Chapter 4 #2
I kick it hard, slamming it into her as she flings a book at me, leaps over the back of the couch, and drives a kick right into my side.
I dodge the fist that follows while I hold the knife and gun and question what the hell am I supposed to do?
Honestly… I feel like both of us don’t really know what to do.
If I was going to kill her, I’d have killed her back in the kitchen.
And if she was going to kill me, I feel like she’d be trying harder.
So… do we each really not want to kill each other?
Or is the issue that she doesn’t know what to do with her family or mine if she does kill me?
I block another hit before I slam her against the wall and press the knife under her chin hard enough I draw a drip of blood. “What the fuck do you want?”
“What the fuck do I want? Who hired you?” she growls.
“No one fucking hired me! I was dropping your kid off.”
Sophia laughs. “You think I believe that bullshit? You really think that I believe that the fucking Sandman was just dropping by for a friendly visit?”
“Well…” I hesitate. “Yeah, that’s what I was fucking doing!”
“That he has a kid and settled down? I saw you years ago, and you sure as fuck didn’t have a kid.”
“I got busy since then!”
“Funny.”
“What’s really funny is that you think you have any say in any part of this. Really, you think I want you dead, but you think I’d choose to play with you like this? If I wanted you dead, you’d be dead.”
She grits her teeth. “Just… fuck. Please don’t kill my son and husband. Please. I know that I’m not going to win against you. Please don’t kill them.”
The front door opens, and we quickly draw back as everyone comes in and looks around the slightly disheveled room—the busted drawer that is open and angled oddly from me shooting it, the broken plate, and everything else that’s slightly amiss.
Oh, and the bead of blood running down her neck.
“What…” Nathan looks confused. “What happened?”
Sophia beams at him. “Did you show them what you plan to do with the car?” She’s moving to be in front of her family, but it’s also putting her close to my family, so I stalk toward them as well.
“Yeah, I did! You really need to see his car,” Nathan enthuses, absolutely oblivious while Jackson and Waylon are on edge.
“We actually need to get going,” I say. “But before we do, Sophia, you reaaallly need to give me the recipe for those cookies.”
“Ah. Of. Course,” she replies, sounding like a robot as she does an odd shuffle thing to make sure I’m moving with her and not separating her from her family. We step into the kitchen where I slide in before she can get too far.
“If you fucking touch my family, I will tear you apart,” I hiss.
“You will regret ever even looking at any of them. Do you understand? You’ve seen what I can do.
You know who I am. If harm comes to them, it is the very last thing you will ever do.
If you want to keep your family safe, you stay the fuck away from mine.
” Because even though I know I wouldn’t kill her son and her husband, she doesn’t know that.
And there’s nothing that will get her to agree more than the threat of their lives.
Sophia stares at me, and I think she’s finally realizing for the first time that I wasn’t sent here to off her.
The whole thing is just some strange coincidence…
but what is going to be the result of this?
Will she stay away from my life if I stay away from hers?
I know Waylon really enjoys Cam’s company; he finally has some normalcy and a friend who loves what he does, and I’m about to take it all away from him.
“If you stay away from my family, I’ll stay away from yours,” she says through gritted teeth.
I give her a curt nod and then rush from the room.
I set a hand on Waylon’s back and quickly push him out of the room with Jackson.
I hurry them to the car where they’ll hopefully be safe.
And while I know she’d never be so sloppy as to shoot us in the back on the way to the car in broad daylight while smack-dab in the middle of the suburbs, the anxiety over the possibility of my family getting hurt has me on edge.
A part of me wants to get rid of her. To silence her.
To keep someone like her from knowing where I live, knowing where Waylon goes to school, and knowing Jackson’s name.
Jackson starts to drive before looking over at me. “You going to tell me what that was all about? Waylon came rushing up to me to tell me something was wrong.”
“Nothing good. I’ve run into her a few times in the past… Lucas interacted with the family who ran the organization that she belonged to a few times. She was a contract killer.”
Waylon’s head pops between the front two seats. “What the fuck? Cam’s mom is a contract killer? Are you sure?”
“I’m very sure.”
“But that was… years ago, right? I mean… she has a family and stuff now, so she’s probably left that life,” Jackson says.
“She does… is her husband Cam’s father?” I glance back at Waylon, who shrugs.
