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Chapter Six

“Hailey?” I ask as I look down into the wide eyes of my client who has been missing. She seems to calm down the moment she sees me, looking relieved even as I reach in and pull the tape off her mouth.

“That fucker shoved me in here,” she says. “Why are you driving my brother’s car?”

“Your brother? They wanted the papers I got for you, so they kidnapped us and tried to get me to do some shit for them. We escaped and stole the car.”

“Did they get my papers?” she asks, not looking too distressed for having been in a trunk for who knows how long.

“They did but we were on the way to get them. Are you okay?” I ask as I roll her onto her side and start working at the tape around her wrists while Dylan sets to work on her ankles. What a good date bonding activity!

“Yeah, I’m fine. Exasperated, but fine. Just sick of this shit, you know? Sick of putting up with my family when I just want to be done. I want my stuff, I want to leave and I don’t ever want to deal with them again. I’m sorry I dragged you into this, but you did it. You got the papers from my dad.”

“Yeah, but then why does General Sanders want it?” I ask.

She’s quiet for a moment, and I realize she’s thinking before going, “Are you talking about my uncle? Oh my god, he really does look like Colonel Sanders!”

“Right? But a gruffer version. General Sanders.”

Hailey seems amused by this instead of distraught as Dylan picks the young woman up with ease and sets her on the ground. She gives him an appreciative look. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” he says with a smile.

She doesn’t need to be appreciating my date, so I try to get us back on track. “Can you explain why they need your identification?”

“It’s more that they want to control me. My grandfather is ill, and he decided to grant me everything. All the money, all of his belongings… I just want out. I want to live peacefully with my friends. I don’t want to be a part of their business, and I sure as hell don’t want it all, but my grandpa seems to think I’m the only one fit for the job.”

“Maybe it’s because everyone else seems slightly insane,” I say, which I think is a pretty reasonable assessment.

“Do you know where they’re taking the documents?” she asks.

“Some pizzeria, I guess.”

Hailey seems to think about it for a moment as she looks between me and Dylan. “Can I hire you two to be my bodyguards as I go retrieve it?”

“I would gladly help but I’m not sure that I’m bodyguard material,” I admit, “though I’ll do whatever I can to assist.”

“We’ll do what we can to help,” Dylan says, sounding earnest. It’s so easy to see how good of a guy he is as he shrugs off his light jacket and drapes it around Hailey’s shoulders. She’s swimming in it, but I can also see her give him heart eyes. Which is kind of rude when this is our date and not hers, but she did just ride around in the trunk of a car, so I give her some slack, which I think is awfully kind of me.

“Let’s go,” I say as I get back into the car.

Dylan gives her the passenger seat because during his last life he was clearly an angel. She gets in as I continue our drive and takes a look at my hot-wiring job. At first, I think she’s impressed until she opens the glove box and dangles the keys in front of me.

“Those weren’t in there earlier,” I say.

“Did you look?” she teases.

“Very closely.”

She tosses them back in the glove box and leans back.

“Alright, what are we up against?” I ask.

“It’ll be fine. We’ll just get them to hand the papers over and be on our way. I’ll be out of the country before morning and will send you your fee,” she says. “Will you pay him for me?” She nods back at Dylan, who looks surprised.

“I don’t need anything for this,” he assures her.

“I pay my help well,” she says before turning to me. “And thank you, Reed. I couldn’t have done this without you.”

“I don’t mind.” I say that but it makes me feel good. For so much of my life, I felt absolutely useless, and now, I have something that I can do to help others. To keep them from just putting up with shit like I did for many years because I thought that was all life had for me.

We pull up outside the pizzeria and park. When I get out, I have the taser in one hand and Dylan has the bat. We crowd around Hailey who looks oddly surprised that her bodyguards have come wielding weapons.

“Um. I think we’re fine without all that,” she says.

“We’re gonna fuck some shit up,” I inform her.

“Do you know how to use that?” she asks.

“I watched Ann make a man who tried to steal from the restaurant piss his pants with it once.”

“She’s a firecracker,” Dylan says, which is literally the nicest way to describe the hellion. Ann once told me that if she was going to hell, she was prepared to make the devil regret it. Then she cackled and walked off, sharpening a knife. I asked if she’d ever killed a man with those knife skills and she just winked at me.

