Operation Cobra (Book Two of The Savior Fables)

Chapter Two: Pilot, Part II

Regina reluctantly signed up to let Henry's birth mother help find him. She did not sign up for Newt Scamander and Queenie Goldstein.

***

White noise had never bothered Emma in the past. If Queenie wasn't humming or playing music as she worked around the bakery, Newt was whistling as he worked with his creatures at the reserve. Emma had grown used to her surrogate brother and sister's sounds as they worked.

Whoever was whistling nearby was definitely not Newt, and her green eyes shot open. Pain seared through her skull at the sunlight that filled the room, and she seethed and winced, trying to focus on evening her breathing. Once the pain in her head had settled to a dull thud, she carefully opened her eyes again and turned her head to find the whistling.

She met the grumpy face of a bald man with a dark beard, his grey jumpsuit with the name Leroy stitched on it. He stopped whistling at once and narrowed his eyes at her. "What are you looking at, sister?"

"Hey, Leroy, manners!" The thick Italian accent made Emma sit up and look around, and an older man with the name Marco on his jumpsuit set down a screwdriver and walked to a thermos on the desk. "We have a guest!" Leroy rolled his eyes with a quiet huff, but he stopped his whistling. Emma carefully stood and reached for her forehead, wishing she had a pain reliever handy. "So you are Henry's mother?" Marco smiled kindly at her. "How lovely for him to have you back in his life."

"Actually, I was just dropping him off," Emma muttered.

Leroy snorted. "Don't blame ya. They're all brats. Who needs 'em?"

"Mine isn't," Emma muttered, and ice flooded her body. "Harry?" she whipped around, searching for her son, only to groan and flop back on her cot when her head screamed at her.

"Is that the name of your other boy?" Marco tilted his head. "Ah, not to worry. Sheriff Humbert didn't want him in a cell."

"Well, where is he?" Emma narrowed her eyes.

Whatever Marco was about to say was cut off when the man from the previous night - Sheriff Humbert, according to Marco - walked towards Leroy's cell while twirling a key ring around his finger. "Leroy!" he narrowed his eyes at the man, but his tone was light and playful. "If I'm going to let you out, you need to behave. Put on a smile and stay out of trouble."

He unlocked the cell door and swung it open, and Leroy leaned in the doorway and plastered a wide, very fake smile on his face. The sheriff snorted and nodded his head to the exit, and Leroy's smile disappeared as he left the station. Emma rested her arms against the bars of her cell and frowned at the sheriff. "Seriously?" she asked, gesturing to the cell.

The sheriff grimaced sympathetically. "Regina's drinks. A little stronger than we thought."

"I wasn't drunk!" Emma growled. "There was a wolf, standing in the middle of the road."

"A wolf," the sheriff repeated dubiously. "Right."

"And I would never drive intoxicated with my son in the car with me," Emma continued; the sheriff appeared to consider that. "Harry's been through enough in his life already. There's no way I would risk his safety like that. And speaking of . . . where is my son?"

"Graham!" the faint voice of Regina Mills echoed, and Emma's eyes sharpened as the woman all but ran into the station in a sleek black dress and grey suit coat. "Henry's run away again. We have to - " She stopped in her tracks when she saw Emma, and her eyes narrowed to slits. "What is she doing here?" she demanded as she stormed forward. "Do you know where he is?"