Chapter 13

THIRTEEN

LELAND

“Are you calling to hear about our dear Lord and Savior The Fence?” I ask, which is a weirdly good way of getting rid of telemarketers. They never seem to call back. Maybe someday I will find a fellow fence enthusiast.

“It’s me,” Tavish says. I put him on speaker so Jackson and Cassel can also hear what useless things he has to say.

“Ah, the sloth bear. How are you? We were getting all prepared to come scoop you up when Cassel saw that there was an airplane coming out of the exact area we’d pinned you two down to. Using Cassel’s little finger skills, he’s tracked it down to a private runway that we believe the plane is headed to. We’ve just gotten to the runway but haven’t snuck in yet. Are you on the plane?”

“No, we jumped out. I can’t tell you where we are, but I’ll send you a pin of my location. I need you to stop the people on that plane. They have two targets they’re going to be tracking down and will likely come after us as well. Can you slow them down until we get there?”

“Wait, we’re going there?” I hear someone in the background say. I believe it was Ellis, but it’s a little hard to tell. What a foolish man. Who wouldn’t want to run toward the danger?

“Wait here a second,” Tavish says to Ellis before I hear him moving. “I wanted to step away so I could talk freely without this random guy who stumbled upon us overhearing. I’m confident he was out in this field burying bodies, but I’m going to see if he can drive us. The situation is that Arthur, the guy who hired me, wants to pick up Ellis’s family and have a big ol’ torture fest until one of them confesses something that I’m starting to think none of them know about. It sounds like the family was moved by protective services and had their names changed after Ellis’s father got involved in some shit back when Ellis was sixteen.”

“Is it weird I’m disappointed he’s not a serial killer? It was such a fun story,” I say.

“It’s a bit weird,” Jackson comments.

“It’s a bit weird Jackson thinks it’s weird,” Cassel says.

I give Cassel, who obviously gets me, a fist bump. Jackson must be jealous.

“Hey, buddy, can you drive us to town?” Tavish shouts.

The guy says something that I can’t hear.

“He said his truck is broken down. I think it’s just a way to serial kill us,” Tavish mutters.

“How exciting,” I respond. “How about I send Jackson’s mom, Ava, to come pick you two up? That could be fun, especially if he really is a serial killer.”

“You want my mom to get murdered?” Jackson mistakenly asks.

“No! Honey! Of course not! Never! I’m just saying that your mom is a very strong independent woman who would save those two if this guy is a serial killer. That’s all I’m saying.”

“I’ll send Jerebear to pick them up and bring them here,” Cassel says. “He loves helping out.”

“Does he?” I ask suspiciously. He sure seems to bitch a lot for a guy who “loves helping out.” Thinking about how much he bitched when I abducted him for a magically fun time, I can only imagine if I’d asked him to help me do something!

“He loves helping out everyone but you,” Cassel corrects.

I narrow my eyes at the irritating man. Clearly, very clearly , he needs his ass kicked.

“Okay, we’ll patiently wait here until someone can fetch us. If you never hear from us again, you know what happened,” Tavish says. “He looks like the kind of guy who’d taxidermy you.”

“Sounds like you two should get along fantastically,” I tell him. “Ooh, plane is coming in. I’m going to let you go and fuck some motherfuckers up.”

“Do we even really know what we’re doing?” Cassel asks.

“Not a damn clue but I’m excited to do it,” I say as I hang up on Tavish who soon sends me a location to be picked up at. I hand that off to Cassel then turn to Jackson, who is sitting in the driver’s seat.

“You ready, babe?”

“I’m… not sure what we’re doing?”

“We’ll take them as prisoners. Torture them into telling us something. It’s torture timez, my boyz. Mask up, bitches!” I toss everyone the ski masks that I’ve had since I abducted my lovely friends not too long ago.

Cassel and Jackson tug theirs on before I grin at Jackson.

“Sexy man. You know that mask turns me on.” I boop his lips, which are the only thing I can see through the mask besides his eyes.

Cassel hesitates. “Don’t tell me you had sex wearing these masks.”

I just give him a manic grin and Cassel starts to panic.

“Oh my god, no. Did you stick your penis through the hole, Leland? Which mask, Leland? Which mask was it?”

“The one you’re wearing does have a peculiar curly hair?—”

“We didn’t have sex with the masks on,” Jackson cuts in, destroying all my fun.

Cassel is eyeing both of us, like he could possibly think that Jackson could be lying. Jackson’s too sweet and far too good to lie about it.

“Come on, let’s go,” Jackson says as we all get out of the car. I come around to his side and simply guide him back into the vehicle and use the key fob to lock the door so he can patiently wait inside.

He seems confused as he presses on the unlock, so I quickly relock it.

