CHAPTER 5

BONDING

That next morning at Shadow's house, Kayla woke up and walked downstairs into the kitchen looking at Shadow and Rouge kissing each other. She made a fake cough to get their attention.

Shadow and Rouge immediately broke away from each other and acted like nothing happened.

"Detective Bat, Detective Hedgehog said some pretty mean things last night", Kayla said with a smile.

"What did he say?" Rouge asked.

"He said the p word and the a word."

Rouge looked at Shadow with a glare, "Shadow."

"It slipped okay", even though Shadow meant to say it on purpose to get Kayla's attention.

Rouge smirked, "For that little slip up, I may have to punish you." She giggled a bit afterwards.

Kayla was hoping for Rouge to teach Shadow a lesson, "Are you gonna spank him?"

Rouge shook her head, "No, but very close."

Shadow knew what she was saying. He was just glad that Kayla didn't understand their conversation.

Rouge kissed Shadow and began to walk out the door, "I'll see you two around." She looked back at Shadow, "And Shadow, behave yourself."

Shadow sighed, "Yeah I know."

After when she left, Kayla kinda felt bad for telling on Shadow. "I'm sorry, Detective Hedgehog. I didn't mean to get you in trouble with Detective Bat."

"It's okay I like getting in trouble with her."

"Why would you like that?"

Shadow didn't want to fill her in with any inappropriate content so he dropped the subject, "Never mind that. Do you feel like taking a walk?"

The child nodded.

Shadow took the girl by the hand and walked out the door.

Later at the Street Punks hideout, Lance was hitting himself in the head slightly with his handgun. "We'll never find that brat."

"We'll find her", the brown chipmunk said with hope.

The green and black squirrel faced him, "Shut up, Maxcell! You don't make things better!"

"You shut up, Zena!" The chipmunk shouted back.

Their argument was interrupted when they heard a gunfire. They both looked over to the grey fox that had his gun in the air with smoke coming from it.

Lance glared at them, "Why don't you both shut up so I can think."

"She's probably already found help by now. The police will be looking for us", Appex said.

"I'm still gonna kill that little bitch."

Maxcell had a theory, "Do you think she knows anything about Project D.E.A.T.H.? After all I bet she spends most of her time there. Other than that she's the only survivor of that massacre we made."

Lance then thought about it for a second, "I can't believe I let her go."

"We'll find her for sure. I'm going to search for her more. She couldn't have gone far", Appex left the room and went out to find the child.

Later at the park, Shadow and Kayla decided to rest after their walk.

Kayla was resting her body on Shadow, "This day sure is pretty."

Shadow agreed as he looked at the clear blue sky, "Sure is."

"I like these kind of days. Don't you?"

"I do."

"My dad and I always came here after his shift. I always slept on his body while he played with my hair. That's what I liked about these kind of days." She looked up at Shadow, "You almost remind me of my dad."

Shadow looked down at her, "I do?"

She nodded, "Except he's not a hedgehog and he's not black and red and he always smiled. But other than that you take care of me like my daddy and look after me. If you were a daddy, you'd be the best daddy in the world."

Shadow blushed at the comment. He had no idea what to say to her. He took his fingers and stroked through her hair with them.

Kayla almost fell asleep, until she heard a stranger's voice behind her.

"Hedgehog, I've should've known you were here."

Shadow stood from the ground and quickly turned and saw a red porcupine behind him, "What do you want?"

Kayla studied his face. She recognized his face anywhere, "It's you from the facility."

The porcupine looked back at her surprised to see her with Shadow, "You...were with him the entire time?"

Kayla embraced on Shadow. She was frightened, "Detective Hedgehog, don't let him kill me."

"I won't kill you. All I want is to learn about Project D.E.A.T.H." He said calmly.

"No, I won't tell you." Kayla still didn't want to talk about the project.

"Tell me or I will kill you!" Appex said with his quills sticking up from his back.

"No!" Kayla shouted.

"You little brat", a quill appeared from Appex's hand. "If you won't talk, I'll make you talk!" He threw his sharp red quill at Kayla, but it never hit her.

Instead the quill struck into Shadow's hand.

Shadow kneeled to the ground holding his bleeding hand.

"Detective Hedgehog!" The girl screamed. She tried to help him from the ground, "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine", he answered looking at his wounded hand. 'I can't fight, Appex. Not now. His quills scatter everywhere. I can't take that risk, not when Kayla's counting on me.' He took Kayla's hand and started to run.

Appex didn't run after them, 'Is he watching over her or something? I wonder if that brat told him anything about Project D.E.A.T.H. No matter Lance will get a kick out of this.'