Chapter 6
SIX
LELAND
“Okay… so I know that you said that you invited Everly over for dinner… but you also got a kiddie pool?” Jackson asks.
“Sure did,” I respond as I stare at the groceries on the counter. “Not quite sure he’ll even show up, but if he does, we’re going to have a brawl. It’s already scheduled.”
“Oddly I feel like that’s less surprising than the dinner,” Jackson says.
“That’s what the kiddie pool is for,” I explain.
“Why?”
“I thought if we filled it with whipped cream or mud and got down to our underwear, we’d be able to sort things out better. It’d be like a metaphor. Like look, we’re both the same under these clothes.”
“I feel like maybe all of that is wrong and strange,” Jackson says.
“Nah, not at all.” My phone rings and I see that it’s Waylon, who just got out of school like twenty minutes ago. He said he was walking to the mall with his friends and would need us to pick him up from the mall before dinner.
“Hello, Leland the Greatest Papa in the World speaking.”
“Leland, I think someone is following us—”
My stomach clenches and I’m surprised by the feeling. “Send me your location right now,” I say as I run for my guns while I wave Jackson after me. “Do you know what the person following you looks like?”
“No, I’m probably just being paranoid, but this guy in a dark getup came up behind us, and I just felt weird about it, so I turned but he turned as well.”
“Are you near any stores?”
“No, it’s that stretch between the school and the mall that’s a bunch of parking spots for the nearby offices.”
“Get in one. I don’t care what business it is, you get inside, you tell them someone is following you, and then you wait for us.
Be prepared for him to try to pressure you into going in the direction he wants you in.
He’ll likely try to get you to go somewhere secluded. Don’t let him. Who are you with?”
Waylon hesitates. “Just Cam… I know you said not to hang out with him but—”
“You have that knife I gave you?”
“I can’t take a knife to school!”
“Well, you don’t wave it around and advertise that you have it! What about the brass knuckles?”
“I… no…”
This child! “Do you at least have the pepper spray?”
“I do. But how do I use it?”
“Just don’t spray it into your own face,” I say as I rush out the door with my guns and Jackson.
“Leland, there’s more people… they’re coming toward us… I think they saw that we were trying to go for one of the offices… what do I do?” Waylon asks. Then I hear something that sounds like the phone hitting the ground. That ball of anxiety in my stomach tightens when I hear shouting.
“Waylon? Waylon!” I shout, but I get no answer as I jerk the car door open and slide in.
I see a car pull into the driveway and realize it’s Everly, here right on time to punch me in the face.
“Everly, get in the car, someone’s following Waylon,” I call.
He doesn’t ask any questions, just gets in the car before Jackson throws it in reverse and peels out of the driveway.
The car flies toward the direction of the school as I anxiously sit in the passenger seat.
Would Sophia have sent someone after Waylon?
Would she have directed her son to do something that would lead Waylon into danger?
I’m fiddling with my gun while Jackson pushes the car as fast as it’ll go.
Realizing that the more people who can help the better, I send a message out to Cassel and Jeremy, planning on using absolutely anyone I can find to keep Waylon safe.
And then I decide that I might as well use everyone I know and throw it into the group text I have between Tavish, Ellis, Henry, and Micah, including the five of us who are already aware of what’s happening.
I will literally take anyone at this point.
Using the GPS tracker that Waylon has on his phone, Jackson follows his last known location, reaching it in record time.
“Where should I go?” Jackson asks since there’s no sign of them anywhere now that we’re here. All I’m greeted with are parking lots and vehicles.
“Drop me off here, I’ll go on foot. You take the car and head down the street and see if you find anything that way,” I order as I throw open the car door before it even stops moving.
“Leland, careful!” Jackson says.
“I’m being very careful,” I respond as I get out, and Everly gets out with me.
I can see Waylon’s phone lying in the middle of a fairly empty parking lot, so I rush over and pick it up.
“I’ll split off this way, you go that way,” Everly says, heading off a moment before I hear sirens. I know it’s Jeremy and hope he can assist.
I had told Waylon to move toward a building he could enter, but it sounds like these people did what they could to direct him away.
They would try their best not to let him get anywhere near someone who could help them, and instead move him to somewhere secluded where they could grab him or hurt him.