“Leland, what are you doing?” Jackson asks, trying to be faster, but I’m fast as fuck. This man is not going anywhere.

“Cassel, I’d like to enlist you in the job of keeping this door locked. It’s like a game.”

“Come on, Leland!” Jackson yells as I keep locking it faster and faster.

“Honey bunny, I’m keeping you safe. We’re papas now. We both have to stay super safe for Waylon.”

“But you think it’s okay for you to wander off alone?”

“That is correct, but I have Beatrice, Bubblegum, and Rodriguez with me.” I show him each of the guns, but being the tricky man he is, he takes that opportunity to escape the vehicle. He glowers at me, snatches up Rodriguez, and starts for the runway.

“Rodriguez says that you’re squeezing him a bit too hard,” I say as I trot after him. “Rodriguez says you have too many clothes on. Rodriguez says that he feels intimidated by your ‘guns,’ if you get what I mean.”

“I feel bad for the things Rodriguez has seen,” Cassel mutters as he heads over to some vehicles waiting just outside the runway. He slides out a knife and begins slashing the tires.

“I would love the full story here to have a better idea of what we’re doing. I kind of feel like you both don’t give a single shit why we’re doing this. You just saw an opportunity to get wrapped up in chaos and rushed forward with arms wide open,” Jackson says.

I gasp. “We would never not care for the details and choose violence and fun.”

“It’s like he barely knows us,” Cassel comments.

Jackson weirdly ignores all of that before shifting to a new topic. “If they had their names changed and were moved by protective services… there’s something pretty interesting going on.”

“Right? If Ellis won’t tell us, we could torture it out of him,” I say.

“Why do you always sound like the bad guy?” Cassel asks.

“It’s just a character trait of mine. It’s like ‘sweet, loveable, enjoys torturing others.’ It’s a burden I’m eager to bear.”

“Hey, Leland, when you’re done listing off your weird traits, come finish fucking up these tires. I see a security system here that I’m going to deal with. We don’t need anyone unnecessarily raining on our torture time parade,” Cassel says.

Jackson raises an eyebrow as he stares after Cassel. “The issue I see, Cassel, is that you like to pretend you’re not like Leland, and then you say things like that, and I realize that you two are shockingly alike.” Jackson is saying this but he’s also joining me in my tire slashing, like he wants to get in on the action while pretending he’s not.

“I would like everyone to know that I like to pretend these tires are Lucas’s face when I stab them,” I announce, stabbing one with so much vigor the knife snaps. I stare at it in surprise. “See why I keep sending you all those knife pictures, Jackson? This knife has just betrayed me!”

“I thought you said you liked to pretend it was Ava ,” Cassel says from where he’s fiddling with the security system.

“Excuse me?” Jackson asks.

I laugh nervously as I shoot a glare at Cassel the Traitor. “Jackson, one time I was choking someone just a little. Like a soft choke. Like, I didn’t even make them pass out. It was more of a ‘Buddy, looky here, you really don’t want to mess with me’ thing and I might have… accidentally told Cassel I was pretending it was Ava, but this was back when Ava hated my guts. We’re bros now.”

Jackson’s still staring at me like I could possibly have said something wrong during any part of this conversation.

“Husband?”

“Husband,” he returns.

“You da best, husband.”

He smiles at me, forgiving me for any of my past blunders. “You’re also the best. I’m glad you’re now getting along quite well with my mom.”

“Quite well is a stretch, but I’ll take it,” I say as I look over at Cassel who is taking some kind of metal pipe to the security camera. “What the hell, Cassel? You know I love destroying things. I thought you were going to finger-fuck your keyboard to shut down the security system.”

“I was, but it became apparent that the system is old, so they’re not watching it from elsewhere. It’s likely only recorded in-house somewhere. Basically, no one will notice that we’re about to have a party.”

“Parrrrrty! Poison. Arson. Ransom. Torture. And… uh… Yo mama. P-A-R-T-Y. Get it? Because Ava is as bad as the other things I listed.” I’m quite proud of this but, for some reason, Jackson and Cassel just stare at me. “Waylon would have found it funny.”

“Would he?” Jackson asks as we come up to a fence.

I stare at the fence before a wicked idea hits me. “We’re never going to be able to unlock this. Oh no… Jackson… you’re going to have to climb over.”

Jackson just grabs the pipe from Cassel and starts whaling on the lock with a vengeance. It’s like that lock just threatened his mother, father, lover, and his new son. Obviously, this man is determined not to climb shit. And oddly enough, it’s just as sexy.

“I could watch this all day,” I say with a blissful sigh.

“He’s getting old; I’d be careful he doesn’t pull something,” Cassel observes.

