Alpha Squad: Boot Camp

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Adam had come out of hiding the moment the door to Felicity's house had clicked shut. What followed was a painful hour or so of pacing back and forth as he tried to wrap his mind around what had just happened.

They had arrested her for the murders. Based on what evidence?

It was so surreal, he couldn't even begin to understand it.

Just being separated from her under such terrible circumstances was driving him insane. It was an epic battle of mind over heart, as he tried his very best to rationalize what had happened and how to fix it, versus his animal side that just wanted to break free and go on a rampage.

If the detective came back here now, he would only leave in an ambulance; that much was certain.

But this wasn't about him. It wasn't about the detective or Adam's ego.

This was about Felicity.

Although Adam was the one who had taken the risks, and actually broken the law, for some reason, she was their prime target. What had she done to the police to make them so suspicious, even hostile? Detective Nye's notes identified her as a person of interest, but his reasoning wasn't nailed down in the notes. He had found out about her true nature, of course. But then again, he knew that Adam was a bear shifter too. As were half the residents of the refugee camp. So that alone could not have been his sole reason for zeroing in on Felicity.

Academics weren't Adam's strong suit, but he did his best to work his way through all the material he had copied at the station.

Every last report, every bit of evidence the cops had catalogued. He looked through it all and studied it harder than he had ever studied anything his whole life.

And it was all infuriatingly vague and inconclusive. How on earth had they found a judge to sign off on an arrest warrant based on this non-evidence?

There was something fishy going on here, and it was up to him to find out exactly what.

Adam slammed the file shut and got up. He'd promised he'd get Felicity out of this, and that was exactly what he was going to do. But first of all, he had to make sure she was okay. Who knew what they were doing to her back at the station.

So Adam packed up all the files and did the only thing he could think of. He borrowed Felicity's car and headed to the inn, where the squad would have called it a night hours ago.

Eric would be disappointed in him if he told him the truth, but he was still his brother. There had to be some loyalty there, surely.

As he navigated his way through the dark, empty corridors of the inn, looking for Eric, Adam wasn't surprised that his nose led him straight to the major's room. Of course he was in there.

"Psst, Eric," Adam whispered.

He could just knock on the door, but then he'd tip off the major to his presence here, and that wasn't his intention. No, he kept his volume low enough that only a shifter's super-sensitive hearing would pick up on it.

"Eric, I need to talk to you," he said.

Sure enough, there was a rustling noise inside the room, followed by the click of the lock.

"What the hell?" Eric complained under his breath. "This is hardly appropriate, you coming here!"

"Look, I don't care what the two of you get up to. I'm not one to judge. But s**t has hit the fan and I need your help."

Eric turned to glance back at the dark room. Deep, regular breaths signaled that the major was oblivious to Adam's visit.

"I'm not sure how I can help. You've made your choice; you're off the team."

Adam nodded. "Yeah, whatever. But you're not. And I have some stuff here that you might want to see."

Eric stepped out and carefully shut the door behind him. "Okay, but you'd better not be messing with me."

"Where can we talk freely?" Adam asked.

Eric led the way to his own room, just down the hallway.

Once inside, he gestured at Adam to sit on the bed. "Go on. Tell me what's going on now?"

Adam handed Eric the file. "This is all the evidence the cops have."

Eric frowned. "Do I even want to know how you got this?"

Adam shook his head. "The point is, this is everything, including stuff they never shared with us." He retrieved the plastic bag with the metal shard Felicity had found during her initial visit to the third murder scene. "And this was left behind at the scene of the third murder."

"And what exactly do you want from me now?" Eric asked, while holding up the bag against the light to inspect it more closely.

"They've arrested Felicity," Adam said.

Eric inhaled sharply. "What are the charges?"

"Animal cruelty, tampering with evidence, murder."

"Shit."

"Yeah."

"Okay, thanks for this. I'll mobilize the team and get to work. And I'll have someone check in to the station to make sure Felicity is okay.” Eric’s outrage sounded genuine.

They had always had their issues, but now that push came to shove, Adam was relieved to find that he could count on his brother.

"Thanks, bro."

With that, Adam got up and left. Alpha Squad would work the official investigation, but there was still no room for him here. And his nature didn't allow him to sit around and wait. He would continue to gather evidence in parallel himself. The more heads working on this case simultaneously, the better their chances of getting Felicity out.

The interrogation had gone on for many hours; Felicity wasn't sure how long exactly. Mostly it was Detective Nye in the room on his own, but occasionally his mostly silent partner had sat in as well. Other than that, the police station was quiet; she couldn't detect any other human presence in the building no matter how hard she listened for it. That made sense, of course, considering just hours earlier Adam had gotten into the building completely unseen. At that time, not even the detectives had been here.

She wondered what had mobilized them at such an ungodly hour.

The more the questions continued, the more Felicity felt her patience wear down. At least they seemed oblivious to the break-in, for now. That was one positive Felicity tried to focus on. But there was little else to feed her optimism. In truth, she was exhausted.

The same questions, over and over.

Why had she killed those three people? Who were her associates? Nye seemed convinced that shifter or not, she would not have been capable of doing so much damage all on her own. If only he knew exactly what an angry shifter was capable of, he might sing a different tune. How was the shifter camp involved?