Scanning the area, I see an alley to the right.
Quickly, I take out my phone and pull up the map.
I find that the alley leads to an open area, probably another parking lot, but that one connects to a main road.
It would have been a perfect place to direct him so they could force him into their vehicle.
Taking off at a run, I rush toward that location and find Waylon’s backpack on the ground.
I call Jackson to let him know to head in the direction I found it in. As I guessed, the parking lot I’d been aiming for is empty.
Did they already take Waylon from me? I can’t let anyone take Waylon from me. I’m going to make that woman pay. I’m going to ruin her fucking life, and then I’m going to destroy it.
“Car at three o’clock,” Everly warns as I realize that a car had been positioned around a building and is now making its way across the parking lot to the exit, while I’m over here thinking of all of the ways I’m going to kill “Sophia.”
“I can’t make that shot,” he says.
I can’t tell if it’s them, but it’s the only vehicle in an empty location, and I’m not going to risk letting them leave because I’m uncertain.
I stop, stabilize my stance and carefully take the shot.
I shoot out both back tires before they even make it out of the parking lot.
They still try to keep moving as I take out the front right.
Jackson, who’s just arrived, tries blocking the vehicle in with his car, but they jerk the wheel hard, hit the curb and run over it.
With three tires blown out, they’re struggling to get anywhere but still make it significantly farther down the road.
I debate taking another shot, but if Waylon is in there, I can’t chance him getting hurt.
Everly was running the entire time I was standing still so I could focus on the shot, which means he’s already halfway to them when Jeremy’s police car comes flying out of nowhere, blocking them in.
Their vehicle jerks to the side, flying past Jeremy’s car before slamming into a light pole that brings it to a sharp stop.
But none of us have time to focus on that since the window of the car with three tires blown out goes down and I see the glint of a gun.
“Everly, watch yourself,” I call, and Everly dives behind a tree just as they rain fire down on us.
The issue is that they can shoot at us all they want, but I can’t take a single shot at them since I don’t know where Waylon is when their car has such darkly tinted windows.
Cassel must distract them because they start firing in the opposite direction, giving me time to race across the parking lot toward them. When I reach the car, I slide up next to it, using it to give myself some protection. I reach for the door handle, but of course it’s locked.
I grab my knife and ram it down between the window and the car door, angling it toward the corner so when I pry, the glass pops, spiderweb cracks running through it. At that point, all it takes is one strike from the butt of my knife to cause it to cave in.
I point my gun at them. “You’re surrounded. If you don’t want to get shot in the head, drop your weapons.”
“Fuck you,” the driver says as he swings his gun toward me, but Cassel slips his arm in through a crack in the window to unlock the doors. The man hears it and begins to pull back, but Cassel has already looped the seat belt around his neck and jerked it back while disarming the man.
I see four men in the car but no Waylon. Is he in the trunk?
“Where is he?” I ask.
“Fuck you, he’s gone,” the front passenger says. Refusing to put up with his shit, I tear the door open and rip the man out of the vehicle where I have better control of the situation. Enraged, I punch him in the face so hard he doesn’t even have time to register what happened.
“Where is he?” I yell.
He tries to jerk free as I punch him again. I hit him so hard that blood sprays out of his broken nose. I follow him down to the ground when he collapses.
“Fuck you!” he yells while I punch him again and again. I will leave his bloody corpse here and move on to the next if he doesn’t start talking.
“Where is he?” I snarl as another hit lands right on his face. Blood is bubbling out of his nose and when he opens his mouth, bloody saliva drips out. “You going to answer now?”
“Go fuck yourself,” he hisses before spitting at me. It misses me, but I’m still irritated by the whole thing.
I point my gun down and shoot him in the foot, feeling like that might get me some kind of reaction.
“Fuck,” he screams.
“I’ll just keep moving my way up your body every time you refuse to answer,” I say as I aim at his knee.
“T-They took him! He’s in the other vehicle.”
“Where are they taking him?” I ask.
“Leland, the police are heading here. The gunshots were reported,” Jeremy says. “You need to go.”
I shake my head. “No. I don’t give a fuck. I will find out where Waylon is,” I growl, but before I can blow a hole in his knee, Jackson hauls me off him.