“Cassel, why does that jab sound like it’s directed at me?” Jackson asks as he breaks the lock then tugs his mask that got slightly askew, which is probably one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen.

“Damn, that was Fine with a capital F for I’d fffffuck that man,” I say.

Cassel gags—he’s obviously jealous.

“Let’s go,” Jackson says. “By the time we’re finally out there, they’re going to be off the plane and gone.”

I realize that he’s possibly right and step it up a bit. It’s not my fault, I’m easily distracted by my beautiful husband.

Once through the gate, we don’t have many areas to hide. Besides the buildings and the hangars, the runway is practically empty and providing no cover.

“What exactly is our plan?” Jackson asks.

“Plans are for the weak,” I announce.

Cassel nods then finger-guns me, and the two of us take off for the plane without hesitation. We rush across the runway just as the door slides open. The man who hops out is not expecting an arm to the jugular and is flung down onto the runway.

“What the fuck?” the large man yells as he wallows on the ground a moment before trying to get up. That’s when I see the pilot give us a look of horror and lunge back toward the front of the plane.

A guy inside immediately slumps down and plays dead, and I decide that’s the one I want.

“Grab him,” I say as the plane starts moving.

“I’m a bit preoccupied!” Cassel growls while he rides the big man like a bucking bronco.

“Hey, fucker! Where are you going?” I yell as I leap into the moving plane.

“Leland, get your ass out of there right this minute!” Jackson shouts, but I want the guy who’s playing dead. Would he really deprive me of this? Just as I snatch up the collar of the guy playing dead, another guy comes out. He just… looks like someone I want to brawl with, but the plane is picking up speed, and I know Jackson would be absolutely pissed if it took off with me in it.

“Wait, wait, wait!” the guy I have a hold of screams as I haul him out of the plane and leap out. I hit the ground on my feet, stumbling a bit to keep myself upright, but he sure doesn’t. The second he lands, he slams down on his front before doing a fancy little flip, limbs going every which way as he howls like a coyote.

That’s when I hear a gunshot coming from the plane and find myself rather uncertain whether the guy on the plane is atrocious at shooting or he was trying to shoot the other guy. The look of horror on the man’s face as he eyes the mark inches from his dick, left behind by the bullet, amuses me.

I duck back as the plane lifts off, the pilot apparently too paranoid to deal with me for some reason. I mean… maybe it had to do with Bubblegum, the high-caliber rifle strapped to my back, or the fact that I’m able to fuck up the plane enough that it doesn’t even get a few feet up in the air.

The plane makes it over the fence before it nose-dives and hits the ground, bouncing its way down a field. Patiently, I wait for someone to stick their head out when my new torture volunteer jumps up and takes off running.

“Hey, come on, dude, I’m clearly having fun here and you’re going to ruin it with a race?” I call, forced to leave my beautiful baby Bubblegum behind to chase this guy!

The man looks back at me in horror. “No! Please! I don’t wanna die, man. Come on, man. Go focus on someone else, man,” he pleads as he runs. I rush after him before realizing that this guy is pretty damn fast! I’m not a slow runner. At nearly six feet tall, I have decently long legs and keep in relatively good shape, and while my expertise is definitely in shooting, I’ve been known to fuck up a man or two in a good old-fashioned foot race.

But not this guy.

He’s running like his life depends on it… which it does.

“Jackson, he’s heading right for you!” I shout as the man races toward Jackson, who I can only assume the victim didn’t see since he chose to run toward him, instead of anywhere else in this giant open area. Then again, Jackson’s a fucking sex magnet—even with his mask on—so I can’t blame the guy for being drawn to him like a bug to a light.

Realizing his error, the runner veers hard, but he’s closer to Jackson now than I am to him, and I realize that he’s not going past him, he’s going for the fence.

The fence is like one of those ten-foot-tall fences meant to keep people from climbing over but boy, does that man climb. It’s impressive how fast he is all the while screaming, “Come on, man. Please, man.”

Jackson leaps up, snatching the man’s shoe and ripping it off before he looks back at me. I feel like he’d be doing a hair flip right now if his hair was showing, and it’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.

Our victim leaps up into the air once more, his fingers sinking into the holes of the chain-link fence as my sexy man scales that motherfucking fence, hot on his trail.

I’m so blown away that I can’t even find the willpower to move. All I can do is watch with bated breath as Jackson nears the top of the fence and grabs a hold of the man’s pants. The man flips over the top, releasing his pants before he crashes down on the other side. His landing is as graceful as his plummet from the plane. He hops up with one less shoe and a little less dignity since Jackson’s still holding his pants.

And as my one true love who had once lost a pair of pants to a fence acquires some new pants, Cassel simply sticks a taser through the fence and shoots the fleeing guy. The moment the prongs hit him, there’s a strangled cry of “Maaaan—” before it puts his ass to the ground.

