, so we were overreaching our federal… Everything.

So they didn’t do their job to make sure an orphan went to actual family and didn’t listen when Deanna had toldeveryonethat she didn’t know that woman, but now they took issue when we were going to keep her safe? Yeah, that wasn’t fishy.

Of course it was. They didn’t want it to get out how badly they’d fucked up, and they thought if she was still in their care, they could control what she said. Well, they could. They could block her from everything—even testifying.

They had to know there was no chance they would win, but it was all so we tipped our hands and announced we were investigating the whole police department, not just that one dirty cop involved. It didn’t take many guesses why.

Yeah, corruption. Didn’t it always just come down to more corruption and people doing what they shouldn’t?

I found it did.

But their tenacity was fucking annoying. We won the first case easily, but then they somehow got an appeal… Whereas we’d been annoyed they’d gotten a case in the first day and the filing hadn’t been tossed. The FBI hadevery rightto take someone into protective custody. This was a kidnapping case along with the fraud. That was all our jurisdiction.

Why did it even go to trial? Probably corruption I couldn’t prove, but hopefully someone would.

So it had been a real fight, but luckily the local FBI did what they should and kept her safe. A few of the agents even gave me updates on her schooling since it was now switched to an online program. The local cops had been looking for her, so it was all… Dirty.

It was so dirty it made me feel dirty.

“Let’s go get her right away,” Reagan said to me, knowing I was at a loss. This had been so much extra craziness that we hadn’t needed and stressed me out. He kissed my hair when I nodded. “I know. I know, jelly bean, but you always keep your promises. None of us doubted this time too.”

“I did,” I finally admitted. “This time I did worry because everything kept being stacked against us.”

Deanna’s house was already packed up and put in storage, so we could leave that for now. I wanted her physically out of the state before something else could go wrong. Fuck the stuff and we could get it later.

Seriously.

“I have to go do this,” I told Virgil. “I’ll be back.” I sighed and looked at my watch. “Yeah, we’ll be back and then she can fly out with the others on the plane.”

“This is going to be a long night,” Reagan sighed.

Yeah, it was, because we’d already planned two stops on the way home. Carefully planned them since it was the full moon.

The plan changed again because Brian had gotten the heads-up first, and he’d sent one of the ancient teams directly to Alabama to make this happen so I could get back on track. Even better because then we could grab some of Deanna’s stuff quickly that maybe she wanted or hadn’t been able to take to where the FBI kept stashing her.

They were there and waiting with a few of the local FBI helping with vehicles and more. They knew how hard this had been, and even getting her to Birmingham to be protected instead of where she’d lived had been a fight.

Deanna threw herself at me when I stepped out of the SUV. “Thank you.”

“I’m so sorry it took so long,” I whispered as I hugged her tightly. “I’m really sorry. We couldn’t have—”

“I know. They’ve kept me updated and everyone was super nice. I got to focus on school—can I stay in touch with one of the agents? She was really nice and helped me with some of my homework,” Deanna rambled before grabbing her head.

“She can’t use that ring you do?” a woman asked me quietly, looking equal parts upset and annoyed—probably with me.

I ignored her insubordination when I saw she was FBI because it was clear she cared about Deanna. “No, it’s magically tied just to me.” Several had figured out that Deanna was a clairvoyant even if we hadn’t told anyone. The corrupt cop and “aunt” had known, so it only made sense. “But the elder who made this for me has everything ready for her. She just needed Deanna.”

“Okay, good. Good,” she whispered, letting out a slow breath. Then she met my gaze and winced.

I waved it off. I dealt with worse all of the time and this was—I understood it. I almost asked for my migraine medicine, but Deanna was human and still a kid. “You can talk to whoever you want. You just can’t tell them where you are. Even the agents. They probably know or guess, but always assume someone is listening and don’t give specifics.”

“Awesome, thanks. The elder person can really help me?”

“Yeah, you have an appointment with Elder Jezebel in the morning,” Reagan told her, smiling when I looked at him. He nodded that he’d handled it.

He was seriously amazing.

I thanked the agents and was glad when a couple suggested they stick with us while we went to Deanna’s storage unit and got more of her stuff. We didn’t grab much, Deanna clearly overwhelmed and not handling it well.

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