Chapter 18

EIGHTEEN

ELLIS

“Looks like there’s only parking in the parking garage,” Jackson realizes.

“Good thing we’re early; it looks pretty empty,” Cassel says as Jackson finds a parking spot just past the first floor, which is reserved. We shuffle out as I look at the taser I still have. Holding it like it’s a fragile egg that I might break open as I waltz into the office building isn’t the best course of action, but I’m not quite sure what else to do with it. “Um… what do I do with this?”

“Take it with you,” Tavish says.

“I can’t take a weapon in there,” I protest.

Three of the four men are looking at me like I’m horrifically confused and the fourth man, Jackson, looks bored.

“Okay, but even if I could take it in there, they would see it, right? How the hell would I hide this thing? And then if I get caught… would I go to jail?”

“For… a taser?” Cassel asks, sounding confused.

Leland tugs back the edge of his overshirt and flashes me not one, not two , but three guns. Cassel, who is wearing the tightest clothes he could possibly have found, whips out a large handgun.

“Where the fuck was that?” I ask.

He makes it disappear before making it reappear again.

“Your clothes are so tight. Where are you keeping that?” I question.

“Secret,” he whispers.

“He holds it firmly between his tush cheeks,” Leland explains.

“I do not! My overshirt is just lying the right way to cover it!”

“Tush cheeks,” Leland whispers as Cassel glares at him. I realize that they fight like brothers half the time even though they don’t seem to be related.

“Machete,” Tavish says as he pulls a rather large knife out.

I gape at him. “Who the fuck needs a machete?”

“It’s not actually a machete, but it sounded significantly cooler than saying ‘knife,’” he explains. “I have a gun too, but I can’t make it disappear between my butt cheeks like that. The strength those cheeks must have to just hold that gun there… I’m impressed,” Tavish says as he eyes Cassel.

Cassel gives him a look. “I’m not?—”

“He told me he once nearly snapped Jeremy’s dick off with them cheeks,” Leland says.

Cassel throws his hands up in the air. “I did not! I said we fell while doing… up in the air… and like…” He throws in some weird hand motions that make me realize that I’m very glad I can’t understand any of this. Or maybe that I need to get laid more to understand any of it. “But it’s fine. It’s all fine. His dick is perfectly fine.”

Then I turn to Jackson, unsure whether I want to be impressed some more or horrified. Because this isn’t right… none of this is normal… right? But now I’m kind of curious and want to see where he’s hiding his weapons.

“Oh, I just have like… uh…” Jackson pats down his pockets before pulling out a stick of gum and his keys.

“The most lethal weapon of all… I killed a man with a stick of gum once,” Leland says.

“You did?” I ask, horrified.

“He’s lying, don’t listen to him,” Cassel tells me.

“I spit it out with such velocity that it lodged into his throat and killed him immediately,” Leland brags. “Dead in seconds.”

“I told you not to listen,” Cassel says.

Tavish takes the taser from me and tucks it into my pants before pulling my overshirt over and doing one of the buttons. “There you go. No one will notice.”

“T-Thank you,” I say, and he gives me a beaming smile that snags my attention.

No idea why… I mean, sure he’s handsome, but the last thing I need to get wrapped up in is a man like him. Even if he is nice and attractive and has done quite a bit to protect my life, it would be in my best interest to avoid him. How would it even work dating someone like Tavish? Someone who is obviously in a whole different world from me.

What the hell am I thinking about? I’m getting far too ahead of myself. This is the man who just abducted me mere days ago.

Leland’s clearly not done as he mutters, “I really did kill that man. Maybe the gum made him choke, and as he hacked it out, he did it with such force that he stabbed himself in the head with the knife he was holding. But it was my gum that started it all.”

“Wait, so he just like coughed and bam, skewered himself?” Cassel asks.

“Sure did. Just a regular day of work.”

I eye the man with abundant suspicion. “When I go to work, I weigh kittens and puppies,” I announce. “And sometimes there will be one puppy that outweighs them all. And it’s really cute and greedy.”

Everyone looks over at me like I’m the weird one.

And instead of shutting up, I just keep talking. “The other day I picked up this older puppy and it was so happy to see me, it peed all down my clothes and then I had to wear my boss’s spare set of clothes because I didn’t have any on me, which was rather awkward.”

“Ohhh, I got peed on once too,” Cassel says. “I was hiding in this bush planning to off some guy when his buddy comes over and just starts pissing on the bush I’m hiding in. I shot them both after that.”

“I would too,” Leland says. “The only man who can piss on me is that man right there.” He nods at Jackson, who looks confused.

“I have never peed on him and hope to never do so,” Jackson puts out there. “I’m not saying it’s wrong to enjoy it. I’m just saying that I’m not doing it.”

“He wouldn’t even pee on my mosquito bites the one time we went camping.”

“Why would that help in any way?” Cassel asks.