“I could have just shocked him at any point,” Cassel says. “But you two were very much in the way.”

“Shush, Cassel. My one true love reached a whole new milestone today. A fencey milestone,” I enthuse. “Baby, you did so good.”

“Thanks,” Jackson says as he just hovers there at the top.

“Like so good.”

“Thanks,” he repeats.

“I’m really proud of you, honey, but you can come down. Come down so I can give you your ‘You did so motherfucking good’ kiss.”

“Yeah…”

Cassel and I stare up at Jackson who lets the guy’s pants flutter to the ground, but still, he doesn’t get down.

“I’m super proud of you, hon, but… I feel like maybe you shouldn’t stay at the top where you’re at risk. Like you’re really high up and…”

“I think his pants are stuck,” Cassel announces.

“They’re not stuck!” Jackson says as I realize that his hand is shuffling around a bit up there.

“His pants are totally stuck.” Cassel pulls out his phone and starts recording as Jackson tries to hide his face and the movement of his hand.

Oh no…

His pants…

Really are stuck.

“Cassel’s being a meanie. Your pants are totally not stuck, babe, but what do you think about me climbing up there just to see the view with you?” I have to protect my man in any way I can.

“NO, I’m fine. I’m just watching… things,” Jackson says.

“You’re such a good fence watcher,” I praise before leaning in to whisper. “Cassel, I’m a little embarrassed for him.”

“I would be too. Like do you think he pissed off a fence god in his past life and that’s why fences hate him?”

“You know… it’s a possibility,” I say. “Jackson, love. Big brave fence climber, I wanna climb this fence with you too. Climbing fences looks so fun that I totally want to climb a fence with you. It’s actually on my bucket list.”

Jackson shakes his head. “Leland, I really am just looking at the view. I really just… don’t need help.”

Cassel is grinning a bit too hard. “It’s just so sad, he’s already in the eight stages of grief.”

“I don’t… think there are eight stages,” I say.

“There are for him. Despair, ultra despair, embarrassment, and so on,” Cassel informs me, still recording.

I lower my voice so Jackson can’t hear. “Do you think you can zoom in a little so if he slips and his pants come off, we get a good booty shot?”

“Leland, you two better not be recording this,” Jackson growls.

“Husband, I’m here. Husband, it is I, other husband. I’m coming to see this ultra-awesome ‘view’ with you and definitely not to help you get unstuck from the fence.”

“I’m not stuck!”

“It’s so saaaad,” Cassel says.

I start climbing my way to the top. “Ooh, there is such a nice view, husband. I’ve never seen such a good view, husband. Thank you for asking me to come up here with you. Look! Our view is so good we can see the fools from the plane jumping in a vehicle and fucking off. We never would have gotten to see that if we weren’t up here.”

“No, I can totally see it from down here,” Cassel says. “And I’m not even as tall as you two are.”

Jackson sighs. “I’m just going to live up here. I’ve decided this.”

“Husband, nooooooo. See, the first time we met, you had no one there for you, but this time… I’m right here. Let me be your support. Let me be the one who unhooks your pants,” I say. “Will you open your heart up enough to allow me to save you… from the fence?”

“This is beyond embarrassing.”

I smile before leaning in to kiss him. “There’s nothing embarrassing about it. Now hoist that fine booty up so I can help.”

He grabs the top of the fence and pulls himself up so I can get his pants unsnagged. “Thank you. I’m just glad you didn’t stop to record this or something and just helped.”

I side-eye Cassel, who lowers his phone and looks the other way.

Once his pants are free, I hop down, and he follows me.

“Cassel, you should have seen the view up there. Jackson was right, it was definitely worth hanging around up there to get a good look at it.”

“That’s all that was happening?” Cassel asks. “Nothing else happened up there? Nothing pertaining to pants?”

“No, no, no. It was like a mating dance. He climbs the fence, I climb the fence, he gets his pants stuck, I come to the rescue.”

“Sounds weird and unnatural,” Cassel says. “You want the big guy or the guy over there pretending to be dead? I think he’s afraid I’ll tase him in the ass if he tries to get up… which I will.”

“Where is the big guy?”

“I tied him up,” he answers as he points to the middle of the runway where the big man is rolling around.

“We also need to get Bubblegum,” I say as I nod toward my gun.

“Oh, and Jeremy is out on duty so he can’t pick up Tavish and that other guy. I’ll just see if they can get a Lyft or something.”

“They could walk,” I suggest. “Tavish’s useless legs could definitely use some exercise. See, Jackson? You’re embarrassed but you could have legs as useless as his.”

Jackson just sighs, so I give his masked cheek a kiss.