It was around eight in the morning when we finally made it back to the house. Travis took my jacket when we walked in and went back to our room with it while I went into the kitchen to start getting everything ready. There was an abandoned pair of crutches at the edge of the kitchen bar near the stools and the aroma of bacon and filled the air the closer I got. At the stove, Cameron sat on one of the stools he'd moved over there. I frowned.
"You didn't have to start anything," I said. I hadn't gotten the food for him to cook any of it, I had gotten it to do something nice for them.
He glanced back at me but didn't say anything before looking back at the bacon.
I went to the fridge to get the other items out for breakfast and started on them. I wasn't going to ask him for help but I wasn't about to turn it down if he was going to help out.
"Morning," he mumbled out like his mind wasn't working properly enough yet to remember how to form all of his syllables.
"Good morning," I smiled.
We worked around each other for a few moments, or really, I worked around Cameron until Travis shuffled in.
"That smells good, what's that?" he asked, shoving his face over the bacon pan before Cameron pushed him away. "What do you need help with?"
"Nothing, go away," Cameron said.
"I can help," Travis protested.
Cameron didn't even glance up at Travis as I placed a pan on the stove for the sausage. He took the container of sausage from me and started placing it in the pan himself. If he was going to sit in front of the stove for the bacon anyway, I suppose that made sense.
"No you can't, leave," Cameron told my boyfriend.
Travis narrowed his eyes. "I won't even do anything."
"You're right," Cameron agreed, taking Travis' words a different way than he meant them, "You won't."
Cameron gave Travis a pointed look that said to get out without words and Travis gave him one back that I swore said make me.
"Go wake up Ben," he pointed from his spot on the stool towards where Ben's room was.
Travis threw his head back so he was looking at the ceiling. However, he turned on his heel and walked out groaning about "it's like waking the dead."
I started working on other things while Cameron handled the stove, which was fine by me.
"Is Hannah here?" I asked when Travis' whining was out of earshot.
"She's at work," he answered easily. It wasn't unusual for her to be here when we left for bed and then was gone in the morning. She worked a lot of odd hours that I hadn't been able to keep track of yet. But we were up around five so I wondered what time she woke up if she was already gone and how much sleep she even got and when she even slept. But asking Cameron any of those this early in the morning seemed like a bad idea so I kept those all to myself.
"Travis told me about the drugs," I said instead, keeping my voice down.
"Did he now?"
"Did you really kick out the Caseys who were harming him?" I asked.
He didn't say anything immediately and I thought he wouldn't. He started pushing things around in the pans. I watched as he took the bacon off the pans and put new, uncooked slices on. I didn't even care if he didn't answer. I felt like him not answering was answer enough because if it was no, he would have said so. And at that pointed, I realized I knew Cameron better than I thought I did.
This was the guy who adopted Ben when his parents died for the sole purpose of keeping Ben and Travis together because you'd have to be blind to not see how attached they were. His own dad would drop him off in the middle of nowhere to possibly die and instead of running away, he would come back every time. And I knew he used to make plans with Annabeth, Finn, and his brother to run away.
So I could bet anything half of his determination not to leave when his dad left him in the city was the fact that he didn't have his family with him to run away with - his real family, that is. His brother, his best friend, his cousin. And he lost his brother somehow but he found Travis and Ben and he cared about them enough that he kicked members of the gang out for them.
"Some of them," Cameron said.
"Some?" I asked.
Cameron shrugged, "Some are no longer with us."
A moment went by before he offered me a shy smile and I realized he was making a small joke. I probably shouldn't have been laughing at a joke made at the expense of people's actual lives and Cameron killing them but I tried not to think about it too much.
"Are the others in jail?" I asked because there had been a lot that ended up in jail with Scully.
Cameron shook his head. "No. I told them get the fuck out of town. They listened."
We cooked eggs and waffles and eventually, the rest of the group wandered in together. I think after Travis woke up Ben, the two of them went to bother Finn and Annabeth. Ben grabbed the orange juice out of the fridge and carried it over to the table while Travis and Finn grabbed all of the dishes and took them to the table. Annabeth and I took the cooked food over. I gave Cameron his crutches when I went to get the last plate of food. When I got to the table, Finn had a knife in his hand and Travis had his hand on the table, fingers spread wide.
"Do it," Travis said.
Ben watched from nearby, greedily drinking a glass already full of orange juice.
Travis braced his other hand on the table and tensed in anticipation as Finn raised the knife.
"Aren't you supposed to stop this?" I asked Ben, reaching forward and swiping the knife out of Finn's hand.
"Why?" he asked.
"Yeah, why?" Travis pouted.
Finn laughed.
"You're all such dumbasses," Annabeth said as she came in with the waffles.