Leland waves him off. “I’m just saying if it ever happens, Jackson’s the only one allowed.”

I raise my hand. I’m not quite sure why I’ve chosen to do this, but I commit to it until Cassel points at me like I’m the student and he’s the teacher.

“You!” he says.

“Is this… like… shouldn’t we be planning or something? Like making some kind of plan in case Arthur realizes we’re here and we have to like, run out quickly? I mean, did we even stop to look at what floor we parked the car on?”

“He’s cute,” Cassel says.

“And funny,” Leland adds.

I don’t know how they decided that I’m either of those things, but I just sigh in defeat as Tavish pats my back. His pat does reassure me for some reason. If I really think about it, I’m not quite sure why, but I take it.

“You don’t need to be so anxious about things. We’ve got it. We parked on level three.”

“Totally level two,” Cassel counters.

“2C, to be exact,” Leland says.

“Or maybe 2B.”

“Or not 2B,” Leland inputs.

I guess this is what you get when you have no money to pay people to save your life. You get the strange, knock-off brand “assassins” who just don’t make sense, but you’re too poor to look for something else.

“It was 2A ramp,” Jackson says before giving me a smile. “See? We’ve got it.”

I really am not confident he has anything, but I give him a smile because he seems so adamant about reassuring me, and I decide he’s a pretty nice guy.

We head out onto the street which we cross to reach a rather large office building. I grab the door and hold it open for everyone.

“He’s even got manners,” Leland whispers. “You picked a good one, Tavish.”

“A good one to abduct?” I ask, unsure what else he could be referring to.

Tavish glances over at me and I feel like that look has a deeper meaning that I’m a little uncertain about uncovering.

The woman who’d been coming in behind them looks confused now that we’re talking about abductions, but I just smile and keep holding the door open… and now some man is coming, but he’s like twenty feet away and it’s that awkward stage where I don’t know if I should just go in or keep holding it for him. He now looks just as concerned and is trying to walk faster to get to the door to keep me from holding it any longer than I need to. And now it’s too late to go inside, so I just keep holding and he just keeps speed walking, but then he stumbles in his attempt to quicken the pace. His eyes snap up, and suddenly, we’ve locked eyes, and I’ve become confident that this memory will haunt me for no apparent reason on some random night when I’m trying to sleep three years from now.

When that catastrophe is finally over, I hurry inside, unsure how I’m supposed to face some evil organization if I can’t even figure out how long to hold a door open.

“That was awkward, even for me,” Tavish assures me.

“Secondhand embarrassment for sure,” Cassel agrees.

“Thanks,” I say sarcastically.

Tavish gives me a playful elbow. “I’m teasing you. That was nice of you.”

“I made him trip.”

“Nah, his inferior legs made him trip,” he says as he sets a hand on my shoulder and squeezes it. “You’re fine.”

I glance over at him. “How’d you know I was freaking out?”

“It’s all over your face, buddy. Now, deep breath, we are here for a business meeting. Look calm and casual. We are meant to be here. We belong here. It’s as simple as that.” He gives his tie a tug before tossing me a cocky look that is kind of handsome. “Simple meeting. It’s a woman at the receptionist desk. Let me handle it. Women love the accent,” he informs me before he saunters right up to it.

“Guid ta see ye on such a lovely day,” he says… or at least I think that’s what he says since he’s working the accent like there’s no tomorrow. It’s so thick the woman leans forward a bit, like maybe that’ll help her understand what he’s just said.

“You… need to use the bathroom?” she asks.

“Ahhhh, nah. Not me. I dinna mean ta confuse ya. You’re such a funny lass!”

Why is it getting worse? Why is he now whipping it out even thicker and stronger? It almost sounds like he’s an American trying to do a Scottish accent.

“Sorry, my friend doesn’t know English,” Leland says, even though Tavish was clearly speaking English… if you could decipher it, that is. “We’re here for the eight o’clock meeting with Nate Stewart.”

“Oh? I didn’t realize he had a meeting… he’s not usually in this early,” she responds as she turns to the computer. “Oh! He must have scheduled it and forgotten to let me know. I haven’t seen him come in yet, but I’ll see where he’s at. Until then, I’ll have you guys wait in the meeting room. I’ll have someone send you right up.”

“Thank you,” he says with a warm smile. No sign of the bubble gum-wielding murderer that I’d heard about in the parking lot.

“And please, sign your party in,” she requests.

Leland picks up the pen but tosses it to Cassel, who starts signing some names that definitely aren’t ours with ease. When Cassel’s done, she gives each of us our own visitor badge, and a young man hurries over to collect us.

“Right this way,” he says as he heads over to the elevator which we slip into. “What company are you guys from?”

Tavish says something in his newly acquired ultra-thick accent which leaves the poor guy looking confused and unsure how to continue this conversation, so he ends up going with, “Ah, that’s fantastic.”