It was unnerving, especially because I was seventeen at the time and was half-terrified and half-mystified by this woman. It was an odd mix that resulted in me refusing to leave. I liked to blame it on curiosity, but honestly, she was the nicest person I’d met in a long time, even with her threats to Lucifer.

“We won’t fit through the door side by side, so do you want one of us in the back and one in the front?” I ask.

“We could both go in first,” Dylan suggests.

“Or we could just walk through the door,” Hailey says as she grabs it and hurries on in before we’re done figuring out who takes the front.

We rush after her as she storms up to the table where General Sanders and Bob are sitting. She grabs the pepper, takes the lid off and chucks the contents in General Sanders’ face. He starts up a ruckus as Hailey smacks her hand down on the table.

“Hand them over.”

Bob immediately slides the envelope over, which Hailey takes.

“Thank you,” Hailey says, but General Sanders isn’t done. He jumps up, his face red and leaking, and reaches for Hailey.

“You stupid bitch, you think you’re going to just run off with the money that’s not yours?” he growls as he grabs for her. My reactions are lightning fast as I jab him in the side with the taser.

He fucking drops . Like the sound of his body hitting the ground is loud enough that it makes everyone turn to look at us, and I discreetly slip the taser in my pocket like people might not notice that I was involved.

Quietly, ever so quietly, I back away from the scene. Now it’s just Dylan standing over him with a baseball bat, so I quickly grab his wrist and tug him toward the door. He comes willingly, as does Hailey who has everything she wants.

“Good job,” Hailey says with a smile as she pats my back.

“Was it? I kind of just downed an already downed man.”

“He was grabbing for her,” Dylan says, defending my honor.

“He was, wasn’t he? I should add fighter to my level of expertise,” I declare.

“No, no, you really shouldn’t,” he says, which I feel like is fair. I probably shouldn’t rely on any fighting skills if Ann isn’t around to whoop ass for me.

“Shit, that’s my brother,” Hailey hisses as she ducks down behind a parked car. I follow her, but Dylan is not the easiest human to hide while on the run. “Can you get us out of here quickly?”

“Now that is one thing I do know how to do,” I assure her as I sneak toward the car that’s still running. The issue is that the man she claims is her brother is heading right toward it. “Let’s get there first?”

“Got it,” Hailey says as she takes off at a run.

The guy sees us far too quickly, but when Dylan physically bumps into him, the man is sent staggering back. “What the fuck?” he hollers, but it gives us time to get in the vehicle and lock the doors as he comes running. He’s screaming something and beating on the window as I throw it in reverse and feel a bump.

“Um…”

I glance between the other two. “No one else felt that, right?”

Slowly, I look up as her brother wallows on the ground, holding his foot.

“I didn’t see anything,” Hailey says.

“I didn’t feel anything,” Dylan says as we all pretend like there aren’t multiple people staring at us and questioning why we just ran over a man’s foot. But honestly, why was his foot there? I feel like that’s a him issue.

“Ignore him. He’s always been dramatic. Can you drop me off at the airport? I’ll find a flight out. Once I’m in the airport, they’re not going to be able to drag me out,” she assures me.

“You sure?”

“Positive. If they weren’t so fucking toxic, I’m sure my grandpa would be leaving them shit too, but for now, this is what I can do. Thank you.”

“I hope you find some peace from them,” I say as I head toward the airport. It isn’t far, and once I’ve dropped her off, I drive to the nearest subway station and park the car. I can’t imagine its owner is going to press charges after everything that happened, so I just shut the car off and get out with Dylan.

“Well… that was quite the ride, is this how a usual Friday night goes for you?” he asks.

“Hmm. I have to say this one was quite a bit better with you involved,” I say with a smile.

“Yeah?” he asks as he looks down at me and I notice a blush to his cheeks that hits me right in the heart. How can he be so damn cute? It has to be a crime.

Dylan reaches out to me almost hesitantly and I step up into him. I grab on to the jacket Hailey had given back to him, watching his reaction to see what he’ll do, but when I lean in, he meets me in the middle, kissing me back. It makes my heart pound wildly in my chest as I question what to do now. I want to take him home and have a real date with him. But I also don’t want to ruin this. I don’t want him to wake up in the morning and remember that the adventure we’d just gone on wasn’t normal and to find someone better.

“Do you… want to go back to my place?” I ask.

He nods and that’s all I need to pull him after me.