August turns and beams at him, and somehow it works like those little pen things inMen in Blackand Landon forgets everything. He just smiles back, immediately brainwashed. He really is such a simple man when August is involved.
Zacia meows, blatantly displeased with using her own limbs for walking. She eyes her owner who has no room for her, then August who is already carrying multiple bags. Since she doesn’t know what else to do in her misery, she leaps up and obviously expected me to be prepared for this as she latches right on to my flesh through my clothes.
“Ow! Dammit!” I cry, catching the cat. I pull her free of my skin and hold her while she sits, quite pleased that I’ve chosen to carry her… as if I had a choice.
“Aww, Zacia likes you!” Landon says, like he can’t see that the cat is using me.
“Isthat what this means?” I unbutton my shirt enough to look at the slice on my chest where beads of blood are running down over the tattoos etched in my skin.
Asmodeus steps up next to me and I brace myself for whatever is about to come out of his mouth that I will have to try to ignore. “Do you camp much?”
Ah… a normal question. How suspicious. “No. My family…” I hesitate. “I’ve lived a pretty boring life.”
“Boring? Nah, nothing about you is boring,” he says, then beams at me while I try my hardest not to look at that smile. Like… what am I supposed to do with that? I can’t be fooled. This man is the strangest creature to have ever walked this earth, so why has my body forsaken me by making me believe he’s… he’s…
I shake my head, unable to even think it.
Landon cuts in, which I’m thankful for. “One time, I told my family all I wanted for my birthday was an electronic-free time while camping, so I made them get a tent and put it far out in the woods and I told them that I would be right there. And off they went to erect the most difficult tent I could find while I got in the car and drove home with all of their phones, leaving them stranded in the wilderness. It was amazing. Fantastic birthday.”
“That is… awful,” I say.
His smile is bright. “Thank you!”
I really didn’t intend for it to be a compliment.
We walk for nearly a mile, which is significantly farther than I thought Landon could make it before he just tosses his bag on the ground, drops to his knees and cries, “Why have you done this to me, August?” His cat leaps from my arms, concerned that her owner has met his demise by simply walking.
“Honey, what’s wrong?” August asks as he rushes back.
“My legs, August, mylegs.”
“Did something happen to them?” he asks while he hurriedly starts inspecting Landon’s legs. I’m not quite sure what he’s expecting to see as he struggles to push up the ankle of Landon’s black skinny jeans. Does he really think something is wrong with his legs when he is merely being dramatic?
“Yes, August, they were forced to walk formiles.”
I pull up my watch. “We’ve walked point nine miles so far.”
“Deus… carry my bag,” Landon says.
“How much are you going to pay me?” he asks, already calculating out his next invoice.
“I don’t know… like two dollars?”
“At least a hundred and five,” Asmodeus counters.
That makes Landon stare at him. “Why is carrying a bag for me worth more money than shooting me?”
“It’s a tough market,” Asmodeus says.
“Fine.”
Asmodeus reaches over and nearly dislocates his arm when he tries to pick up Landon’s bag. “Fucking hell. What do you have in here? Dead bodies don’t weigh this much! Maybe two bodies? Do you have two bodies in here?”
“Just the essentials,” Landon assures him.
Lex reaches over and can’t even get the bag an inch off the ground before he gives up. “I nearly destroyed my back. What do you have in there?”
“Like I said: just the essentials.”