“I… I don’t know. I guess? He calls him ‘dad,’ but I guess that doesn’t mean anything.”
“She would have still been doing jobs when he was five or so. I remember seeing her again when I was… fuck if I know. Early twenties, maybe? She was seducing a politician that I was busy trying to kill. I think she was trying to extract information out of him, but I killed him before she could. She was pissed and came after me, but she knew better than to fuck with me. She told me the family would punish her for it and that she’d make me pay for doing such a thing.
Then today, she thought I’d come to kill her. ”
“Well… she must have gotten out of that life then, right?” Jackson asks as he drives.
“You don’t leave the Barlow family. You either die with them or they kill you.”
I pull out my phone and send everything on “Sophia” to Cassel along with her real name of Victoria.
Jackson glances over at me. “What do you want to do?”
“What do you mean?” Waylon asks. “She’s probably like you, Leland. She probably left that life, and is now living a normal life.”
I run my finger over my gun as my mind rushes around out of control. I would kill anyone for these two. I would do absolutely anything to keep them safe. I would go so far to keep absolutely anyone from ever touching my family who mean the world to me.
A hand rubs my leg, making my mind clear. “It’s okay,” Jackson says gently. “We’re okay.”
“What if you’re not? Everyone who worked for that family wasn’t good. They would kill whoever they were pointed at. It didn’t matter to them. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill either of you.”
“She might have changed,” Jackson says. “We don’t know if she has changed, okay?”
I grimace. “Sometimes, I feel like the people I love would be safer if I wasn’t around.”
“I thought you were like semi smart but you’re obviously not,” Waylon says.
I slowly turn to look at him. “What’s that?”
Waylon’s glowering at me. “You think we’d be safer if you weren’t around?
Like… did you forget about everything that happened to me?
Did you forget all about those two assholes trying to control me and use me to make drugs, and if I didn’t, they’d have probably killed me and left my brother to rot in prison?
Definitely sounds like it would’ve been better if you weren’t around to end all of that. ”
“Don’t try to be all sassy, you hear me?”
“Not really. I just hear a lot of annoying ‘blah, blahs’ coming out of your mouth.”
“I have to agree with Waylon here. Don’t you remember that I was shot in the parking lot and nearly died because of someone from my past? And like Waylon said, at this point we don’t even know if she’s active,” Jackson says. “She might be freaking out about the very same thing that you are.”
“Good. I want her to be afraid to even look my way.”
“Some days I am,” Jackson comments.
I gasp as my eyes fixate on my brutal husband while I try my hardest not to laugh. “How dare you?”
“Especially on the fence’s birthday,” Waylon says. “Like why is that even a thing?”
“We are celebrating the day that The Fence was christened by Jackson’s ass.”
“I want to say that I regret everything, but it led me to you,” Jackson says, though he sounds none too happy about it.
“I’d still regret it,” Waylon comments. “He is far too proud of anything that has to do with the fence. It’s like you just say the words and he’s already smiling.”
“I can’t stop,” I admit.
“I think you can,” Jackson says. “Think of my mother.”
“Now I’m thinking of your mother defeated by The Fence,” I respond, finding that imagery makes me quite happy indeed.
“Think of Jackson’s mother stuck on the top of the fence with her pants down,” Waylon says, which wipes the smile right off my face.
“You dare make me have ill thoughts of my fence? I will exchange you for a nicer child!”
“You’re stuck with me now,” he threatens.
“Hmm… I suppose I will keep you… for now.”
“For now?”
“Possibly.”
“Jackson, I feel like Leland is picking on me.”
“That’s what he’s best at,” Jackson assures him as we reach our home. I don’t think Sophia followed us, but what would it even matter if she did? Her son knows right where we live; it wouldn’t be hard at all for her to find us.
“Waylon, get your battle clothes on.”
He hesitates. “I… thought… I was going to play a video game or something?”
“You thought wrong. You are going to learn the fine art of kicking asses so if Sophia has secretly trained her son to be an assassin, you will out-assassin him. Do you understand? My son needs to be the better assassin.”
Waylon looks a bit defeated, and I haven’t even sparred with him yet. “Cam’s not an assassin. In gym, he kicked at a ball and missed so hard he fell on his ass.”
“It could be a technique to make you lower your defenses,” I inform him.
