"Knock it off." Austin lowers the volume to barely audible, making it easy to overheard him chastising Leo. "Don't give him any more reason to get in our way. The man already wants us out of his town."
"Because he's an asshole that's more concerned about keeping tourist dollars coming in than keeping the tourists safe."
"Yeah, well, we don't need to put ourselves any higher on his shit list, so shut the fuck up."
Austin focuses his attention back on his phone and Leo's hand moves back to the volume dial on the stereo.
"Um... who are you talking about?" Talon cuts in before the volume can go back to trying to vibrate the car apart.
"Police chief. Man's a dick," Leo grumbles.
"Probably didn't help that Leo and Sag made a stellar first impression on him."
Austin chuckles as he says it, but doesn't elaborate, and Leo has the volume back up before Talon can ask.
The house the men share is a large, ranch style on the other side of town from where the police chief apparently lives, set away from the street in a neighborhood where all the houses seem to be on lots of a few wooded acres.
Leo parks the Jeep in a long driveway where a few other vehicles sit and Talon doesn't drop his arm off my shoulder even when we walk into the house where the rest of the men are gathered around several open pizza boxes.
Austin grabs one of the pizza boxes off a stack on the kitchen table and heads straight to the back of the house.
Leo snags his share of pizza and pulls a kitchen chair over beside the sofa where Sagan has his feet propped on the coffee table.
It's slightly unsettling to see the prosthetic leg casually crossed over his other ankle as if nothing were out of the ordinary, but if Sagan bothered to hide the titanium limb, you'd never know it wasn't a real leg.
Two men I haven't met are at the table, an open box between them with only one piece of pizza left that looks like it has more kinds of meat on it than I can name.
"Pepperoni, pepperoni and mushroom, meat lovers, California--"
"What's on a California pizza?" Talon interrupts the older man with the white flat-topped haircut as he rattles off what's in each box.
"Fuck if I know, Jay put in the order. I'm just reading off the side of the boxes over here."
Talon shuffles boxes, holding the one in question open for my inspection.
Artichoke hearts and zucchini, among a variety of other vegetable toppings. I don't see any meat.
"Pepperoni," I say, opting for something considerably less healthy. After the day I've had, I deserve it.
"Beer or soda?" Talon drops two slices on a plate, pulling out a chair for me at the table before heading to the refrigerator for drinks.
"Beer." I point at a dark brown bottle in his hand and nod. I deserve that too. Actually, I deserve an entire bottle of merlot and a three hour long bubble bath, but I don't think that's an option.
Apparently today was business as usual for this group.
I hear Leo asking Sagan about the guy who tied me up. I don't know where Sagan took him, or what they plan to do with him and from eavesdropping on the two men discussing "extracting" information from him as casually as my uncles might discuss football teams has me quickly looking for something else to give my attention to.
"I don't get it-- like someone said 'chloroform' in some movie from the fifties or some shit and every asshole on the planet reaches for the stuff when they need to kidnap someone now."
"...can't believe it's so easy to get.."
"...cyanide..."
"Hey, Cap! You should check Zona out when you get a chance. She got kidnapped today, guy used chloroform."
One of the men across the table from me looks at me more closely.
"How do you feel?"