Felicity's throat was getting sore answering identically every time. She hadn't done it. She didn't know. She was innocent and to the best of her knowledge, so were the refugees.

Finally, it seemed like the detective was getting tired himself. He left without a word, and she was alone.

Where was her solicitor, anyway? She'd asked for one multiple times already, but nobody had come. And the interrogation had continued regardless.

After what felt like an age, the door to the little room she was in opened, and she braced herself for another round of bullshit questions.

It wasn't Detective Nye this time, though. It was the other guy.

"I thought you could use a cup of tea," he said, placing a plastic cup down in front of her.

She eyed the pale milky liquid suspiciously, then looked up at him.

"What are you then, the good cop?"

The man pressed his lips together. Again, there was something about him that she couldn't quite identify. A look in his eyes. Remorse? Guilt? He walked across the room and reached for the camera mounted in the corner that was pointing right at Felicity. He pressed a button and the red light next to the lens switched off.

"I suppose you could say that."

"Well, I'm not interested in you buttering me up. I'm not going to confess. I have nothing to confess to," Felicity said, and folded her arms.

She stared at the man to make her point. Hopefully, she looked a lot more confident than she felt. Truthfully, she was close to the edge. She could cry. But that would just make Detective Nasty happy.

"You know, I never wanted this," Detective McMillan said.

"Well that makes two of us. You people just keep pointing fingers at me and my community. But you know what you don't have? Proof."

"Actually…"

Felicity felt her eyes widen, even though she tried her best to keep her expression neutral. So they did have something on her? How was that even possible?"

"I shouldn't be telling you this, but I feel like we've gotten to know each other a little bit these last few weeks."

What the hell?

"I'm not sure I understand. We've hardly spoken a word until now."

"That's not entirely accurate." The detective glanced over his shoulder, even though there was obviously nobody else in the room with them.

"Oh?" Felicity frowned.

"Those phone calls…"

Finally, something clicked into place. The way he spoke, combined with him making every possible effort not to interact with her in person… he was her anonymous tipster!

"You've been calling me? Holy sh—" Felicity tried to catch her breath. "I mean, why? Why feed me information? Have you been trying to set me up all this time?"

The man shook his head. "No, I've been trying to help you. Because it was quite obvious from the start that nobody here was going to look deeply enough at these attacks to find out the truth. They just wanted to believe the explanation they found the most appealing, you know? They never looked beyond the camp and whoever works there."

Wow. She wanted to believe it. To see this as a ray of hope in what had to be one of her darkest days ever. But how did she know he was even telling the truth? How could she be sure he wasn't just tricking her now, after running some kind of trace on her phone and finding out about the calls that way?

"I don't believe you," Felicity said, all of a sudden painfully aware of how much her eyes stung. Stop it, anything not to cry right now in front of this cop!

"I can prove it, but you'll have to watch me very closely," the man said.

"Look, Detective McMillan, was it? I don't know what your game is, but I'm not about to be tricked into stuff by you pretending to be my friend. And what about the legal representation I asked for hours ago?"

"Call me Sean," he said.

Then something very odd happened.

A human might not have been able to detect the change in him, but Felicity did. It was uncanny. A flutter came over the detective's skin. And for a split second, it seemed like he was sprouting fur. But how could that be? His scent was unmistakably human, and yet here he was, very nearly allowing himself to transform in front of her.

"You're… I don't believe it. How is that even possible?" Felicity mumbled.

"I know. I appear totally human."

"So how come you're not?"

"My mother was a bear shifter. My father was human."

Felicity took a moment to let this new information sink in. She'd heard of mixed couples in the area, very few of them. Toward the end of her stint with the Alliance, just before shifters had come out, the higher-ups had ordered Felicity and her team to make a list of any mixed couples they could find, as so-called impure unions had been outlawed. The new rules did not gel with her own code of ethics, so Felicity had fudged her data. But even then, she had never once heard of a mixed couple with offspring.

"You're a hybrid," she concluded.

Sean McMillan nodded. "Don't tell anyone. Especially not my partner. I never planned for this to come out, but under the current circumstances… I thought you should know."

Felicity's heart was beating so hard now, she had to wonder if he could hear it. She had so many questions, it was difficult to pick the one that was going to be her first.

"I won't, but—"

Unfortunately, before she had the chance to ask him anything at all, the door swung open, revealing Detective Nye with a predatory scowl on his face.

He was back. But even though today had been tough, this new knowledge had given Felicity the boost she so desperately needed. She now knew she wouldn't break.

Not now, not ever.

"Oh, you're already here, Sean. Good. Let's try this again. Ms. Weir, why don't you tell us about how you brutally murdered three people?"

"I'm not saying a word until my lawyer gets here." Felicity folded her arms and stared straight ahead. Armed with the knowledge that she had at least one person on her side inside the police station, she was ready to fight even harder.

Detective Nye sighed deeply and folded his hands. "Sean, why don't you go see if the public defender has arrived yet?"

Sean McMillan shot a final sympathetic look in her direction before leaving the room again.