AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Pete shook his head frantically at the sergeant, but she pursed her lips and ignored him. “Yes, sir.”
Detective Jackson swerved hard around a limb fallen in the middle of the road, throwing them all to the side for a moment.
Sergeant Giovanni braced her hand against the lowered barrier between the front and back seat, making it easy for Liliana to lean into the tiny camera’s range and speak to her wrist where the prince could see her.
“I am here, Colonel Bennet,” Liliana said. “But I will get out of the car at the gate.”
“I’ll accept your word on that.” The semi-transparent image of his face looked straight at her.
“Thank you.” She did not think there were many people whose word the prince would accept after such a short acquaintance. His miniature image gave her a tiny nod, a barely perceptible movement, but it felt as if he had bowed to her again in respect. Apparently, saving the prince from being hit by a car had earned her more than just a ride to the police station.
“Emergency access for the detective is granted. Where will it happen?”
Pete answered. “From Lilly’s description, it sounds like the cybernetics research lab in Womack med center.”
“I’ll inform the gate guards and meet you there.” The line clicked dead.
“Why did you tell him you’d get out of the car, Lilly?” Pete asked.
Liliana started to answer, but her teeth clacked together as Detective Jackson hit a curb. The entire car jolted to a slant with two wheels on the sidewalk. The street was clogged with traffic ahead, backed up behind an accident.
Detective Jackson drove around it. The detective’s face sparkled with delight. She honked the horn, adding to the noise of thunder and the already wailing siren and shouted, “Get out of the way!” for good measure, even though the windows were sealed.
The few people on the sidewalk, walking while huddled under their portable umbrella fields, leapt to the side.
“The Colonel does not trust me,” Liliana answered when she could get the words out. That was a balanced state. She did not trust him either.
“Which makes me wonder even more why the hell we should trust you,” Sergeant Giovanni commented.
“Because she saved your life, Zoe.” The soldier looked at her friend like Pete had sprouted flowers out of his ears. “She saved both our lives,” Pete added. “More than once.”
Detective Jackson took her eyes off the road for a quick glance at the spider-kin. “That true?”
Liliana shrugged and nodded. “We protected each other when we fought the widow spiders.”
Detective Jackson added, “She saved my life too.”
Sergeant Giovanni snorted in the back seat. “Did she tell you that?”
Pete sighed next to her. “Zoe, did you think the liver-eating stone giant just happened to trip when she was chasing you?”
There was no answer, but Liliana wasn’t really surprised. Sergeant Giovanni did not trust Others. And she knew Liliana was Other, while she did not know that Pete was.
Siren still blaring, the detective skidded to a stop at the entrance gate checkpoint for Fort Liberty.
The detective caught the spider-kin’s wrist for a moment before she was fully out of the car. “Sorry about this,” she shouted over the noise of the siren and storm.
The rain soaked the spider seer to the skin as soon as she opened the car door. The siren and thunder that built and rumbled competed to see which could assault Liliana’s eardrums the hardest. “Just save my friends,” she shouted back.
The detective’s jaw tightened with determination, and she stomped on the gas. The door slammed shut as she accelerated.
Pete looked back at Liliana apologetically through the rear window as they left her behind in the pouring rain.
Chapter 16
Soggy Spider, Bleary Badger, And Livid Lion
Liliana didn’t really care about the rain or the wind cutting through her soggy clothes. At least the hail had stopped. She turned away from the gate, putting her back to the cameras, then opened her fourth eyes. She kept her human eyes open as she started walking home so she could see the cold puddles even as she put her feet in them. She could not be any more wet if she had gone swimming in her clothes. Fortunately, she did not live far from this entrance into Fort Liberty.