Before Cameron could get rid of his crutches and sit, his phone started ringing.
Annabeth went and grabbed it from the kitchen counter, yelling over to him, "It's Carlos. Hey. One sec. He's coming."
Cameron started hobbling towards her as soon as she answered the phone and together they left and went down the hall. I heard a door shut, probably for quiet because Finn and Ben were laughing about something but I didn't know what.
When I tuned back in, they had stopped talking about whatever it was and focused on eating. I got some food and dug in and judging by the quiet, everyone else was enjoying it too. It wasn't until about five minutes in when I was looking at everything we made and placed in the middle of the table that I noticed the one thing that was already on the table that we placed the food around, without moving or touching.
One set of shiny, metal handcuffs were sitting there and no one was apparently going to comment on them. Another minute when by and I kept eyeing them, waiting for anyone to notice or speak up about them until I couldn't take it anymore.
"Whose are those?" I asked anyone at the table, gesturing with my fork to the silver cuffs.
"Not ours," Finn answered, not looking up from destroying his breakfast, "We only use neck ties now."
Ben made a choking noise.
Finn stopped cutting his food and looked up at me for the first time.
"I think...I didn't mean to say that," he admitted, glancing at the handcuffs for the first time. But he didn't stop there. "You've got to understand those hurts your wrists and dress ties are just softer and you don't have to worry about where you left the key when you're trying to get out of them in a hurry."
Ben took a drink of his juice, patting on his chest.
I didn't know what to say to the insight into his and Annabeth's life behind closed doors, whether or not the knowledge was spilled accidentally or not.
"Good to know," I finally said.
He carried on like it wasn't a big deal before nodding at Ben who was struggling to find air. "Choking is fun too but not with half a bacon strip down your throat, learn to chew."
Ben began coughing again, yet managed to shoot Finn a look while Travis started walloping him on the back in an attempt to help.
"What?" Finn asked innocently.
"I keep telling Lacey to handcuff me," Travis said under is breath.
My eyes widened as he said it so nonchalantly and Finn just shook his head. "Don't use the regular kind," he advised.
"I meant," I said loudly, trying to talk over them and Ben's coughing. "Are those from last night?"
Because we didn't usually have handcuffs lying around the house and yesterday morning we had handcuffed two people to a banister and one ended up dead and the other escaped which left two pairs of handcuffs for the taking. But both of those I imagined wouldn't have looked this shiny and clean which meant Tom was rather good at his job if this was indeed one of those pairs. And I wasn't sure which one I wanted it to be. Scully filled me with rage. But imagining this pair of handcuffs was previously on Dylan when he was murdered, right here around our breakfast food grossed me out a bit.
"Yeah," Finn said, nodding. This time, he offered no explanation.
"Those were from Scully," Travis added as he took a bite of food, watching Ben as he finally started to breathe normally again.
I grimaced at the cuffs but before anyone could say anything else, soft footsteps and crutches came into the room.
"Carlos set up a meeting for tomorrow," Cameron said and looked around at all of us when he reached the table. "We'll be meeting with a few of them so I'm going to go with Carlos and," he paused.
I watched at Cameron's calculating gaze raked over everyone for a few seconds. It was painstaking when he looked at me, if only because even though he wasn't even saying anything, his stare made it look like he was noticing every single thing wrong with me. I wondered how he could do that without opening his mouth.
"You, you, and you," he pointed to Finn, Travis, and Annabeth. "Aren't coming. Ben and Lacey are coming with me," Cameron finished and sat down. He picked up his fork to start eating like that was the end of the conversation.
"What?" Travis yelled. "You think I'm going to let you take her to a meeting with them and what am I supposed to do? Sit here and fucking knit?"
Cameron sighed. "I was going to suggest you camp out somewhere high and watch. But if you want to take up a new hobby..."
"Oh," Travis sunk down in his seat and I remembered the last time I was somewhere high up with Travis when he was destroying the supplier's truck with a sniper rifle.
"Yeah, I can't trust any of you to shut your mouths," Cameron added, pointed a fork at Annabeth, Finn, and Travis.
I wondered what kind of situation we were going into. Ben usually waited things out, dealing with tech gear. And the few times I saw Carlos, he only talked when he had to and the other times he seemed to shrink into the background but design. Cameron did everything with heavy planning, so he was purposely bringing people he knew wouldn't cause damage in this meeting and if I was being honest, the fact that he was that on edge about how calm we had to be had me worried.
I looked to Annabeth. I'd only seen her really mouthing off to the guys at this table and not much outside of that but Cameron must have had a reason to keep her away. She was the other one with the Casey tattoo branded into her on her back as a reminder to both Cameron and Annabeth to have each other's backs. Her dad was insane, the previous second-in-command of the Casey gang, and I hadn't confirmed it with anyone yet, but that same insane guy was under the impression that Annabeth was at one point dating Jay...Who looked like a mammoth and went around collecting Casey's money.