For some reason, he’s locking eyes with Jackson, so I grab my child and start dragging him off with me. Once he’s in clothes he can move freely in and in the backyard, I hand him a practice knife.
“You remember what we went over last week?”
“I sure do. We go for the heart, I know where to avoid the bones. I know how to—”
I smack the knife out of his hand, whip his arm behind his back, and pull my other arm around his neck as I hook his leg and guide him to the ground.
“You have failed me.”
“You’re so fast! I didn’t know what was happening!” he cries while he jiggles and wiggles and then pleadingly looks at Jackson as I hold him in a lock on the ground.
“We will remain here until you remove yourself from this position.”
“Can I take a nap, then?” he asks.
“Every minute you fail is one hour you will be unallowed to pet Cayenne,” I threaten.
“What did I do to deserve this?” he asks while he wiggles and thrashes. “Look how cute she is! She needs to be petted!”
“A mere infant could escape this hold,” I taunt.
“What kind of infant could escape this?” Waylon cries. “You always make this so hard!”
“On a scale of ‘I’m holding your hand as I walk you through this exercise’ to ‘You’re never getting out,’ we’re at ‘This is so easy I could do it in my sleep.’”
Waylon stops struggling for a moment and finally seems to think. Honestly, it’s about time. The kid has this big brain, and he’s forgotten how to use it.
He shifts his arm down, creating a space between us while driving his weight back into me. He tries to capture my leg, and fails, but rocks us to the side hard enough that he has backed me against the bench in the backyard.
I’m trying not to smile, proud of my protégé for finally getting what outs I’d given him.
While I’m aware I could keep him from getting free, I want him to use his brain to find situations where he can use the environment or his skills to escape.
With a final push, he uses the space he’s created to duck down, pressing his elbow against my throat and slipping free.
“I did it!” he exclaims, looking far too excited.
“I knew your brain was in there and good for something,” I say.
“I haven’t had to use it as much lately… it’s easier not to constantly be thinking when you have others to think for you.”
I toss him the knife, and he catches it. “Now I’m going to teach you the fine art of being… a badass motherfucker.”
“You really are bad at not cussing in front of Waylon,” Jackson says.
“Oh right… ummm… bad… butt… mother… sexer? Hmm… badbum motherfornicator? Badtush mothercoitus.”
“Why do all of those make me significantly more uncomfortable?” Waylon asks.
“It’s… a wonder,” Jackson says dryly.
“It’s how I distract my enemy,” I say as I slide in and grab him in another choke hold.
“Nooooo,” Waylon cries.
“I will not feed you until you win,” I proclaim.
“I’m going to be so hungry,” Waylon complains as I deliver him to the ground again.
“I’ll feed you,” Jackson promises.
“Do not fail me, husband. We must make our young strong and agile. He must destroy the bums of others without fail.”
“I don’t know… this hold is kind of comfortable. Maybe I’ll just take a nap.”
I hesitate as I realize what he’s saying. “Jackson… Jackson, our young likes my hug,” I say just before that sneaky little shit rips right out of it.
“You’re right, distraction really does work!” Waylon announces.
“You’re not supposed to use my newborn affection against me! My heart is still brittle and easily manipulated,” I say as he takes off running and laughing and I chase after him.
“Jackson, get him!” I demand.
“You guys are too slow to catch me,” Waylon says before he races around to the front yard as Jackson joins in on the chase, and I watch while he jumps right over The Fence, as if Jackson couldn’t go around it.
But it’s the very idea that he’s used The Fence to keep Jackson away that sends me nearly to my knees laughing.
“I’m going in the house!” Jackson declares, as if he really is pouting over this.
Waylon pops up so he’s hanging over The Fence to look at us. “I didn’t know this would work so well.”
“Waylon… The Fence is Jackson’s kryptonite,” I say as I cackle. “That was a good one. I really enjoyed that one.”
“I can climb fences!” Jackson protests.
“Will you redeem yourself? Tackle The Fence and show us your redemption arc!”
“I’m going inside and making myself dinner. You keep training Waylon to be a kung fu master,” he says.
“He’s well on his way. He can at least climb fences,” I tease.
Jackson turns around so he’s walking backwards as he heads into the house. “Funny.”
I beam at him, pleased with myself.