The moment the doors open, we’re ushered out of the elevator and onto the eighth floor. We’re taken over to a closed door that he pushes open before waving us in.

“As soon as Mr. Stewart is in, he’ll be right this way. Can I get you some coffee? Water? Anything else while you wait?”

“We’re good, thank you. No rush. We know we’re a bit early,” Leland says with a smile, and the guy immediately smiles back before leaving.

I take a deep breath that I realize I’d been holding for some reason. Like what did holding my breath do to make me look normal and at ease?

“There aren’t many people here yet; I say we break into his office and snoop around,” Tavish says.

“I’m pleased to see that you can speak English again,” Leland sarcastically comments.

“The lasses and lads love my accent. Don’t be jealous, ya weasel.”

“Oh, you were trying to seduce her? She just looked confused,” Leland says.

Tavish leans into me. “It was sexy, eh?”

Everyone in the room turns to look at me, and I feel like my face grows a bit red at the attention. “Umm… yes?”

Leland snorts, and now I feel a bit bad.

“It really was?” I toss out, afraid I’m going to make Tavish feel bad if he thinks I was lying.

“Why do you keep answering with a question?” Cassel asks.

“My brain has been overworked,” I settle on. “And instead of breaking into his office, why don’t we wait until he gets here to talk to him?” I ask, unsure why we’d resort right to what has to be an illegal move.

“I’m with Tavish,” Cassel says. “If I can get onto his computer, I might be able to figure something out.”

“Why don’t we wait until he arrives?” Jackson suggests. “Then while we’re talking to him, Cassel, you go get on his computer. That way we can alert you when he’s heading your way.”

“Fine, fine. I’ll be patient.”

The group of us sit down in the swivel chairs that surround the large rectangular table.

“I should have gotten that coffee,” Tavish grumbles, evidently bored after having been here for a grand total of five minutes.

“I’m not sure they would have understood what you wanted even if you asked for it,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“It was a bit hard to understand,” I tell him.

“Huh. Fine, fine, I won’t lay it on as thick next time.” He swivels his chair around and scoots over to a window. “I’m glad I don’t work a stuffy job like this… but I do like the view.”

“It is a nice view,” I agree as I get up. I’m honestly not sure how much longer I can convince myself to sit, and this seems like a good excuse to be up and doing something.

Tavish spins his chair around for a moment before stopping to look at me. “Are your parents really worth all of this?”

“What?” I ask, confused by the question.

“Well, I kind of feel like a lot of what you’re doing stems from the fact you want to keep your mom and sister safe, and you want to know what happened to your father. Is it really worth that?”

The question seems odd to me. Of course my family is worth this. “Yeah, of course. I mean, I’m not quite sure I’m doing anything of use so far, but I really want to keep them safe.”

Tavish leans back in his chair and kicks his feet up on the decorative board below the window.

“You’re not close to your family?” I guess.

“HA! You’re hilarious. I wouldn’t pick up a fucking rock lying in the middle of the sidewalk to save my parents.”

“I wouldn’t either,” Leland mutters. “I’d actually add more rocks to it. Or start throwing rocks at them. Help them along into the afterlife a bit faster.”

“I think Jackson’s the only one who has parents he’s close to,” Cassel explains.

“Ava’s not a parent. She’s a gargoyle,” Leland says.

Jackson sighs. “My mother is not a gargoyle. You two have been getting along so well lately. She actually asked to have lunch with you again sometime.”

“Oh jeezus,” Leland mutters. “Maybe I’ll take her to a church and see if they’ll perform an exorcism on her. Exorcise out the evil.”

“My mom’s still not that bad,” Jackson says.

“Eh…” Leland throws out there.

“EH,” Cassel tosses out.

“I bet she’d like Ellis,” Leland decides as he scrutinizes me. It sounds like a strange kind of jab, and I don’t know how to take it. “Anyway, no one needs their parents that much.”

Maybe… you don’t end up where they’re at in life when you have people there to support you and love you and care for you. Maybe if they had a family who supported them and cared for them, they wouldn’t be off… doing this stuff.

Or maybe this is what they enjoy doing, and having loving parents mixed in has nothing to do with the matter.

Not knowing what else to do, I lean against the window and just watch the world outside. I should probably call my job and tell them what’s going on or something since I’m scheduled to work tomorrow. When they ask why I didn’t show up the past two days, I can tell them I was on Murder Island before jumping out of an airplane and being offered raccoon jerky.

They’ll assume I’ve gotten into drugs and likely question whether or not I need to take a drug test before I return.

“Okay, it’s been too damn long, I’m breaking into his office,” Cassel decides.

“Oh thank god. I was getting so antsy,” Leland says.

“Let’s go fuck shit up,” Tavish declares, which… I feel like isn’t the plan here, but the rest seem quite thrilled by the idea.