Scully put Jay on the same level as Travis as far as being feared by other, only he was feared by the Casey's customers and business partners, not other gangs like Travis. But whether or not she dated Jay, she was with Finn, who seemed to be Cameron's unofficial right hand man and second-in-charge and was ready to detonate at any given moment.
I knew she shot Travis once on accident. I'd seen her throw a knife at him when they were rock climbing. And when I first met her, she almost hit him with her car. But still, this was just within our group at the table. Whenever things were getting intense, she was usually the one driving the car. Scully said she didn't like to get her hands dirty and I knew I couldn't really take a lot of what he said as truth but I wondered if that was true. And I wondered what she was like if she did get her hands dirty. I wondered how explosive she could be if Cameron didn't trust his own cousin to come to this meeting and she pushed Finn's buttons left and right like it was nothing.
"We can put a transmitter on one of us so you guys can hear. Annabeth and Finn, I want you guys nearby in a car in case we need backup. But map out a route to drive today so you're close enough to us but not parked suspiciously close."
"Got it," Finn said.
Cameron turned his attention onto Travis, "I need you to find a place to set up that you can get a good view with your scope so if something happens," Cameron paused, looking at seriously at Travis now but didn't continue.
Travis only nodded but he looked tense.
"Travis," Cameron drew out, staring at him but Travis was looking down. "You can't get trigger happy just because she's going to be there. I need people down there with me and I trust her. I need you to be up high more than I need you on the ground."
This time, my boyfriend looked up but his eyes found mine for a split second before looking back down at his plate and pushing his food around.
"I swear to God. If you so much as sneeze near the trigger," Cameron ordered.
A tired groan came out of Travis, "Yeah, sure. No blood, no bullets. I won't shoot unless someone's bleeding."
Everyone started eating again but things were tense.
"Who's going to wear the transmitter?" Travis suddenly asked.
Annabeth looked up and her and Cameron stared at each other for a moment like they were both thinking through the possibilities together. It was unnerving. Usually I wasn't around when they were making these sorts of plans.
"Lacey could wear it," Annabeth said casually but I saw Travis' shoulders relax slightly.
But Cameron's eyes had fallen on me, "They might search us. Her in particular."
"No, they won't," Travis argued.
Annabeth held up a hand for him to stop. "No, Cam's right. They're going to want to search her but don't let them walk all over you or touch you and they'll back off," she told me.
I nodded.
"We can go and get a new transmitter and some knives for her, you said she needed some, right?" Annabeth asked, looking at Cameron.
He nodded. "And a jacket. If she wears that bulky one, they're going to assume she's hiding something under it."
"Okay. I love going shopping with Malibu Barbie," Annabeth said with a quick grin at me before eating but I wasn't sure at this point if it was an insult or not coming from her.
Hours later, after breakfast, Ben, Travis, Annabeth, and I were in some jacket shop she knew of. She also told me we could get my knives here without it being a hassle. I didn't ask any follow-up questions. Travis had come along because even though he was bored out of his mind when we stopped at a friend of a friend's house Ben knew to get a tiny transmitter from so everyone could hear the meeting, he refused to leave my side. I think he was trying to get as much time in now before the meeting tomorrow.
I found a burgundy leather jacket but after looking at for a few seconds, I moved onto the black ones but to be honest, they all looked the same. So I kept walking around the few racks the small store had, just looking for reasons to look at the red jacket again. I ran my finger along the base of it before I went to the next rack and pulled out a black jacket and tried it out. It fit and looked nice on me. It was a jacket and it wasn't Travis' so it wasn't that big of a deal to me what I wore.
Travis looked at me and tilted his head to the side.
"Do you like the other one?" he asked.
My eyes went to the red one immediately and Annabeth must have been watching me.
"Absolutely not," she said.
"Do you like it?" he asked me again, ignoring her.
"I said no," she repeated.
Travis rolled his eyes. "I'm not talking to you."
I bit my lip because I knew where Annabeth was coming from. Wearing a red jacket didn't exactly say I was trying to sneak around. Travis shouldered past Annabeth and pulled the jacket off the rack. He unzipped the jacket and pushed the hanger against Annabeth's chest for her to hold but she was too against the idea to even grasp it so when he let go of it, it just clattered to the ground. Neither moved to pick it up because Travis was already on his way to me by the time the hanger hit the ground. He held the jacket out to me and I hesitantly took it from him, sliding one arm in.
"This isn't a good idea."
He laughed. "Most things aren't."
"I'm serious," I stressed as I put my other arm in.
"A boring way to live," he countered.
Travis pulled this way and that at the jacket once I had it on, twirling me around so he could see the back and each side before pushing me back around to face his front.
"I'll be able to see you," Travis finally said.
I narrowed my eyes in confusion because some of the stuff that came out of this boy's mouth I needed a GPS to figure out how he got from point a to point b.
"From a distance," he clarified.
"Oh, right," I said, realizing that was probably a bad thing. "A black one will be better."
I pushed it off my arms and went to hang it back up when Travis stopped me. "No, I like it."
"It doesn't matter what you like, you just pointed out she'd be like a beacon in it," Annabeth snipped and grabbed the coat from our hands.
Travis swiped the jacket back from her and held it tight in his own.
"It'll make it easier for me to find her," he argued.
"And every other person trying to kill or arrest a Casey," I said softly.
Annabeth flicked her hand out towards me like Travis needed to listen to what I was saying.
Travis shook his head at her. "If I know where she is, no one will be able to get close enough to her to fucking touch her and I'll be more level headed and if for some reason they get within arms length of her, she has knives."
Annabeth threw her hands up defensively, "I'm just trying to look out for you here. I don't think this is a good idea."
Travis looked at me. "Do you like the jacket?"
I shrugged. "It's just a jacket. I don't really care."
He rolled his eyes. "I do. I want to be able to find you quickly and this will help me breathe easier. Is this okay with you? People might see you easily but I won't let anyone touch you."
It was just a jacket. Half the time Caseys didn't even have jackets on but if wearing a red leather jacket as opposed to a black one helped Travis worry a little less, I would do it in a heartbeat. And if I was being honest, I kind of liked it. A small part of me didn't want to spend my time in the shadows blending in. I wanted to stand out and I wanted Scully, the Dacostas, and the rest of the cops to see me. I wanted them to see they hadn't destroyed me and that I was going to come and pay them back for everything they did to the man standing in front of me. I eyed Travis' bruised neck as I thought over whether or not I wanted this jacket. My stomach lurched in anticipation.
I nodded eagerly and we walked up to the counter with it. Ben was already at the counter talking with the guy and looking at the knives and sheaths to strap them in.
"Look at this, you can put this right on you and no one will even see any of these," Ben said enthusiastically, pointing to a sheath connected to a leather strap.
I looked again to the shopkeeper and wondered where in the world were we.
We picked a few knives out that Travis made me hold to make sure they felt right in my hand.
"Pretend you're going to stab me."
"I'm sorry, what?" I asked.
He rolled his eyes and positioned the knife in my hand as if I was going to and made me make the motions. "Does that feel weird? Too big for your hand? Too small?"
I felt like I was shoe shopping with my dad. I tested it out a few times, moving different ways towards Travis with each knife and each time he was watching me with careful eyes like he wanted to make sure I got everything perfectly suited to me. When it came time to get sheaths, he strapped every belt to my body to make sure they fit.
"You know, if it doesn't fit, we can always punch a new hole in it," I said looking down at him.
He was on his knees in front of me with his hands on my upper thigh buckling a strap to it. He ignored me, inspecting his work like he was buckling in his own child and not a knife. I tried to ignore everyone's eyes as Travis' face came inches from my thigh, looking to see how easily he could pull the strap down and how well it stayed. It felt oddly intimate having him this close and yet Ben was playing on his phone two feet from us, Annabeth was looking at knives at the counter, and the shopkeeper was just watching us with no intention of stopping.
The guy noticed my fleeting gaze on him and he grinned at me. A shiver ran down my spine but it wasn't the good kind. I hardened my expression until he looked away from us.
"Don't you guys have these things already?" I whispered, not enjoying being watched by some guy I didn't know while my boyfriend was up close and person in my space.
"We have bullets." Travis started unbuckling the strap on my thigh, pleased with it enough to be done. "And guns."
Eventually, we checked out and even Annabeth got a new knife. Travis eyed it cautiously.
"If you stab me to welcome it to your family, I'm shooting you," he said.
She laughed. "I won't. I'd have to stitch you up."
We paid cash, with me walking out, slipping the new jacket on and Travis glancing over at me every few steps as we walked to the car.
"Are you sure you didn't just put a big red target on my back?" I asked, pulling my hair out from beneath it.
He shrugged, "Maybe. But I have better aim."
"I'm holding you to that, killer."
A mischievous smile ransacked his features and assaulted my heart.
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I hope you liked it! I'll reread it in the morning for typos because I've looked at it so much today I'll miss half of them if I do it right now. Have a great day and don't forget to smile! <3
Here's a little Travis for you (there's more on my tumblr - jschristine, if you like that sort of thing):